Hungarian PM Viktor Orban says he is prepared for constant left-wing attacks on their own country in the next six months during Hungary’s EU presidency.
He pointed out that he expected even more severe criticism of the recently adopted media law in Hungary, but that the criticism had reduced, as he said, to a more moderate form.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that the country intended to finalize European Union’s (EU) pre-accession talks with Croatia. He added that other countries of the region should also be admitted to the bloc in order that the work on the unification of the European continent could be completed, Croatian electronic media reported on Thursday.
The Budapest District Court has aquitted Efraim Zuroff in a case brought against him by Sandor Kepiro. The WW2 Hungarian war criminal sued Zuroff, alleging that the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center had caused damage to his “reputation and honor”.
Several Hungarian newspapers published blank front pages or cartoons yesterday in protest at a bill which they say would restrict media freedom.
The legislation now being debated in parliament would allow the official media watchdog to impose heavy fines on privately run publications.
Hungarian PM has promised that his country will set aside funds to support the Hungarian National Council (NSM) in Serbia. “The Hungarian government will help NSM materially, as the highest organ of the cultural autonomy of Vojvodina’s Hungarians,” Orban said while visiting Palić, in northern Vojvodina.
Police in Hungary detained over 70 people, members of a group called Hungarian National Guard said reports.
They had gathered in Budapest on Sunday to commemorate the outlawed militia the Hungarian Guard, which was dissolved a year ago.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi said that the EU Council of Ministers will most likely approve the start of the SAA ratification process with Serbia. He told daily Danas that there are countries in the EU that are a bit hesitant, however.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi is vising Serbia for meetings with the country’s top officials. On Thursday, Martonyi said that his country wants the ratification of Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU to start and its EU candidacy bid to come before the European Commission as soon as possible.
The presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Hungary meet this Friday in Pecs, Hungary. Boris Tadić, Ivo Josipović and Laszlo Solyom addressed journalists afterwards.
Presidents of Serbia, Hungary and Croatia, Boris Tadić, Laszlo Solyom and Ivo Josipović respectively, will meet in Pecs, Hungary, on April 16. This was announced in Budapest today by the office of the Hungarian president.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Balazs said that the Greek proposal for getting all Western Balkans countries into the EU by 2014 is unrealistic. However, he said that Hungary is ready to help in that goal.
Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom said that Serbia’s treatment of minorities is “exemplary.†“We are happy with the fact that in Serbia, minorities enjoy cultural autonomy and that unlike other countries where Hungarians live, Serbia does not have laws against minorities using their native languages and schooling their kids in their mother tongue,†he said.
Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom will start a private three-day visit to Serbia on Friday. He was invitation by the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) party, on the occasion of March 15, a Hungarian national holiday commemorating the 1848-49 revolution.
President Boris Tadić met with Hungarian Assembly Speaker Bela Katona. Tadić said that he supported the Hungarian law for giving minorities in Hungary representatives in the assembly.
Honorary president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) Jožef Kasa and former deputy chairman Zoltan Bunjik have been expelled from the party. Reports said that before Kasa was also “deprived of his title of honorary president”.
Squeezing the ethnic Hungarian SVM party out of the local government in Subotica is the Democrats’ (DS) way of “punishing†it, says party leader Ištvan Pastor. “Essentially, it was about implementing a ‘punishment’ for (SVM) not voting for the state budget . It was not difficult to do in Subotica because there is a revanchist ambition in DS in Subotica to squeeze SMV out,†he told Novi Sad daily Dnevnik, commenting on the recent dissolution of the local-level coalition.
The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) left the Subotica city executive authorities on Monday. Party leader IÅ¡tvan Pastor, unhappy with the adoption of decisions on the City Council, offered at the City Assembly session the resignations of SVM councilors, after which they left the session.
Constant accusations of separatism coming from Belgrade could lead to those in favor of separatism in Vojvodina to organize, says an ethnic Hungarian leader. “It seem as if someone from Belgrade is working on it on purpose, to really have a radicalization of the political and wider public in Vojvodina and to really have those in favor of secession organize,” Jožef Kasa, the honorary president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), was quoted as saying.
Hungarian PM Gordon Bajnai stated Wednesday that official Budapest “actively supports†accession of Serbia, Croatia and Albania to the European Union. Hungary finds that its support to a full accession of the Western Balkan countries in the European Union is one of its foreign policy priorities, which is why it sends its most eminent ambassadors to those countries, Bajnai said at the opening of a three-day meeting in Budapest, which gathers Hungarian diplomats from all parts of the world every summer.
The Vojvodina assembly, and heads of a Croatian and a Hungarian county today signed a trilateral agreement on cross-border cooperation in Novi Sad. This agreement should help Serbia, Croatia and Hungary in joint projects and presentation within EU assistance programs.
