Media is barred from hearing as 71-year-old man appears in closed session over attempted assassination of prime minister
The suspect in the shooting of Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico appeared in a closed court hearing on Saturday outside Bratislava amid growing fears about the future of the deeply divided nation.
The media was barred from the hearing, and reporters were kept behind a gate by armed police officers wearing balaclavas.
Continue reading...Warm welcome for Chinese president contrasts with rest of EU, with up to 18 cooperation agreements expected
Hungary has rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping in a show of warmth that contrasts with wariness in the rest of the EU about China’s stance on trade, global politics and human rights.
On the third and final stop of his first European tour in five years, Xi was given a ceremonial welcome by Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, at Buda Castle, in Budapest, before talks with Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian prime minister, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has sought to deepen ties with Beijing and blocked EU motions criticising China’s human rights abuses.
Continue reading...Chinese president hails two countries’ friendship before his arrival, after visiting Pyrenees with Macron
Chinese flags adorned highways as Serbia got ready to give a home-from-home welcome to Xi Jinping, contrasting tensions on the first leg of the Chinese president’s six-day European tour over a potential trade war with the EU.
Xi prepared for his arrival in Belgrade on Tuesday night by hitting out against Nato for its 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in the Serbian capital, in which three Chinese journalists were killed.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron and Viktor Orbán among leaders Xi is meeting, with several key issues on the table
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has begun a three-country tour of Europe – his first state visit to the continent in five years – at a time when China-EU ties are under strain from trade disputes and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Continue reading...On his first visit to Europe since 2019, Xi is set to meet with Emmanuel Macron before heading to Serbia and Hungary
Xi Jinping has lauded China’s ties with France as a model for the international community as he arrived in Paris amid threats of a trade war over Chinese electric cars and French cognac.
On his first visit to the EU in five years, China’s president will meet his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, who will urge him to reduce trade imbalances and use his influence with Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Péter Magyar, who is running in European elections, has shot to prominence by pledging to end corruption
A rising challenger to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has held what he has called the largest countryside political demonstration in the country’s recent history on the latest stop of his campaign tour that has mobilised thousands across Hungary’s rural heartland.
About 10,000 people gathered in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, in support of Péter Magyar, a political newcomer who has shot to prominence in less than three months by pledging to end official corruption and reverse the declining quality of life in the country.
Supporters endured a brief but unexpected rain shower before the afternoon demonstration, turning the city’s central square into a sea of umbrellas. They waved Hungarian flags bearing the names of towns and villages across the country from which they had come.
“Today, the vast majority of the Hungarian people are tired of the ruling elite, of the hatred, apathy, propaganda and artificial divides,” Magyar told the crowd. “Hungarians today want cooperation, love, unity and peace.”
Magyar, a former insider in Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, has since February denounced the nationalist Orbán since February as running an entrenched “mafia state” and declared war on what he calls the government’s propaganda machine.
His party, Tisza, which stands for Respect and Freedom, has announced it will run 12 candidates in the European elections on 9 June, with Magyar appearing first on the party list. It has also announced it will run four candidates in local council elections in Budapest.
China’s president arrives as EU anti-subsidy investigations and tensions over espionage, Ukraine and Taiwan continue
China’s president, Xi Jinping, is to visit Europe next week for the first time in five years, in a tour that will take in the unlikely trifecta of France, Hungary and Serbia.
The visit comes as China pushes to avoid a trade war with the EU, while attitudes towards Beijing in the bloc are hardening after multiple spying scandals and China’s ongoing support for Russia in the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Hungary’s PM and EU’s most isolated leader says he is pursuing ‘friendship with everybody’ – particularly the former US president
Europe’s most isolated leader was beaming.
Standing in a hallway in Brussels, Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, spoke excitedly about the politician he hopes will change his political fortunes – Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Péter Magyar building centrist movement that has visibly shaken ruling party he dramatically broke with
A political newcomer who is causing headaches for Hungary’s government has said his experience as a regime insider can help him succeed where other opposition figures have failed, citing his “crazy” rise in the polls and “vision” as signs that change is possible.
Fourteen years after the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, returned to power and put the country on an illiberal path, some Hungarians had lost hope that his hold on power could be eroded.
Continue reading...Former ruling party insider Péter Magyar leads march to parliament building in Budapest
Tens of thousands of people have turned out in downtown Budapest to protest against the government of Viktor Orbán.
Protesters marched to parliament in the unusually warm spring weather, some of them shouting “We are not scared” and “Orbán, resign”.
Continue reading...Footage showing former president spent two nights apparently hiding from potential arrest at mission was leaked to media
The Hungarian embassy in Brasília has reportedly fired two Brazilian employees after the leaking of security footage that revealed how Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro had spent two nights “hiding” inside the mission.
According to the network CNN Brasil, the sackings were punishment for the embarrassing leak to the New York Times which prompted a political outcry in Brazil and calls for Bolsonaro’s arrest.
Continue reading...Former Brazil president spent two nights at legation after two close aides were detained in February over alleged coup plot
Brazil’s foreign ministry has summoned the Hungarian ambassador to explain why the South American country’s embattled former president Jair Bolsonaro spent two nights “hiding” at Hungary’s embassy in Brasília last month as federal police investigators closed in on some of his closest allies.
Security footage obtained by the New York Times showed that in early February – four days after two Bolsonaro aides were arrested on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the Brazilian government – the rightwing populist took shelter in the embassy, a short drive from the presidential palace Bolsonaro once occupied.
Continue reading...Brussels vote cancelled after it became clear law would not pass final stage with majority vote
The EU’s nature restoration laws appear on the verge of collapse after eight member states, including Hungary and Italy, withdrew support for the legislation.
The laws, which have been two years in the making and are designed to reverse decades of damage to wildlife on land and in waterways, were supposed to be rubber-stamped in a vote on Monday.
Continue reading...A rally car veered off the road and crashed into a group of spectators in Hungary on Sunday, killing four and injuring several others, police said.
The accident occurred during a race between the towns of Labatlan and Bajot near the Danube River in northwest Hungary, the Komárom-Esztergom County police said in a statement.
Continue reading...Survey shows supporters of nationalist parties hold widely differing views on EU membership, migration and support for Ukraine
Populist and nationalist parties fighting the European elections in June are deeply divided on almost all key issues, according to a survey, in a finding that questions their chances of defining the bloc’s agenda even in the event of a predicted far-right surge.
However, the report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), also said pro-EU parties risked mobilising the Eurosceptic vote if they continued to ape hard-right policies rather than coming up with persuasive alternatives.
Continue reading...US president said Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is ‘looking for a dictatorship’ after Orbán met with Trump in Florida
Hungary summoned the US ambassador over comments by the US president, Joe Biden, who said the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, wants a dictatorship.
The Hungarian leader traveled to Florida on Friday for talks with Donald Trump during a visit in which he did not meet with anyone from the Biden administration.
Continue reading...US president told supporters Hungary’s premier was looking for dictatorship
Joe Biden has criticised his election rival Donald Trump for meeting Viktor Orbán, saying the Hungarian premier was “looking for dictatorship”.
Orbán travelled to Florida on Friday to meet his “good friend” Trump. Orbán has frequently expressed hope for the Republican’s return to power.
Continue reading...Hungary dropping opposition allows historically neutral country to become member, cementing alliance’s control of Nordic region
Sweden has officially became the 32nd member of Nato, in a landmark moment for the historically neutral country and the western military alliance.
Stockholm’s ratification process was finally completed in Washington as Sweden and Hungary, the last country to ratify Sweden’s membership, submitted the necessary documents after a drawn-out process that has taken nearly two years.
Continue reading...For Swedes it means a dramatic change of national identity, while the alliance gets greater control of the Baltic Sea
Just a few short months ago, Sweden’s Nato membership seemed a very long way from being a done deal. Having submitted its application to join in May 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seemed at times as though Stockholm might be left hanging interminably. While Finland, which had applied to join the alliance at the same time as its neighbour, became a member at record speed last April, Sweden got stuck in a diplomatic quagmire.
Last summer a series of Qur’an burnings in Sweden inflamed ties with Turkey, making a “yes” from Ankara look unlikely and at times inconceivable. And as recently as September, Viktor Orbán’s government was embroiled in a public war of words with Sweden over criticism of Hungary’s democracy and teaching in Swedish schools. Late last month, after Turkey’s parliament had given Sweden the green light, the Hungarian prime minister was still pushing for negotiations in a public letter to his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson.
Continue reading...Beijing’s move comes at a time when Budapest’s relationship with its EU and Nato allies is at a low point
China has offered to deepen security cooperation with Hungary, underscoring Budapest’s warming ties with Beijing just as Hungarian officials snubbed a visiting delegation from Washington.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, met China’s minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong, on Friday.
Continue reading...