Latest news with #centralEuropeans
Budapest Times
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Bóka: Hungary did not join EU to abandon national interests and adopt a federalist plan
János Bóka said Visegrad cooperation "is important and still viable" as a countervailing force. János Bóka, the EU affairs minister, told a Visegrad Group event on Monday that Hungary did not join the European Union to abandon its national interests and adopt a federalist plan. In his speech opening this year's V4 Diplomacy Academy at the National University of Public Service (NKE) in Budapest, Bóka said that contrary to paying obeisance to the Robert Schumann model based on the German-French reconciliation and the duo's dominance of Europe, central Europeans wanted to reunite Europe by joining the bloc in 2004 and shaping legislation that determines European life. But, he said, now the forces of centralisation were in conflict with the idea of cooperation between sovereign member states. Central Europe's historical experiences differed from those of Western Europe, where the prevailing fear was that nationalism led to wars, he said, adding that national sentiment and the nation state 'are positive concepts in central Europe,' which ensured survival against dictatorship. The minister said the current EU bureaucracy had become a political actor and was trying to govern Europe in an increasingly politicised way. Some decisions, he added, were based on satisfying the interests of left-wing forces that derive their ideology from the events of 1968. Visegrad cooperation 'is important and still viable' as a countervailing force, he said, adding that the V4 could still play an important role in better enforcing their interests, despite the differences between its member states.
South China Morning Post
02-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Western media ignore crackdown on opposition in Taiwan by Lai
The Western news media have gone out of their way to report on every mass protest against the governments in Hungary and Serbia. But when there was a huge rally against the government in Taiwan, there was not a word. Advertisement The lack of reporting last week was positively wilful, considering tens of thousands took to the streets of Taipei as part of an opposition rally against the island's president, William Lai Ching-te, and his increasingly, unpopular Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The issues that prompted the mass rallies in all three places are quite similar – the use of legislative or judicial means to cripple the opposition in a system of government that either is, or is moving towards, what political scientists call illiberal democracy. You can understand why, though. Those recalcitrant central Europeans have been very naughty so far as the European Union is concerned. Viktor Orban of Hungary has long been a thorn in the side of Brussels. The EU has effectively blocked Serbia's application to become a member state because it has refused to join the pan-European sanctions against Russia. So those governments are put under a microscope, but their opposition is put on a pedestal. Advertisement Talk about double standards. In Taiwan, the opposition has been targeted since the pro-American and independence-seeking DPP lost its majority in the legislature. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT), which helped organise the latest mass protests, claimed more than 200,000 people took part. Police reported about 60,000.
