Hungary will regulate fast food restaurants, if the Parliament in Budapest passes the bill tabled by János Lázár, the Fidesz floor leader. According to the text of the draft, restaurants offering unhealthy foods with a high fat and sugar content would have to build playgrounds nearby in return, and could only offer kids’ menus with toy presents, if they have a reduced fat content. 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
On Thursday (2 June) rumours circulated on the internet that the government was planning to nationalize those private bank deposits which exceed 2 million forints, in order to cut the deficit. Although the rumours proved to be false, left-wing commentators point to the first reactions as proof that people do not trust the government. READ MORE
On the first anniversary of the establishment of the Orbán government, pundits and politicians weigh in to assess the centre-right government’s performance so far, and to outline the possible government strategies of the coming years. 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
“Viktor Orbán has lost his marbles”, according to Zsolt Gréczy, an aid to former Socialist Premier Ferenc Gyurcsány. In his blog on Stop.hu he accuses the Prime Minister of having instructed the Chief Prosecutor to ask Parliament to suspend Mr Gyurcsány’s immunity. READ MORE
Hungary after the elections
The April parliamentary elections resulted in a sweeping victory for the right-wing parties. Center right Fidesz secured an absolute majority, and, while left-wing parties suffered an unprecedented blow, the extreme right-wing Jobbik got into Parliament with 16,7 percent of the popular vote. How will Fidesz govern after the landslide victory? Will it weaken democratic institutions by introducing authoritarian measures, or will it start painful and supposedly unpopular structural reforms? Does Fidesz see the extreme right an ally as some left wing liberal intellectuals fear, or will it face the radical challenge by moving to the center? READ MORE