Australia is closing its embassy in Budapest, the antipodean island’s Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, said on Monday. With Canberra jumping on the developed world’s fiscal austerity bandwagon there will be cutbacks in foreign affairs spending. “The most significant one is closing one embassy, that’s the embassy in Budapest,” Carr told ABC radio on Monday. The… Continue »

Proposed amendments to the criminal code would mean assailants could be punishable with up to five years in prison, Public Administration and Justice Ministry state secretary Róbert Répássy said on Tuesday as he presented a bill to Parliament. It must be made clear that domestic violence is not a family affair but a serious criminal… Continue »

The Hungarian state has been ordered to pay EUR 17,000 in damages and costs to a former civil servant who sued at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over a punitive tax on severance pay for public sector workers. The state was found to have violated the rights of plaintiff Ms N.K.M. to… Continue »

State tobacco monopoly Nemzeti Dohánykereskedelmi Nonprofit Zrt (NDN) announced on Tuesday it is reopening bids for retail concessions ahead of the introduction of a revamped sales system this 1 July. Under the monopoly 20-year concessions will be granted for a flat fee to some 5,400 tobacco kiosks, which is one per 2,000 inhabitants and down… Continue »

New tariff regulations on train journeys mean people over 65 years will no longer benefit from free transport benefits, opposition Socialist MSZP head Attila Mesterházy said on Saturday. From next Wednesday tickets for journeys on express trains (gyorsvonat és sebesvonat) will be subject to a HUF 150 to HUF 795 (EUR 2.5) surcharge (a five… Continue »

Budapest’s cash-strapped city council has dreamed up projects worth EUR 50 million to be completed between 2014 and 2030 in the new detailed city development plan released on Monday. Fidesz mayor István Tarlós in presenting the more than 200-page project summary said it is based on “concrete, collected and processed data” and “highlights the direction… Continue »

District VI mayor Zsófia Hassay of ruling party Fidesz has called for new legislation to allow sanctions on investors who fail to keep in good condition properties on Andrássy út (avenue). The showcase street runs through District VI from Erzsébet square to Heroes’ Square and features on the Unesco list of World Heritage Sites but… Continue »

Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle received enthusiastic applause when he spoke on Monday at the second day of the World Jewish Congress, which had pointedly chosen Budapest as the venue for its 14th plenary assembly. “Antisemitism has no place either in Berlin, in Budapest or anywhere else in Europe or in the world,” Westerwelle said.… Continue »

The ruling Fidesz party reacted angrily this week to a draft report from the European Parliament’s civil rights committee calling for infringement proceedings over controversial constitutional amendments. The document raised the prospect of launching proceedings under Article 7 of the EU treaty, the so-called “nuclear option” that could see Hungary stripped of its voting rights… Continue »

The government  considers Hungary’s 700,000 or so Roma citizens not as a problem but as a “hidden resource”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the inaugural session of a Roma Affairs Council in Budapest on Tuesday. “It is therefore not only an issue of discrimination or human rights for us how Roma people can live… Continue »