Monthly Archives: September 2019

Poland will never accept migrant quotas: diplomat

Poland will never accept any EU plan to impose quotas of migrants, the country’s new ambassador to Italy has said, according to state news agency PAP.

In an interview published on Thursday in Italian daily “La Stampa”, Anna Maria Anders said that Poland could not be accused of racism because it opposed accepting migrants from countries which are distant in terms of culture and religion.

Neither could it be accused of nationalism simply because it was proud of its identity, she added.

Anders, who presented her credentials to Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday, added that the 2 million Ukrainians staying in Poland included people who had fled conflict zones, and they were integrating well into Polish society.

When asked whether there was a chance for an agreement between Poland and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Anders said that historically the political climate with Russia had always been difficult.

She also said that her father, who knew the Russians well, used to say that they could not be trusted.

Anna Maria Anders is the daughter of General Władysław Anders, who in 1944 led the 2nd Polish Corps to victory in Italy’s Monte Cassino, contributing to a major Allied victory over Nazi German forces.

(26. 9. 2019 via thenews.pl)

Conservative Kurz clear winner in Austrian election — Austrian Interior ministry

Sebastian Kurz has won Sunday’s snap parliamentary election and has several options for a coalition that will give his conservative People’s Party a stable majority, voting projections showed after the close of polls.

The 33-year-old, whose coalition with the far-right was ousted in June amid a scandal, has 38.4% of the vote — well ahead of the Social Democrats on 21.5%, the far-right Freedom Party on 17.3%, the Greens on 12.4% and the liberal Neos on 7.4%, according to Austria’s Interior ministry.
The full results, including around a million postal votes which are yet to be counted, are expected next week.

The country has been led by a caretaker government since June, when Kurz — Europe’s youngest chancellor — lost a confidence vote in the wake of the ‘Ibiza video’ scandal.

The video showed Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of the country’s far-right Freedom Party and Kurz’ coalition partner, attempting to sell off state assets to a fake Russian oligarch.

Kurz has said he will talk to all parties after the election if he wins. His two most likely options are either to ally with the Freedom Party again or with the Greens and liberal Neos. A centrist coalition with the Social Democrats is possible but unlikely under their current leadership.

(29. 9. 2019 via euronews.com)nr-wahl-ergebnis-oesterreich Parlamentswahl-in-Oesterreich

Hope for Trócsányi: EP to Hold Another Hearing on Monday

At Thursday’s hearing, the European Parliament’s legal committee (JURI) rejected the Hungarian government’s candidate for commissioner in charge of neighborhood policy and EU enlargement László Trócsányi, over concerns about potential conflicts of interest. However, it seems that it is still not a lost cause as it is likely that the hearing will be repeated on Monday. According to the information of Hungarian leftist daily Népszava, the President of the European Parliament asked the JURI committee to reconsider their decision on the Hungarian (and Romanian) candidate.

Yesterday, JURI established that there is a conflict of interest between Trócsányi’s candidacy for EU commissioner and his law firm Nagy and Trócsányi’s receiving of mandates from the Hungarian state, JURI vice-chairman Sergey Lagodinsky told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. Lagodinsky revealed that 11 members of the body voted against and 9 supported that the foreign affairs committee of the EP should hear Trócsányi.

However, following the hearing, spokesman for President David Sassoli wrote in a Twitter post that JURI will meet again Monday morning. According to Népszava, the written opinion of the commission on the two politicians, which was sent to the President of the EP, has not met the requirements because it did not clarify the concerns of MEPs and did not clearly formulate their proposals. According to the article, the vote on the incompatibility of the two candidates may be repeated on Monday.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday that the reason behind the JURI committee’s decision on Hungarian MEP László Trócsányi’s candidacy for EU commissioner because of a conflict of interest, was that the former justice minister had helped protect Hungary from migration.

(27. 9. 2019 via hungarytoday.hu)29691041_05db0e9d2096feab836e6de5c32cd49f_wm

Poland, Romania see eye to eye on energy, EU budget: PM

Poland and Romania see eye to eye on a range of regional and European issues including energy, the EU budget and infrastructure, the Polish prime minister said after talks in Bucharest on Wednesday.

Mateusz Morawiecki was speaking after the two countries held an intergovernmental meeting in the Romanian capital.

Morawiecki and some of his Cabinet ministers, including those for foreign affairs and defence, on Wednesday travelled to Bucharest for talks with Romanian government officials led by Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă.

Morawiecki told reporters at a news conference that he and the Romanian prime minister held “a very similar, if not uniform, view” on “virtually all issues” in terms of contemporary challenges.

Morawiecki said Poland was open to partnership and joint projects with Romania to ensure the security of gas supply in Central Europe.

He told the news conference that his country was busy building infrastructure to become a hub for the distribution of gas across the region.

“We are building an interconnector to Slovakia, via Hungary to Romania, to increase security in Central Europe as a whole,” Morawiecki said.

He also said that Poland and Romania were connected by infrastructure projects and that both countries had agreed to work together to address key challenges in Europe, such as climate policy, the EU budget, industrial policy and competitiveness.

Romania’s Dăncilă told reporters that Poland was a “close friend, strategic partner as well as a trustworthy ally” for her country, Poland’s PAP news agency reported.

(18. 9. 2019 via thenews.pl)

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‘Lack of ambition’: Green groups slam Germany’s new climate package

Germany’s governing parties agreed on a new climate protection deal worth more than €50 billion through until 2023.

But it will be budget neutral — meaning Berlin will not take on new debt to finance the package.

It aims to protect the climate and restore Germany’s green credentials but has received a lot of criticism from green groups who hoped changes would be more drastic.

The package aims to change consumers’ behaviour and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in their daily lives.

It includes a new price for CO2 emissions, bigger incentives for buying electric cars, higher road tolls for trucks from 2023, surcharges on domestic flights and plans to give more money to rail operator Deutsche Bahn.
Changes to the carbon price

Germany will introduce a carbon price for transport and heating in buildings from 2021, starting at ten euros a tonne. It will double to €20 in 2022 and increase five euros a tonne each year to reach €35 in 2025.

This means that car drivers will have to pay a surcharge for gasoline and diesel of up to €0.12 per litre.

The proceeds from the new pricing system will be re-invested in climate protection or given back to citizens.

More incentives to go green
The deal also proposes more incentives for citizens to go green by reducing an existing surcharge from 2021, which consumers pay through their electricity bill to support the expansion of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

People living in rural areas without access to public transport to go to work will get a higher premium to cushion the effects of higher gasoline prices.

Germany will also extend car tax exemptions for electric car buyers until 2025 and raise cash incentives for investing in the vehicles.

With the purchase of more electric vehicles, comes investing in more power stations to charge them up. The government aims to make available over one million charging stations for e-cars by 2030.

Germany’s state-owned Deutsche Bahn railway operator will receive additional capital of one billion euros per year until 2030 to improve their services.

The VAT on train tickets will also be reduced by 12% to make rail trips more affordable.

As for plane tickets, a surcharge will be added to them but the details of this still need to be hammered out.

Berlin wants to double the road toll for trucks starting from 2023 and increase the car tax for highly polluting vehicles from 2021.

Criticism from environmental groups

However environmental groups were not very happy with the plan, blaming a “lack of ambition” from Berlin.

“This mixture of despondency, postponement, and failure is not an acceptable result,” said Christoph Heinrich of the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“Our government totally ignores the 1.5 degree Celsius target,” tweeted the Fridays for Future movement in Germany.

Greens lawmaker Lisa Badum called the plan “a capitulation”.

(21. 9. 2019 via euronews.com)

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Orbán in Italy: Christian Democratic State Has Been Built in Hungary

Hungary has in recent years postulated a political and state model: it has constructed a Christian democratic state, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a meeting of the national-conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) party in Rome on Saturday.

This model works and is successful, Orbán said. The political success is obvious: Hungary’s governing alliance has won three parliamentary elections in a row with a two-thirds majority, and there have also been economic achievements, he added.

He said the model rests on three pillars: the family, the nation and Christian freedom. The base for this model is the new Christian constitution approved in 2011, he added.

Orbán said a family is a union between a man and a woman, adding that every child has the right to a father and a mother.

He acknowledged steps Hungary’s government has taken to support families, but said there are still too few children being born. If we don’t do something to counter the negative demographic trend, it will never change, he added.

Orbán said he could not support any policy that aims to replace the children who aren’t being born with migrants.

He said nations are supreme and cannot be forced under the laws of any kind of global government. That is an irreplaceable value which must be defended, he added.

Only we can say who can stay in the area of our state, Orbán said. Everywhere else in the world, the nation is defended, but not in Europe, and that must be changed, he added.

Orbán explained Christian freedom as the right to defend one’s Christian way of life, adding that the new European Commission president wants to establish a new portfolio for the defence of the European way of life.

We are in the minority in the European political elite, but in the majority among nations and people, Orbán said. Our opposition is big, rich, strong and well organised, thus we must fight an unjustly difficult battle for what is right.

Hungary is prepared to help Italy, where it can; thus, if the country finally commits to protecting its borders, we will help to that end as well as to return migrants already in Italy back home, Orbán said.

In his remarks, Orbán responded to Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who said earlier at the event that the Visegrad Group – Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia – had not assisted Italy in the area of migration policy.

Orbán said Hungary cannot help if Italy brings into its territory migrants from anywhere.

He said that a number of Western European leaders believe that allowing in masses of migrants who are different from the Christian majority will create a new society from the mix, a society that is of a higher quality. Central Europe does not think along these lines, because integration will not come of this: they will not live together, but apart, he added.

European unity stands before a great test, the cause of which is migration, Orbán said. There are countries in which migration was successful, and part of their populations no longer belongs to Christian culture, thus they think they know how two entirely different cultures can live together in one country. For other European countries, among them Hungary, there are no Muslim migrants, and they are working to see that such a dilemma of co-existence never has to be weighed, he added.

Every people has the right to decide with whom they want to live together, and if a people decides they don’t want to be a multicultural society, they have that right in a democracy, Orbán said.

Orbán said it was clear from the start of the migrant crisis that nine out of ten migrants were not refugees but economic migrants. But the left wing uses migration in the service of an intellectual concept, the aim of which is for Europe to shed its national and Christian lifestyle and cross over into the post-Christian era, he added.

The left wing has a vested interest in migration, because when migrants come, votes for the left wing are imported, Orbán said. They think that migrants will never support politics that rest on Christian foundations, and if a lot come, it will reduce or even eliminate the chance that Christian-based politics can gain a majority in Europe, he explained.

Orbán said left-wing politicians’ desire to bring in migrants is evidenced by the renewed inclusion on the agenda of the issue of migrant quotas.

He said Hungary’s firm stand on migration in Brussels is the reason for pressuring the country and exercising a campaign of vengeance against it. If Hungary should take in migrants, problems pertaining to the rule of law would no longer be an issue, he added.

He pointed to “exciting times” in national politics with the approaching elections in Austria and Poland, as well as local council elections in Hungary. We expect Italy to “return to the club”, too, he added.

Orbán said it is worth remembering that what made Europe great was establishing a way of life in which people work for themselves, for the good of their country and for the glory of God. A modern form of this calling needs to be found for Europe to become great again, he added.

(23. 9. 2019 via hungarytoday.hu)

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Austria to grant citizenship to descendants of victims of Nazism

Descendants of victims of Nazism who fled the country under Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich will now be eligible for citizenship under a new law voted on Thursday by Austria’s parliament.

So far only Holocaust survivors themselves could obtain Austrian nationality.

MPs voted by a broad majority for new legislation proposed by Sebastian Kurz’s conservative-far-right coalition government before it was deposed in a corruption scandal in May.

Under the new law, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who fled the Nazis can apply for citizenship.

Descendants of nationals from other countries of the defunct Austro-Hungarian empire are also eligible.

Vienna’s Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch welcomed “a decision that puts Austria in line with its historic responsibility”.

Kurz’s People’s Party made several diplomatic gestures to Israel in the 18 months it governed together with junior coalition partner, the far-right Freedom Party. Both parties are engaged in a campaign for national elections on September 29.

Under a special regime, Vienna, which does not normally recognise dual citizenship, will grant passports without the need to reside in Austria or give up a previous nationality.

Austrian officials said second and third-generation relatives, particularly those with British nationality, had expressed interest in applying for citizenship of the EU country as Brexit looms.

(20. 9. 2019 via euronews.com)

Polish, US presidents set to sign defence deal

Polish President Andrzej Duda and US leader Donald Trump are expected to sign a military agreement on locations for more American troops in Poland when they meet in New York on Monday.

Krzysztof Szczerski, chief of staff to the Polish president, said last week that Duda and Trump would sign off on the agreement during bilateral talks on the sidelines of a United Nations gathering in New York.

Szczerski told public broadcaster Polish Radio on Friday that the two presidents were originally scheduled to ink the document in Warsaw earlier this month during a visit by Trump for events to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II.

But Trump cancelled his planned trip to Poland at the last minute, saying he needed to stay and monitor Hurricane Dorian as it approached the southern US state of Florida.

Szczerski told Polish Radio that the planned meeting of the two presidents in New York on Monday would include “face-to-face and plenary talks.”

He added that the Polish foreign and defence ministers would also take part in the talks.

The Polish head of state is in the United States on a five-day visit during which he is scheduled to attend a UN climate summit, take part in a high-level debate on religious freedom and address a session of the UN General Assembly.

The Polish presidential couple on Sunday attended a religious service and met with Polish Americans in New Britain, Connecticut.

The United States pledged to deploy around 1,000 extra troops to Poland, a staunch military ally fearful of Russia, under a declaration signed by the Polish and US presidents at the White House in June.

Around 4,500 rotating American troops are already stationed in the country on average as part of a NATO force.

(23. 9. 2019 via thenews.pl)

Polish President Andrzej Duda (R) and US President Donald Trump hold a joint press conference at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, July 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Polish President Andrzej Duda (R) and US President Donald Trump hold a joint press conference at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, July 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Trócsányi Would Get Desired Enlargement Portfolio in EC

Hungarian nominee, László Trócsányi would get the European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations portfolio in the newly-formed European Commission, EC leader Ursula von der Leyen’s announced on Tuesday.

Although it has been long supposed, that PM Viktor Orbán lobbied at von der Leyen for this portfolio and that EC’s new leader would please middle and Eastern European countries in exchange for their support, this still comes as a surprise, as most predictions forecasted von der Leyen to allocate either the Humanitarian Aid & Crisis Management or the International Cooperation & Development portfolio for him.

Speaking at a press conference, Von der Leyen said Hungary’s objectives “are clear regarding the integration of the Western Balkans, which are in line with the those of the new European Commission”. The integration of those countries will be a focal point of the new EC’s work, she said adding that “I think Hungary is the country that will precisely cooperate accordingly”.

Commissioner-nominees will be heard by the relevant European Parliament committees in September, while the voting on the new Commission is planned for October. MEPs vote about the whole Commission at once. Some still suppose that due to the Hungarian government’s debated actions and stances, Trócsányi might have a hard time at the hearings and at the vote.

(10. 9. 2019 via hungarytoday.hu)

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Orbán Expects ‘Hot Moments’ On EC-nominee Trócsányi’s Hearing

In László Trócsányi, Hungary nominated an excellent man as its European commissioner, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday.

In his regular interview to Kossuth Radio, the prime minister said his critics could at best claim from their point of view that Trócsányi came from “the wrong place because he is Hungarian”. “But we are so many of us Hungarian that we cannot accept this objection,” he added.

Commenting on the importance the EU’s neighbourhood and enlargement policy, he noted that Trócsányi’s duties would cover relations with the Western Balkans, Ukraine, the Caucasus and north Africa, which, he added, were all important from the point of view of migration.

Orbán said that in the course of Trócsányi’s European parliamentary hearing “further hot moments” were expected, but his personal aptitude was the key issue. He praised Trócsányi’s “intellectual ability” and noted Trócsányi’s achievements such as his many years of experience in the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters.

Orbán said that trends in diplomacy in recent months had been good for Hungary’s national interests. He said Visegrad countries had strengthened and the IMF was on course to be led by a Bulgarian, he said.

Commenting on EU enlargement, he said western Europe had tired of it and explained away their own political and economic failure by blaming it on the previous round of enlargement. Had the EU integrated Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, illegal migrants would not have reached Germany in 2015, he argued, adding that he sought to convince EU leaders of the importance of enlargement, noting a joint statement by the Visegrad group’s prime ministers at their recent Prague summit in its favour.

Commenting on the post of commissioner for the protection of the European way of life, Orbán said it was “sad” that some people were attacking the portfolio. The chief responsibility of every politician, he insisted, was to protect people’s way of life. He added that the debate was over nature of migration and most Europeans saw it as a threat.

Asked about outgoing commission president Jean-Claude Juncker’s description of Orbán in a recent interview as a nationalist rather than a European politician, Orbán said: “I’m European because I’m Hungarian; if I were not Hungarian I wouldn’t be able to be European.” The EU, he added, must be built on nations, their identities and their pride.

He said the starting point of Hungary’s strategy was to create stability, and this involved strengthening the Visegrad Group and its strong relationship with other neighboring countries. Further, alliances must be made with “old” EU member states in order to achieve goals such as border protection. Austria, he added, had been just such a country and “hopefully after the Austrian election the old situation will be restored”.

He said Italy was also a key player in protecting the bloc’s maritime borders. He said Matteo Salvini, the former interior minister, was “a great friend of Hungary” who had been forced out of his position, but his absence was keenly felt since Italy had returned to “a dangerous leftist policy of taking in migrants and demanding their relocation”.

Asked about graft in Hungary, Orbán said that “if there were corruption there would be no economic development”. He added that whereas “corruption is everywhere”, the problem was not decisive.

On family policy, the prime minister said he was considering the details of a second and third family protection action plan.

(13. 9. 2019 via hungarytoday.hu)