"The best sign of friendship is that we can talk openly about everything with each other. We hope that the war will end as soon as possible, but we are sure that our friendship will last forever", said Hungarian President Katalin Novak after a meeting with Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki. Photo by Paweł Supernak/PAP

On 1 March, the debate on Hungary's ratification of Sweden and Finland's NATO membership will finally begin in the Hungarian parliament. According to local media, the final vote on the matter is expected after March 6. Photo by ROBERT GHEMENT/PAP/EPA (JAP)

Hungary's state debt relative to GDP fell to 72.9% at the end of last year from 76.8%, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said in a post on Facebook on Monday.      Mihály Varga (L) in Brussels. Photo by OLIVIER HOSLET/ PAP/EPA

If 2022 was the most difficult year, then 2023 will be the most dangerous year since the regime change, Hungarin Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his annual “State of the Nation” address on Saturday. “Alongside migration, which is slowly becoming permanent, we have two new enemies, two new threats.

Security issues, including ways to effectively increase the North Atlantic Alliance's deterrence capabilities, cooperation in the field of transport infrastructure and within the Visegrad Group, as well as the views of the new Czech president on the Three Seas Initiative, were the topics of the conversation between President Andrzej Duda and the President-elect of the Czech Republic, Gen. Petr Pavel.  

"The chapter on Hungary in the rule of law report commissioned by the European Commission is arbitrary, biased and discriminatory" - said the heads of several right-wing, conservative think tanks in Hungary in a letter to the European Commission.  Ursula von der Leyen.

"Interference with the lives of families and the education system is an attack on our national sovereignty", Gergely Gulyás, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, told the "Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung". Gergely Gulyás. Photo by SZILLARD KOSZTICSAK/MTI/PAP/EPA (JAP)

Members of the National Council of the Slovak Republic have condemned Russia’s full-scale attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and crucial energy infrastructure in their resolution. The resolution has also called the current Russian regime a terrorist one and Russia itself – a state supporting terrorism.

At the beginning of the last census, on October 1, 2022, the population of Hungary was 9,604,000, Marcell Kovács, project manager of the census, announced at a press conference on Thursday in Budapest.

A year ago, after the Russian invasion on Ukraine, NATO defense ministers decided to create four new battlegroups in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has formally requested Slovak government to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. According to Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nada, the Ukrainians can turn 11 Slovak grounded fighters into 7 flying ones.

   Specialists work at Number 4 Reactor of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant in Paks, Hungary, 2019. Photo by TAMAS SOKI/MTI/PAP/EPA (JAP)