Visegrad News Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivers his speech during the Regional Digital Summit conference in Budapest. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP)
POLAND WANTS TO INCREASE ITS MILITARY TIES WITH THE US 17.01.2017 Reuters
CIVIL ACTIVISTS FEAR NEW CRACKDOWN IN HUNGARY AFTER TRUMP ELECTION 10.01.2017 The Guardian Foreign-backed civil society groups in Hungary, including those funded by the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros, fear they could become the target of a new crackdown from a populist right-wing government emboldened by the election of Donald Trump. The Hungarian government is planning to force non-government organisation (NGO) leaders to declare their personal assets in the same way as MPs and public officials in what has been described as an “intimidation” of civil society. The proposal is scheduled to go before parliament in April, according to the newly published 2017 legislative agenda. The move is seen as the latest step in a campaign by Viktor Orbán, Hungary´s Prime Minister, to transform the country into a self-styled “illiberal state”, which has prompted a chorus of international criticism that democracy is being eroded in a country which joined the European Union in 2004. Orbán has already faced widespread condemnation over moves allegedly designed to muzzle press freedom and curtail judiciary independence since his Fidesz party took power in 2010. Orbán’s government previously clashed with the NGO sector in 2014, when police raided three groups part-funded by Norway Grants, set up by the EU and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein to fund projects in less-developed European economies. Some organisations had their tax numbers frozen, effectively crippling their ability to function.
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GLOBSEC Magazine January 2017
Poland should increase its military cooperation with the United States, according to a senior advisor to the Polish president. Krzysztof Szczerski, President Andrzej Duda‘s top foreign policy advisor, had claimed so mere days before the new US administration, which has signalled a friendlier approach to Russia, took power in Washington. Szczerski also suggested that Poland would welcome the re-election of Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, Poland‘s largest trade partner with whom relations have soured since Polish conservatives came to power a year ago. US President-elect Donald Trump‘s friendly rhetoric towards Russia puts Poland, which has frosty ties with Moscow and fears President Vladimir Putin‘s influence over the region, in an awkward diplomatic position. The country has just received the largest US military reinforcement in Europe in decades under a planned NATO operation to strengthen its Eastern European allies in face of what the pact sees as a growing Russian aggression. Moscow, which unnerved Eastern Europe by annexing Ukraine‘s Crimea in 2014, sees the NATO reinforcement in the region as a security threat. In retaliation, it has deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in its European exclave of Kaliningrad. Although it is unlikely that 28-member NATO would change its deterrence policy any time soon, Szczerski said Warsaw wants a „political conversation“ between Duda and Trump as soon as possible.
People watch a live transmission of the official welcoming ceremony of U.S. troops in Poland held in Zagan, during a military picknic, in Warsaw. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)