The treatment of the Hungarians in Ukraine is unacceptable The news has reached the Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs that ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine who are applying for their Hungarian citizenship are beeing harrased by the Ukrainian state security service. The KMK in Hungary says that the Hungarians are contacted by phone and by letter and they are asked to give their written statement about weather it is true or not that they have applied for their Hungarian citizenship. The organization therefore wrote two days ago an open letter where they called for the infringement of rights to be stopped. The Hungarian Ministry of Foreign affairs is orienting itself in this case, said János Martonyi, Minister of Foreign Affairs to the tv show “Az Este” at Hungarian MTV1.

Semjen Zsolt calls it unacceptable that the Ukrainian state security service is harrasing the Hungarian population of Zakkarpatia Oblas/Transcarpathia. The Vice-Minister responsible for the national security policies is awaiting the response of the Ukrainians to his letter.

Budapest, May 4, 2011 (MTI-ECONEWS) – Hungary had a trade surplus of EUR 831m in February, up from EUR 400.8m in January, and also up from EUR 394.2m a year ago, the Central Statistics Office (KSH) said on Wednesday, revising the surplus up from EUR 816.4m in the first reading released on April 8.

The trade surplus was a balance of EUR 6.076bn of exports and EUR 5.836bn of imports, up 27.2pc and 20.4pc, respectively from a year ago. Exports and export growth were raised more than imports from the first reading.

Euro-term export growth picked up from 16.1pc in January and import growth slowed from January’s sharp 30.2pc, boosted by a low base.

In volume terms, February exports rose 21.1pc yr/yr, a touch slower than in January, and imports rose 14.6pc, significantly lower than the 22.9pc twelve-month increase registered in January.

January-February exports reached EUR 12.743bn, rising 26.6pc in euro terms and 21.1pc in volume terms. Imports in the first two months, at EUR 11.512bn, were 25pc higher in euro terms and rose 18.6pc in volume terms from a year earlier.

The January-February trade surplus widened EUR 376m from a year earlier, to EUR 1.232bn.

The trade surplus for 2010 was EUR 5.525bn, up from EUR 3.74bn in 2009.

Hungary’s terms of trade deteriorated 0.8pc in the first two months as forint-term export prices rose 5.8pc and import prices rose 6.7pc. The forint weakend 1.7pc against the main currencies of trade in the period.

source: mti.hu

Budapest, May 4 (MTI) – Efforts to clear landmines from hundreds of square miles in Croatia have been under way for several years, and another 800 square kms are set to be cleared by 2019 with the help of EU funds.

The Hungarian-Croatian border has mines, planted at the beginning of the 1990s, running along 80 kms on the Croatian side, and it is likely that some were also placed on the Hungarian side of the border, too, Lieutenant-Colonel, Gyorgy Bozsing, a border official with Baranya County police headquarters, told MTI on Wednesday.

Large tracts of land on the border are mine-infested, a legacy of the Yugoslav wars.

Bozsing said the project, ongoing for two years, involves drawing up a digital map of dangerous areas. In the past few days, the project won a competitive bid to receive 3 million euros in EU funding, he said.

source: mti.hu

Budapest, May 4, 2011 (MTI-ECONEWS) – Magyar Telekom on Wednesday announced the start of a large scale modernisation of its mobile network with longstanding partner Ericsson.

As part of the network modernisation, Ericsson will replace the current 2G and 3G wireless base stations to unique, multi-standard RBS 6000 equipments developed for GSM/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA Evolution and LTE technologies, Magyar Telekom said. Once the necessary frequencies are available, Magyar Telekom will also be ready in 2011 to offer LTE services to its customers through the new fourth generation LTE technology provided by Ericsson.

In the first stage of the modernisation, Magyar Telekom will set up 200 new HSPA+ stations in Budapest offering internet at super-fast speeds of 21 Mbps. HSPA+ will be available across the entire network by 2013.

The agreement will offer further cost saving potential, including a 50pc saving in energy costs, Magyar Telekom said.

source: mti.hu

Jozsef Palinka elected once again as the head of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, reports Hungarian MTV1 News.
He was elected for fresh three year term.  The leader said that amoung his plans are to cut spending of the academy and the institutions belonging to them, while at the same time expressing his wish for an increase in researchers in Hungary.  He said that “we must find and keep the country’s best researchers.”

Budapest, May 3 (MTI) – The late Pope John Paul II, who was beatified in Rome on Sunday, could get a statue in Budapest in a year or two, the communications director of the Mayor’s Office told MTI on Tuesday.

Budapest, May 3, 2011 (MTI-ECONEWS) – Hungary is fighting an economic revolution for financial independence in which the first step was “throwing out” the IMF and the second was the Szell Kalman Plan which will restore the dignity of the country, National Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy said at a meeting of the Szechenyi Klub on Tuesday.

Budapest, May 2 (MTI) – Greenpeace Hungary held a demonstration in front of the hotel in Budapest where a delegation of EU energy ministers have arrived for a two-day summit in Godollo starting on Monday.

Source: mti.hu

Budapest, May 1 (MTI) – Austria and Germany opened their labour markets to job seekers from eight central and eastern European countries on Sunday, among them Hungary.

As of today also Hungarian citizens along with other countries that joined the EU in 2004 are free to take jobs in Austria and Germany as they open up their job markets for this group of people.
According to EU statistics there were 20 000 jobs for offer in Austria and 400 000 in Germany in the recent days. The two countries kept the maximum 7 year restriction on the free flow of workers from these EU countries. The other member states had already earlier liftet their restrictions on their labour markets. As of today it is also possible to freely take on jobs in Switzerland. Even though the country is not a member of the European Union several bilateral agreements tie the country to the EU, MTV news reported today.