The importance of family and children, and the inversion of unfavourable demographic trends in Europe, will be on the Hungarian Presidency’s agenda during the European week of popu-lation and family. This was opened with a special press conference at the Millenary Event Centre of Budapest, on 26 March 2011.
The Hungarian Presidency aims to initiate a Union level debate on Europe’s demographic and family issues. Before the relevant ministerial meeting, Miklós Soltész, State Secretary for Social, Family and Youth Affairs of the Ministry for National Resources, also sought the opinion of non-governmental organisations on the matter in Budapest, on 17 March.
It was the first time that the Education, Youth, Culture and Sports Council held a meeting in Brussels during the Hungarian EU Presidency. The meeting focused on the role of education in achieving the objectives set by the community for the period till 2020. Said meeting was presided over by Rózsa Hoffman, state secretary responsible for education of the Ministry of National Resources of Hungary.
On 15 February Dr. Miklós Szócska, state secretary responsible for health policy, held a meeting for the leading officers of health institutions and background institutions financed by the state. One of the focuses of the discussion was the issue of the announcement of jobs published in the Health Gazette last Friday.
On the occasion of the World Marriage Day, Miklós Soltész, state secretary responsible for social, family and youth affairs of the Ministry of National Resources, delivered, during a ceremony, the first commemorative plaquette “Together” to a young couple just married. The ceremonial event was also attended by Balázs Bús, mayor of Óbuda.
Géza Szőcs, state secretary responsible for culture, visited Berlin at the weekend, where he attended several meetings during the period of the film festival. On Sunday, 13 February, he carried on discussions with his German colleague, Bernd Neumann, federal minister of culture, on strengthening the Hungarian-German cultural relations, with special regard to movies and digitalization.
On 9 February 2011 the state secretary responsible for sports of the Ministry of National Resources informed civil organizations of the sports policy efforts of the Hungarian Presidency.
The member states of the European Union should act together to create sustainable pensions systems, Miklós Réthely, said, in an interview to eu2011.hu. The Minister for National Resources talked about the challenges posed by ageing European society; and the special social policy priorities of the presidency, before the meeting of the Employment, Social Policy, Health, and Consumer Affairs Council, on 7 March.
Involving youth in decision-making and improving youth employment, were the focus of the Hungarian Presidency’s most important event on youth policy. At the conference held in Gödöllő, on 2 March 2011, European youth held meetings with the directors-general of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and representatives of the European Commission.
The Hungarian Presidency wants member states to adopt the “Resolution on a European Work plan for Sport” by May. This was announced by State Minister for Sports of the Ministry of National Resources, Attila Czene, on 22 February, after the annual Sports Forum organised by the Commission in Budapest.
The motor park of the Hungarian National Ambulance and Emergency Service should be modernized with the addition of about 50 new emergency ambulance and some 100 new basic units by the end of the summer, thanks to the measures taken by the State Secretariat for Health.
Financing of specialist care will see improvement from January, as a decision was made on the 2011 financing of healthcare providers (in reference to the performance period between November 2010 and October 2011) based on a decree submitted by the Secretariat of State for Health of the Ministry of National Resources and approved by Government on 22 December 2010.
The Government decided to prolong the social gas and district heating supports till 30 April 2011, meaning that said supports will remain in force with the same conditions and amounts until the end of the heating season.
The national consultation initiated by the office of the under-secretary responsible for education in the Ministry of National Resources was successfully finished on 31 December, which had been launched by the ministry to discuss the documents on the concepts grounding the new acts on higher education, on public education and on the career path of pedagogues.
The Márai program to be financed from a HUF 1 bn budget will start in January 2011, the target of which is to support the publication, distribution and presence in libraries of literary and educational works – announced Géza Szőcs, under-secretary responsible for culture and Marcell Jankovics, president of the commission of the National Cultural Fund on Thursday.
According to the announcement by the Prime Minister’s Office, in the 2011 budget the Government will increase the subsidies to sports to more than one and a half times as high as compared to the present sports budget of HUF 16 billion.