A storm has broken out recently on the Hungarian insurance market when tax law amendments affecting the taxation of life insurance products were made. Insurance companies have even been warned not to sell “tax avoiding” insurance products. In fact the tax rules pertaining to life insurance policies were expected to change as of the next… Continue »

There is great uncertainty concerning the job protection action plan “urged” by the Fidesz parliamentary party group. It is unknown whether the revenue side of next year’s budget, which is in any case plagued by serious risks, will be able to finance the costly programme, and it is questionable what economic effects it will have… Continue »

Two seemingly unrelated rumours started to circulate in the Hungarian press on Wednesday. One stated that potentially life-saving medical alert buttons are being taken away from the elderly of Siófok because local governments are no longer obliged to provide the service. According to another, the competition authority of the European Commission has allowed the Hungarian… Continue »

Each nation must come to terms with the darker chapters of its own history. For the United States such chapters include the genocidal destruction of Native American peoples, the deaths of millions of Indochinese, and more recently the death of over one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians. Continue »

It’s official. The population is at its lowest in 50 years, having fallen steadily from 10,709,000 in 1980 to 9,986,000 in January. The decline is now a record 0.5 per cent a year. Unless immediate steps are taken to increase birth rates and encourage immigration there will be well under 8 million people living in Hungary by 2050, with twice as many (one in three) over the age of 65.Of the 27 European Union member states Hungary now ranks last in terms of natural population growth. Between January 2001 and April 2010 some 333,000 fewer Hungarians were born than died. Net immigration in this period helped to offset the figure by some 150,000 individuals but these days Hungary is more of a transit country for immigrants than a final destination. Continue »

Although Hungary is filling the Presidency of the European Union for six months the US and the Western European media have been busy ignoring this news. The media are engaged instead in a rather consistent effort, initially orchestrated by the government’s opposition, to discredit the new rulers and to significantly darken the image of the country. Not a conspiracy, I think, but a somewhat shameful effort by those unable to accept the will of the majority and using the foreign media as a willing tool. Continue »

On 1 July 1863 in a remote corner of Pennsylvania scouting parties of two great armies exchanged fire in a skirmish that became the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point in the battle for the heart and soul of 19th-century America known as the Civil War. At issue was whether slavery should continue to be tolerated. A century later another battle for the hearts and minds of Americans was fought in Selma, Alabama and towns throughout the American South. This time the issue was whether 100 years after their emancipation African-Americans should remain second-class citizens or be permitted to enjoy the same civil rights as whites. Continue »

During the 1970s and 1980s Hungary was rightly considered the breadbasket of Eastern Europe. A thriving agricultural sector employed 14.8 per cent of the national workforce, accounted for 8 percent of gross domestic product and operated in a manner that was environmentally sustainable. Over the past 22 years the sector has experienced upheaval and contraction, in large part due to the winding-up of the cooperative farm system. The situation has been aggravated by meteorological phenomena associated with global warming. Continue »

A nation is judged by the way it treats its weakest members – so wrote Aristotle in the third century BC. One wonders what he would make of last Thursday’s conviction and sentencing of five Roma and one Hungarian to a total of 29 years in prison for what prosecutors said was a racially motivated attack on a Hungarian student. Four of the six suspects had been held in detention since their arrest on 23 October 2009 even though their victim did not sustain any permanent or life-threatening injuries. If their conviction is upheld on appeal, most of them will serve out the balance of their sentences in prisons usually reserved for murderers and repeat violent offenders. Continue »

2010 was the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. And yet Europe’s estimated 8-10 million Roma found themselves poorer and more socially excluded than ever after the Italian and French governments demolished “illegal” Roma settlements and deported thousands of Roma in clear violation of their rights as citizens of European Union member states. A bill introduced recently in the Romanian parliament to change the official name of the Roma people to “Gypsy” so as not to confuse them with ordinary Romanians merely added insult to injury. Continue »