In April of 2013 Hungarian artists will be painting colourful and cheerful pictures on the walls of the Démétér-house paediatrics department on the territory of Szent László Hospital in Budapest to make children who have to stay at the hospital during their medical treatment happier. This action was announced at a conference today by His Excellency Mr Jean-Francois Paroz, the Ambassador of Switzerland in Hungary and Dr. Albert Royaards, founder and board chairman of the Smiling Hospital Foundation.
Key features of financial processes regarding the central sub sector of the state budget in December 2012 and preliminary data for the year have been published today.
The Prime Minister and several members of the Government plan to visit China this year, Minister of Foreign Affairs János Martonyi said on Tuesday.
A László Hudec Memorial Room dedicated to the Hungarian on the 120th anniversary of his birth architect was opened in Shanghai, where he designed more than sixty buildings.
"The reorganisation of the education system is one of the greatest acts of the past two and a half years", stated Viktor Orbán in an interview on Kossuth Radio's Sunday news and debate programme Vasárnapi újság on December 23. According to the Prime Minister, the education system must be run in and made to operate smoothly during 2013. He also stated that there is hope that the economy will begin to grow next year and there is a good chance that the plan to create one million new jobs over ten years may be realised.
The Erzsébet Programme will also continue in 2013; this year, too, tens of thousands of socially disadvantaged children, pensioners, large families and individuals with disabilities may go on holiday to a number of destinations around the country under highly preferential terms.
The Government will work towards an agreement with students on higher education and will make the best use of tight resources both to run the system and to develop it, the Minister of State for Education Rózsa Hoffmann said in an interview for commercial broadcaster Inforádió on Monday evening.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will attend an extraordinary summit of the European People's Party in Limassol on Friday, Bertalan Havasi, the press chief of the prime minister, told Hungarian News Agency MTI on Tuesday.
The Minister of Human Resources is to continue consultations with the National Union of Students (HÖOK) on Friday, January 11.
Airport Debrecen (AD) registered an important rise in its passenger traffic last year due to the fact that Hungary’s low-cost airline Wizzair has launched scheduled flights from the airport to several European destinations, including Eindhoven, Milan and London.
An ecumenical ceremony was held in Esztergom to honour Thomas Becket, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, which was followed by a conference on Christian values and European identity.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, founder of the Ferenc Puskás Football Academy, has been invited to the FIFA Ballon d'Or Gala in Zurich to be held today, the Prime Minister's spokesman Bertalan Havasi told Hungarian News Agency MTI.
Due to the illness of Foreign Minister János Martonyi, Parliamentary State Secretary Zsolt Németh represented the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the opening of the Hungarian–Italian Cultural Year at the Italian Cultural Institute in Budapest on January 6.
Hungary's government is ready to sign its next strategic cooperation agreements with the local units of IBM, National Instruments, TATA and Nokia Siemens Networks, business daily Napi Gazdaság reported on Monday.
2013 is the Year of Central Europe for Hungary because Hungary took over the Presidency of the Central European Initiative (CEI) on January 1, and will take over the Presidency of the Visegrad Cooperation as of July1.
„We need to make Central Europe stronger, and we can achieve that through reinforcing our solidarity” – Zsolt Németh told the Public Radio concerning the prospects of Hungary’s neighbourhood policy.
According to this morning's information summary from the Central Statistical Office (KSH), positive trends are continuing with regard to employment figures, which play a determining role in government policy.
Some of the implementation regulations of the new Waste Management Act that came into force on January 1 have been issued. Among others, the new regulations concern the distribution of packaging materials, the returning and recycling of packaging materials, the receipt of electric and electronic equipment that has become waste, and the handling of cars that have been removed from circulation.
The Hungarian Government has been following a political and legislative agenda which aims at expanding employment, maintaining budget discipline at an economic level as well as equal burden-sharing within society.
The simplified naturalisation procedure was introduced on January 2, 2011, and 363,795 applications have been submitted to Budapest over the past two years, with a further few thousand still on the way, meaning a total of around 370 thousand applicants. Interest remains high, something that is mirrored in the number of appointments made.
Hungary has earmarked 268 billion forints (EUR 0.92bn) for upgrading and extending regional hospitals and outpatient clinics this year, the National Development Agency (NFÜ) said in a statement on Thursday.
The Government has appointed State Secretary in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár to prepare and coordinate the professional tasks related to the settlement of the financial compensation claims of Jewish communities as well as cultural, educational, historical fact-revealing and tradition-keeping activities concerning Jewish communities.
District offices were reintroduced on 1 January (thirty years after the abolition of the system of administrative districts), within a new organisational structure and with new goals. There are 175 district offices outside Budapest, and twenty-three in the capital. These will carry out administrative tasks below county level.
Minister of Defence Csaba Hende said Hungary's military had been able to "maintain its capabilities" in 2012 amid limited financial possibilities.
In order to promote the social inclusion of people living on the streets, the Government is making a total of HUF 917 million available within the framework of the New Széchenyi Plan.
For formal reasons, Hungary's Constitutional Court has annulled some transitional provisions of the Fundamental Law, including the one on voter pre-registration.
A total of 370 000 people applied for Hungarian citizenship over the past two years and the rejection rate was below 1.5%, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén told Hungarian News Agency MTI on Wednesday.
The necessity of decisions can only be judged with appropriate objectivity by posterity Government Spokesperson András Giró-Szász said in an interview to Hungarian daily Magyar Hírlap.
2013 will be a Central European year in Hungary’s foreign policy as the country will serve as president of both the Visegrad Four Cooperation and the Central European Initiative (CEI).
The Hungarian Armed Forces will distribute drinking water in 123 towns from January 1, 2013, Maj.-Gen. László Domján, the Commander of the HDF Joint Force Command said on December 27 at a press conference in Csongrád County.