Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Malta say burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners
Europe’s southern states have stepped up calls for solidarity in managing mass migration to the bloc saying the burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners.
Highlighting the deep divisions over the issue, politicians from countries along Europe’s Mediterranean rim said a proposed migration pact fell far short of resolving the crisis equitably.
Continue reading...Rightwing party’s move comes after European People’s party changed its internal rules on excluding members
Hungary’s ruling rightwing Fidesz party has said it will leave the main centre-right political grouping in the European parliament after the European People’s party (EPP) voted to change its internal laws on excluding members.
The EPP’s 180 members, many of whom have campaigned for the expulsion of Fidesz, which they accuse of weakening Hungary’s democracy and curbing media and other freedoms, voted by 148 to 28 in favour of the new rules, with four abstentions.
Continue reading...As illegal, and often violent, pushbacks of asylum seekers continue – human rights groups also report growing hostility
At the offices of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group in Budapest, András Léderer and his colleagues have a map on which they track every asylum seeker – man, woman or child – who has been physically pushed back by police from the Hungarian border and into the forests of Serbia.
The pushbacks are illegal under international law. Yet it is Léderer and his fellow human rights activists who could face arrest and a jail sentence if they went to the border to witness what is happening there.
Continue reading...Canines in Hungarian study appear to pick up unfamiliar terms through play
Whether you can teach an old dog new tricks might be a moot point, but it seems some canines can rapidly learn new words, and do so through play.
While young children are known to quickly pick up the names of new objects, the skill appears to be rare in animals.
Continue reading...Fairytale anthology Wonderland Is for Everyone must now carry warning that its stories contain ‘behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles’
Hungary’s government, which has made hostility to LGBT people a central part of its rightwing agenda, on Tuesday ordered a publisher to print disclaimers identifying books containing “behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles”.
The government said the action was needed to protect consumers, after Labrisz, an association for lesbian, bisexual and trans women, published a fairytale anthology titled Wonderland Is for Everyone, which included some stories with LGBT themes.
Continue reading...Rules vary from country to country but many European nations face severe restrictions
After a brief and partial relaxation of the rules over Christmas and New Year, many continental European countries have returned to the tough anti-Covid regimes that were imposed this autumn – with some tightening measures further.
According to the latest update from the World Health Organization, in the final week of 2020 the UK had a 14-day new-case notification rate of 720 for every 100,000 people, more than double that in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but lower than the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.
Continue reading...Officials from Viktor Orbán’s rightwing party stoke outrage over two-week installation
It will be only one metre high, and will be on display for just two weeks. Nevertheless, a planned art installation dedicated to the theme of Black Lives Matter is causing uproar in Budapest, where the rightwing, nationalist government of Viktor Orbán has taken aim at the movement and all it represents.
The installation won a recent tender for public art in Budapest’s ninth district, an area on the city’s Pest side that combines streets of grand turn-of-the-century buildings with communist-era social housing projects.
Continue reading...Compromise on budget payments pushes back a clause that would make some EU funds conditional on rule-of-law
The compromise between the EU and Hungary and Poland on establishing a link between budget payments and member states maintaining the rule of law – agreed on Thursday night – allows the bloc to move ahead with a new seven-year budget and coronavirus recovery fund, but is unlikely to be the end of the story.
The compromise pushes back to a later date a clause that would make some EU funds conditional on rule-of-law criteria. Judit Varga, justice minister for Hungary’s rightwing government immediately declared “victory”, and also said the Hungarian government would challenge the new provision in the European court of justice.
Continue reading...Democracy is seriously under threat in our countries. The EU must stand up to the bullying tactics of Orbán and Morawiecki
As European leaders gather in Brussels this week municipal buildings and monuments in Warsaw and Budapest have been lit up in blue. The illuminations, organised by campaign groups and the mayors of these cities, are meant as a powerful reminder of the dark path ahead if the EU stands aside while the rule of law is extinguished in Poland and Hungary. The lights are a call for solidarity with the millions of citizens of both countries who argue that EU funding should be conditional on their governments upholding these fundamental rights.
The release of €1.8tn in EU funds for rebuilding after the pandemic and the EU’s 2021-2027 budget is at stake. So far agreement has been derailed by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki because of their unwillingness to accept that membership of the EU depends on upholding democratic values.
Continue reading...Rightwing prime minister Viktor Orbán reignites anti-Soros rhetoric with EU dispute
Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is threatening to veto the new EU budget over a provision that would link some funding to rule-of-law concerns. As the standoff intensifies, he has found a familiar enemy to blame: the 90-year-old financier and philanthropist George Soros.
Orbán has reinvigorated his government’s anti-Soros campaign, which has often been marked by conspiratorial and antisemitic rhetoric, as Hungary and Poland have tussled with other European leaders over the so-called “rule-of-law” mechanism. The dispute is holding up final agreement on the EU’s €1.7tn (£1.5tn) seven-year budget and recovery package.
Continue reading...József Szájer has boasted of rewriting constitution to define marriage as heterosexual institution
Hungary’s rightwing ruling party has tried to brush off accusations of hypocrisy over a “gay orgy” scandal in Brussels, involving one of its inner circle, the MEP József Szájer.
The prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and his ruling Fidesz party have enacted a range of legislation over the past decade infringing on LGBT rights, and Szájer himself boasted of personally rewriting Hungary’s constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual institution in 2011.
Continue reading...Politician in Viktor Orbán’s party apologises as Belgian police arrest 25 men over gathering
A Hungarian MEP in Viktor Orbán’s rightwing party, spotted fleeing along a gutter to escape police raiding a “sex party” above a Brussels bar, has apologised for breaching Belgium’s lockdown rules.
József Szájer, a senior member of the Fidesz party who helped write Hungary’s constitution in 2011, was one of about 20 people, mainly men and including at least two EU diplomats, who attended a party held near the Grand Place in the Belgian capital’s historical centre on Friday evening.
Continue reading...Countries reject package over attempts to link funding to respect for rule of law
The EU is facing a crisis after Hungary and Poland vetoed the bloc’s historic €1.8tn (£1.6tn) budget and coronavirus recovery plan over attempts to link funding to respect for democratic norms.
The move unravels months of negotiations over the scale and terms of the EU’s spending and sets the stage for a stormy videoconference meeting of the bloc’s leaders on Thursday.
Continue reading...Politicians struggle to explain why a region so much less affected in spring is so badly hit now
In the countries of central Europe, which during spring seemed to provide a best-practice model for keeping coronavirus at bay, case numbers have risen sharply, and governments in the region fear that their health systems are close to capacity and may struggle to cope. Central Europe is now just as badly hit as countries further west, and by some parameters is doing worse.
The Visegrad Four group of nations – Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – were all notable for their success in keeping case numbers low earlier in the year, even as gruesome statistics of deaths and hospitalisations came out of western Europe on a daily basis.
Continue reading...Constitutional amendment proposed to enshrine defence of so-called ‘Christian values’
Moments before Hungary entered a second coronavirus lockdown on Wednesday, the far-right government signalled its intention to pass a range of new legislation, including to make it harder for opposition political parties to join forces and to change the constitution to enshrine the defence of so-called “Christian values”.
Opposition politicians criticised both the substance and timing of the moves.
Continue reading...As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading
As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.
The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.
Continue reading...Portugal imposes state of emergency; global cases pass 50m; infections in Germany ‘levelling off’
Hungary and Portugal have become the latest countries in Europe to impose tough new restrictions to stem the second wave of the coronavirus, as the first signs of light at the end of the tunnel emerged in France, Germany and Belgium.
As the US pharmaceuticals company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said their experimental Covid-19 vaccine appeared safe and more than 90% effective, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, announced a partial lockdown.
Continue reading...Qualified majority vote by states will be sufficient for removal of voting rights
Brussels will be able to block budget payments to rogue EU governments that undermine the rule of law or the independence of judges, under a hard-fought agreement between the European parliament and member states.
In what was described as the “end of a painful phase” for the EU, a provisional deal has been struck, which will allow a qualified majority of member states to impose sanctions where governments fail to maintain democratic standards.
Continue reading...Parts of Spain and Italy facing restrictions as Ireland set to become first EU country to reimpose national lockdown
Regions in Spain and Italy have returned to lockdown and Ireland will do so from Wednesday as countries across Europe continue to report new Covid infection highs and governments struggle to contain the second wave of the pandemic.
The northern Spanish Navarre region, where the number of cases per 100,000 people is 945 against 312 nationally, announced a two-week lockdown from Thursday that will be stricter than measures imposed on Madrid by central government.
Continue reading...Billionaire philanthropist hails ‘victory’ but says court’s decision too late to save university’s presence in Budapest
The European Union’s highest court has ruled that changes by Hungary to its law on higher education, which effectively forced a university founded by George Soros to leave the country, were not in line with EU law.
The European court of justice (ECJ) ruled against prime minister Viktor Orbán’s government, saying in the ruling that “the conditions introduced by Hungary to enable foreign higher education institutions to carry out their activities in its territory are incompatible with EU law”.
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