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☆ Hungary vows to fight in EU court to defend anti-LGBT law
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BUDAPEST, March 9 (Reuters) - Hungary's Justice Minister said late on Wednesday that Budapest would fight in the Court of Justice of the EU to defend an education law that Brussels says discriminates against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The government has said the law aimed to protect children, not target the LGBT community. "Just as we have done so far, we will go to the wall if it's about protecting our children," Varga said, adding that uphold the legislation was necessary and further measures would be taken. The European Commission referred Hungary to the Court of Justice of the EU over the anti-LGBT law in mid-2022. The commission has said it considers that the law violates the EU's internal market rules, the fundamental rights of individuals and EU values.

☆ Hungary's Orban says Europe 'drifting into' Ukraine war
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BUDAPEST, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that Europe was "indirectly at war with Russia" as several European countries pledge to send battle tanks to help Ukraine fight Moscow's invasion. Orban, who last met Russian President Vladimir Putin just three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, projected that the war could drag on for years. "Europe is drifting into the war in these very minutes, it is doing a dangerous balancing act," he told his supporters in a speech. Orban said the stance of Poland and the Baltic states with respect to the war was understandable. It could have treated it as a local regional war, or a military conflict between two Slavic nations as Hungary suggested," Orban said.

The gathering of the 27 national EU leaders was called after Austria and the Netherlands led a growing choir of complaints about increasing arrivals. In a call ahead of the summit with his Polish, Belgian, Finnish, Maltese and Bulgarian counterparts, Orban called for EU financing for such projects, saying that "fences protect all of Europe", according to his press chief quoted by state news agency MTI. In a joint letter ahead of the summit, the leaders of Malta, Denmark, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Austria and Slovakia said the EU's "current asylum system is broken." "Irregular migration has once again become one of the most pressing issues in the EU," they said. "Without renewed and successful efforts ... irregular migration to Europe can only be expected to continue and increase in the coming years."

☆ Italy wants more money for Africa to curb arrivals in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Gabriela Baczynska | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

It also sought a new "Pact for Africa" to help investment, education, training, business and jobs around the world's poorest continent. The summit has been convened after Austria and the Netherlands led complaints about increasing irregular arrivals. The bloc's border agency Frontex reported 330,000 irregular border crossings last year, the highest since 2016 as global mobility restarted following the COVID pandemic. When they meet in Brussels, EU leaders will also discuss NGO search-and-rescue operations in the sea after Meloni already sought to limit such activity through a national decree. EU countries remain bitterly divided over how to provide for those who win asylum.

☆ Hungary cbank could start "cautious" rate cuts once CPI slows - minister
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Marton Nagy, a former central bank deputy governor, told state radio that the "very high" interest rates made the government's job difficult and harmed the economy. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government is trying to avoid economic recession at a time when inflation is still running well above 20%. The central bank declined to comment in an emailed response to Reuters on similar remarks made by Nagy in a weekly newspaper on Thursday. On Tuesday, the central bank left its base rate at 13% and said it would keep its one-day deposit rate at 18% until it sees "a trend improvement" in risk assessment. He also said Hungary's economic fundamentals were improving, and energy prices have dropped.

☆ Hungary will veto EU sanctions on Russian on nuclear energy - PM Orban
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BUDAPEST, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Hungary will veto any European Union sanctions against Russia affecting nuclear energy, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday. Ukraine has called on the 27-nation EU to include Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom in sanctions but Hungary, which has a Russian-built nuclear plant it plans to expand with Rosatom, has blocked that. read moreOrban reiterated in an interview that sanctions on nuclear energy "must obviously be vetoed". "We will not allow the plan to include nuclear energy into the sanctions be implemented," the Hungarian premier said. Under a deal signed in 2014 with Russia, Hungary aims to expand the Paks plant with two Russian-made VVER reactors with a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts each.

☆ Hungary exempts sale of local Vodafone unit from competition scrutiny
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BUDAPEST, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Hungary's government has declared local IT firm 4iG's purchase of a 51% stake in Vodafone's Hungarian unit a transaction of national strategic interest, exempting the deal from competition scrutiny, according to a decree published late on Monday. British telecom group Vodafone (VOD.L) said on Monday it had agreed to the sale of its Hungarian business to local IT company 4iG and the Hungarian state. Under the plan, 4iG will hold a majority 51% stake while the Hungarian state will hold 49%, and the transaction is expected to close later this month. In the decree, the government said 4iG's acquisition of the Vodafone stake served the country's "security of telecoms services supply" and would therefore qualify as a deal of "national strategic significance." "The classification excludes, inter alia, the jurisdiction of the Hungarian Competition Authority," brokerage Equilor said in a client note on Tuesday.

"It always rains a lot here, it's very cold and it's January and it feels like summer," said Bilbao resident Eusebio Folgeira, 81. French tourist Joana Host said: "It's like nice weather for biking but we know it's like the planet is burning. Scientists have not yet analysed the specific ways in which climate change affected the recent high temperatures, but January's warm weather spell fits into the longer-term trend of rising temperatures due to human-caused climate change. "The record-breaking heat across Europe over the new year was made more likely to happen by human-caused climate change, just as climate change is now making every heatwave more likely and hotter," said Dr Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London. French national weather agency Meteo France attributed the anomalous temperatures to a mass of warm air moving to Europe from subtropical zones.

☆ Ukraine's young circus artists wow Budapest after training in bomb shelters at home
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Krisztina Fenyo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Ukrainian Mariia Kravchenko, a participant of the Yaskrava Arena Dnipro International Children's Circus Festival practices before the competition in Budapest, Hungary, January 1, 2023. Circus artist Mariia Kravchenko, aged 13, from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, had trained for the circus festival in unheated shelters amid the Russian attacks. The Yaskrava Arena Dnipra international children's circus festival was launched in 2010 by an NGO called Bright Country (Ukraine). Before the war, it was held every year in December at the Dnipro State Circus. Since it began, more than 1,000 young artists from all over Ukraine, as well as Lithuania, Hungary, Germany, Moldova and Poland, have participated in the festival.

☆ Hungary imposes windfall tax on drug producers to plug budget gap
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BUDAPEST, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Hungary's government has imposed a windfall tax on drug producers based on net revenues generated in 2022 and 2023, as it tries to plug holes in the state budget. According to a government decree late on Friday, the rate increases progressively, and will be 8% on net revenues exceeding 150 billion forints ($398 million). Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier this year imposed big windfall taxes on a range of sectors including banks, insurers, energy and airlines. That rattled investors and recalled memories of similar taxes that the populist Orban had used to fix the budget after he swept to power in 2010. The decree said the new tax will be 1% on net revenues below 50 billion forints, and 3% on the part of revenues between 50 billion and 150 billion, jumping to 8% on net revenues exceeding 150 billion forints.

☆ Analysis: EU unity over Russia sanctions falters as Europe's economy wilts
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( John O'Donnell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Some, such as Belgium and Greece, as well as Hungary which still relies heavily on Russian energy imports, pushed back against further sweeping measures, EU diplomats told Reuters. Russia says sanctions have boomeranged against the West, driving up inflation as energy prices have rocketed higher. Meanwhile, existing EU measures are not always watertight. Others are more discrete, while some have half an eye on a future relationship with Russia after the war ends. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said this month that the EU would "tighten the sanctions against Russia for as long as Putin continues his war".

☆ EU wrangles with Hungary over Ukraine aid, tax plan as billions at risk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Gabriela Baczynska | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

As the wrangling has gone on, Hungary also blocked the 18 billion euros joint EU loan to Ukraine and the tax plan, drawing ire from other countries for what they said was an attempt to blackmail the bloc into releasing the funds to Budapest. Hungary says it opposes joint EU borrowing to support Ukraine but that it would extend bilateral aid to Kyiv instead. Budapest has also said the OECD plan for a minimum corporate tax is against Hungary's national interests. Other EU countries are divided between those willing to punish Hungary more harshly and those saying the amounts frozen would be lessened if Hungary moved on Ukraine and OECD. The rest depends on Hungary, it's their money," said one EU diplomat.

Lignite contains several times more sulphur and ash, and five times more mercury, than black coal, and provides three times less energy. It also loosened restrictions on selling coal waste, which can be highly polluting, taking Poland back to the days before 2018, when the rules for coal were tightened to fight smog. In September, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski even told residents of Nowy Targ, the town with the lowest air quality in Poland in 2020, to burn pretty much whatever they wanted. Smog has been intense over the past days and we have a lot of children in need of intensive treatment," she said. COAL RUSHAbout 80% of the coal used by European Union citizens to heat homes is burned in Poland.

[1/2] Drivers wait for fuel at a gas station of Hungarian oil company MOL Group in Budapest, Hungary, December 5, 2022. MOL, Hungary's main oil and gas group, has said the price cap was unsustainable as major players stopped importing fuel due to low prices, aggravating the shortage. "In the past days, the oil sanctions of Brussels took effect and what we had been afraid of, has actually happened. From now on there are sanctions prices on petrol across entire Europe," Orban said on Facebook, adding the government will "take away the extra profits generated by this" and redirect them to the state budget. At 1218 GMT, its shares traded 1.8% lower, reversing earlier gains of around 3% after the fuel price cap was ditched overnight.

☆ Analysis: East Europeans count their pennies for Christmas as food costs soar
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Krisztina Than | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Food prices in Hungary were a staggering 45.2% higher in October than a year earlier, Eurostat data shows, with 10 countries in the EU's east facing food price inflation of more than 20%. The cost of food was 33.3% higher in Lithuania and up 30% in Latvia compared to October 2021. read moreCzech headline inflation slowed to 15.1% in October but food prices grew, while in Poland food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation was 22.3% in November, well ahead of overall CPI at 17.4%. Inflation in Hungary is expected to start a very slow decline in the first half of next year. "There are still no durable signs that the inflation dynamics are improving in Hungary," Goldman Sachs has said.

☆ Hungarian government scraps price cap on fuels as shortage worsens
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Krisztina Than | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff told a briefing late Tuesday the government had to abolish the price cap, which was introduced a year ago, at MOL's recommendation immediately. The price cap was set to expire at the end of December. Gulyas said the ending of the price cap will boost inflation but did not give an estimate. In July, the government had to narrow the scope of eligibility, and since then the fuel price cap has applied to drivers of privately owned vehicles, farm vehicles and taxis. But the scrapping of the price cap would help alleviate the shortage on the market within a few days, he said.

☆ Hungary central bank chief sees 15%-18% inflation in 2023, urges end to price caps
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Krisztina Than | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BUDAPEST, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Hungary's inflation could be between 15% and 18% next year, the National Bank of Hungary's governor said on Monday, sharply criticising the government's price caps imposed on fuels, basic foodstuffs and mortgages. He said the price caps had prompted retailers to raise the prices of other, non-capped-price products, adding 3% to 4% to inflation. "We have said this to the government several times," Matolcsy said referring to ending the price control measures. November consumer price data are due on Thursday, with a Reuters poll of analysts seeing annual inflation at 22.2%. Matolcsy said inflation was the "number one enemy", adding that the NBH would fight it with all possible means.

☆ Students rally in Budapest protesting against teachers' dismissals
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Marton MonusBUDAPEST, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Thousands of teachers, students and parents protested in the Hungarian capital on Saturday in solidarity with teachers fired from top Budapest secondary schools for taking strike action that the government deemed unlawful. After a nationwide teachers' strike in January 2022, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban restricted strike action. Several teachers from three leading Budapest secondary schools were dismissed by an order from the Interior Ministry on Wednesday for joining demonstrations and not holding classes. Students held up banners "Hands off our teachers," and "Shame on Orban" at the rally in Budapest while some students organised a week-long 24-hour vigil at the Interior Ministry, which has responsibility for education. The government has said it would raise teachers' wages once the European Commission disburses EU recovery funding, with pay hikes coming over a period of 3 years.

☆ Beyond the spa: geothermal bubbles up to heat Hungary's homes
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Krisztina Fenyo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SZEGED, Hungary, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Balazs Veres and his family used to live in one of Hungary's many blocks of flats kept warm by communal heating that relied on Russian gas. They can hardly believe their luck after moving in March into a flat heated by some of Hungary's ample reserves of geothermal energy. Veres, 31, said he had been looking for a home with renewable energy but the geothermal heating had not been the primary reason for their choice. According to the latest available figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), geothermal energy accounted for only 5% of Hungary's renewables, which made up 14.8% of final consumption. The geothermal water that eventually heats the floor of the Veres' flat will have first warmed up the Szeged city hall, several educational institutions and other flats.

☆ Hungary complains to EU about Ukrainian law's impact on some firms
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Peter Szijjarto told a news briefing that Hungary would ask Brussels to take steps to ensure that Ukrainian authorities "should not make the operations of EU companies impossible". "These companies have not violated any rules, their only "sin" is that they also have a presence in Russia," he added. Szijjarto said Hungary would not be against a potential extension of the full customs free status for Ukrainian products that is in place in the EU until July 2023. Hungarian drugmaker Richter said earlier this month that due to a change in Ukrainian legislation meant that marketing authorization for some products may be revoked if a manufacturer operates and pays taxes in Russia. Richter said in its third-quarter earnings report that it planned to appeal a decision to suspend 35 of its products.

☆ Hungary to provide $195 mln in financial aid to Ukraine - govt decree
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BUDAPEST, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Hungary will provide 187 million euros ($195 million) in financial aid to Ukraine as its contribution to a planned EU support package worth up to 18 billion euros in 2023, according to a government decree published late on Wednesday. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has said that it was willing to pay its share of support for Ukraine but would rather pay it bilaterally than through the EU's joint borrowing. "The government continues to be committed to take part in financial support to war-gripped Ukraine," the government said in the decree. "So it calls on the finance minister to make sure to provide the 187 million euros that would be Hungary's share in the 18 billion euros EU loan to be granted to Ukraine." The decree, signed by Orban, also says that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto should start talks with Ukraine to work out an agreement needed for the financial assistance.

☆ Hungary cenbank leaves base rate steady at 13%, as expected
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Gergely Szakacs | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies Base rate remains at 13%, quick deposit at 18%Follows government move to cap bank deposit ratesOne might ask what representative rate is in Hungary -analystBUDAPEST, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) left its base rate unchanged at 13% (HUINT=ECI) on Tuesday, as expected, with inflation on track to scale a 26-year-high in 2023 and exceeding the bank's 2% to 4% policy target range even a year later. read moreAt 1301 GMT, the forint was trading at 408 per euro, unchanged from levels before the announcement. Economists at brokerage Erste Investment said Monday's government move could channel funds from institutional investors and wealthy private clients towards government bonds. "The measure can be slightly positive for OTP (OTPB.BU), however this step impairs the monetary transmission of the central bank," the analysts said. Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Krisztina Than; Editing by Nick MacfieOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

"We need all channels of monetary transmission, and especially the exchange rate channel, to curb inflation," Deputy Governor Barnabas Virag told an online briefing. On Monday, however, the government capped deposit rates for certain large institutional and private investors at the three-month Treasury bill yield until March, which some analysts said would harm the efficiency of monetary transmission. read moreWhen asked about the government's move, Virag said there was no alternative to curbing inflation and the bank needed all channels of monetary transmission for that. Economists project Hungary's average inflation will rise to 16% next year from 14.3% expected in 2022, while economic growth is seen grinding to a halt. "The measure can be slightly positive for OTP (OTPB.BU), however this step impairs the monetary transmission of the central bank," the analysts said.

☆ Hungary foreign minister says Druzhba pipeline can be restarted soon
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Hungary's Minister for External Economy and Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto gestures during a General Affairs meeting in Luxembourg June 22, 2021. John Thys/Pool via REUTERSBUDAPEST, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The Druzhba oil pipeline can likely be restarted within a short time as the pipeline itself had not been damaged, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a video on his Facebook page on Wednesday. Szijjarto also said, after talking with the Polish foreign minister, that Hungary was waiting further information from Poland on the results of their investigation into the blast that occurred in Poland near the Ukrainian border. Oil supply to parts of Eastern and Central Europe via a section of the Druzhba pipeline had been temporarily suspended on Tuesday, according to oil pipeline operators in Hungary and Slovakia. "Its somewhat reassuring news that according to current information, the Druzhba pipeline itself was not damaged, only one element of the infrastructure that operates the pipeline, a power station," Szijjarto said.

☆ Hungary PM Orban convenes defence council meeting
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BUDAPEST, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has convened a meeting of the defence council on Tuesday after crude shipments on the Druzhba pipeline were suspended and there was an explosion in a village in eastern Poland near the border with Ukraine. Hungary's defence minister had consulted with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg over the phone before the meeting, Orban's press chief told state news agency MTI. Reporting by Krisztina Than; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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