The ‘honest boys’ of Europe
Visiting Hungarian Foreign Minister says Donald Trump will be better for whole world
While US President Donald Trump conducted his combative press conference at the White House last week, one of his truest friends in Europe was in New Zealand defending him.
Hungary’s visiting Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjarto, was in Wellington to open a new embassy in a high-rise on Lambton Quay.
But diplomatic discourse everywhere is focused on Trump.
“The international media has been so unfair to him,” he said. “If Hillary Clinton said the same things as Donald Trump is saying now, she would be celebrated by the liberal international media.”
Hungary could be described as Trump’s soul-mate in Europe.
Often seen as the “bad boys of Europe”, the populist right-wing Government of Viktor Orban has attracted a lot of criticism from within Europe and from the former Obama Administration.
It built a wire fence on its southern border with armed guards after thousands of refugees poured through the country in 2015 en route to Western Europe.
It is building container camps to hold asylum seekers on its borders while their status is determined. It has refused to accept the EU’s proposal to resettle refugees by quota.
Szijjarto rejects the label “bad boys of Europe”.
“We are the honest boys of Europe, the honest boys of the European Union because we hate political correctness and we hate hypocrisy,” he told the Herald.
He said the vote by Britain to leave the EU was a consequence of the mismanagement of the European Commission.
The sanctions against Russia over Crimea had failed politically and economically.
“But if you speak like this in the European Union, you are always going to be bashed and abused and described as ‘bad boys’ in the media.
Szijjarto was snubbed in Washington.
He was refused a meeting with his counterpart at the time, Secretary of State John Kerry. Instead, he was handed what is known in diplomatic terms as a “non-paper” by an assistant Secretary of State with a list of the measures Hungary had to take before its relationship with the US could be upgraded.
“We in Hungary have suffered in the last six years from attempts to interfere in our internal politics by the Democrat Administration.
“Now with Donald Trump taking away the ‘ export of democracy’ from the focus of their foreign policy things will
HRead the full interview at nzherald.co.nz It was all about the four-legged friends at the annual Pride dog show in Auckland yesterday afternoon, and Diesel and Benson had a front-row seat.
The British bulldogs joined their be better for the whole world,” Szijjarto said. On Friday, Szijjarto was questioned at the NZ Institute of International Affairs by Estonia’s honorary Consul, Tony Loorparg, who arrived in New Zealand as a boy in 1949 by ship with many Hungarian refugees. He said the minister’s description of refugees did not equate with his own experience as a refugee. Szijjarto responded by saying it was wrong to equate Hungary’s refugees with the behaviour of those who had marched through Hungary in 2015. “None of them attacked Austrian police. None of them behaved in an inappropriate manner. They respected the rules and regulations of the given country. “They were thankful to be taken by someone. And when the decision was made that they could leave, they left.” owners, Steve Montgomery (left) and Aaron Hewett at Western Park, in Ponsonby.
The relaxed quartet were enjoying the action as a series of pooches showed their best moves on a
Fought with Germany in World War I as part of Austria-Hungary which split at the end of the war, and with Germany in World War II; Soviets occupied Hungary as Germans were driven out; Uprising against Soviet occupation, many Hungarians flee including over 1000 to NZ; Occupation ends when Soviet Union collapses; Hungary joins Nato; Hungary joins European Union. Ran a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan; has 150 troops in Erbil in Iraq. Trade $69 million (NZ exports $2 million and imports $67 million, mainly motor vehicles and parts and vacuum cleaners). GDP $190 billion. Big NZ business in Hungary — AHI roofing. makeshift runway.
The dog show was part of the annual Auckland Pride Festival, which celebrates the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, intersex, queer and asexual communities.