Coronavirus news: : Hungary to produce China′s Sinopharm jab

The Hungarian goverment on Monday announced plans to produce the Chinese-developed Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine locally.

Hungary is the only EU country to inoculate its citizens with the Chinese jab after domestic regulators approved its use.

Speaking in China, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said officials would open a planned €157 million ($193 million) vaccine plant in the eastern town of Debrecen.

Read more at Coronavirus digest: Hungary to produce China′s Sinopharm jab | News | DW | 31.05.2021

EU Counter Measures To Be Taken- Article 7: Hungary and Poland maintain united front blocking EU COVID-19 recovery fund

The leaders of Hungary and Poland have vowed to maintain a united front and uphold their veto of the EU's budget and its massive pandemic relief fund.

They continue to oppose the mechanism that ties funding for countries to rule of law principles, arguing that the EU plan risks derailing the bloc.

" Note EU-Digest: Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union should be applied, which is a procedure in the treaties of the European Union (EU) to suspend certain rights from a member state and consequently stop all funding to these two countries within this legal framework".

Read more at: Hungary and Poland maintain united front blocking EU COVID-19 recovery fund | Euronews

EU - Opinion on Hungary and Poland: The E.U. Puts Its Foot Down on the Rule of Law - editorial board

After years of passively watching nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland undermine democratic rule, the European Union finally drew the line this year and declared that disbursements from the E.U. budget and a special coronavirus relief fund would be contingent on each member’s adherence to the rule of law. Hungary and Poland have shamelessly retaliated by threatening to veto the Union’s next seven-year budget, emergency funds and all, unless the condition is scrapped.

The governments in Budapest and Warsaw couched their defiance with their usual plaints that the bloc was behaving like their former Soviet overlords. “This is not why we created the European Union, so that there would be a second Soviet Union,” declared Viktor Orban, the proudly illiberal prime minister of Hungary. But such posturing has long been discredited, especially as both right-wing governments have happily reaped huge subsidies from the European Union.

The cynical reactions of Mr. Orban and the right-wing Law and Justice government in Warsaw demonstrated how far they have strayed from the fundamental principles they signed on to when they joined the European Union. They make no bones about it: Hungarian and Polish officials recently met to set up a joint institute to combat the “suppression of opinions by liberal ideology.”

Mr. Orban in particular has systematically worked to curtail the independence of the judiciary, bring the press to heel and curb civil society. With Fidesz, his nationalist party, in full control of Parliament, he took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic in March to assume broad and open-ended emergency powers that effectively allow him to rule by decree for as long as he wants.

Note EU-Digest: "Hungary and Poland want all the benefits of the EU, but do not want to comply with the rules - it's hight time for the EU Commission to give them an ultimatum- live up to the rules of the EU or lose your membership"

Read more at: Opinion | The E.U. Puts Its Foot Down on the Rule of Law - The New York Times

Hungary says it blocked EU budget over migration 'blackmail' - "which is total nonsense by Orban who destroyed Democracy in his country" said a European parliamentarian

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Wednesday his country vetoed the EU's budget over plans to tie funding to respect for the rule of law, as it amounted to "blackmailing" countries that oppose migration.

Read more at: Hungary says it blocked EU budget over migration 'blackmail'

US Elections: Trump's Turkish Ally Erdogan and other populists/authoritarian leaders around the world Stay Mum on Biden Victory

Erdogan, along with the leaders of Russia, Israel, Iran, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and China, offered no initial congratulations to the president-elect.

Read more at: Trump's Turkish Ally Erdogan Stays Mum on Biden Victory | Greek Reporter Europe

Hungary - drug bust two Dutch nationals arrested

Read full report at: 

https://nltimes.nl/2019/08/12/two-dutch-arrested-biggest-drug-bust-ever-hungary-festival

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US Hungary Relations: Birds of one feather flock together as Donald Trump invites Viktor Orban to Washington

Note EU-Digest: If this does not make alarm bells go off  in Brussels it would be beyond understanding.

Read more at: 

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-invites-viktor-orban-to-washington/

The Netherlands: Dutch newspaper AD uses misleading headline which could favor populist, nationalistic - anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies - by RM

A recent headline by Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) which stated "Fuss in Germany about proposal to change English language courses in primary schools to Turkish". is misleading, especially if you just read the headline and not the whole story.

If you take the time to read the whole story - however - you quickly realize the heading is misleading.

This change of language from English to Turkish will in reality never happen in Germany or in any other country in the EU.

These kinds of headlines, however, are obviously  "grist to the mill" for the nationalist, anti-immigration, populist parties in the Netherlands and Europe, which are mainly supported by people, who do not want to look any further "than their noses are long", to see the dangers of populism.

This regardless of the fact that there are plenty of examples of populist inspired and created political chaotical disasters in the world, including the emergence of a Trump in America, Orban in Hungary , Giuseppe Conte in Italy, and the Brexit drama, the supporters of the populist movement still have their head in the sand.

As the European parliamentary elections this coming May are quickly approaching, it is good to remember that famous saying  "A warned person counts for two". 

It is high time, that we the people of the EU stop this so-called "populist movement", before they destruct our future, and that we take our purpose of being a democratic counter-balance to the many evil forces surrounding us, more seriously 

For the original AD newspaper report in Dutch click on this link  Ophef in Duitsland over voorstel om Engels op basisschool te vervangen door Turks | Buitenland | AD.nl

HUNGARY -Ddemonstrations - Labor Rule Protests: PM Victor Orban's rule becoming more and more dictatorial

Around 10,000 in Hungary protest, calling a new labor rule a ‘slave law’

Read more at: 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/around-10-000-hungary-protest-orban-s-rule-calling-new-n948556

Hungary: EU lawmakers vote with overwhelming majority against Hungary over rule of law

EU lawmakers move against Hungary over rule of law

For the complete report go to:
http://flip.it/mvWcan

The new emerging face of "Democracy": Taking democracy for granted is a fatal flaw - by Hasan Suroor

Professor of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, David Runciman provides in his book an interesting insight to Modi’s India  and Democracy.

I am not sure that many in the Modi Government would be familiar with the name of David Runciman, professor of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University.

But this week’s crackdown on civil rights activists and dissidents is the biggest endorsement of his new book, “How Democracy Ends”, in which he lists India as among the countries where democracy is being upended in the name of protecting it from supposedly undemocratic forces. India, according to him, illustrates the threat that democracy is facing from “executive aggrandisement” and “strongmen chipping away at it while paying lip service to it”.

It represents the new emerging face of democracy where it all appears tickety-boo on the surface, but is haemorrhaging from inside. Indians might find it embarrassing that he lumps their country with such authoritarian democracies as Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines where too “strongmen” are “chipping away” at democratic institutions while paying lip service to them.

Runciman sees Narendra Modi as part of a growing cast of “ever more characterful performers” alongside Donald Trump, Recep Erdogan, and Lech Kazcynski, among others, who have converted democracy into an “elaborate performance” to engage public attention while quietly wrecking it from inside. Like them, he has developed a “personality cult” operating through networks of private interests and hardline followers .

Read more: Taking democracy for granted is a fatal flaw | National Herald

EUROPEAN UNITY UNDER ATTACK: FAR RIGHT PLAYERS TEARING EUROPE APART

For the complete report click on link below;

The dark clouds of the ultra right and facism are once again gathering over Europe

EU Citizens under threat from populist right-wing local and foreign politicians who are endangering the EU's unity and economic stability - by RM

Right-wing populist politicians destabilizing the EU

Democratic and Cultural Fortress Europe is under attack, by devious right-wing populist politicians and their followers

These include, but not limited to, (see picture insert) from top left to right: Donald Trump (USA), Steve Bannon (USA), Marine Le Pen (France), Nigel Farage (Britain), Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), Geert Wilders (the Netherlands), Dr.Jörg Meuthen (Germany), Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński (Poland), Viktor Mihály Orbán (Hungary),Thierry Henri Philippe Baudet (the Netherlands) Luigi Di Maio (Italy), and Sebastian Kurz (Austria)

It is not a question anymore of how to come to terms with this threat, but how this threat can be eliminated effectively.  Tthe majority of Europesn citizens certainly do not want Europe to fall apart into a feuding group of nations, and easy prey for China, Russia and the US.

This issue certainly must, if it is not so already, become the number one objective on the agenda of the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and each individual EU Nation state.

Maybe, in this context it might help to refresh our memory as to the importance of the EU among the world of nations, with some historic background on the EU, and the benefits its citizens enjoy.

The European Union was set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours in Europe, which culminated in the past, and more recently in the First and Second World Wars.

Europeans were determined to prevent such killing and destruction from ever happening again.

After the Second world war, Europe was split into East and West,  resulting in a 40-year-long Cold War.

To counter this political problem, West European nations created the Council of Europe in 1949.

It was a first step towards cooperation between them, but six countries even wanted to go further.

As of 1950, the European Coal and Steel Community begins to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace.

The six founding countries were Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

The 1950s were dominated by a cold war between east and west. Protests in Hungary against the Communist regime are put down by Soviet tanks in 1956. ’

On the 8 of May 1950 French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presents a plan for deeper cooperation. This historic event is celebrated every 9th of May as ' Europe Day'

On 18 April 1951 based on the Schuman plan, six countries signed a treaty to run their heavy industries – coal and steel – under a common management. In this way, none can on its own make the weapons of war to turn against the other, as in the past.

In 1957, the Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community (EEC), or ‘Common Market

One thing led to another, making the EU what it is today, operating as a single market with 28 member countries, one of the major global trading powers.

EU economic policy seeks to sustain growth by investing in transport, energy and research – while minimising the impact of further economic development on the environment.

In terms of the total value of all goods and services produced (GDP), it is bigger than the US economy. EU GDP in 2017 was €15.3 trillion

Over 64 % of EU countries’ total trade is done with other countries in the EU bloc.

On January 1, 2017, the population of the European Union (EU) was estimated at 511.8 million, compared with 510.3 million on 1 January 2016. During the year 2016, as many births as deaths were recorded in the EU (5.1 million), meaning that the natural change of the EU population was neutral.

With just 6.9 % of the world’s total population, EU trade with the rest of the world accounts for some 15.6 % of global imports and exports.

Consequently, together with the United States and China, the EU is one of the 3 largest global players in international trade.

The 28 EU countries had the second largest share of global imports and exports of goods in 2016.

For individual EU citizen some of the benefits include:

    1) Eligibility to live and work everywhere within the EU without further permission.

    2) Eligibility to take part in local elections of the community where you are a resident. So if you       are a Frenchman living in Munich you can vote for in the election of the Munich
city council, which chooses the mayor. You can even run for a seat in that local municipality.
   
   3) Eligibility to vote in the EU parliamentary elections, and you can even run for a seat.
   
    4) Coming from another EU member country one may not be discriminated against, in relation to local citizen in your place of residence. That means: If local residents are allowed to send their children to public school for free, you are also allowed. If they receive social security payments, you may also receive them.
   
    5) Say you want to run a workshop in Germany, you may even have benefits over and above those of local German citizens. If you are a German running a car repair workshop, you either need a master certificate as a trained car mechanic, or you have to employ somebody who has such a certificate. If, however, you are coming in from another EU country, you only have to show proof that you are a car mechanic with a work experience.
   
    6) As an EU citizen you also have diplomatic protection. If you are in a country where your home country does not have its own embassy, every EU embassy of a member state is obliged to help you if you need help.
   
    7) EU citizens also have the right to communicate with every administrative office within the EU in your own language - and you have the right to receive an answer in your own language.

Bottom line - don't let these right-wing Populists mislead you with vague and confusing arguments, Ask for specifics, like how they would set up things differently, and what the benefits would be for you as a citizen.

And if this results in more garbled rhetoric, like we so often hear from those populist politicians,  make sure you tell them they are not convincing you.

There is no way EU citizens would benefit from going back to their own currency, border controls, banking regulations, and nationally protected local trade.

Probably the most remarkable success for the EU has been that, apart from its economic prominence, following the ‘Schuman Declaration’, on 9 May 1950, there have been 68 years of peace across the continent, following this declaration.

The European project, known as the EU is the best thing that ever happened for peace, economic stability and prosperity on  the European continent. Another positive is that since it is still a project under development, it can only get better.

We must therefore use all means at our disposal to protect and safeguard it from the destabilizing forces which are presently attacking its existence.

© This article can be republished only if EU=Digest is mentioned as the source

EU-Digest 

Hungary; PM Viktor says EU should have a Right Wing movement,

Via euronews: Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban attacks the EU  and wants to fokii

Read more : 

http://www.euronews.com/2018/07/28/hungary-s-pm-viktor-orban-attacks-the-eu

Hungary ‘should be kicked out of EU’ - by Armend Nimani

Europe’s cultural divisions deepened yesterday after Luxembourg called for Hungary to be kicked out of the EU because of the country’s hard stance on Muslim refugees and migrants.

The row has further poisoned relations between liberal western European countries and eastern Europe three days before a crucial summit on the future of the EU after Britain’s vote to leave in June.
Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, demanded the suspension or expulsion of Hungary over its authoritarianism and anti-migrant razor wire fences on its Balkan borders.

“We cannot accept that the EU’s fundamental values are being massively violated,” he told the German newspaper Die Welt.

“Anyone, like Hungary, who builds fences against refugees fleeing war or breaches press freedom and the independence of the justice system should be temporarily, or if needed, for ever excluded from the EU.”

Note EU-Digest: If the EU would do this they should include Poland in the process - unfortunately it does not have the power and guts to do so.

Read more: Hungary ‘should be kicked out of EU’ | World | The Times & The Sunday Times

Poland and Hungary want their cake and eat it also: EU’s biggest challenge for 2018: Poland, Hungary- by Beata Stur

The conflict between the European Commission and Poland and Hungary could be the greatest challenge awaiting Brussels in the new year. According to Jon Henley, reporting for the Guardian, the two former communist bloc countries face the risk of becoming the EU’s “first rogue states”.

“How Europe deals with members deliberately flouting the core western liberal norms and values it strives to embody – social tolerance, respect for free speech, an independent judiciary – could dominate 2018 far more than Britain’s exit,” Henley wrote.

In December, Brussels triggered Article 7 of the EU Treaty against Poland over changes to the judiciary by the country’s ruling conservatives. The mechanism could ultimately lead to Poland losing its EU voting rights.

In the same month, the European Commission referred Hungary to the European Court of Justice over Viktor Orban’s “ongoing assault on political freedoms”.

Both governments have also met with criticism for refusing to take in refugees.

While the formal warning to Poland – which could strip the country of its EU voting rights, seems unlikely because it requires a unanimous vote of all member states, calls to make EU funds conditional on upholding the rule of law are more real.

Poland and Hungary are among the largest net recipients of EU funds. Countries such as Germany, France and the Nordic states support this approach.

Note EU-Digest: Like Britain, Hungary and Poland seem to think that you can have your cake and eat it also in the EU. "That is not the way the cookie crumbles". 

Austria's election: Europe reacts to Sebastian Kurz victory

Sebastian Kurz Austria's new political leader 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Sebastian Kurz on his victory and the "energetic" modernization of his party, which is aligned with her Christian Democrats.

She declined to comment on which coalition arrangement she wanted to see, but said the Freedom Party's strength would be a "major challenge" for its Austrian rivals.

Merkel said the challenge posed by the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany was "manageable" compared with the FPÖ's strength. She hoped for close cooperation with Kurz at the European level.

Hungary's foreign minister Peter Szijjarto was full of praise for his Austrian counterpart and "friend" Kurz, who at 31 is expected to become Europe's youngest national leader following an election victory on Sunday.

"He's hijacked neither by hypocrisy nor by political correctness. He's always honest, he's always very direct and I think it's very necessary currently, that European leaders speak directly," Szijjarto told reporters in Brussels.

Szijjarto welcomed Kurz's stance on migration as close to that of Budapest and expected Austria to work more closely with anti-immigration eastern and central European states including Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. East-West divides over migration policy have strained unity in the bloc.

Note EU-Digest: 
It is sad to see that some of the Governments of the EU's Eastern and Central European States, occupied by the Nazi's in the second world war, " indirectly" seem to have copied some of the policies and laws of their former Nazi occupiers, particularly in relation to some of their present immigration policies.  

These laws were implemented in Nazi Germany and their occupied territories (1933–45) based on a specific racist and religious doctrine, asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legitimacy.  

The Nazi laws qualified Muslims, Africans and other minorities as "Untermenschen (sub-humans)" . It is important for the EU Parliament and EU Commission to make clear, that laws by EU member states, which ban immigrants from entering into the EU, based on their ethnicity or religion, in any way or form, should not be allowed to see the light of day.. 
 

Read more: Austria election: Europe reacts to Sebastian Kurz victory | News | DW | 16.10.2017

Hungary severs diplomatic ties with the Netherlands

Hungary is suspending high-level diplomatic ties with the Netherlands in a row over the relocation of asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy.

The country is recalling its ambassador to the nation following remarks made by the Dutch ambassador which criticised Hungary for its stance.

The Hungarian foreign minister said his country’s decision was "one of the most radical steps in diplomacy" and that it would ask the Dutch foreign ministry for its position on the statements of Ambassador Gajus Scheltema, published Thursday in Hungary by the 168 Ora magazine.

Peter Szijjarto said Scheltema - already scheduled to leave Hungary soon - was no longer welcome at any Hungarian ministry or state institution.

"We won't settle for an explanation behind closed doors," he added.

In the interview, Scheltema was critical of Hungary's unwillingness to participate in a European Union plan to relocate asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy.

He also criticized the Hungarian government's campaign against billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros and drew parallels between the government's efforts to "create enemies" and those of the Islamic State group.

Note EU-Digest: It seems the Hungarians are only interested in the benefits of being a member of the EU and not in living up to the obligations. Shame on them. 

 Read more: Hungary severs diplomatic ties with the Netherlands - The National

EU: Post-Trump, post-Brexit, the EU may end up more unified than ever - by Joshua Keating

EU- United we stand - divided we fall

As France’s next president, Emmanuel Macron, took the stage outside the Louvre on Sunday night to the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy,” the European Union anthem, it was easy to view the centrist, pro-EU technocrat’s victory over the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen as an endorsement by the French public of the European project.

This would be a little misleading. Between Le Pen, François Fillon, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon—the second-, third-, and fourth-place candidates in the first round of the election—and various fringe parties, more than two-thirds of French voters went for euro-skeptic candidates. Those candidates’ supporters went for Macron in the second round less because of enthusiasm for him than the fact that most of them, though not as many as in previous elections, considered Le Pen unacceptable.

The contradiction at the heart of the EU—that a project dedicated to the spread and promotion of democracy continues despite the will of most European—that a project dedicated to the spread and promotion of democracy continues despite the will of most Europeans—has not gone away.

The project persists in large part because, as the French election demonstrated, its opponents can’t agree on what an alternative should look like. And while it’s still early days, the global political events of the past year may have unexpectedly strengthened the EU by giving it something to stand against.

A few months ago, the EU looked on the verge of collapse. The Greek financial crisis and a massive influx of migrants had opened up fissures between members. Then came Brexit, which European leaders warned could set off a race to the exits.

Then came the election of Donald Trump, a president who threatened to abandon the traditional U.S. support for European integration and publicly attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel while praising Vladimir Putin. All the while, populist, nationalist parties, many with murky links to the Kremlin, were surging in the polls in a number of countries.

But in 2017, the wave has crested a bit. In the Netherlands’ March election, far-right candidate Geert Wilders had a disappointing finish. A pro-European center-right party won parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, and a pro-European president won in EU applicant state Serbia. Merkel appears in good shape ahead for her re-election bid in September, and even if her center-left opponent, Martin Schulz, could squeak out a victory, he’s also a strong backer of European integration.

Brexit will undoubtedly reduce the global economic clout of the union, but it could also make the EU politically stronger by removing one of the staunchest opponents of European integration. For instance, the EU is moving to coordinate defense budgets and military command structures, a process Britain often opposed, viewing it as a back-door means of creating a transnational European army. European governments have also been able to agree on a common negotiating stance over Britain’s exit remarkably quickly. Feeling a little more stable after Macron’s victory, European leaders may be more confident in enforcing tough terms on Britain to dissuade any other wayward members from getting similar ideas.

As for Trump, in practice he has turned out to be neither as anti-Europe or as pro-Russian as Brussels feared. He’s reportedly warming to the idea of striking a trade agreement with Europe rather than the bilateral deals that he, and particularly nationalist adviser Steve Bannon, said he preferred during the campaign.

Trump has had an impact on European politics by providing establishment politicians with a counterexample to run against. Trump and Le Pen have each praised each other, and she even paid a visit to Trump Tower—though not to Trump himself—in January. She even went as far as to describe them as part of a common global movement. But 82 percent of French voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a poll released last week, so it wasn’t exactly surprising to see anti–Le Pen ads warning French voters not to “Trump themselves” or to see Macron touting the support of Barack Obama.

A Trump-led movement is not one the Frenchor any of the Europeans particularly want to be part of.

The European public may still be suspicious of Europe, and European leaders—who are viewed as distant and undemocratic—still need to do a much better job of articulating a positive vision of what they’re for. But thanks to Brexit and Trump, it’s now at least easy for those leaders to articulate what they’re against. 

Read more: Post-Trump, post-Brexit, the EU may end up more unified than ever.

EU leaders forced to unite in new Trump reality - by Eszter Zalan

United We Stand Divided We Fall

EU leaders pledged the need for unity and for Europe to stand on its own two feet at their meeting in Valletta on Friday (3 February), during a discussion on how to handle US president Donald Trump, whom EU council chief Donald Tusk described earlier this week as a "threat" to the EU.

Leaders emphasized the importance of the transatlantic relationship, and said they would work together with Trump on common interests, but move toward more independent European action on issues where the EU and the US administration disagree.

"We work on the basis of our shared values, [...] there are areas where we agree, like fighting international terrorism, and where we don’t agree," German chancellor Angela Merkel said after lunch, which summed up the mood toward Trump among EU leaders after a turbulent week of heavy criticism from Europe and concern over the US president's first days in office.

Merkel said that this is an opportunity for Europe to redefine itself and become more self-reliant. 

"The general debate concentrated on where we stand, we have to act together," Merkel said, adding that it could lead to boosting investment in defense capabilities in the EU but also in Germany. "We have our destiny in our own hands."

Some EU leaders heavily criticised Donald Trump's decision to ban refugees and people arriving to the US from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Others, like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban ( whose country represents the new face of corruption in Europe), slammed those who criticized Trump. Before arriving at the Valletta summit, Orban said that the US has the right to decide its own border control policy, and that he is puzzled at the "neurotic European reactions" over the travel ban.

Read more: EU leaders forced to unite in new Trump reality