The Budapest Times is taking its traditional Christmas break, and the next edition will be out on 11 January. Its been a rum year, folks. With the economy back in recession, many doing business in Hungary could be forgiven for counting survival as victory. We would like to thank all our readers, advertisers and partners… Continue »

With Christmas only weeks away, our hearts and minds turn toward gathering with family and sharing Christmas cheer with friends and those people who brought business our way or might know someone, who knows someone who could be convinced to do so. Sigh. So many people, so little time. Then we got to thinking. What… Continue »

With Christmas only weeks away, our hearts and minds turn toward gathering with family and sharing Christmas cheer with friends and those people who brought business our way or might know someone, who knows someone who could be convinced to do so. Sigh. So many people, so little time. Then we got to thinking. What… Continue »

Companies doing business in Hungary face two problems: the consequences of the global economic crisis and the Matolcsy phenomenon. While the former is hitting the order books, the latter, in the shape of National Economy Minister György Matolcsy, is above all having a negative impact on confidence and the ability to plan ahead. It is… Continue »

At one time The Budapest Times and its sister paper, Budapester Zeitung, were financed on a fully commercial basis, through real estate companies, car dealerships and restaurants etc. taking out paid advertisements. That form of revenue, however, dried up almost completely within a few months after the global economic crisis hit in autumn 2008, and… 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 »