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.

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.

Germany, the German Embassy in Hungary and the German-Hungarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce have placed posters all over Hungary to say ‘Danke’ for Hungary opening its Western border before East German refugees 25 years ago.

The Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affaires and Trade, Tibor Navracsics stated at the Bled Strategic Forum that while the European Union wants an ever closer union, the Visegrád Group has more modest ambitions yet a high level of cooperation.

Speaking at the annual ambassadors' conference at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, Hungarian Minister of Justice László Trócsányi has called on the country's diplomats to stave off criticism of areas such as Hungary’s judicial system with suitable arguments.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stressed the importance of forging ties between foreign and Hungarian businesses at the annual conference for the country’s top diplomats in the Hungarian Foreign Ministry on Monday.

At the 25th anniversary of the dismantling of the Iron Curtain, Gergely Prõhle of the Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities said that freedom consists in small, practical things and depends on how common paths are built, what kind of joint cultural events are organized.

“There is an extensive presence of Dutch companies in this country and they require the attention of our Embassy,” the Dutch Ambassador in Budapest, Gajus Scheltema explains in a comprehensive interview in a recent issue of Diplomacy & Trade.

The Diplomacy & Trade Club ('The Club') presented its recent country focus supplement on Norway at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador to Hungary, Tove Skarstein Wednesday evening with with diplomats, businesspeople attending.

Getting to know birds and people - this is the slogan for Dutch Ambassador Gajus Scheltema who arrived to Hungary les than a year ago. For the Witty Leaks section of Diplomacy & Trade, he wrote a piece on how he took up bird watching as a hobby.

The 25th anniversary of the dismantling of the Iron Curtain was celebrated near Sopron, NW Hungary, where the barbed wire was cut in 1989 to begin the demolition of the closed border. This symbolic gesture is remembered today by a memorial stone.

The Diplomacy & Trade Business Club (The Club) held a special session in the Gundel restaurant in Budapest as diplomats said farewell to János Martonyi who finished his second term as Hungary's foreign minister earlier this month.

“The main reason for Norway to maintain an embassy in Budapest is because both countries are members of NATO – something very important today in the light of the Ukrainian situation," Norwegian Ambassador Tove Skarstein tells Diplomacy & Trade.