On Monday, June 19, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivered a speech at a ceremony in Warsaw, Poland ahead of Hungary’s ascendency to the rotating presidency of the Visegrád Group beginning on July 1, 2017.
In a letter addressed to US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Hungarian Minister of Human Capacities Zoltán Balog thanked Secretary DeVos for her acknowledgment of the amendment to Hungary’s Act on Higher Education and for once again clarifying that individual US states have the right to enter into direct negotiations with the Hungarian government.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder on June 21, 2017 in Budapest.
The Government of Hungary has noted with deep concern that William Charles Morva, a Hungarian-American dual national, was sentenced to death and is facing execution on July 6, 2017.
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó strongly urged the international community to begin negotiations with the United States on the conditions under which the US would be prepared to shoulder at least part of their previously undertaken obligations under the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement. Hungary was the first EU country to ratify the Paris Agreement.
On Wednesday, June 14, Hungary’s Parliament passed a new law regulating the transparency of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that receive funding from abroad. Under the new law, organizations are required to state that they qualify as organizations funded from abroad on their official website and publications.
Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb traveled to Hungary earlier this week as part of an international trade mission, meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in Budapest and attending a special business forum organized by the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA). Governor Holcomb’s June 13-14 visit culminated in the signing of an economic cooperation agreement recognizing the dynamic expansion of bilateral trade between the US and Hungary over the past decade.
Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán presented the Grand Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit to President and CEO of Interactive Brokers Group Thomas Péterffy in a ceremony in the Parliament Building on Friday, June 2. Born in Budapest, Péterffy fled from communist Hungary to the United States after the Soviet Union crushed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, eventually settling in New York.
Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán expressed his shock and condolences to British Prime Minister Theresa May following the terrorist attacks in London on Saturday, June 3 and affirmed Hungary’s commitment to the global fight against terrorism.
Speaking on the subject of the recently adopted legislative amendment to the Act of Higher Education affecting foreign universities in Hungary on Tuesday, May 30, Press Chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Tamás Menczer stated that “The Hungarian Act on Higher Education does not impose unattainable requirements on foreign universities.”