MY FRIEND IN BUDAPEST WANTS TO COME BACK TO THE U.S.A. : PRIME MINISTER PETER MAGYAR MAKES CHANGE : ORBAN LOYALISTS EXIST

For years now my friend, who has duel citizenship and speaks fluent Hungarian, has spent half his year in Hungary, usually in the spring and fall, but for the first time he reports being "homesick." Usually he wants to stay there. So what has changed? It would seem that he personally feels that there's more chaos. It has to do with the change to Peter Magyar as Prime Minister. He's not essentially opposed to Magyar, but in looking at the news reports, there certainly are some changes happening fast since the man took office.


WORKER VISAS : Other recent tourists to Hungary remarked to me that the Hungarian people were letting immigrants do the work, I take it in hotels and restaurants.

REUTERS : HUNGARY TO STOP ISSUING WORKER VISAS

Excerpt: Hungary's government will stop issuing worker visas to employees from the Philippines, Georgia ​and Armenia from Friday, a government spokeswoman said, ‌calling the move a first step towards regulating the inflow of guest workers.

PBS: PETER MAGYAR TO CHANGE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION

Excerpt: Hungary's government will amend the constitution to remove the country's president, part of a push by the new Prime Minister Péter Magyar to eliminate officials appointed under former populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Magyar and his Tizsa party won an overwhelming victory in an election in April. With a two-thirds majority in parliament, they can make sweeping changes to the autocratic political system Orbán built over his 16 years in power.

***

I previously confused Magyar's Title to be President.  Hungary does have a Prime Minister and a President.  If you're an American, you might be confused too.  The Prime Minister is the person who has political power.  The President of Hungary has a ceremonial role. 

According to the article above : "While mostly a ceremonial role, Hungary's president is responsible for signing legislation into law and has the power to send bills passed by parliament to the constitutional court for review, raising concerns among supporters of the new government that he could use that power to obstruct its plans."

***

The way I see it is that the President of Hungary has more power than say, the King Charles III of the United Kingdom ...

How do you see it?

***

PETER MAGYAR IS ELECTED IN LANDSLIDE VICTORY AS NEW PRIME MINISTER OF HUNGARY AFTER SIXTEEN YEARS OF VIKTOR ORBAN

NPR ORG: WHO IS PETER MAGYAR WHO BEAT VIKTOR ORBAN?

Excerpt: He burst onto the scene as an opposition leader in 2024, rising rapidly to become the leader of the center-right Tisza Party, which won a two-thirds majority in Sunday's parliamentary election. Orbán, who has led Hungary for 16 years, conceded and congratulated Magyar less than three hours after polls closed. ...

In a victory speech delivered to a sea of jubilant supporters on the banks of the Danube River, Magyar reiterated his promises to rebuild Hungary's ties with the European Union and NATO, root out corruption and cronyism and "restore the system of checks and balances." ...

The country has economic incentive to do so: Since 2022, the EU has frozen billions of dollar's worth of funding for the country because it said Orbán was violating key democratic values. Magyar said the country will "never again allow anyone to hold free Hungary captive or to abandon it." ...

A note: I apologize for identifying the man previously as the President of Hungary and have fixed my errors.  I suppose my Americanism is at fault. However, Hungary has both a Prime Minister and a President. 

HUNGARY AND REFUGEES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

REUTERS - EUROPE MIGRANTS HUNGARIAN REFERENDUM full article

EXCERPT:

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken an increasingly anti-immigrant stance since the migration crisis escalated last year and opposes a plan, agreed by a majority of EU governments in September, to redistribute 160,000 migrants around the bloc.

Along with Slovakia, Hungary has launched a court challenge against that plan, which will set quotas for each EU country to host a share of the migrants over two years.

DAILY MAIL - HUNGARIAN OUTRAGE AT EUROPEAN UNION REFUGEE PROBLEM


EXCERPT: 

States could refuse to take people for a year - but only if they paid another country 250,000 euros per person to accommodate them.

 

But at a meeting in Prague, ministers from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all repeated their opposition to the idea of relocation. 

'It's blackmail, it's unacceptable and a non-European type of proposal from the (European) Commission,' Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after a meeting with his counterparts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland in Prague.

'The quota concept is a dead-end street and I would like to ask the Commission not to run into this dead-end street anymore.' 

 

Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski echoed Szijjarto, saying: 'I'm still wondering if it's a serious proposal, because it sounds like an idea announced on April Fool's Day.'

  

*****

 In earlier posts I used the example of being an individual who is giving to some friends who have less than me and feeling the difference between the ones who find a way to give back and those who may say Thank You but don't.

 

I will tell you the equivalent of what is happening here is the United States of America, especially in Southern California where we have 50,000 homeless (or more) and there is, first of all, no affordable housing.  Without a stable residence it is near impossible to hold a job. Yet we keep not addressing this problem of poverty among citizens and keep taking in new immigrants.  Granted some of these new immigrants have wealth they bring with them or can prove that their educations and employment history make them valuable to us, because there are not enough Americans available with equal offerings.  That means that there are many people from India coming in with advanced degrees in computer-related fields, scientists and doctors are always welcome.

Still, I would never think to show up in a foreign country and expect the people there to immediately accept me and support me.  THAT'S WHY LEGAL IMMIGRATION EXISTS, so that a country can access it's needs as well as how many people it can accommodate before people show up!

SLAVIA - A BIG PART OF THE WORLD UNITED? WHERE WOULD HUNGARY FIT? and THE WINTER OLYMPICS IN RUSSIA

This winter I didn't watch the OLYMPICS,  which was staged by Russia, at all.  I did listen to radio news and looked it up on the Internet quite a bit, but I didn't see a single televised performance. 

I thought some of the press wasn't fair at all.  So what if one of the flowers didn't open to become a ring?  Wasn't there a similar failure when Canada hosted?  Jokes about hotel rooms missing doorknobs and featuring two toilet seats in the bathrooms, so people who were used to outhouses could upgrade their mutual potty experience were everywhere.  THAT CERTAINLY WASN'T EVERY HOTEL, just evidence of a rush to finish some of the accommodations.

So much focus on what went WRONG when so much went RIGHT.

I thought it was terrific that Putin sat and watched some of the performances and made the scene there.  I thought it was terrific that royalty like Princess Anne of Great Britain and Prince Albert II and his wife Princess Charlene (another person the press should be kinder to) made the scene.  IT WAS TRULY INTERNATIONAL. It was a great opportunity for people from around the world to see another country, as all Olympics are.  This is one of the reasons various cities apply to be chosen as a HOSTING site!

We in the United States still haven't really shaken off memories or impressions from the COLD WAR ERA, but as the days went by, I became more interested and worried about what was happening in the Ukraine.  (I do have a few readers from somewhere in Ukraine and other parts of the Slavic world.)

This morning as I listened to very early morning talk radio I heard that there is speculation that the UKRAINE will split into an east and a west, one part going with Russia, the other part with Europe.

IT SEEMS THERE IS ALWAYS TURMOIL IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD.

Well, I also recently learned about a move to UNITE all Slavic speaking Countries.  I don't know where this would leave Hungary,  I think OUT, though it has historically had many Slavic people as well as German people within changing borders.

Not every person in these countries wants to be part of the EUROPEAN UNION.

MAYBE IT'S A GOOD IDEA?

First, the end of the various Slavic people fighting each other, economic cooperation, and a preservation of culture. 

I watched a number of YouTube videos and the idea is also to stop Russia.  Here is a link that is one of many I saw:  SLAVIALAND.ORG


C 2014 All Rights Reserved  MAGYAR AMERICAN Blog

VOICE OF AMERICA : EUROPEAN UNION SUES HUNGARY

I looked at a lot of articles about this issue which is International News and chose the Voice of America news which has video attached. The country battles bankruptcy and is getting more conservative.

2022  HERE IS A LINK TO VOICE OF AMERICA ENGLISH VERSION VOICE OF AMERICA English Version