Hungarian Politics

[Sheilbh]

The newly appointed Chief of Staff of the Hungarian armed forces explained in an interview that regarding the government's "efforts for peace" people should consider Germany's invasion of Poland as an example. That "began as a local conflict" but because "nobody was willing to step up for peace" it "escalated into a global conflict".

On his terms, Molotov and Ribbentrop were making terrific efforts for peace

[viper37]

The newly appointed Chief of Staff of the Hungarian armed forces explained in an interview that regarding the government's "efforts for peace" people should consider Germany's invasion of Poland as an example. That "began as a local conflict" but because "nobody was willing to step up for peace" it "escalated into a global conflict".

You got to find it depressing, even if you don't live in the country anymore.

When you talk to friends and family still in the country, do they drink the cool-aid, or are they simply cautious about what they say?

[Tamas]

A friend or two are lukewarm on Ukraine but the rest are as pro-Ukraine and anti-Fidesz as I am.

[Sheilbh]

Fairly robust response from Poland's ambassador, I understand the Hungarian ambassador to Poland has now apologised for the comment:

Szabolcs Panyi
@panyiszabolcs
Polish Ambassador to Hungary @SebastianKeciek protested in a letter to Gábor Böröndi, the Chief of the Hungarian Defence Forces General Staff:

"Dear General,

I was very surprised to read your statement regarding Poland made on May 9 this year in an interview with the state-run television news channel M1, in which the aggression of Nazi Germany against Poland in 1939 was called a "local war" that would not have escalated into World War II if peace talks had taken place early enough.
 
These words, which could be interpreted as an accusation of my country's escalation and complicity in causing a global conflict, are an unacceptable distortion of history for us and should not come from anyone's mouth, especially from the mouth of a representative of a country that is our close ally.

The outbreak of World War II was not brought about by the lack of peace talks with the aggressor, but by the policy of appeasement and concession to the successive demands of the Third Reich. Under the secret Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin divided spheres of influence and thus planned the partition of Poland. In accordance with this agreement, the troops of the Third Reich committed armed, unprovoked aggression against Poland on September 1, 1939, while on September 17 the defending Poland was attacked from the east by the troops of the Red Army - thus began the exodus of Poles, which lasted almost 6 years and claimed the lives of 6 million Polish citizens.

We must not allow the wrong-headed interchanging of victim with torturer. Poland was an indisputable victim of the criminal and planned actions of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, and consequently of their allies.

Today, in the face of Russia's full-scale, unprovoked and illegal aggression against Ukraine, Europe should learn the lessons of World War II and stand in solidarity on the right side of history, on the side of the victim, not the aggressor. Only in this way can we bring about lasting peace in Europe. History should not be used to undermine our unity.
 
Let me take this opportunity to remind you, Mr. General, that Hungary in 1939, while formally in alliance with Germany, refused to help Berlin attack Poland. The then prime minister of the government of the Kingdom of Hungary, Count Pal Teleki, said: "I would sooner blow up our railroads than take part in an invasion of Poland." This reaction of a Hungarian politician will never be forgotten."

Polish source: https://gov.pl/web/wegry/list

[Admiral Yi]

Bravo

[Tamas]

The Hungarian President (biological rubber stamping machine), in an effort to get the edge off of this, said historical debates should be left for historians.

It's funny how they don't realise the traumatic nature of WW2 for Poland.

[Jacob]

I am unconvinced by the Hungarian President's argument.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting lengthy piece on the breakdown of Hungarian-Polish relations which seems largely sourced from the Polish side - and includes an appearance by the President:
https://vsquare.org/orban-kaczynski-novak-morawiecki-poland-hungary-russia-war-ukraine/

[Tamas]

One interesting -albeit I guess not really surprising- aspect of the Orban era is that while his oligarchs and lieutenants have received a carte blanche to rob EU, state, and local budgets dry -as long as they pay tribute to the monarch via a chain of feudal lords-, tax avoidance in the general economy has been made very hard, and modern technology has been introduced with surprising speed and efficiency to serve this goal.

Wireless connection of cash registers into tax authority servers has been introduced about a decade ago, resulting in clear improvement in tax income, and I was just reading that the next step will be street food vendors - they'll need to use an application to manage orders which will feed information real-time into tax authority servers.

Needless to say, while I am not against fighting tax avoidance, it is rather disgusting how on the top embezzlement and corruption is endemic (or as one pro-government journalist famously put it some years ago "what you call corruption is the very core idea behind this system"), but if you are a small-timer outside of the feudal network, you are squeezed for every last penny they can get out of you.

[Tamas]

An interesting recent thing is an apparent push by the government to have multiple large battery-making factories be build by foreign (and by that I mean Chinese) companies.

There have been protests and quite a bit of unrest about one the last couple of months (at the eastern parts, next to Debrecen) and as I understand the second one in largely the same area has also been approved.

This Debrecen one pissed the locals off (who in some way deserve it because they have been a staunch Fidesz bastion for 20 years now) because it is going to be a massive hit on the local water system and reserves. Essentially, as I understand, these factories have massive water requirements, and the area does not have excess water to spare, quite the very contrary. Analysts expect a major negative environmental impact from the huge factory. But, as it is normal in this regime, they are being ignored.

With Orban, it is impossible to say if he has a "strategic vision" of turning Hungary into a European center for EV batteries or -far more likely- the Chinese have a strategic vision of turning Hungary into their European center for EV battery assembly and storage and they are bribing Orban to achieve that goal.

EDIT: and the stats around this are indicative of general problems with treating EVs as the solution to climate change. The planned factory will have to use gas power for its massive energy needs, it is estimated that the factory will on its own produce double of what the city of Debrecen planned to be its total emissions by 2030.

[Josquius]

As mentioned elsewhere it is a curious trend that the hard right is shifting away from insisting climate change isn't real to insisting on electric cars as the one size fits all solution.
That there's serious money to be made behind this explains much.

Iirc isn't Slovakia the major place there abouts for the car industry at the moment? Not totally impossible Hungary could be in with a shout.

[Tamas]

As mentioned elsewhere it is a curious trend that the hard right is shifting away from insisting climate change isn't real to insisting on electric cars as the one size fits all solution.
That there's serious money to be made behind this explains much.

Iirc isn't Slovakia the major place there abouts for the car industry at the moment? Not totally impossible Hungary could be in with a shout.

Slovakia could have a bigger car industry relative to its size but German car makers (plus Suzuki who has had a big factory there since the 90s) are a massive thing in Hungary as well. Essentially the economy goes the way of the German car industry.

So you could see why one would think getting in early and big on becoming the polluted industrial wasteland of the EV-era makes sense. Then again Orban has absolutely no problem destroying the future of the country in so many different ways, it's hard to imagine strategic thinking is the main motivation here.

For many people in the country it gives memories (well, read memories for  most at this stage) of the forced heavy-industry focus of the 1950s. There are few countries in Europe less suited for heavy industry than post-WW1 Hungary. But it was the political directive, so it had to be done (well, attempted at least) no matter how utterly wasteful and expensive it was.

[Admiral Yi]

As mentioned elsewhere it is a curious trend that the hard right is shifting away from insisting climate change isn't real to insisting on electric cars as the one size fits all solution.
That there's serious money to be made behind this explains much.

Iirc isn't Slovakia the major place there abouts for the car industry at the moment? Not totally impossible Hungary could be in with a shout.

This is one of those times where I think you pulled this assertion straight from your ass.

[Josquius]

As mentioned elsewhere it is a curious trend that the hard right is shifting away from insisting climate change isn't real to insisting on electric cars as the one size fits all solution.
That there's serious money to be made behind this explains much.

Iirc isn't Slovakia the major place there abouts for the car industry at the moment? Not totally impossible Hungary could be in with a shout.

This is one of those times where I think you pulled this assertion straight from your ass.

Not really. I briefly worked in the auto industry. I remember a lot of parts manufacturers having plants in Slovakia. I can't remember the specifics of the how and why.

[celedhring]

As mentioned elsewhere it is a curious trend that the hard right is shifting away from insisting climate change isn't real to insisting on electric cars as the one size fits all solution.
That there's serious money to be made behind this explains much.

Iirc isn't Slovakia the major place there abouts for the car industry at the moment? Not totally impossible Hungary could be in with a shout.

This is one of those times where I think you pulled this assertion straight from your ass.

Not really. I briefly worked in the auto industry. I remember a lot of parts manufacturers having plants in Slovakia. I can't remember the specifics of the how and why.

CEE as a whole were saw a lot of auto plants built there in the 2010s, I assume it's still the case. They have cheaper labor than Western Europe and are part of the Single Market.