Eurasia Press & News
In other news, plans are in the works for Hungarian PM to visit Ukraine; Slovakia’s National Security Authority claims acting interior minister illegally accessed classified EU and NATO documents; and Poland gets 2 new ministers.
Rental housing prices in the Czech Republic have risen dramatically over recent years, driven higher by limited supply and low interest rates. But one group of former employees of the presidential administration appear to be renting prime countryside properties for peanuts, it was revealed this week. Milos Zeman may have moved out of Lany, the Czech president’s country chateau just northeast of Prague, but some of his cronies remain on the estate, having leased grand homes to themselves before their patron’s term as head of state ended in March. Quite how Milos Balak, former director of the Lany Forestry Administration and twice-convicted of attempting to defraud the presidential office of millions, was able to order a subordinate to sign off on a three-year lease granting him use of a 21-room villa for the princely sum of 6,300 koruna (250 euros) per month is now under investigation by the Supreme Audit Office. The institution’s interest will also be piqued by the similar bargains that Balak’s friends were able to strike on other houses at the Lany complex.
The state of the Czech environment is among the worst in the EU, and inferior to all of its Visegrad peers, according to the 2023 Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday. High greenhouse gas emissions, poor efficiency, drought and rising volumes of waste helped push the Czech environment down into 22nd place out of the 27 member states. Industry is the biggest source of emissions, pumping out 1,932 kilograms for each of the country’s 10 million inhabitants every year – the ninth highest ratio in the EU. Households also contribute a lot more than they might. Continued use of coal by both is a significant factor, with decarbonisation slow and solar panels and heat pumps rare. 3,200 people die each year from this air pollution. Energy efficiency is also poor, with Czechia among the bloc’s most energy-intensive economies, using 50 per cent more energy per unit of GDP than Germany. Meanwhile, the average Czech threw out 570kg of waste last year, an increase of 63kg, and the country is the hardest hit by drought of any EU state with 16 per cent of its territory affected. Still, the ranking represented an improvement; Czechia was ranked 23rd last year. Slovakia did best out of the Visegrad Four in 2023, coming in 11th, while Hungary was 18th and Poland 20th. Sweden’s environment was ranked the best, followed by Portugal and France. The three Baltic states, Slovenia and Austria were also in the top ten.
Will Orban visit Ukraine? US-Hungarian tensions on the rise
As part of the Hungarian government’s new “charm offensive” to break its isolation over the war in Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Levente Magyar visited Kyiv and Bucha this week. There, he stressed Hungary would play “its part in the reconstruction of Ukraine” and underlined the importance of close cooperation between the two countries. Hungary is funding the construction of a 10-million-euro municipal centre in the village of Synyak, close to Kyiv, which would include a medical centre, a post office and an event hall. This is currently the biggest Hungarian investment in Ukraine, Magyar said. The visit comes at a time when speculation is high about a visit of Viktor Orban to Kyiv. Hungarian diplomatic circles admitted this week that preparations are in the works, but insiders say a deal for Ukraine to amend its controversial minority language law is seen as a precondition. Magyar addressed the issue, saying it has “resulted in a situation that is in many ways damaging for the ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia”. But he stressed the time has come to find a solution. Not all Hungarian diplomats struck a friendly tone towards Ukraine this week. Tamas Menczer, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, reiterated Hungary would not support Ukraine’s EU and NATO integration for as long as this issue about the country’s minorities remains unresolved.
The opposition Momentum party tried to raise its public profile this week with some street actions. Its supporters removed the cordons around the PM’s office to demand media freedom and against the extension of the government’s “state of alert legislation” that has been in effect since the pandemic. This is Momentum’s third attempt to remove the cordons, which are quickly restored by the police. This time, however, they managed to surprise some ministers arriving for a government meeting, who found themselves confronted by the media pack. Orban decided to take the safe route and entered through a back door, followed by others who had used either the underground garage or the corridor connecting Orban’s office with the nearby presidential palace. The police restored the cordons but got into a fight with independent MP Akos Hadhazy, who received an injury to his face. “The fact Orban had to sneak in though the back door is already a partial victory,” said Hadhazy. Fidesz called the operation “a desperate action by desperate politicians trying to stop their sinking popularity”.
The US ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, launched a counteroffensive this week against the Hungarian government, which regularly targets the diplomat. He said he does not take the attacks by the government and its allies in the media personally, but he considers them an attack against his country. Pressman found it particularly alarming that Orban mentioned the US as an adversary in a speech in early March. He said this kind of anti-American rhetoric from an ally is unprecedented. He understood domestic political concerns are at play, but since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the political context has changed and allies should not engage in such games. He also reminded there is bipartisan agreement in the US and a complete consensus in national security circles about Russian aggression, and some members of the opposition Republican Party have taken an even tougher stance on the Hungarian leadership. But apparently the Orban government has high hopes for the return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2024. Orban publicly endorsed Trump this week as he was indicted over alleged hush payments during the 2016 presidential campaign. “Keep on fighting, Mr. President! We are with you,” Orban tweeted on Monday.
Slovak interior minister accused of breaking security rules; lawyers appeal to Brussels
The National Security Authority (NBU) claimed this week that acting Interior Minister Roman Mikulec repeatedly accessed classified EU and NATO documents illegally because he does not have security clearance and a reliability status certificate. However, the acting minister, the chair of the Defence and Security Parliamentary Committee, and the Justice Ministry pointed out that ministers need neither security clearance nor the certificate to gain access to classified foreign information as they are persons with special status. Moreover, they accused the NBU of gold-plating with regard to the certificate. They also claimed this ‘scandal’ is a means to divert people’s attention from a police investigation into alleged mismanagement of public property and money laundering at Military Intelligence worth more than 22 million euros between 2015-2020. Similar suspicions related to Military Intelligence, which falls under the Defence Ministry, appeared a decade ago. The Defence Ministry said it is prepared to assist the police, but it is the NBU that appears to be obstructing the investigation. The NBU has questioned the work of police investigators in this case, accusing them of using seized classified information unlawfully. The NBU, a body that has handed out security clearances to several dubious individuals, also intervened in police investigations in the recent past. Currently, the police are investigating the alleged establishment of a criminal group within the NBU as well. The police fall under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry. President Zuzana Caputova has not said whether the ‘scandal’ will be the last straw for the interim government, which should be in power until the early election in September.
Three lawyers who work for the convicted former special prosecutor Dusan Kovacik have sent a document of almost 70 pages to Brussels in the hope of influencing the final report on the rule of law in Slovakia. In it, they describe how the investigation of prominent criminal cases is being manipulated. The lawyers (Erik Magal, Jakub Krizan and Jan Krsiak) say the letter is their independent initiative, which aims to provide an objective view of the law enforcement and justice situation in Slovakia. However, they left out key facts and the whole document appears highly subjective, critics say.
Poland gets 2 new ministers; small opposition alliance ends before it begins
Two new ministers will join Mateusz Morawiecki’s government following Wednesday’s resignation of the agriculture minister, Henryk Kowalczyk, which was understood to be a sop to the powerful farmer unions protesting against the dumping of Ukrainian grain on the Polish market. The new agriculture minister will be Robert Telus, whom Polish media describe as “Macierewicz’s man”, in that he’s a trusted ally of former defence minister Antoni Macierewicz, a hardliner who has been at the forefront of promoting conspiracy theories about the 2010 Smolensk air crash that killed the president, Lech Kaczyński. The second new minister will be Janusz Cieszynski, who will become minister of digitalisation after previously serving as a government plenipotentiary for cybersecurity.
The saga about whether the Polish opposition will run together as a block in the autumn general election continues. Gazeta Wyborcza reported on Thursday the break-up of an alliance inside the democratic opposition between the agrarian PSL and Polska 2050, the party of independent Catholic Szymon Holownia. The alliance only emerged a few weeks ago after Holownia broke with Civic Platform over the latest justice law reform demanded by the EU (Holownia opposed it, arguing it does not safeguard the independence of the judiciary). Polska 2050 and PSL were, in some ways, natural allies as the most conservative forces in the opposition when it comes to their worldview. However, the first polls conducted after the alliance was announced indicated that the parties, especially Holownia’s, were falling in the polls following the announcement (PSL, catering to rural voters, may be too conservative for some Holownia voters). In the end, as Wyborcza reported, the break-up was down to bickering over who would make it onto the joint electoral lists.
