Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is on a working visit to Hungary as part of traveling the member states of the European Union on the occasion that Ireland is due to take over the rotating Presidency of the EU as of January 1, 2013.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that the radical lowering of the retirement age for Hungarian judges constitutes unjustified discrimination on grounds of age. The Hungarian Constitutional Court already deemed this law unconstitutional in July this year.

The President of the Hungary-Japan Economic Club, Sándor Kiss, has been involved in bilateral relations for three decades. In the Japanese Focusof the a recent issue of Diplomacy & Trade, he talked about the past and present of these relations.

The Houston's International Quilt Festival in Texas features – among others – the exquisite artistry of the Hungarian quilts, a 16-piece exhibit of Hungarian blue-dyed fabrics and folk-art motifs in the first days of November in the George R. Brown Convention Center.

In agreement with the analyst consensus, the government appointed rate-setters of National Bank of Hungary continued the easing cycle with another 25 basis point rate cut this week, lowering the benchmark interest rate to 6.25%.

Hungarian Parliament has approved new legislation to terminate the monopoly of national service provider Magyar Posta. The move removes the last obstacle in the way of opening the market in its entirety to privately owned companies.

A recent issue of Diplomacy & Trade carried an interview with the Japanese Ambassador to Hungary, Tetsuo Ito who looked at the various aspects of relations between the two countries. He has since left Hungary with his term expiring here.

The Hungarian government has decided - following coordination with NATO - that the Pápa air base in northwestern Hungary will be upgraded into an intermodal logistics hub that will be suitable for receiving both military and civilian aircraft.

Hankook will expand its Hungarian facility in an over HUF 2.4 billion (EUR 8.7 m) investment project, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), setting up a new production hall for a new compound mixing unit to increase effectiveness.

Hungarian economics minister György Matolcsy announced a new set of measures to keep the budget deficit on track as the European Union has signalled to them that the first package is not sufficient to fill the hole in the 2013 budget.

The sovereign debt crisis in Europe is having a negative impact on even non-eurozone countries like Hungary, but that does not diminish the need for Budapest to introduce the euro, Hungarian National Bank Governor András Simor said in Tokyo on Sunday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel received Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Berlin. At a press conference afterwards, the Chancellor said it was understandable why Hungary is not concerned with the issue of euro adoption at the moment.

Hungary’s industrial production rose by 2.6% month on month in August, according to data adjusted seasonally and by working days, the Central Statistics Office (KSH) has reported on Friday. This comes after a 1.2% decline in July.

Hungary and Romania are keen to continue and strengthen bilateral partnership cooperation. That is according to Hungarian Foreign Minister János Martonyi who met with his Romanian counterpart Titus Corlatean in Budapest this Monday.

In the summer issue of Diplomacy & Trade, the contributor to the WittyLeaks section of the publication was the Spanish ambasador, Enrique Pastor de Gana who wrote a piece on Hungarian-Spanish football relations from a personal experience.