Latest news with #LászlóKövér
Budapest Times
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Speaker: Those implementing the law also have responsibility for enforcing it
House Speaker László Kövér said those implementing the law also have a responsibility in ensuring that 'the power is with the law, and the law is not with the power.' Kövér told a conference of the Nadal Network, the network of public prosecutors of the European Union, in Budapest on Thursday that by prosecuting crime, upholding public order and preserving individual and community rights, prosecutors were contributing to preserving 'the European way of life and ultimately freedom'. The public prosecutor's office is also a matter of state sovereignty. 'It would spell the end of public powers if supra-national organisations or global economic entities withdrew our right to prosecute crime, and there are attempts to do that from both directions,' he said. One of the key issues in the Western world and Europe in the coming decades will be whether nation states, supra-national entities and private economic powers could strike a balance, Kövér said. Such a balance was the only way for the Western world to tackle societal, economic, environmental and technological challenges, he said. Hungary, Kövér said, was one of the strongest states in Europe when it came to legal certainty, political stability and public safety, adding that prosecutors had the public's trust. Outgoing Public Prosecutor Peter Polt, who also holds the rotating presidency of the Nadal Network, said that prosecutors must draw from traditions as well as look to the future and keep abreast of current affairs. Robert Repassy, a state secretary of the justice ministry, said that the Public Prosecutor's Office in Hungary enjoyed a 'particular degree of independence, and no one can be cited before a court on orders from higher up. The Prosecutor's Office only brings charges on professional grounds and out of a conscientious conviction,' he said. The government and the prosecutor's office work in partnership, with prosecutors taking part in the justice ministry's legislative work in penal law, he added. The Nadal Network was established in 2009, 'with an aim of providing a platform for exchange of experiences between top-level prosecutors and their partner organisations.'This year's conference in Budapest hosted nearly 100 representatives of some 40 organisations and countries.
Budapest Times
15-05-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Speaker: A strong EU can only be built on strong nation states
House Speaker László Kövér said a strong European Union can only be built on strong nation states. 'No nation state's vital interests can be trampled on in the name of any perceived or real majority,' Kövér said after meeting Slovak counterpart Richard Rasi in Budapest on Tuesday. Referring to a planned ban on Russian energy in the EU, Kövér said: 'Hungary and Slovakia are in the most vulnerable position in that respect.' As challenges for the two countries are similar in view of their location and similar economic structure, they need to cooperate in addressing them, he said. Rasi said that resolving issues around gas supplies showed 'helpfulness and cooperation' in bilateral ties, while he also thanked Hungary for contributing to the protection of Slovakia's airspace. Slovakia and Hungary have similar positions in terms of illegal migration as well as the enlargement of the EU, the Slovak speaker added.
Budapest Times
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
House Speaker: Interests of the ethnic Hungarian community are a priority in Romania
House Speaker László Kövér said the interests of the ethnic Hungarian community are a priority in Romania as well. During an interview with Mandiner, Kövér said the decision on who the right presidential candidate for ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania was should be decided by them and specifically their political representatives, namely the ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party. 'We fully respect and support this decision; this is always how it has been, so this is nothing new,' the speaker said. Kövér said Hungary and its government did not want to weigh in on the election of any country and did not support any presidential candidates. This vote, he said, was the internal affair of Romania's electorate. He noted that there was already a precedent for European Union institutions questioning the internal democratic decision of a member state, citing as an example the attempt in the early 2000s to isolate Austria's OVP-FPO coalition led by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel. 'In politics, it's patience, perseverance and wisdom that get us the result we all hope for,' Kövér said. 'We, as a non-EU country, stood up for people's right to make their own decisions even back then,' he said. 'Because we don't believe that the EU was created to interfere in the internal affairs of any country, especially not as grossly as it has been doing more recently, or to try to discipline voters either verbally or through different kinds of sanctions.' Kövér said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's remarks had been about Hungary's willingness to cooperate with a country's governing parties regarding bilateral ties, the given country's minority communities and regarding EU affairs. He said the most important consideration was respecting the rights, dignity and interests of the country's ethnic Hungarian communities. Meanwhile, Kövér said it was 'unprecedented' how far the AUR party's leader had gone with his earlier 'anti-Hungarian gestures and remarks' as well as certain actions he had organised, adding that the government fully understood and shared the concerns that had arisen from this. 'At the same time, we enter into potential cooperation with every potential partner with the hope that if these problems can't be put aside or eliminated, we can at least initiate processes through which these problems are made less significant,' Kövér said. He cited the positive example of how Slovakia, under its Prime Minister Robert Fico was the closest to Hungary in the EU on almost all issues today, despite the 'serious incidents' with Slovakia's Hungarian community that had happened during Fico's previous premiership. 'We can count on their support and they can count on ours, and though the situation of Slovakia's ethnic Hungarian community isn't what it could be, the government has shown a significant, positive change in its approach to the problems of the Hungarian community,' the speaker said, adding that the situation was perhaps even more striking in the case of Serbia. Kövér said after the assaults against Serbia's ethnic Hungarians in the 1990s and early 2000s, the local Hungarian community was now 'in the best legal and political situation' under the governance of a party that was labelled nationalist. Asked to comment on Tisza Party leader Peter Magyar's accusation that Orbán had 'betrayed' the ethnic Hungarian communities beyond the borders, Kövér said: 'What else could we have expected from this gang other than … an attack at the first possible sensitive moment against the national cooperation that also exists with Hungarians across the border?'
Budapest Times
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Speaker: Our quality of life is mostly determined by the community we live in
László Kövér warned of "a pressure aimed at destroying the religious circles and fortifications of human life." House Speaker László Kövér said our quality of life is 'mostly determined by the community we live in.' 'It does matter who surrounds the family and whether there are shared values and goals to forge the crowd into an active community,' the speaker said at the inauguration of a Reformed church and community building in Szigetszentmarton, south of Budapest, on Sunday. Kövér warned of 'a pressure aimed at destroying the religious circles and fortifications of human life' and referred to 'powers led by ideological fixations and business interests that seek to intoxicate their fellow human beings with spiritual and physical poison, questioning all authorities and norms, with the aim to unleash a chaos of freedom, falsely presented as unlimited, on mankind.' 'We are aware of the political forces that demand a free path to destruction in the name of human rights, but remain silent when human dignity is violated … we know very well those that would … ensure their political survival through financing campaigns against the church; we know who they are and we must counter them,' he said. Kövér insisted that all fights 'that appear to be of a political, economic, or cultural nature' were actually 'fights for souls', adding that 'we are free to decide which side we want to support'.
Budapest Times
05-05-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Speaker meets Governor of Aswan in Egypt
Talks encompassed bilateral economic ties and investment opportunities in renewable energy and tourism. House Speaker László Kövér met the Governor of Aswan, Muhammad Kamal Ismail, on an official trip to Egypt. According to MTI, talks encompassed bilateral economic ties and investment opportunities in renewable energy and tourism. As well as the ongoing project to manufacture railway carriages, the biggest Hungary-Egypt trade deal to date, digital infrastructure is also an area in which the two countries' information and communication technology companies are now working together. Kövér noted that direct flights are helping more and more Hungarian citizens to access Aswan, in southern Egypt, while his counterpart said his province of around 1,500,000 people welcomed Hungarian investors and tourists interested in the treasures of ancient Egypt and the Nile.
