Népszabadság accuses the Constitutional Court of cowardice for failing to rule, at its final session of the year, on complaints over the de facto nationalisation of the compulsory private pension funds. READ MORE
A leading right-wing commentator and long time critic of US policies calls upon the Hungarian Foreign Ministry to return American criticism of Hungary’s pivotal laws in kind. READ MORE
During its first year in government Fidesz has passed an unprecedented number of bills, at record speed. One analyst, coming from the political centre, believes that driving like this may prove self-destructive. READ MORE
The end of Hungary’s EU presidency, PM Viktor Orbán’s presentation of its achievements, and the demand from the European Parliament for Hungary to revise the new constitution provoke mixed reactions in the Hungarian press. READ MORE
Two board members of the think tank set up by the last left wing Prime Minister argue for a compromise between right and left in Hungary over the controversial new Constitution. READ MORE
Striking differences were apparent in the press coverage of the visits of two US Secretaries of State to Budapest. Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice came to unveil the monument to Ronald Reagan, while her successor, Hillary Clinton spoke at the opening ceremony of the Tom Lantos Institute. READ MORE
The leading left wing daily Népszabadság criticises Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for enshrining his economic policy in so called “cardinal acts”, and denounces his decision to finance Hungary’s debt-servicing from the financial markets, rather than negotiating with the IMF. READ MORE
As public expenditure cuts spark protests among more and more categories of employees, including teachers, doctors, bus drivers and locomotive drivers, a pro-government commentator suspects that the protesting policemen are politically motivated. READ MORE
Heti Válasz carries an angry reaction by András Stumpf to comments by the veteran Hungarian-Austrian columnist Paul Lendvai in the Vienna Standard, on the dismissal of the director of the Budapest Holocaust Memorial Centre. READ MORE
„Viktor Orbán must fall” philosopher János Kis tells the leftist weekly 168 Óra, “before the new Constitution can be repaired”. Kis, now a professor at the Central European University in Budapest, was a respected dissident leader during the last decade of communism in Hungary, then founding president of the liberal Party of Free Democrats in 1988. He left his party in 2002 but remains an undisputed authority among left wing liberals. READ MORE