The EU sets vague conditions for credit talks

The main pro-government daily describes the attitude of the European Commission towards Hungary as nonsensical, for it releases only vague statements on what conditions Hungary should fulfil in order to be judged fit to start negotiations with the IMF on a long awaited credit line agreement. According to the biggest left-wing newspaper, on the other hand, the real problem is that Brussels has no trust in Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. READ MORE

Remembering József Antall

A moderate right-wing columnist and a renowned sociologist believe that the former Prime Minister – who would have turned 80 this weekend – was the last old style Hungarian gentleman, while a liberal author remembers him as a dull speaker and a basically inept politician. READ MORE

Budapest Pride denied permission

Left-wing commentators criticise the police for denying permission for the annual LGBT march in Budapest. They believe that the police by doing so is violating basic human rights. One speculates that the conservative government wants to make sure no gays appear in public. READ MORE

The Hungarian government should quarrel less and demand more

A left-wing economist calls upon the government to ask for more complex international financial assistance rather than bargaining so hard over the preconditions.

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Schmitt leaves a controversy behind

Columnists draw conflicting conclusions from President Pál Schmitt’s resignation. READ MORE

President clings to his seat

Whatever their political affiliations, Hungary’s daily newspapers are united in regretting  President Pál Schmitt’s refusal to resign, despite being stripped of his doctoral title by the Semmelweis University in Budapest. READ MORE

President misses opportunity to save his dignity

The two leading dailies contend that President Pál Schmitt should have resigned after a fact-finding committee identified academic dishonesty in his doctoral thesis. A left-wing analyst, on the other hand, hopes that Schmitt will stay in office to remind Hungarians of the moral bankruptcy of the Orbán government. READ MORE

President’s thesis mostly copied

Commentators from across the political spectrum are trying to make sense of a report released by the fact-finding committee investigating whether President Pál Schmitt was guilty of plagiarism in his 1992 doctoral thesis. Commentators from both the right and the left believe that the President should step down. READ MORE

Europe vs. Hungary – a clash of interests or principles?

A right-wing columnist accuses the European left of attacking the Hungarian government in order to restore the credibility of their battered ideological fellows within Hungary. A left-wing analyst, on the other hand, finds that Western criticism is only aimed at defending basic European values. READ MORE

Lessons of the Slovak elections

Commentators seem to agree that Hungarians in Slovakia are among the losers of the Parliamentary election there. Some blame what they call the Orbán government’s wrong-headed cross-border policies; others believe the new inter-ethnic party is at fault. READ MORE