Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sent a greeting letter to former Head of Government Gyula Horn, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
The government is set to launch a 10-point job protection action plan which aims to improve the situation of disadvantaged employees, jobseekers and enterprises. The primary objective of this package of measures is to create and preserve existing jobs as one of the keys to the economic growth of Hungary. The budgetary resources required for the action plan will be provided by the financial transaction duty.
The representatives of the Hungarian Defence Forces, a military delegation from the US Embassy in Budapest and the World War II American and British Military Heritage Association held a joint wreath-laying ceremony in Szigliget on Saturday, June 30. On the hill of the settlement near Lake Balaton, US and Hungarian war memorials keep alive the memory of the soldiers who fell in World War II.
At the joint proposal of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for National Economy, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appointed State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations Péter Szijjártó as the head of eight bilateral economic intergovernmental committees with effect from 2 July 2012.
Secretary General of the European External Action Service, Pierre Vimont, announced to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Hungary that since 1 July 2012 the EU delegation in Tripoli has taken over local representation of the European Union from the Hungarian Embassy.
In response to the remarks of the Venice Commission, Parliament has passed the amendments of the laws on courts on Monday. The amendments serve to make the administration of justice and courts more specific, more effective and more transparent, and reinforce the monitoring powers of the National Judicial Council over the President of the National Judicial Office in the area of central administration.
"The accomplishments of the past five decades prove that the Common Agricultural Policy is one of the European Union's most successful, strongest and most efficient community achievements. One of our priority interests is the suitable development of the CAP for the period 2014-2020", stated Minister for Agriculture Sándor Fazekas at the conference organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the CAP. The meeting entitled CAP Reform 2014-2020 – Agricultural Economy Challenges and held at the Ministry of Rural Development was welcomed in a letter by EU Commissioner for Agricultural and Rural Development Dacian Cioloș.
The Hungarian Wallenberg Exhibition and the Holocaust Educational Programme were warmly and appreciatively received at the conference organized by the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF) held in Belgium on 28 June 2012, Deputy Secretary of State Gergely Prőhle declared in a statement.
The Prime Minister expressed his gratitude to The Honorable Congressman Joseph Crowley and his colleagues in a letter responding to the former’s concerns about growing anti-Semitism in Hungary.
Deputy State Secretary for International Affairs Katalin Tóth of the Ministry of Rural Development represented Hungary at the V4+2 Conference held in Rzeszów, Poland.
Parliament adopted a decision on Monday in which it expresses its disagreement with the Strasbourg verdict passed in the red star lawsuit, and insists on sanctioning the use of symbols of totalitarian regimes.
On Tuesday Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics spoke at a conference of his ministry’s Child-friendly Justice System Working Group, when he called for further emphasis on the needs of children when training judges.
According to the latest flash report of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, in January-April 2012 the volume of exports increased by 0.7 percent in comparison to the corresponding period of 2011, while the volume of imports declined slightly by 0.2 percent. Foreign trade balance has still registered a significant surplus of 626bn HUF (2 125 million EUR) for the initial four months of the year.
„We are saying goodbye to our excellent comrades who have done very much in the field of military diplomacy to enable the armed forces of their countries and the Hungarian Defence Forces to fulfill their mission and be able to protect their homelands against all kinds of challenges to security”, Defence Minister Csaba Hende said in the evening of Thursday, June 28 at the farewell ceremony of the Croatian, Serbian, French and US military attachés accredited to Budapest.
On June 28 in the late afternoon hours, one local resident was killed and five were injured when a magnetic bomb emplaced on an oil tanker went off in the busiest hub of Pol-e Khomri, Afghanistan. It was sheer luck that the explosion did not cause a mass disaster in the always crowded downtown area.
The superior ordered in June the companies of the Multinational Battalion (MNBN), the maneuver element of EUFOR to practice Crowd Disturbance Operations (CDO) using crowd riot control (CRC) techniques.
On Saturday, at the Crans Montana Forum in Baku, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán emphasised the importance of the EU creating closer cooperation with the Caspian region, in order to make the community’s energy supply more secure.
As required by the Hungarian constitution, today Prime Minister Viktor Orbán briefed Parliament on the decisions made at the European Council meeting last week; he also introduced the Job Protection Action Plan.
Hungary will take over the Presidency of the Salzburg Forum on 1 July 2012.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave a speech in Brussels today after the European Council meeting. In his speech he highlighted that the main topic under discussion was how growth can be fuelled by income from bank taxes, crisis taxes and transaction taxes; in light of this, Hungary’s current measures in economic policy can be seen as justified and in line with international thinking.
"Hungary's activities within the field of water management are internationally acknowledged", stressed the Ministry of Rural Development's Deputy State Secretary for Water at the conference organised on International Danube Day. The countries that lie on the river's catchment area have been drawing attention to the Danube's values and diverse wildlife on June 29 of each year since 2004. This specific day was chosen because the international Danube River Protection Convention to which 14 countries including Hungary became affiliated was signed in Sofia on June 29 1994.
Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén and Deputy State Secretary for Hungarian Communities Abroad Zsuzsanna Répás announced the launch of the Minority Legal Protection Institute and Foundation, which aims to contribute to the reinforcement of legal protection for Hungarians living abroad, primarily in neighbouring countries.
Dr András Levente Gál, government commissioner for the coordination of the implementation of the Good State development concept, had talks with leading US universities on student exchange programmes and joint research projects. The purpose of the consultations conducted with the representatives of Tufts University, Fletcher School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government is to enable the students of the National Public Service University to improve their skills at universities in the United States in the future.
"The fact that the flavours and values of rural Hungary have been given space in the heart of the capital under the arcades of the Ministry of Rural Development is symbolic. The Ministry indeed wants to take producers under its wings and support them with every instrument possible", announced State Secretary for Rural Development Zsolt V. Németh at the official opening of the market on Kossuth Square, opposite Parliament.
The Ministry for National Economy and the governing Fidesz-KDNP alliance have agreed on a HUF 300 billion financial relief package as part of the 2013 budget.