With only 43% of those eligible to vote, the governing party Fidesz won the most mayoral positions and local government seats at Sunday's municipal elections on Sunday. In Budapest, István Tarlós retained his mayoral position against a fragmented opposition.
8.170.413 people are eligible to vote in 3.177 settlements (including 169 towns with over 10.000 inhabitants) at this Sunday’s municipal elections in Hungary. In Budapest, mayor István Tarlós is challenged by four candidates.
On the occasion that Italy is at the helm of the European Union as the current holder of the rotating presidency, the Italian ambassador to Hungary, Maria Assunta Accili Sabbatini has given an interview published in a recent issue of Diplomacy & Trade.
Flame Spray Hungary, an Italian-owned company engaged primarily in applying special coating on gas turbine and aircraft engine parts, has inaugurated a new 3,000-sqm hall, built with an investment of HUF 500 million, at its base in Szada, east of Budapest.
Another edition of Csodalámpa Wish Granting Foundation’s cooking course took place recently with a special, pizza-making program, this time at Symbol House, to, as usual, grant a wish for a seriously ill child. This time a cooking project also took place.
European Parliament’s Culture Committee rejected the nomination of Hungarian candidate Tibor Navracsics as the new EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Citizenship due to his record in a government accused of curbing civic rights.
Géza Jeszenszky has resigned as the Hungarian ambassador to Norway. The website hvg.hu suspects Jeszenszky quit as he had enough of explaining the Hungarian government’s hostile attitude towards NGOs distributing Norway Grant funds.
The Diplomacy & Trade Club held the presentation of Diplomacy & Trade’s recent country focus on The Netherlands. The speaker of the evening was the head of Transparency International Hungary, József Péter Martin talking about corruption in Hungary.
The number of new car registrations continued to rise in Hungary by 18% year on year in September. The favorable picture is slightly overshadowed by the fact that the market remains driven by company purchases and re-export, and not private buyers.
The Hungarian Ministry of Interior says it has banned a conference US-based extremist and nationalist international ‘white supremacy’ organization, the National Policy Institute (NPI), is to organize in the Hungarian capital together with Russian radical figures.
Two important development projects to give a better insight into the world's flora and fauna are under way in Hungary's largest zoo, the one in the northeastern town of Nyíregyháza. The projects are mainly financed by the European Union from development funds.
U.S. President Barack Obama pledged expanded support for society groups and "embattled NGOs" at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, mentioning Hungary as one of the countries where the civil society is increasingly the subject of intimidation.
Exit from Hungary is not on Raiffeisen’s agenda. CEO Heinz Wiedner told a newspaper that Raiffeisen Hungary was profitable in every business segment in the first half of the year, but still incurred serious losses due to government measures.
Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Tibor Navracsics submitted his resignation to President János Áder and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. the latter already nominated his former spokesperson Péter Szijjártó, now deputy FM, as the new minister.
Several diplomats accredited to Budapest participated - together with winemakers from the Balaton region - in a grape harvest organized by the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture in Tihany on the northern shore of Lake Balaton, one of the wine regions of the country.
