According to the Minister for National Economy György Matolcsy, the European Commission has awarded a good mark for Hungarian economic policy, and thus the excessive deficit procedure against Hungary can be abrogated next year. It is a great success, Minister Matolcsy emphasised, that the structural balance of the budget has been improved in excess of EU requirements, achieving an increase of over 2%.
Viktor Orbán concluded a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Alcoa-Köfém Ltd. on Wednesday. In a speech held at the signing ceremony in Parliament, the Prime Minister emphasized that there are some multinational companies that do not take away their profits from Hungary; on the contrary, they reintegrate them into the Hungarian economy.
Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog declared in Paris that the fact that the French socialists and the Hungarian centre-right government have launched similar programs in many areas is a signal that the classical right-left wing ideological oppositions are rolling back in the act of solving concrete social problems like the integration of Roma people, employment, the issue of culture support and the employment of women.
Following negotiations with several members of the French government, the Minister of Human Resources emphasized the public work connected to education and signified that a lot of his French partners had congratulated Hungary on its pioneering role in the European Roma strategy.
In the past two years Hungary has achieved significant results regarding general government debt, recently one of the most widely observed indicators all around the world.
Key data of the central sub sector of the state budget in October 2012.
One hundred thousand Hungarian adults will be able to obtain training grants in IT and foreign languages. The adult education programme is targeting the unemployed, new mothers, the Roma, those living in the poorest areas and the over-45s. There has never been such a project in Hungary on this scale and with these aims.
In his letter, Orban referred to Kohl as a statesman focusing all his effort to make the world a better place, one who has the courage to question presuppositions of his age. Kohl has demonstrated that goodwill is not enough in public affairs: a clear head and courage are also needed to meet our goals, the letter said. Kohl had a clear vision of a historic chance for Europe and was able to find new ways where others stood helpless, the prime minister said in his letter.
In connection with the Syrian crisis, Hungary expresses in every forum its firm commitment to ending violence in the shortest time possible.
Foreign Minister János Martonyi had a bilateral meeting with the recently appointed Foreign Minister of India, Salman Khurshid, at the ASEM summit in Laos.
The areas of energy, environmental protection and agriculture offer opportunities to deepen business cooperation between Hungary and Lebanon, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Tuesday, after meeting with his Lebanese counterpart Najib Mikati.
Foreign Minister János Martonyi represented Hungary at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Vientiane, Laos, on November 5-6. The Hungarian Foreign Minister spoke about the outstanding role of water resources in sustainable development and about sustainable water management at the summit.
Hungary continues to view the United States as a strategic ally and aims to preserve strong bilateral relations, Deputy State Secretary for International Communications Ferenc Kumin stated on MR1 Kossuth Radio’s morning show, 180 Minutes.
The parliamentary elections held in Ukraine received special attention in Hungary, testament to which is the fact that – coming out in great numbers to the Ukrainian request - there were a total of 45 Hungarian election observers who followed the events on site.
The Ministry of Rural Development and the National Society of Conservationists (NSC) held a joint conference on the preservation of biological diversity on 6 November. The apropos for the event was that a global Summit involving 170 countries was convened two weeks ago in India by the decision-making bodies of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Prime Minister Orbán stated in a press conference on Tuesday that with its decision on the retirement of judges, the Luxembourg Court of Justice ruled on a non-existing provision of law as the Hungarian Constitutional Court annulled it in July 2012.
National consultations have been launched on the draft version of the National Research, Development and Innovation Strategy 2020, which had been prepared by the Ministry for National Economy after a broad coordination process with experts. The opportunity of sending comments and proposals on the draft strategy available at kormány.hu or expressing relevant opinions in person is now open to the wider public at the one-month discussion forum lasting until 4 December 2012 in Budapest, Debrecen, Győr, Pécs and Szeged.
Czech Chamber of Deputies, Prague
November 4, 2012
An international conference on the life of the famous Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, entitled „Face to Face with Evil” was hosted in Prague on November 5. Hungary was represented by Zsolt Németh, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Speaker of the lower chamber of the Czech legislation, Miroslava Nemcová was the chief patron of the event, which took place in the building of the Czech House of Representatives.
Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zsolt Németh on Tuesday called the legitimacy of the outcome of Ukraine's parliamentary elections questionable and qualified the vote as a step back in democratic development.
Among topics at discussion for State Secretary Endre Kardevan at the meeting of the Vietnam-Hungary Joint Committee on Economic Cooperation and later bilateral talks was an increase in Hungarian food exports and especially of pork.