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Unfreezing $13.6Bln of Funding for Hungary Not Connected to EU Budget Changes

Sputnik – 04.10.2023

BUDAPEST – Brussels owes Hungary 13 billion euros ($13.6 billion) from the European Union’s funds and has to unfreeze the funding without taking into account planned changes to the bloc’s budget, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday.

A British newspaper has reported that the European Commission was considering unblocking 13 billion euros for Hungary to receive Budapest’s support for a new increased common budget, which includes support for Ukraine.

“We are entitled to money from EU funds. This fact has nothing to do with changes in the budget. It has nothing to do with whether the EU wants to change the budget now or not. This is a completely different issue and should be discussed according to completely different criteria. The payment of the money we are entitled to does not depend on anything, it should be paid to us,” Szijjarto told a briefing.

This comes days after Gergely Gulyas, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff, hinted that Hungary might veto further EU funding for Ukraine unless Brussels unfreezes budget money it was withholding from Budapest over alleged noncompliance with EU values.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has proposed topping up the 2024-2027 EU budget with an additional 66 billion euros, most of which will be used to support Ukraine over the next four years.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Fatigue Is Worrying NATO Elites – and So They Should Be

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 4, 2023

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is now discernible fatigue and anger among citizens over the bottomless money pit that is NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

The only wonder is that it has taken so long for the Western public to get wise to the scam.

The disgraceful adulation of a Nazi war criminal by the whole Canadian parliament in a perverse show of solidarity with Ukraine against Russia has helped focus public attention on the obscenity of the NATO proxy war.

All told, since the NATO-induced conflict blew up in February last year, the American and European establishments have thrown up to €200 billion into Ukraine to prop up an odious Nazi-infested regime.

All that largesse that is billed to U.S. and European taxpayers has resulted in a slaughter in Europe not seen since the Second World War – and a failed Ukrainian state. And of course huge profits for the NATO military-industrial complex that bankrolls the elite politicians.

Times are changing though. In the United States, the financially conservative Republicans have had enough of the blank checks to the Kiev regime. The U.S. Congress finally showed a modicum of sanity to prevent a government financial shutdown – by dropping military aid to Ukraine. That shows how twisted Washington’s priorities have become when national self-interest has to wrestle with funding for a Nazi regime.

And then following the Congressional vote to temporarily end funding for Ukraine, the Kiev regime’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba dared to reprimand American lawmakers: “We are now working with both sides of Congress to make sure that it does not (get) repeated under any circumstances.”

Meanwhile in Europe, Slovakian citizens have voted for a new government to end the military fueling of war in Ukraine. The Smer-SD party led by Robert Fico won the parliamentary elections primarily on the vow to shut off any further weapons supply to the Kiev regime.

This week also saw massive protests in Germany against Olaf Scholz’s coalition government over the latter’s abject pro-war policies in Ukraine. German Unity Day on October 3 prompted a mass rally in Berlin denouncing the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and calling for peace negotiations to end the conflict.

There were also unprecedented protests across Poland in Warsaw, Lodz and other cities against the PiS government’s slavish implementation of the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Faced with millions of Ukrainian refugees and neglect of social needs for Poles, the PiS ruling party has recently threatened to end weapons supply to Kiev – a move less about principle and more about trying to buy votes in the forthcoming election on October 15. Nevertheless, the belated move by the Polish government illustrates the concern among European leaders about growing public disdain over the seemingly endless financial aid allocated to Ukraine.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, says it is a “worrying” sign that Washington for the first time closed the coffers for Ukraine.

The EU foreign ministers held a summit in Kiev on Monday. It was the first time that their summit was convened in a non-EU country. The agenda was a little too self-conscious, slated as a show of “solidarity” with Ukraine.

Borrell and the other EU diplomats said the summit was a warning to Russia to not count on “weariness” among Europeans over support for Ukraine. Who is he trying to convince? Russia or Europeans?

The unelected European elites described the war in Ukraine as an “existential crisis” which requires never-ending support for the Nazi regime against Russia.

Such melodrama needs serious qualification. The conflict is only “existential” for certain people: the NATO ideologues, the elitist leaders, the military-industrial complex, and the corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev. But it’s not existential for most other people who want to end this insane slaughter, grotesque wasting of public finances, and perilous flirting with nuclear war.

Significantly, the contrived EU summit in Kiev was not attended by Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto. In highly critical comments on the EU’s misplaced priorities, he said that other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies.

The Hungarian diplomat slammed the EU leaders for their double standards and hypocrisy, adding: “I can say that the world outside Europe is already really looking forward to the end of this war because they do not understand many things. They do not understand, for example, how it can be that when a war is not in Europe, the European Union, looking down with fantastic moral superiority, calls on the parties to peace, advocates negotiations and an immediate end to violence. However, when there is a war in Europe, the European Union incites the conflict and supplies weapons, and anyone who talks about peace is immediately stigmatized.”

At least two members of the EU and the NATO alliance – Hungary and Slovakia’s new government – are opposed to the absurd military and financial support fueling the war in Ukraine. Both countries want peace negotiations with Russia to be prioritized. There is an unavoidable sense that this common sense dissent will grow into a domino effect because it is the truth and has an unassailable moral force.

What the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated clearly to the Western public is just how morally bankrupt their governments and media have become. American and European elitist leaders may kid themselves a little longer by pretending there is no weariness and fatigue over their proxy war against Russia. The more they pretend the greater the eventual crash and downfall from public anger.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU Incites Ukrainian Conflict and Stigmatizes Peace Talks – Hungarian Foreign Minister

Sputnik – 03.10.2023

BUDAPEST – The world outside Europe does not share its position on the Ukraine conflict and does not understand European double standards applied to conflicts in other parts of the planet, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said.

“I can say that the world outside Europe is already really looking forward to the end of this war, because they do not understand many things. They do not understand, for example, how it can be that when a war is not in Europe, the European Union, looking down with fantastic moral superiority, calls on the parties to peace, advocates negotiations and an immediate end to violence. However, when there is a war in Europe, the European Union incites the conflict and supplies weapons, and anyone who talks about peace is immediately stigmatized,” Szijjarto said in an interview on Monday.

He also said that other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies.

Szijjarto added that Hungary’s position on the issue is treated with “great respect” outside the EU, which he was witnessing more than once during the UN General Assembly.

Hungary has consistently opposed sanctions on Russian energy resources and sending weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The Hungarian parliament issued a decree banning the supply of weapons to Ukraine from the country’s territory. Szijjarto explained that Budapest seeks to secure the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpatye, where ethnic Hungarians live, since the supply of weapons through its territory would become a military target for Russia. The country’s leadership has repeatedly emphasized that Hungary stands for the earliest possible start of peace negotiations.

October 3, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU prepared to give in to Hungarian demands – FT

RT | October 3, 2023

The European Commission is expected to unfreeze about €13 billion ($13.6 billion) in EU funds for Hungary by the end of November, aiming to secure the country’s support for an increase to the bloc’s budget and massive financial assistance to Kiev, according to three officials briefed on the discussions cited by Financial Times.

In December, Brussels froze €22 billion ($23 billion) in cohesion funds allocated to Hungary. The money was blocked over major concerns related to the independence of judges and the country’s failure to comply with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on issues including LGBTQ rights, academic freedom, and asylum.

The funds were supposed to be frozen until Budapest complies with rules protecting human rights and the rule of law. In May, the Hungarian government reached a preliminary deal on key judicial reforms. As a result, Brussels agreed to release more than half of the amount.

By unblocking the funds, EU authorities expect to gain Hungarian support for boosting the bloc’s budget and providing significant financial aid to Ukraine.

The commission had previously proposed a €66 billion increase to the EU’s shared budget to cover increased costs, part of which are expected to contribute to a €50 billion financial package for Kiev to help in covering the country’s expenses for the next four years.

Since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s line of argument has been broadly different from that of the EU and its allies. The PM has repeatedly criticized sanctions against Russia and refused to send weapons to Ukraine. Orban also urged the EU to persuade Moscow and Kiev to begin peace negotiations.

In retaliation, the Ukrainian National Corruption Prevention Agency (NCPA) designated Hungary’s largest commercial lender OTP Bank an “international sponsor of war” over allegedly providing preferential lending terms to the Russian military.

Budapest responded by blocking the release of funding totaling €500 million earmarked for military aid to Ukraine by means of the European Peace Facility (EPF) mechanism.

October 3, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

War Fatigue Complicates West’s Aid to Ukraine

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 3, 2023 

A pall of gloom descended on Europe as the long-feared uncertainty set in over the weekend as to how long would the collective West underwrite the proxy war in Ukraine. To lift their sagging spirit, some European foreign ministers  impromptu took the train to Kiev to spend Monday with President Zelensky. It was an extraordinary sight of defiance of the call of destiny, as the war passed the 19-month mark.

A deal in Washington that averted government shutdown for now but cut funding for Kiev; the Polish election campaign in which the ruling Law and Justice party, until recently one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, has toyed with various measures such as questioning more arms deliveries and blocking agri-products from its neighbour in order to court voters; and, the stunning parliamentary election results in Slovakia catapulting a pro-Russian left-wing political party to power and signalling the first true political embodiment of “Ukraine fatigue” — suddenly, the West’s mantra of being by Ukraine’s side “for as long as it takes” feels seriously open to question. 

CNN exaggerated, perhaps, while commenting that the above developments “appear to have thrown Ukraine and its war with Russia under the bus” — but only by a bit. The politics of the Ukraine war has crossed an inflection point and is poised for bigger things in the critical months ahead.  

The White House has vowed to seek quick passage of a stand-alone Ukraine aid bill totalling $20.6 billion that the Biden administration has said is essential to fight Russia, but it will likely continue to face determined opposition, particularly from Republicans in Congress. At the root of it is the fierce polarisation in US politics, which now threatens to shake the balance of power in the Congress in a no-holds barred election year that looms ahead. 

This does not mean stopping the US aid to Ukraine. The administration has enough resources to support Kiev over the next month and a half and, above all, it is too far-fetched to expect any serious changes in the Ukrainian direction of US foreign policy before the 2024 election. But the salience lies somewhere else — namely, the topic of assistance to Ukraine is frothing in the cauldron of disputes between Republicans and Democrats and is becoming inseparable from the tendentious issues of social programmes that tear apart the American society and become fodder for its combative politicians. 

The Ukraine war has become a political football in the Beltway just over a year from the US presidential election, with questions mounting over aid approved by Congress that totals $100 billion so far, including $43 billion in weaponry. Simply put, for right–wing Republicans, financing Kiev is becoming a tool of political manipulation of the Biden Administration through which they hope to seize advantages and concessions. And Donald Trump is waiting in the wings. 

Meanwhile, there is a vicious sub-plot playing out within the Republican Party itself in a bid to unseat the Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy next week by hardline Republican Matt Gaetz, one of a core of hard-right members of the party implacably opposed to any more aid for Ukraine.

In order to survive, McCarthy has threatened to link aid for Ukraine to funding to stop immigrants crossing the Mexican border, a key Republican demand. “I’m going to make sure that the weapons are provided for Ukraine, but they’re not going to get some big package if the border is not secure,” McCarthy told CBS ominously.  

Most important, the wider signal to the world is damaging. European capitals are already nervously eyeing the possibility of a return to the White House by Trump. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and a major US partner in delivering aid to Ukraine, expressed surprise and regretted the US decision “deeply, thoroughly.”

Borrell said, “I have a hope that this will not be a definitive decision and Ukraine will continue having the support of the US.” Indeed, there is a wider problem — war fatigue among inflation-hit American voters.

In many ways, the victory of former Prime Minister Robert Fico’s left-wing populist Smer party in this weekend’s parliamentary election in Slovakia is also to be attributed to war fatigue. Fico has said no more weapons will go to Ukraine; questioned the logic of the EU’s Russia sanctions; praised Moscow; and blamed the NATO for causing the war, which he says, began after “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk.” Economic anxieties further compound the societal Ukraine fatigue and the dramatic turn in Slovakian politics, which is likely to impact the West’s relations with Kiev. 

Within the EU, Hungary and Austria will now have an ally in Slovakia, a frontline state, advocating an immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine and peace negotiations. Fico himself is a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — and they could be joined by Poland if the ruling Law and Justice Party secures a fresh mandate, which seems likely, in the parliamentary election on October 15.

All indications are that Poland is veering away from its long-standing pro-Ukraine position. Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki said recently, “we are no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming ourselves with the most advanced weapons.” 

Then, as the CNN wrote, “Beyond EU, within NATO there is an equivalent fear of the consequences of an expanding anti-Ukraine bloc… And both Hungary’s Orban and Slovakia’s Fico have declared themselves adamantly opposed to any move to welcome Ukraine into the alliance… The reality is the Ukraine counteroffensive, which will have to diminish with the advent of winter, has so far achieved little substantive progress on the battlefront. The arrival of newly-empowered anti-Ukraine parties in frontline states, together with waffling by leading Kremlin foes like the United States, all comprise a truly toxic mix.” 

Looking ahead, further erosion of support for the Ukraine war can be expected and even a possible collapse of support for Ukraine across the collective West cannot be ruled out in the months ahead, especially if the Kremlin leadership finally decides to give a knockout punch to Ukraine’s military and/or orders the Russian forces to cross the Dnieper and take over Kiev and Odessa.

Even otherwise, the crunch time comes with the elections to the European Parliament on 6-9 June 2024. There is a clear possibility of anti-Ukraine parties winning a substantial bloc of votes in the elections. If and when that happens, the invidious conspiracy mooted by Germany and France to abolish the rule of unanimity required for taking major EU decisions (eg., Russia sanctions and their six-monthly renewal) will flounder.

Both Orban and Fico have declared their opposition to Russian sanctions. Suffice to say, the politics of the Ukraine war and Russia sanctions is entering uncharted waters, as Hungary allied with Slovakia — and potentially with Poland — would be in a position to complicate pro-Ukraine, anti-Russian efforts by the rest of the EU.

In the art of politics, American politicans originally patented “filibuster”, a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision, and European politicians are now inventing their own variant of it.

Orban has been practising it for a decade already, and with growing dexterity, to push through his nationalistic programme of “sovereign democracy” in Hungary. That is where the weekend’s Slovakian election and Fico’s return to power has the potential to become a defining moment in the politics of Ukraine war.

October 3, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Poland rejects Ukraine’s proposal to end grain embargo crisis

BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | DZIENNIK.PL | SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

On Sept. 27, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Trade Taras Kachka said that if Poland, Hungary and Slovakia guarantee that they will not impose unilateral limits on Ukrainian products in the future, Ukraine will be able to withdraw its complaint from the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Piotr Muller, the Polish government’s spokesman, told the conservative TV station Republika on Sept. 28 that the Ukrainian proposal for withdrawing the WTO complaint is unacceptable because “Ukraine is in fact proposing that its food products should be able to enter without any limits being set.”

He added that “the embargo will continue until we are satisfied that the import of Ukrainian products will not negatively impact our agricultural markets, and that is not likely in the near future.”

Muller also said that Poland was ready to discuss the matter with Ukraine but that “for the time being the embargo remains in force.” However, he felt that Ukraine withdrawing the complaint it filed with the WTO would be a positive development, “showing that Ukraine wants to negotiate with partners rather than confront them with lawsuits.”

On Sept. 26, the agriculture ministers from the Visegrád Four states — Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia — held a meeting in Znojmo, Czechia, at which they held a teleconference with the Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky.

The four ministers agreed that the withdrawal of the complaint made to the WTO would facilitate better relations, but the Ukrainian minister did not answer Polish Deputy Agriculture Minister Robert Bartosik’s question about whether Ukraine would cancel its lawsuit.

On Sept. 18, Kyiv filed a complaint with the WTO against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia for the imposition of unilateral embargoes on Ukrainian grain, which the three EU member states imposed in defiance of the European Commission’s decision to lift the grain embargo that was in place between May and Sept. 15 of this year.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary sets condition for further Ukrainian aid from Brussels

RT | September 29, 2023

Budapest will block further EU aid to Ukraine if Kiev doesn’t account for the money it has already received from Brussels since the start of the conflict with Russia, a senior Hungarian government official has said.

“There are many technical ways to finance Ukraine and also help in the humanitarian field,” said Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office. He told a briefing on Thursday that Hungary had no objections to individual EU countries providing assistance to Kiev.

He said unanimity would be required regarding any changes to the EU budget, however, which is currently “on the table for amendment.”

Budapest will make sure that Ukraine “will not receive a single penny of new aid” if it can’t account for the funds it has already been given by the EU, Gulyas insisted.

In June, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen requested an increase of €66 billion ($69.9 billion) for the EU’s long-term budget, which includes €17 billion (around $18 billion) for providing grants for Ukraine.

According to EU data, the bloc and its individual members have supplied Kiev with more than $88 billion in financial, military, humanitarian, and refugee assistance since February 2022.

It’s “absurd and embarrassing” that Brussels keeps withholding EU funds from Hungary while looking for ways to find more money for Ukraine, Gulyas said.

“Let’s hope it’s not because the money was spent on something else, God forbid it was given to a country outside the EU,” he added.

The bloc suspended around €7.5 billion ($7.9 billion) of funds allocated to Hungary in 2022 over what it called rule-of-law concerns.

Hungarian authorities have taken a balanced approach to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. While supplying humanitarian aid, Budapest has refused to send arms to President Vladimir Zelensky’s government. Hungary has also consistently called for a peaceful settlement to the crisis and criticized sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow, arguing that they were hurting the EU more than Russia.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Orban: EU May Have Given Hungarian Money to Ukraine

Sputnik – 29.09.2023

BUDAPEST – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has indicated that some of the EU funds that Brussels is supposed to allocate to Budapest may already have been transferred to Kiev.

The European Union froze over €6 billion designated for Hungary last September due to alleged political concerns. However, Hungarian PM Orban insists that Hungary has met all the EU’s requirements and that the funds were rather used to back the Kiev regime.

“It is possible that some of it [the money] is already in Ukraine. If there is no money to give Ukraine the sums promised before, and we promise to give new sums, and there are people who haven’t received the money, it is reasonable to assume that this money is already gone. We don’t know for sure because Brussels is not clear about it,” Orban said on a Hungarian radio station.

He added that Brussels owes Hungary “more than three billion euros” because Budapest “paid everything that had to be paid.”

“In terms of the Hungarian budget, this is a significant amount,” the prime minister stressed.

Earlier, Gergely Gulyas, the current head of the prime minister’s office, said that Ukraine would not receive any EU budget funds until Hungary gets its rightful share, as unanimous support is necessary to adjust the EU budget.

Earlier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed increasing the EU’s budget for 2024-2027 by €66 billion to support Ukraine, migration and refugee programs, as well as improve competitiveness. The proposal includes €50 billion in grants and loans over the next four years. Orban dismissed this proposal, citing uncertainty about the funds already sent to Ukraine.

In September 2022, the European Commission froze EU funds earmarked for Hungary, withholding some €7.5 billion and citing Budapest’s alleged violation of EU rules.

In December 2022, the EU countries agreed to reduce the withheld funds to €6.3 billion. In exchange, Hungary agreed to lift its veto on several issues of European politics.

The Hungarian prime minister said that the EU is withholding funds from Hungary to influence its positions on migration, sex education, and sanctions. However, Hungary remains steadfast in its stance on these issues, anticipating continued pressure from the EU.

For his part, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated that the country must be prepared for serious attacks from the EU because “Brussels and the liberal propaganda machine” are not selective in their means and use all forms of blackmail against Budapest.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

Hungary issues ultimatum to Ukraine

RT | September 25, 2023

Hungary will not support Ukraine “on any issue” until Kiev restores the rights of ethnic Hungarians on its territory, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in parliament on Monday. Budapest’s backing is vital to Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.

“We will not support Ukraine on any issue in international life until it restores the laws that guaranteed the rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians,” Orban said, adding that “for years [the Ukrainians] have been tormenting” Hungarian schools.

Since 2017, successive laws mandating the use of the Ukrainian language have resulted in the closure of around 100 Hungarian schools in Ukraine. These laws have been harshly criticized by the Council of Europe and by human rights organizations.

According to Orban, the situation has deteriorated with the beginning of a new school year, with management at a school in the city of Munkacs forbidding the singing of the Hungarian national anthem or the wearing of Hungarian national colors on the first day back in the classroom.

Around 156,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine, most of them in the region of Transcarpathia. Once a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this region fell under Soviet control after World War II. It remained in Kiev’s hands when the Ukrainian SSR became modern Ukraine after the fall of the USSR. Ukraine is also home to around 150,000 ethnic Romanians and more than 250,000 Moldovans, and Bucharest has joined Budapest in demanding that the language laws be revised.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto warned in March that Budapest would not support Kiev’s applications to join the EU and NATO until these issues are resolved.

Hungary does not provide any military aid to Ukraine or allow weapons to enter the country via its territory. However, Hungary will have veto power over whether Ukraine can join the EU and NATO due to both bodies requiring the unanimous consent of existing members before admitting new states. The dispute over language rights is just one of several points of contention between Budapest and Kiev.

Orban’s government has also condemned the Ukrainian military’s efforts to conscript ethnic Hungarians into military service and blocked EU military aid to Ukraine over Kiev’s sanctioning of one of its banks due to its lending activities in Russia. More recently, Hungary has blocked the import of Ukrainian grain to protect its farmers from being undercut, prompting Ukraine to threaten a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization.

September 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU has ‘globalized’ Ukraine crisis – Hungary

RT | September 14, 2023

The European Union’s response to the Ukraine crisis is causing the world to fragment, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed. He added that Budapest wants to see initiatives that can unify states, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The EU “has given a very bad answer to the war in Ukraine that unfortunately seems to be ending up in a world being divided into blocs again,” the Hungarian diplomat told CNBC on the sidelines of the Belt and Road summit in Hong Kong.

Brussels “should have isolated this war, but instead of that the EU has globalized” it, he said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Szijjarto argued that a lack of communication between opposing countries has led to them giving up on achieving peace, while states that benefit from good East-West relations – such as Hungary – have been hurt economically.

The minister contrasted this to how the BRI aims to bring the world together for mutual prosperity and security, which is why Hungary welcomes China’s presence.

He criticized rich Western European nations who are now talking about decoupling from the Chinese economy or “derisking” due to political concerns. Quietly, they seek Chinese investment just like small nations, Szijjarto said.

“They can be hypocritical, they can afford [it],” he argued.

Unlike those countries, Budapest states its foreign policy openly, the diplomat said, warning that if ‘decoupling’ with China were to succeed, it would “kill the European economy.”

The Hungarian government has been a vocal critic of the Western response to the Ukrainian conflict since its outset. It has called for peace talks, while speaking out against sanctioning Russia and arming Ukraine. Most EU nations, following in the US lead, have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Moscow.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

EU states tell Zelensky they won’t hand over draft dodgers

RT | September 13, 2023

The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it would not send military-age men who arrived as refugees back to Ukraine to be conscripted. Germany, Austria and Hungary have already made similar declarations.

European conventions exclude extradition for charges such as desertion or draft evasion, Czech Justice Ministry spokesman Vladimir Repka told the outlet iDnes. However, he added that if Ukraine files individual extradition requests citing a specific criminal act they may have committed, Prague may give them more consideration.

Hungary has ruled out any extraditions outright.

“We are not investigating any Ukrainian refugees to determine if they have been called up for military service. Hungary will not extradite them to Ukraine,” Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén told the outlet ATV on Wednesday. “All refugees from Ukraine are safe in Hungary.”

German officials who spoke to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle earlier this week said that Berlin did not intend to send draft-eligible refugees back, since desertion and draft evasion are not crimes under German law. There are over 123,000 Ukrainian men of military age who are in Germany as refugees, according to official estimates.

Austria was the first to refuse extradition of military-age men. There are about 14,000 potential draftees among the 101,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country.

“That would be a massive encroachment on our statehood, we would never do that,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told the outlet Exxpress on September 7.

On the other hand, Poland has already begun sending some Ukrainian men back, according to Hungarian media reports.

A senior lawmaker from President Vladimir Zelensky’s ruling party said in late August that Ukraine might seek extradition of draft-dodgers from the EU. The government in Kiev recently announced another round of mobilization in order to make up battlefield losses, which Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated at over 70,000 in the past three months of heavy fighting.

Zelensky fired all draft commissioners last month and ordered a review of all medical exemptions from military service, citing widespread corruption. New rules were adopted allowing for the conscription of people with mental disorders, chronic diseases, tuberculosis and HIV.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 3 Comments

Hungarian left accused of treason for accepting US campaign money to remove Orbán from power

MAGYAR NEMZET | SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

A private Hungarian citizen filed a complaint with both Hungarian police and prosecutorial authorities after a former CIA analyst went public with a statement that the CIA attempted to interfere in the 2022 Hungarian elections and remove Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from power.

Former analyst Larry C. Johnson said in a podcast at the beginning of September, “It is interesting that although in 2016 the Americans were deeply outraged by the alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election campaign, in 2022 we directly interfered in the Hungarian elections, which Viktor Orbán won again.”

Asked whether the CIA intervened to stop Orbán, Johnson, said “Yes, to defeat him, which, among other things, America was trying to achieve by funding Orbán’s opponents.”

Private Hungarian citizen István Tényi wrote to the police and the prosecutor’s office that they should investigate whether the crime of treason could be suspected against Hungarian citizens who, through the Action for Democracy foundation, may have been involved in influencing the parliamentary elections through a foreign government or organization.

Remix News reported on the funding scandal last year, in which Hungary’s leading left-liberal opposition candidate, Péter Márki-Zay, admitted himself in August 2022, during his podcast Gulyáságyú (Goulash Cannon), that his campaign was still receiving funds from the U.S. foundation Action for Democracy. The shadowy group sent HUF 1.8 billion (€4.48 million) in mostly U.S. donations through an NGO with close ties to billionaire oligarch George Soros, officials connected with Hillary Clinton, and a number of leading transatlantic organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations.

Márki-Zay revealed that Action for Democracy, which is headed by Dávid Korányi, a former adviser to Gergely Karácsony, sent the money in one batch, but he claimed that other transfers had also come from this organization in the past.

Since then, a new declassified intelligence document has come to light, revealing that there is not one but two major foreign donors to the “dollar left,” which is the term increasingly used within the Hungarian media. In addition to the American Action for Democracy, a Swiss foundation has also transferred nearly HUF 1 billion. The Swiss transfers were made in five installments from the beginning of the left-wing primaries, between September 2021 and February 2022.

Open investigations have also been launched in the above cases, with the police investigating the misuse of personal data and the National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) looking into budget fraud. The National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) launched an investigation into money laundering and embezzlement as well, which has since been taken over by the tax authorities.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

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