State Secretary: Hungary and Germany to rebuild bilateral political and diplomatic ties
Magyar said Hungary-Germany relations, with the government led by Friedrich Merz taking power in May, have turned a new leaf. Merz's government, he added, had ditched the policies of its predecessor and was now showing openness towards Hungary in respect of several issues.
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Budapest Times
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- Budapest Times
Hungarian government bans three Ukrainian officials from Hungary
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the government has banned three Ukrainian officials from Hungary, saying they were responsible for forced conscription in Ukraine. He added that the ministry had earlier proposed that they be placed on a European Union sanctions list. The ministry cited Minister Szijjártó as commenting on the case of József Sebestyén, who had been recently beaten to death during forced conscription in Ukraine. Minister Szijjártó told a press conference after a meeting of a Hungarian-Uzbek mixed committee that the Council of Europe had confirmed reports of physical violence and torture during conscription in Ukraine. Minister Szijjártó said that since a Hungarian had fallen victim to this, the government on Wednesday proposed placing three persons on a sanctions list in Brussels. The officials in question are the chief of staff of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, the commander of the Western Operational Command and the head of the mobilization Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. 'While this is being done, we arranged today that all three persons should be banned from Hungary,' he said. In response to a question, he said that freezing Hungary-Ukraine relations would bring great problems to Ukraine because Hungary was currently the largest electricity supplier of the neighbouring country, and several hundred million cubic metres of natural gas arrived in Ukraine from Hungary. Minister Szijjártó added that in such situations, the international public and liberal politicians often tried to find scapegoats. 'It was not we who took away the Ukrainian minority's rights in Hungary. It was not we who stopped oil transports last year. It is not in Hungary that Ukrainian temples are set to fire. And it was not a Ukrainian who died during conscription in Hungary'.
Budapest Times
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- Budapest Times
State Secretary: Government presses Brussels to reach deal with Washington on tariffs
Levente Magyar, a state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the Hungarian government expects the European Commission to reach an agreement with the United States that would prevent planned punitive tariffs within two weeks. After a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Monday, Magyar warned that the punitive tariffs would have serious economic consequences. The ministers at the meeting discussed the state of play of trade negotiations after the announcement in Washington, DC, at the weekend of a planned 30pc tariff on European imports from August 1. Magyar said the measure was a 'serious escalation' and blamed the European Commission for failing to reach a fair agreement with the Americans that would protect European interests. 'We expect the Commission to come up with a way to reach an agreement with the Americans in the coming two weeks to avoid the 30pc punitive tariff, because if that materialises, it will hurt European competitiveness and have an extraordinarily negative impact on Hungary,' he added. 'We are not willing to let Hungary, Hungarian businesses and Hungarian workers pay the price for the Commission's mistakes,' he added.
Budapest Times
15-07-2025
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State Secretary: Hungary and Germany to rebuild bilateral political and diplomatic ties
Levente Magyar, the state secretary of the foreign ministry, said in Berlin that Hungary and Germany will work intensively in the upcoming period to rebuild bilateral political and diplomatic ties that in recent years 'went off the rails mainly for ideological reasons'. Magyar said Hungary-Germany relations, with the government led by Friedrich Merz taking power in May, have turned a new leaf. Merz's government, he added, had ditched the policies of its predecessor and was now showing openness towards Hungary in respect of several issues.
