Minister for National Resources Miklós Réthelyi opened on Thursday, April 19 the XIXth Budapest International Book Festival.
In the past couple of days several articles have been published by various newspapers about the legal proceedings between Hungary and the European Commission which were launched because of the financing of VAT expenditures from EU funds. The ministry for National Economy provides the following information about the lawsuit as far as it concerns the budget
Mr. Géza Szőcs, Minister of State for Culture at Ministry of National Resources was attended today at the opening ceremony for „European Travellers – Art from Cluj Today”, an exhibition in Budapest’s Műcsarnok gallery.
Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs, April 20, 2012.
As prepared for delivery.
Head of the Minister’s Cabinet Klára Breuer's opening speech at BIMUN 2012 as prepared for delivery.
Statement of the Visegrad Group countries – Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia – on the decision of the Swiss Government to re-establish quantitative limitations for certain categories of residence permits as regards EU citizens who are nationals of eight of the EU Member States.
The Gini index (or Gini coefficient) is the indicator most frequently applied for measuring income inequalities. The figure may vary on a scale of 0 to 1, or it is often expressed in percentages. The figure 0 indicates that incomes are perfectly evenly distributed and 1 signals absolute inequality, that is all incomes are owned by one person (which, of course, is an extreme example which can never occur in reality.)
The joint meeting of NATO foreign and defence ministers was held in Brussels on 18-19 April, 2012. Hungary was represented at the meetings by Minister for Foreign Affairs János Martonyi and Minister of Defence Csaba Hende.
Under current rules, Slovakian citizens applying for citizenship of another country must renounce their Slovak citizenship – dual citizenship is not possible, even though this prohibition is in conflict with the Slovakian constitution. Robert Fico’s government has said that it plans to amend its Act on citizenship to legalise dual citizenship, but not for those applying for Hungarian citizenship.
Cross-border legal procedures are increasingly common at EU level. To deal with these effectively, cooperation between the justice systems of Member States is indispensable. To assist the information flow necessary for this, an e-justice communication system based on transfer of data over the Internet has been created.
Last week, Leos Heger, Minister for Health of the Czech Republic invited the Ministers of Health of the Visegrad Group (V4) for a meeting in Prague.
In February 2012 average gross wages increased by 6.9 percent in the national economy, while net wages excluding family tax benefits were higher by 3.7 percent in comparison to the corresponding period of the previous year, according to the communication of the Central Statistics Office published earlier this morning.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban held talks with Gazprom chief executive Alexey Miller on Tuesday to discuss current issues connected with Russian-Hungarian energy cooperation, the prime minister's spokesman Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday.
The Hungarian Government is committed to the commencement of the negotiations on a precautionary financial assistance with the EU and the IMF which necessitates the resolution of the issues raised in the infringement procedure related to the Magyar Nemzeti Bank.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had talks in his office with Peter Slipper, the Speaker of the Australian legislature, who recently organised a Hungarian evening in the Australian parliament.
Of course, ISAF will not let Afghanistan down, it is only the current system that will be transformed radically. This was stated at a conference recently held in Camp Pannonia, Afghanistan. The event was organized on the initiative of the HDF Provincial Reconstruction Team (HUN PRT) with the aim of providing a venue for brainstorming and analyzing the lessons learned in the provinces of the northern region that had been involved in earlier phases of the transition process.
“The legal framework of the Volunteer Reserve System has been established alongside the labor law guarantees of the reservist service, and the tasks of the volunteer defence reservists and the volunteer operational reservists have been set” – Csaba Hende said in his answer during question time. Speaking at the Parliament sitting on Monday, April 16, the Minister of Defence reasserted that the Hungarian Defence Forces would have 8,000 reservists by the end of 2014.
Today the Hungarian government has submitted to parliament the Bill concerning the amendment of the the Central Bank Act of 2011/CCVIII.
Péter Szijjártó, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, announced yesterday that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had nominated MEP János Áder as President of Hungary. The Prime Minister met with the leadership of his party, the Cabinet and the parliamentary groups of the governing parties before making the official nomination.
The general government deficit-to-GDP ratio of Hungary has improved substantially after the change of government in 2010 which was a consequence of a proper economic policy and a disciplined and trustworthy fiscal policy. In 2011 the structural deficit excluding one-off – unplanned – items was 2.43 percent of GDP, which is lower than the 2.94 percent deficit target that had been expected. The overall balance calculated according to the EDP methodology which also includes one-off items registered an outstanding surplus of 4.3 percent. This figure has been unprecedented since the regime change.
Sándor Fazekas has launched the social debate on farm and forestry land, and on the draft of the new legislation on family run farms with the involvement of the National Association of Hungarian Farmer's Circles and Farmers' Co-operatives (MAGOSZ) and the Civic Association of Smallholders (KPE).
As in the past Hungary is ready to support the security and stabilization process in Central Asia in the future too – emphasized Mr László Felkai State Secretary of the Ministry of Interior at the ministerial conference of the Central Asia Border Security Initiative (CABSI) held in Vienna.
Hungary is joining the international Open Government Declaration, Bence Rétvári, Minister of State for Public Administration and Justice said. The purpose of the programme is to achieve transparent, effective and accountable government and to initiate commitments designed to facilitate measures against corruption with the cooperation of governments and the civil sector.
Deputy State Secretary Gergely Prőhle arrived in Washington on April 15, 2012. The purpose of his visit is to continue bilateral talks with his American counterparts in the State Department.
The Hungarian Government adopted Government Decree No. 66/2012. (IV. 2.) on licensed activities with narcotics and psychotropic substances, as well as new psychotropic substances, including the listing and amendment of the listing of these substances. The legislation became necessary following the rapidly growing trade of these new types of so called „designer drugs”, which are mainly distributed via the internet.