Portfolio blogger

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Update on "Future in the past" (about a dentist)

In a previous post I wrote about the benefits the Orbán-government is giving the dentist of the Orbán family. Now, a new information was published by HVG:
All dentists who want to receive EU money have to register (and pay) to the Development Office for Hungarian Dental Tourism which is established and managed among others by the dentist of the Orbán Family again. Will the European Union recover its memories?

Friday, January 20, 2012

Articles in European Voice - MTI bent the truth again

The official Hungarian news agency (you know, the one which is giving away the news for free and thus killed all independent agencies in the country) published that European Voice had an article of the Hungarian minister of foreign affairs justifying government policies and showing how unjust criticism is.
What they forgot is that there were three other articles: one just about the introduction of the infringement procedure by the European Commission , one about the deficit and finally one one from the eastern European correspondent of the Economist . This latter had arguments for both parts, but squarely showed how unjustified the paranoia of the FIDESZ and the government is, in particular the notion that western politicians and journalists are only informed by the liberals and the left in Hungary and have no first hand information (besides confirming that the Economist is not run by the Jews - how could this journalist have this thought, I do not understand - and is not serving the financial oligarchs - he did not think necessary to underline that neither is the Economist left wing, he also told that the two journalists they have in Hungary both speak Hungarian. It can happen, that some of these articles will not be readable without subscription, but I think some will be freely available a week after publication which must be over now.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Pessimism

The survey of Workmonitor Randstad shows that in 21 of the 30 participating countries, workers expect to earn more in 2012 than in 2011. Exceptions: The Czech Republic, France, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, Greece end of course Hungary.

The Economist Intelligence Unit found that Hungary is a "flawed democracy" and is 6 ranks behind its position last year.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Turmix - mixture

Income per agriculture worker has increased 41.8% from 2010 to 2011 (was 74.5% higher than in 2005) in Hungary, says Eurostat. How come?

As usual, the New Year means the modification of some tax rules. This package was published in the official journal the 29th November. The 9th December the law which was intended to be the foundation for the 2012 budget, already modified it over four pages. (it was voted the 28th November, i.e. one day before the previous one was published).
The law about associations, public benefit organisations and the operation of and support for NGOs, published the 14th December, contained another three pages of modifications. The law about court registration and procedures thereof the 22nd December: another three pages.
The mentioned law about the foundation of the 2012 budget modified further five laws due to come into effect the 1st January, and itself was also modified three times (including once when the law about churches contained a deletion of one point of it). Further similar cases of other laws is listed here.
Update: the law on investment fund management organisations and collective investment service companies contains a further change: the deadline for reimbursing the VAT claims has been extended ( remember, there was a Court decision which found a limitation of tax reimbursement contradicting to European law). This hurts exporters and investing companies…

Still there is one case to be mentioned: An amendment to the law about the protection of non-smokers enabled smoking in casinos where there is no assigned smokers' area. A couple of hours (maybe this is an exaggeration but that's what the association against the smoking of children established) later, another amendment, voted before, came into force which forbid smoking in casinos altogether (again).
The tobacco lobby seams to be strong - in particular in the rows of the Christian Democrat party (an associate of FIDESZ with no independent existence and apparently no followers) as they already came forward with amendments which stopped Parliament from increasing the excise duty on tobacco.

A public procurement notice of 800 million forints (2.7 million Euro at the moment, in normal times closer or above 3 million Euro) for a media strategy has been just announced.

And a nice video, Viktor Orbán is asked whether he feels his responsibility for the disastrous performance of the forint. First he tells that the president of the National Bank did not fell responsible than repeats it and then says: "neither". The smile afterwards tells everything...

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Hungarian media

After the official TV (and one commercial channel) reported about the mass demonstration the 2nd January, which was on the front pages even in quiet Luxembourg with a picture of empty streets closed by a police line (by putting the camera with its back to the demonstration), it is encouraging to read Neelie Kroes's blog and tweets.

Also the tweets about the mentioned opposition radio station: