|
Sunday, 09 October 2011 |
 Supporters of obstetrician and midwife Ágnes Geréb planted flowers near the Semmelweiss Museum on Wednesday, 12 months after she was remanded in custody for assisting women who chose to give birth at home.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Friday, 07 October 2011 |
|
The green-liberal opposition party LMP called on Wednesday for Economy Minister György Matolcsy to be replaced following the “failure” of his policies. The party’s point man on economics, Gábor Scheiring, said the government had revealed its “impotence” as the forint weakened to depths not seen since the former Socialist leader Ferenc Gyurcsány was in office (he stood down in April 2009). When the 2012 draft budget was unveiled the previous Friday, Scheiring had said the fiscal adjustment of HUF 1 trillion (EUR 3.38 billion) it contained amounted to a “huge austerity package”. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Thursday, 06 October 2011 |
|
 Ferenc Gyurcsány accuses prosecutors of acting as agents of government. Former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was named on Monday as an official suspect in an investigation into a controversial casino development project. This was just three weeks after all parliamentary groups but his own Hungarian Socialist Party voted to lift his immunity from prosecution. Gyurcsány claims the prosecution service has trumped up charges against him under pressure from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-of-centre government.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 03 October 2011 |
Report into 2006 street violence implies police brutality with political assent
The head of a government-backed parliamentary committee set up to look into the police suppression of anti-government protests in autumn 2006 has said that a criminal prosecution would be justified, in a report published on Monday.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 03 October 2011 |
Optimism among investors led to a strong rise in global shares as international inspectors resumed talks with Greece on Thursday to decide whether it has done enough to receive more bailout funds. The Budapest Stock Exchange BUX index gained 4.49 per cent on Tuesday, France’s Cac index rose 5.7 per cent, Germany’s Dax 5.3 per cent and the UK’s FTSE 4 per cent.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 01 October 2011 |
The mayor of a tiny village in the far northeast was arrested on Wednesday, along with his wife, for allegedly running an illegal shop charging the local poor outrageous prices for staple foods. The news comes in the wake of a pledge by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to crack down on “usurers” who prey on rural communities and the setting up of a special police unit. Police in nearby Encs are pressing for the suspects to be placed on remand.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 01 October 2011 |
A levy on the turnover of telecommunications firms, one of three sector-specific “crisis taxes” introduced last year, is “illegal” and should be rescinded immediately, the EU’s executive said on Thursday.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Thursday, 29 September 2011 |
 What was only a quickly reversed idea a couple of weeks ago is now a reality: the flat tax will be suspended for at least a year. Although the higher rate will be applied at income levels that ideally should have been subject to the lower rate, this policy reversal is a move in the right direction.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 26 September 2011 |
|
Austria and Hungary have united to ask the European Union for help in protecting the Schengen border from human smuggling via the Balkans. In a joint letter sent on Tuesday and seen by the newswebsite EUobserver, the Austrian and Hungarian interior ministers are seeking “common action” to secure the Hungarian-Serbian border because “in Austria and in Hungary we have recently seen a significant increase in the number of interceptions of illegal migrants, most of them smuggled into the country. These people, above all citizens of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Iran and Iraq, are being smuggled into the European Union under inhuman conditions, most often in converted buses, lorries or cars”. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 26 September 2011 |
 Prostitutes from Hungary are increasingly being sent to work in the red-light district on Sihlquai in the centre of Zurich, but they don’t see themselves as victims of trafficking, according to a Swiss researcher.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 26 September 2011 |
 Generous home loan subsidies provided until 2003 created an artificial boom in the real estate sector, with oversized construction capacities, artificially elevated demand and rising prices. The boom was bound to bust anyway. In fact, the number of newly build flats peaked in 2004 with nearly 44,000 from around 20,000 a few years before. In 2010 we are again back to 20,000.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 26 September 2011 |
“The Mayor’s Office of Esztergom has run out of money,” Mayor Éva Tétényi said at the city council session on Tuesday. “There is no money to post official letters, to pay for the advertisement of the public transportation tendering process and public services in numerous institutions could soon be shut down.”
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 24 September 2011 |
|
Jan Slota, the colourful leader of the nationalist and anti-Hungarian SNS party of Slovakia, called Hungary’s new ambassador to the country a provocateur this week. “It is unusual for a new ambassador to assess the political situation the way he did and it’s also unusual for a mission leader to visit a party after his introduction to the President,” Slota said about ambassador Csaba Balogh’s call on the ethnic Hungarian MKP party on his first day in office. “The only way I can interpret this is that his main interest is to cooperate with MKP,” Slota told news agency Sita.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 24 September 2011 |
The government’s new Labour Code, currently being drawn up, will “restore social recognition for work”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after meeting representatives of employees and workers on Tuesday. Legislation on economic and tax changes to be finalised by Wednesday 28 September will ensure nobody sees their income fall, Orbán was quoted as saying by state news agency MTI.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 24 September 2011 |
“Membership is not compulsory,” was the message of Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) leader Attila Mesterházy (pictured Thursday) to former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and his supporters on Thursday. Opposition Socialist lawmakers held an emergency meeting on Thursday after Gyurcsány called for their immediate replacement in the interests of party “renewal”.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 24 September 2011 |
The government’s decision to let the holders of Swiss franc-based credits repay their loans early at a far below market rate of exchange sent a shock through the banking system. While the early reactions predicting the collapse of the entire banking system were over the top (and the government also provided some relief by tightening requirements for debtors and consequently softening them for banks), the plan itself, the lack of consultation about it and the vehement rejection of any criticism show a pattern that is probably disquieting for potential investors.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Thursday, 22 September 2011 |
|
 Swiss francs going cheap to those who can afford them: Parliament approves bill forcing banks to swallow exchange-rate losses on forex loans
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 |
 Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko faces a prison sentence of up to ten years in what she says is a politically motivated trial, reports The Kyiv Post. Tymoshenko, now opposition leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention in August. She is charged with abuse of power in the signing of a gas deal with Russia in January 2009.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 |
|
 European Commission president José Manuel Barroso is calling for more, not less, integration as a way out of the economic crisis. “Renationalising euro area decisions is not the way to do it,” Barroso told the European Parliament on Wednesday, adding that “the only right way to stop the negative cycle and to strengthen the euro is to deepen integration, namely within the euro area”.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 |
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the “phones were ringing” even before he gave his speech in Parliament on Monday, in which he confirmed his government’s plan to force banks to allow Swiss franc and other foreign currency borrowers to pay off their mortgages in one go at an artificially low exchange rate. He would not say what foreign politicians and Brussels had to say, only that they used “exactly the same phrases” they had used when Hungary announced a hefty bank tax last year. Hungary would abide by international rulings but borrowers need not fear taking advantage of the scheme: the state would deal with the consequences of an unfavourable verdict from Brussels or elsewhere.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 19 September 2011 |
|
The problem of indebted families, among them foreign-exchange borrowers, is one of the most serious issues for the economy and society. The dramatic strengthening of the Swiss franc raised monthly repayments significantly. The government, after 15 months of doing nothing except several misleading PR stunts, now wishes to create the possibility for borrowers to pay back their loans unilaterally in a single instalment at a fixed exchange rate. The consequences could be disastrous in the worst-case scenario. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Sunday, 18 September 2011 |
 The national assembly voted 306 to 52 late on Monday night in favour of lifting the immunity from prosecution of former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. The way is now clear for the chief prosecutor to press charges over alleged abuse of office, a crime which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
Immediately before the vote, Gyurcsány appeared strained as he appealed to lawmakers to vote against lifting the legal protection enjoyed by all 386 MPs.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Friday, 16 September 2011 |
 For a government that sought to ease off on budget consolidation during its first months in office, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-of-centre Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance is proving an avid convert to budget consolidation. According to the government’s rhetoric, Hungary’s “battle” against the national debt is about reclaiming autonomy and avoiding the “Greek path” towards a loss of sovereignty. Orbán reaffirmed this message in a speech to open the autumn session of Parliament on Monday. The financial markets were interested most in what the prime minister might have to say on the subject of the foreign currency mortgages. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Thursday, 15 September 2011 |
 At the start of the autumn parliamentary season, Fidesz still does not know exactly what measures it will take in an attempt to bring the financial crisis, which has gained fresh legs, under control. As a consequence of the deteriorating economic circumstances, the steps that have been announced are far from upbeat: the increase in excise taxes (on alcohol, diesel oil, cigarettes and gambling) and more stringent tax collection may be adequate to patch up the budget for the time being, but far greater adjustments will be needed in 2012 if the budget deficit target is to be kept. What that means is that the coming years will look very different from what Fidesz had in mind when it came into power.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 12 September 2011 |
In the first half of 2011 the number of people working at companies of five employees or more increased by 39,000, a 2.2 per cent rise yr-on-yr, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) has announced. The number of employees fell 4.7 per cent in the public sector, where there has been transforming of the employment system. On the whole, the total number of employees was practically the same as a year ago.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 12 September 2011 |
The Prosperity and Freedom party (JESZ) is demanding hundreds of millions of forints from two former MPs. The JESZ was formed from the ashes of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) after the party that governed following the 1990 election suffered a total loss of public support in the run-up to the 2010 election. JESZ chairman Zsolt Makay told television channel ATV on Saturday that his party would take legal action in a bid to claim millions from former long-time MDF leader Ibolya Dávid and MEP Lajos Bokros.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 10 September 2011 |
The green-liberal LMP has moved one step closer to forcing a referendum on key components of the government’s draft new labour laws.
The National Election Committee (OVB) has ruled that ten of 16 proposed questions regarding changes to workers’ rights are suitable for a national vote. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 10 September 2011 |
On Monday, Parliament could vote to lift the immunity from prosecution of former PM Ferenc Gyurcsány, clearing the way for a prosecution over alleged abuse of office. Now a Socialist Party backbencher, Gyurcsány maintains there is no evidence to support the chief prosecutor’s suspicion he unlawfully abused his office of prime minister in the “King’s City” casino case dating from 2008. “There is no fact, detail, witness testimony or statement that supports the chief prosecutor’s false standpoint,” Gyurcsány said on Thursday. “Péter Polt had better pull his socks up if he wants to prove his blinkered allegations.”
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Friday, 09 September 2011 |
|
Orbán: national debt to be cut by 4 percentage points to 73 per cent by November;
Matolcsy: tougher tax collection, spending freeze and excise rises to fill hole in budget |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 03 September 2011 |
Budapest City Council’s commissioner for homeless affairs resigned on Wednesday after Mayor István Tarlós refused to rescind a decree that criminalises sleeping rough. Councillor Ágnes Somfai, of the green-liberal party LMP, had announced earlier in the day that she would step down if Tarlós failed to act on a recommendation by human rights ombudsman Máté Szabó for the council to reconsider the decree, passed in April.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
