Despite most energy ministers backing the scheme the EU was forced to water down proposals
The EU has been forced to water down its plan to ration gas this winter in an attempt to avoid an energy crisis generated by further Russian cuts to supply.
Energy ministers from the 27 member states, except Hungary, backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe.
Continue reading...Hungary’s far-right prime minister says countries where races mingle are ‘no longer nations’
Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has lashed out against the “mixing” of European and non-European races, in a speech that immediately drew outrage from opposition parties and European politicians.
“We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán on Saturday. He added that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were “no longer nations”.
Continue reading...Mary-Sophie Harvey says a ‘four-to-six hour window where I can’t recall a single thing’ left her with a concussion and rib sprain
A Canadian swimmer has said she was drugged at a recent world championship event in Budapest, leaving her with a concussion and rib sprain.
Mary-Sophie Harvey said on her Instagram account that she was drugged on the final night while celebrating in the Hungarian capital and that there was a “four-to-six-hour window where I can’t recall a single thing”.
Continue reading...Hungarian leader was criticised by Xavier Bettel in 2021 for introducing homophobic law
The dozens of invitees were carefully seated along the lengthy table, flanked by columns fashioned out of Bagnères marble and surrounded by paintings from Spain’s Francisco de Goya.
As photos of the Nato dinner at Spain’s royal palace filtered out, many were swift to spot what one Spanish news site described as the image of the summit: the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, seated next to Gauthier Destenay, the first same-sex spouse of a leader of an EU member state.
Continue reading...Estonian PM says gas sanctions would be more difficult because it would affect whole of Europe
EU leaders suggested Russian gas was unlikely to be part of the next round of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine, hours after agreeing a historic but incomplete oil embargo.
After nearly a month of wrangling, the EU agreed to ban 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of the year, with an exemption for Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. These landlocked central European countries, heavily dependent on Russian oil, can continue being supplied via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline for an indeterminate period.
Continue reading...A deal to placate Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, could allow pipeline imports via Ukraine
The EU is debating whether to water down a ban on Russian oil imports to placate Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, who is blocking the latest European sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
The bloc could compromise by banning Russian oil arriving in tankers but allow pipeline imports, a proposal that would allow Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to continue being supplied via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline that runs through Ukraine.
Continue reading...James Wharton says he didn’t know Hungarian talkshow host Zsolt Bayer was speaking at rightwing event
The chair of England’s university regulator, who was criticised for participating in a conference in Hungary on the same platform as a notorious far-right journalist accused of antisemitism, has said he did not know who he was appearing alongside.
James Wharton, chair of the Office for Students (OfS), addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) via a video message last Friday, on the same day as Zsolt Bayer, a talkshow host who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals”, and used racial epithets to describe Black people.
Continue reading...The ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right network is allegedly seeking to replicate anti-choice efforts in the US
A network of ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right organisations is building momentum in its quest to influence abortion policy in Europe as the US supreme court considers striking down Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised the procedure in America.
Elements of the network originally came together under the name Agenda Europe, holding yearly summits across the continent between 2013 until at least 2018, by which time it had grown to comprise 300 participants, including politicians and Vatican diplomats.
Continue reading...Humanitarian crisis grows as Ukrainian Roma families stuck at Czech train station say they are not treated like other refugees
Prague’s central railway station seems a picture of normality amid warm spring sunshine and the return of legions of tourists, who had been largely absent at the height of Covid. On the platform one weekday morning, two German sightseers gaze curiously at the statue of Sir Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who helped 669 mostly Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the second world war.
Yet just yards away, hundreds of Roma people are sheltering in the only place available to them since they joined the millions of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.
Continue reading...Hungarian talkshow host who has called Jews ‘stinking excrement’ and Roma ‘animals’ addresses rightwing conference
A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals” and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.
Zsolt Bayer took the stage at the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a convention that also featured speeches from Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Continue reading...Europe pledges further sanctions against Russia after reports of killing of scores of unarmed Ukrainians
Russia stands accused of “terrible” war crimes, as western leaders condemned the killings of unarmed civilians in Bucha and the surrounding areas of Kyiv in alleged atrocities that prompted fresh demands for tougher action against Moscow.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Kremlin-ordered attack on his country amounted to genocide, after local officials reported scores of civilians had been killed in the towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel near the capital following the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Continue reading...United Nations calling exodus Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since end of second world war
More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have crossed borders since the Russian invasion started on the 24 February in what the United Nations is now calling Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since the end of the second world war.
Figures released today by the United Nation’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) show that to date 1.37 million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring European countries after the military offensive ordered by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading...Analysis: despite the EU’s solidarity in helping those escaping war, aid agencies are overwhelmed with many people stuck at borders
Just over a week after Russian rockets first began to slam into Ukraine, more than 1.3 million people have fled over the borders of neighbouring European countries into a frightening and uncertain future. What we are witnessing, the United Nations has warned, is the largest refugee crisis in a century.
All week, the world has watched families fighting to board trains in chaotic crowds, fathers kissing their children goodbye through car windows, and seen the shock and exhaustion on the faces of those who have made it to safety.
Continue reading...More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded a week ago, according to the UN, with many leaving via the borders with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Moldova
Continue reading...Residents head for Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland after Russia launches invasion of their country
Continue reading...Thinktank linked to government has extended an invitation to the former US president
Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán is hoping Donald Trump will travel to Budapest in the coming weeks to boost his reelection campaign.
A thinktank linked to the Orbán government, the Centre for Fundamental Rights, has issued an invitation to Trump, a government source told The Guardian.
Continue reading...Approval for rare move expected after evidence government critics in Hungary and Poland were targeted
The European parliament is preparing to launch a committee of inquiry into the Pegasus spyware scandal after evidence emerged of government critics in Poland and Hungary being targeted with the surveillance software.
The cross-party body will seek testimony from member states’ intelligence services, elected politicians and senior officials, with a previous inquiry into alleged European facilitation of CIA “black sites” providing a model.
Continue reading...Past trauma means we worry about Russia reclaiming its cold war sphere of influence and that the west will again abandon us
Two points about the Ukraine crisis are crystal clear. First, Vladimir Putin wishes to reimpose Russian control over Ukraine, whatever the price. His political dream of restoring the Soviet sphere of influence is echoed in a wishlist of “security guarantees” presented to western governments by Russia in December 2021. Nato, he maintains, should return to the pre-1997 state of affairs; Russia, apparently, need not.
Second, whatever Putin decides in the current crisis, there are real fears in central and eastern Europe that settled borders are now under threat. These fears are grounded in reason. What seemed unrealistic in the immediate post-cold war years is now again a real possibility. Questions about our collective safety and security have returned, along with memories of a traumatic and not so remote past.
Karolina Wigura is a historian of ideas, board member of the Kultura Liberalna Foundation in Warsaw and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin
Jarosław Kuisz is a political analyst and essayist, editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and a policy fellow at the University of Cambridge
Guardian Newsroom: Will Russia invade Ukraine? Join Mark Rice-Oxley, Andrew Roth, Luke Harding, Nataliya Gumenyuk and Orysia Lutsevych discussing the developments with Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday 8 February, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | midday PDT | 3pm EDT. Book tickets here
Continue reading...Budapest’s £67m new museum doesn’t just nestle among trees – they grow through it. But is Sou Fujimoto’s ravishing creation just another cultural bauble for repressive leader Viktor Orbán?
A great big crumpet appears to have landed in the middle of Budapest’s City Park, its circular hole-studded mass impaled on a thicket of trees. It droops down here and there, revealing little terraces cut into its top, and flares up elsewhere, showing off a sparkling underside of tiny golden leaves.
This surreal sight is the work of Sou Fujimoto, a Japanese architect known for making his models out of piles of crisps, washing-up scourers, or whatever else may be to hand. In this case, it wasn’t a crumpet but a lotus root that inspired this canopy, which now provides an otherworldly home for the capital’s new House of Hungarian Music. In a city that already has a renowned opera house, music academy and numerous concert halls, what could this €80m (£67m) project possibly add?
“We want to show the wonder of music to a younger generation,” says music historian András Batta, managing director of the new centre, which opened on Hungarian Culture Day this weekend. He is standing in the building’s glade-like interior, where oval openings bring light down through the swooping ceiling, and an aperture in the floor gives a glimpse of the exhibition level below. Faceted glass walls enclose a 320-seat concert hall and a small lecture theatre, while a suspended staircase spirals up to a library, cafe and classrooms, housed in the undulating roof. “Budapest has a very rich musical life already,” he adds, “so we didn’t want to repeat what you can get elsewhere. This is not just for high and classical, but ethnic, folk and pop – the really exciting side of music.”
The building is one of the first major elements of the €1bn Liget project, a controversial vision concocted by populist prime minister Viktor Orbán’s rightwing government to transform the Városliget area into a showcase of Hungarian national culture. A €120m Museum of Ethnography is nearing completion nearby, in the form of two gigantic sloping wedges rearing up out of the ground, clad in a strange lacy wrapping that nods to Hungarian national dress.
Continue reading...Six opposition parties have united behind Péter Márki-Zay for crucial spring vote
When Hungarian opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay was in Brussels at the end of last year, he visited the street where an MEP from prime minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling party, Fidesz, had fled down a drainpipe to evade a police raid on a “gay orgy” that broke lockdown rules. The MEP, who later resigned, had been an architect of a clause in Hungary’s constitution defining marriage as a heterosexual institution. The drainpipe visit was easy political capital for Márki-Zay, seeking to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the governing party, while stressing his commitment to LGBT rights and conservative credentials.
It’s the kind of move that has discombobulated Fidesz, who weren’t expecting to face this kind of challenge in Hungary’s parliamentary elections in spring 2022.
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