Daniel Antal, Budapest

Creative Commons Hungary Images

2009-06-08T09:31:00.000+02:00

Gas war with Russia: restrictions on the industry, people are effected directly

2009-01-09T00:18:00.006+01:00

There is a serious gas shortage in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Serbia. After the show of the French presidency, the European Union is under a real foreign pressure that effects a large group of member states devastatingly. Factories are closing, schools are shut, some part of the population is freezing at home. I think this is one of the greatest challenges on the cohesion of the Union since the historical eastern expansion in 2004.

The Russian claim is simple: it wants to charge world market prices on Ukraine, which is not able to pay this sum, so they do not supply them. Since Ukraine “steals” the European gas shipped through her territory, the Russians have cut down the supply. However, this is a false claim. There is no European or world market for natural gas in the absence of a transport network that would connect multiple buyers and sellers like in a marketplace. Russia strikes various government-level deals with European countries so we lack the legal framework for such a market, too. Russia behaves like a price-discriminiating monopoly, which is her rational economic interest, and as a research paper published by the Dutch Central Planning Bureau suggests, it is even tacitly co-ordinates its moves with Dutch, British and Norwegian producers. Russia has effectively became a petrostate in the past decade - some claim that even the Soviet Union was similar - and falling oil prices make them put more leverage where they can: to raise natural gas prices during the cold winter where there are no alternatives.

This forecast shows the possible natural gas sources for Europe. (LNG stands for liquid gas, which is very expensive to produce and transport but it is not connected to piplines. Otherwise, European, Norwegian or Russianrespect to its second greatest neighbor, Ukraine. Now they want to show that our political and economic interests are already integrated so we should take our partnership more seriously.

The European Union is hapless for two reasons. The Comission has been making proposals for an integrated European energy market in the past decade, but national interests have overruled them. Some Western European countries have access to North Sea gas and would not like to share it with new member states who are reliant on Russian gas imports. More damagingly, Germany has signed a pact with Russia to build a gas pipeline under the sea so that it can bypass Ukraine and Central Europe, especially Poland, and can cut bilateral deals with Russia. This reminded Central Europe to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed by the foreign ministers of Hitler and Stalin, pushed the Central Euroepan governments into commitments with American-initated NATO projects and to seek individual deals with a much smaller bargaining power with Russia or the United States.

The current situation is damaging for Central Europe in many ways. Firstly, during a serious economic downturn it puts an additional burden on the industrial output. Some factories and other economic units simply have to halt. Secondly, it starts to effect the population: in some parts of Serbia people are already without heating in during this extremely cold winter. (So, it seems, that we are not heating!) A great opportunity to show if Serbia’s future lies in a Russian or a European orientation, by the way. In Bulgaria, the schools had to close down. Thirdly, it shows the weaknesses of this region and the lack of effective support from its economic and military allies. This will further undermine the European Union.

Luckily, the current presidency is for the first time held by a Central European government which is directly effected. (Although the Czech Republic, like Austria, receives some Northern gas from Germany that is not available in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania or Serbia). We will see how Central European solidarity works: Serbia already asked Hungary for emergency help with gas supplies. Some Central European EU countries have cut off gas supplies between each other, too.

Earlier posts: European energy dependence, the Visegrad Group dependence on Russian natural gas.

The gas war in numbers:

With budgets stretched in 2009 price remains the key issue in this conflict - Russia offered a price rise from USD 179 per 1,000 cubic meters to USD 250, while Ukraine was willing to accept an increase to just USD 201. Ukraine also insisted on hiking the transit tariff from the current USD 1.6 per meter cubic per 100 km. In response to Ukrainian demands, Gazprom retaliated and threatened a European market price of USD 450 per 1,000 cubic metres, double the Naftogaz offer.

Reposted from the broken central.blogactiv.eu server. The only good thing that happened in the meantime is that Austria opened a gas pipeline to Hungary and Hungary (too late, too little, but we did it!) offered some relief to Serbia. Hope that Central Europe learns the lesson.

The rise or the fall of the euro?

2008-07-30T22:53:00.004+02:00

Julien Frisch is posting about the possibility of euro becoming the key currency for the world. According to an economic analysis, we could make it, if we had a powerful political structure behind the European currency. This has come up a year ago when China threatened the US with dumping its dollar reserves. Although this is not very realistic in 2008 it is worth thinking about what the EU could be should it behave like a global power.

Maybe the year before was a better time for the euro: most analyst and the latest Economist Big Mac test have found the euro overvalued recently. It is the yuan and not the euro that is on the rise.

Serbia: a turn in the South?

2008-07-24T10:34:00.004+02:00

I have a keen interest in our Southern neighbor's issues. Although I am not an expert and I do not speak their langauge (still) I try to follow what is happening there and try to talk to people who are present. I dare to do this because I believe that Central European transition has a many common patterns and post-war Serbia seems to have took this long and winding road. On my European blog you will find ten Serbia-related posts so far, and I argue that the capture of Mr Karadzic may be indeed a turn in the standstill Serbian landscape. On the picture you can see the Zastava factory from the air where an investor put a 700 million-euro-bet on Serbia's European future.

Visegrad countries: economic outlook and international news coverage

2008-07-24T10:22:00.005+02:00

Here is a roundup from my newish English-language blog on the V4 block. The rest of the world's interest for the Visegrad countries have not changed in the long run, but the last month was an outlier due to the planned American anti-missile bases in the Czech Republic and Poland. I keep tracking these impacts with Google Trends, which shows over search sums and news mentions in a number of languages for any names or expressions. Here is my latest post that you can compare with last September's more detailed analysis on this old blog.

Four pollsters have asked V4 citizens about the personal economic outlooks in the past years. It is not surprising that Slovakians are very happy with their situation given their double digit growth rate and Hungarians are the most pessimistic given their stagflation-like economy. The Czech and the Poles seem to be roughly equally content: although the former have a better living, the latter have better opportunities in a fast expanding economy. The good part in Hungary's gloom is that there seems to have been a turn on the bottom and people start to see the light. Income and happiness is still very closely related and on a broader sample Russians, Bulgarians and Hungarians are the least content in wider Europe.

Hungarian Grey Cattle in Budapest

2008-04-24T23:33:00.000+02:00

Meet up somewhere

2008-04-24T21:07:00.003+02:00

Of the thousands of web applications I have been invited to, seen, heard of, I found Dpplr maybe the most promising. This applications lets other friends now where you travel and it makes much easier for friends to meet up in a globalized world. I hate to receive invitations to social network applications, but I highly recommend this to anyone, because this one helps to maintain your social network in reality instead of making it virtual. Hope to see you somewhere.

What annoys the people in Budapest?

2008-03-28T17:28:00.002+01:00

The sight of scroungers, the homeless people and dog dirt are the top inconvenience sources. The citizens of Budapest give a 'good' rating to their city and would choose Gábor Demszky if they had to vote on a mayor. He has been serving on this post for 18 years. Source: Central Budapest blog.

Atlanticist blog on blogactiv.eu

2008-03-24T14:39:00.004+01:00

I joined the blogactiv.eu blog collective because I miss European discussions on our commons issues. There is an Atlanticist blog on blogactiv, I hope those few people who were interested in my transatlantic posts join in the debates there. I always keep on saying that we, Europeans should know more about the US, and of course, the Americans should better understand European affairs.

Easter traditions in Hungary

2008-03-22T08:58:00.003+01:00

The Food and Beverages blog has a great summary of Hungarian Easter traditions. Apart from plenty of great food after the fast season these traditions nicely blend Christianity with popular spring fertility magic and other heretic customs, like pouring water onto the girls who give painted eggs in return. This is my favorite festival, rebirth and spring, mild weather, good food. Whoever reads this I hope you can spend an Easter in Hungary.

Origami spaceship

2008-03-21T21:05:00.000+01:00

Zaha Hadid builds in Budapest

2008-03-21T08:38:00.003+01:00

The Central Architectural and Technological Planning Board has approved the Szervita Square office building plans of ORCO Property Group. Based on the design by world renowned architect Zaha Hadid who has received the Pritzker award, which is architecture’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize, a visionary and iconic building will appear in the city centre becoming the focus of international attention by the end of 2010 - says the press release of the developer.

Click on the image (Index photos on earlier plans and Hadid's Budapest presentation)

I found Zaha Hadid's Guggenheim exposition energizing, and I became very enthusiastic when I learned that she might build something in Budapest. The approved plan is to build a multi-functional building in the historical downtown of Pest replacing a parking garage. This part of the city is my favorite, but not very busy at night and have not changes since it was rebuild after the WW2.

Budapest has magnificent buildings from the 1870-1910 period when it attracted the best architects. Most of Budapest was heavily damaged in 1943-1945 and after the Communism very low quality buildings were erected. New thoughts hardly entered the once cosmopolitan city as Hungarian architects had a monopoly to make plans until the EU accession. Hadid's thrilling plan highlights the return of first class architects into a very eclectic city. In my Hungarian blog I wrote a year ago that the way Hadid treats or downtown is very similar to the approach of the 'Friendly alien' in Graz which is build in a row of yellow baroque buildings. Each generation has the right to leave a surprise for the next and enjoy the urban space inherited from the past.

Central European Activ

2008-03-18T21:43:00.004+01:00

I have been talking to some of my readers that (Central-)European issues should be discussed with more people. This would be interesting and if there is a critical mass of interested people that could make a blog more fun. My Hungarian blog has far more readers than this one, friends and a lot of other people and it keeps discussions moving, I get letters and get motivated to write more. However, I am not a professional blogger at all, so I have not made any effort to involve more people in this project. On the other hand, I have found a collective blog, which is built on a collection of blogs that is all about Europe. Blogactiv.eu has a good number of blogs and a real Europe-wide readership, so I decided to start a new English blog called Central Europe Activ (http://central.blogactiv.eu/) Obviously I do not agree with all the people on Blogactiv but this may be a good start for good debates. I will duplicate the posts for a while, and maybe leave this blog for more personal stuff. The new interface is still unfamiliar so it will take some time that I will have a few posts, but I hope to see you there, and in the meantime please check out Blogactiv!

Update - first post over there: Tension after EU neighbors recognize Kosovo

dEUS - Slow

2008-03-18T08:49:00.000+01:00

European hypocrisy: saving the planet or the penny?

2008-03-15T16:49:00.005+01:00

Europeans tend to be as hypocritical about climate changes as Americans are about the private life of their public citizens. According to a new Eurobarometer poll 64% per cent of EU citizens give a priority to green causes over competitiveness - if you ask them. But if you watch how they spend their money at competing energy providers, the truth is that even in Green Britain only about 1,5 per cent of the consumers are willing to pay slightly more for greener energy. (Klynslis's home-made candle shows you how you can increase you carbon footprint and decrease your monetary wealth at the same time).

Update: More about the Eurobarometer survey.

Hungarian Spectrum

2008-03-15T10:58:00.003+01:00

Another English-language blog was added to my Hungary linkbox. You can link Hungarian Spectrum here and retrieve the RSS here.

Eva's blog is about current affairs and politics, with some news on the Hungarian economy, and there are some sports related articles. It appears to me that Hungarian Spectrum is a somewhat left-leaning blog and it has more readers than mine so you more likely join discussions there. Here are the Spectrum's posts on our recent referendum: The results, Reconsidering the practice of referendum? A Pyrrhic 'victory for Hungary'.

Emigration from Hungary

2008-03-13T20:23:00.003+01:00

Another worrying news about Hungary's demography: Hungary's net immigration values went into negative values (Hungarian report). Hungary has had a shrinking population for a longer while, but after the fall of Communism it had a steady inflow of immigrants. The vast majority of these immigrants were ethnic Hungarians from the neighboring countries which made integration relatively easy. According to the HCSO the last figures are already negative, meaning that in the last year we had more emigrants than immigrants. Probably the most important economic cause is the high Romanian growth level. Many Romanian citizens came to Hungary in search for better living standards. Now that the living standards are similar, and wages are sometimes higher in Romania, and growth opportunities are much better for enterprises, the flow of immigrants stopped and some people were lured to move back. This is a real long-term shock for the Hungarian economy.

Rerendum overturns co-payment in health and universities

2008-03-09T19:38:00.004+01:00

According to the first data approximately 45 per cent of the Hungarian voters supported the proposal of the opposition to overturn co-payment at the general practitioners', at the hospitals and at the public funded universities. Here's Erc D'Amato's lengthy political analysis on Politics.hu (Referendum to result in decisive "yes" for indecision) and Pestiside's report on the sexy nurses against co-payment. Many people thought that the referendum was not constitutional because public finances are the sole responsibility of the Parliament but the Constitutional Court decided otherwise. There are huge regional differences in the distribution of the votes: the 'no' votes account to around 25 per cent in Budapest and 15 per cent nationally (of the total votes). The prime minister has announced that the the majority in the Parliament bows to the popular will and scraps the co-payment fees from April. Link: Official referendum homepage of Hungary's National Election Office.

Regional differences in Hungarian unemployment

2008-03-09T18:00:00.004+01:00

Regional differences are growing all over Central Europe. Recently I have posted about the convergence of neighboring regions that were divided by country borders (Slovakia, Romania). Now here is another trend: growing heterogeneity within Hungary. Western Hungary, especially the vicinity of Győr has become a center of growth with a highly integrated economy and labor market with neighboring Austrian and Slovakian territories. Unemployment in these regions has been shrinking in 2007 and in many industries there is a labor shortage. On the other hand, Eastern and Southern Hungary has much higher and rising unemployment figures. Although Hungary is a small country, Hungarians are chronically immobile: they do not migrate either within the EU nor within the country. See also Hungary Economy Watch on Hungarian unemployment. In Hungarian: Nyílik a területi olló (Népszabadság, 21 January 2008.)

Labor as source of growth

2008-03-09T16:21:00.006+01:00

The annual report of the OECD Going for Growth project has a number of very exciting research data and conclusions. I think I will come back to this report later, what is most striking are the difference of labor productivity. This explains the relative poor incomes of the Central European countries, and it also highlights their sturctural similarities. The first column shows the GDP per capita compared to the US figure. Austria, the wealthiest Central European country has one of the highest added value from work in Europe. The Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland form a group in the OECD bottom seven.

The middle column shows how these national economies use their labor source: the Czech Republic actually scores better than the US and Hungary is doing OK with a very low unemployment (but also very low activity rate). The third column shows the real competitive disadvantage of the region: labor productivity. In this respect the V4 countries have very similar low values, which highlight a low working morale and a bad training and education system. I believe that the exclusion of Roma people from the labor market also contributes to the negative middle column result of Hungary and to a bigger extend of Slovakia. The low productivity of Central European workers do not compensate the long working hours. The Polish work even more than the US workers, the Czech, the Hungarians and the Slovakians just lagging behind, but still above the OECD average and well above the old EU members.

Newborn sharks in the Budapest Zoo

2008-03-09T11:15:00.003+01:00

The Budapest Zoo is a relatively small zoo in the middle of Budapest. It's greenhouse was designed by Gustave Eiffel. The greenhouse has a tropical aquarium which is not very spectacular compared to seaside zoos (it is quite difficult to maintain such an aquarium in a landlocked country) but it is proud to have some newborn brownbanded bamboo sharks. Like Schönbrunn Zoo (the 1st mondern zoo in the world) in nearby Vienna, the Budapest Zoo (3rd oldest) has been successfully modernized with preserving much of its 19th century style. It has a great conservation project for the endangered species of Hungary. Just five minutes walk from Andrássy út and the Museum of Fine Arts or the Gundel Restaurant, it truly deserves a visit if you are in Budapest.

Slovakian enterprises in the Hungarian market

2008-03-06T14:30:00.007+01:00

It has almost become a cliché in Hungary that our countries higher tax and social contribution levels reduce the national economies competitiveness. Although it sounds logical, I have never seen any empirical or theoretical proof for this, and I am more and more convinced that the general tax level and the competitiveness have very little impact on each other.

People who argued that Hungarian taxes should be cut in order to boost our failing competitiveness said that Hungarian enterprises will relocate to low-tax Slovakia. And what is the empirical evidence? According to the Mr. Dombi, András, the head of the Hungarian-Slovakian commitee of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, more Slovakian companies started activities in Hungary than Hungarians in Slovakia. Boosted by their general competitiveness and natural expansion constraints - the Slovakian economy has been growing by almost 10 per cent in a year - they started to drive out less competitive Hungarian companies from their own markets, especially in construction and furniture retailing.

While the small Slovenian economy and Hungary seem to have a balanced relationship, the Hungarian entrepreneurs complain about the protective behavior of the Austrian neighbors and the drain of their workers to Austria due to much higher wages. However, there is some balance here: high added value Hungarian services still attract many clients from Austria near the border, notably dentists, hair-dressers and beauticians.

Corrigendum: I formerly linked Mr. Dombi's words to Mr. Bihall, who is the head of the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county chamber, which is most effected by Slovakian competition.

Link: Tévhit a magyar cégek tömeges kivándorlása Szlovákiába; Regional Export Growth into Central Europe

American's favored nations

2008-03-05T00:22:00.004+01:00

Gallup has been polling Americans about their views on a number of countries since 1989. There are three European countries in the sample. The American people have a very positive opinion on these countries (UK +82, Germany +69, France +42, numbers meaning percentage of favorable views exceeding negative views). The UK comes 2nd after Canada, Germany 3rd, France 7th. The Palestinian Authority (-61), North Korea (-70) and Iran (-80) have the least favored view in the US in 2008. All in all: the Americans seem to have a more positive view of the Europeans than the other way around.

Free transatlantic travel

2008-03-02T13:58:00.006+01:00

The U.S. has upset the EU with granting visa free travel to Czech citizens on a bilateral basis.

The new, former Communist EU member states are usually have a better relationship with the U.S. than their Western-European counterparts. It has been a long time frustration for the Central European people that they cannot freely travel to the United States. All over the region people were really grateful for the U.S. for freeing them from the Soviet-imposed planned economy and dictatorship. These countries have joined NATO enthusiastically and went through a painful economic and social transition to get entry into the EU. (Image: Diego)

Since the entry of these countries the EU tried to persuade the U.S. to treat EU citizens on an equal footing. Had the U.S. granted visa free travel on a multilateral basis it would have strengthened the political unity of the EU which can achieve its goals on the global agenda. European analysts claim that this is exactly what the U.S. foreign policy wanted to avoid. Now that the Czech citizens were granted this privilege all Central European countries are leaving the EU block talks and trying to negotiated a bilateral agreement with America. I think this is a very short-sighted policy on both sides. The U.S. may achieve more from individual and weaker partners, and may be happy with a divided EU that is very critical of the current American government. However, on the long term the U.S. has only one stable political ally and it has former alliance with the European NATO members. A stronger EU would be more effective ally of the U.S. And the European criticism may be bitter for an American government official but far less threatening than the open hostility towards American in most regions of the world.

Previous post: US elections from Europe

Reginal export growth into Central Europe

2008-02-26T19:55:00.005+01:00

The Hungarian prime minister has started a 3-month consultation on the possible changes of the Hungarian tax and social contribution system. I think the three alternatives will be covered in detail in the economic press, so I would like to highlight only one figure from his presentation. (This was presented today and it is available only in Hungarian - ppt. The chart is my translation, and the prime minister did not use it in the context I am highlighting).

I think the chart speaks for itself. Once artificial barriers are removed, regional economies start to join up into a single market economy. The region which had been a single economic zone before the 20th century - with some notable internal customs, though - has started to re-integrated at a breath-taking pace. In the past 6 years Hungarian export to Slovakia has increased in nominal terms by more than 6 times. (The two countries had formed a single polity before the WWI). Hungarian export to our biggest neighbor, Ukraine is up by 497%. Exports to the Czech Republic and Romania have grown much faster than the average export values.

Political and economic unity brings people closer to each other in many aspects in Central Europe. Real convergence is visible and measurable on the border of Hungary and Romania. No traffic signs can stop people visiting each other or commuting to the nearby town.

What's up in Hungary?

2008-02-26T10:49:00.002+01:00

There always have been ex-pat edited English news sources in Budapest, but somehow they have never broken through. There are two new sites which appear to make it. Caboodle.hu is a very good guide to a visit in Hungary or to follow news about the country. According to some of their recent news, 70 percent of Hungarian does not trust anybody and only a minority of Hungarians are against the American rocket-defense system in Europe. Caboodle's sister site, Pestiside may even reach cult status. "The international voice of underground Hungary" claims to be the daily dish of cosmopolitan Budapest. Encouragingly I see more and more Hungarian friends reading it, which is a good sign that Pestiside is truly anchored in the Budapest life. You can read a nice review about the busójárás in Mohács, an article about the Budapest ambulance that tries to deafen us. Even one of my regulatory decisions made it into this fine news source.

Forint free floating

2008-02-25T19:36:00.003+01:00

The Hungarian Monetary Council has abolished the Hungarian forint's fluctuation band. The government has supported the move. The band has been around the euro-forint exchange rate since the former crawling peg regime of the 1990s. I had the personal opinion since 2001 that the sooner the better we move into the free exchange rate system. The Hungarian monetary authority believes that the floating exchange will help fighting inflation (8 % on a Dec/Dec basis). For years many Hungarian manufacturers and agriculture producers have been lobbying for a weak forint exchange rate which could have hidden their competitiveness-problems. The new floating regime will start from 26 February. Symbolically the 1 and 2 forint coins will not be used as legal tender from Saturday, 1 March. 2 forints are less then one euro cent and this early move may have pushed inflationary expectations down at an early stage. The new smallest coin is 5 forints which coincided with the smallest generally used euro coin, the 2 cent coin. Hopefully this rough coin exchange rates will prevail until we switch to the European currency.

More about Hungarian coins
Hungarian National Bank

Symbols of soverenity on the Balkans: Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia

2008-02-18T09:26:00.006+01:00

Kosovo had decided to choose its new national flag in a competition. The Albanian-speaking territory, which had declared independence yesterday, cannot use the traditionals symbols of Albania. According to Kosovo's Symbols Commission, the eagle was excluded from the list, although the Albanian black two-headed eagles on the red field was widely used in Kosovo's struggling way to independence. Over a 1000 competitors came up with ideas. The final version with the schematic geography of Kosovo and the European stars are depicted on the right-hand side. The people who celebrated to proclamation of freedom used both symbols. The Kosovo assembly voted unanimously for the flag of a blue field with a white map of Kosovo in the middle and six yellow stars above it. "The new flag represents the European Union aspirations of the new country".

The New Kosovo Report has recalled that the former president Ibrahim Rugova tried to dig up old symbols from Dardania, a historic ancestor of Kosovo's (non-Serbian) habitants, but few people got connected. It remains to be seen if both the Albanian and Serbian citizens of the newly proclaimed state will accept this new symbol.

The FP Blog recalls that the representatives of the Bosnia-Herczegovina federal assembly could not agree on a set of national symbols after the Dayton Peace Treaty, so the UN burocrats have chosen them so that the country can participate in such events as the Olympic Games (flag on the left-hand side).

On the other hand, Montenegro, which has only recently declared her independence, but had a bit of sovereign history, could easily agree on a red flag with golden two-headed eagles. (flag on the right-hand side).

Further links
BBC Europe: Memories of Kosovo; please find the memories of my friend Christopher from The Durgas about their concert on the bridge of Mitrovica where Albanian and Serbian people from Kosovo had a peaceful party together.
Kosovo: Independence live blog
BBE Europe: Kosovo MPs proclaim independence

Convergence on the Hungarian-Romanian border

2008-02-02T11:20:00.000+01:00

Horváth, Réka has some fascinating maps on her EU-blog. This map shows the per capita, price adjusted GDP decomposition to the four-four Hungarian (West) and Romanian (East) counties. If the European Single Market works, regional economies should converge in regional markets - especially so when the regions were divided only after WWI for a mere century. This charts shows a very remarkable convergence already in the phase of a relatively open foreign relation in the run-up of the two countries accession to the EU and the Single Market. Réka's second map (Hungarian titles: A határmenti megyék GDP/fő szintje 2004-ben Border countries GDP per capita levels in 2004, not shown here) shows that already by 2004 the formerly united region's economies were roughly on the same level. It would be hardly surprising that within a few years, when Romania joins the Schengen countries and the Hungarain labour market opens up that Western Romania and Eastern Hungary will form a single regional market. My guess is that the Western Romanian part will be the stronger because it has bigger urban centers, but Debrecen has a clear chance to be the gravity center for Szatmar, Romania.

The end of the Northern borders of Hungary

2008-01-09T22:09:00.001+01:00

The Hungarian Kingdom has lost its northern historic territories and its Slovakian, German, Jewish and of course Hungarian citizens in 1920. The relations between the new Czechoslovakia and Hungary had never been very good. The borders have divided communities for 87 years and made bad economic barriers in the regional economy. The accession of Slovakia and Hungary to the European Union have eased much of this pain in 2004. Commercial relations resumed between the two successors of the historic country, personal relations became less pressed by the borders. And eventually the borders fell on 21 December 2007.

The effect of the fall of the borders is even more positive than I had personally expected. I think within a few month these effects will be more clear, so this is not time for assessment yet. I just wanted to record three stories that will not make it into the history books for those who do not read in Hungarian.

There were some municipalities that have been trying to stop history. Although the decision lift the borders and border-crossing points was made at a European level, the municipality of Slovenské Nove Mesto decided to stop people with traffic signs and traffic barriers. Slovensé Nové Mesto (Kisújhely) is the minor part of the former Sátoraljaújhely, a town that was devided in the Versaille Peace Treaty. The two kilometer detour will hardly stop historic trends. (Hungarian articles with photos: origó, Népszabadság). The Slovakian prime minister was quoted to remind people that Slovakia and Hungary still has borders and these are separate states. This is true, indeed, the point is that these borders have lost much of their significance. Illustration: Piginka.

There was another simbolic incident on the Hungarian side of the Northern border (Southern border for readers in Slovakia, obviously). The border crossing station in Balassagyarmat apparently has been looted the days before it was closed down. Although nobody has been convicted, according to the news ten members of the former border patrol unit have been charged for taking roof tiles and some apparel home. Ironically, the members of this unit were integrated into the local police. (Hungarian article: index.hu) Illustration: docman.

This story has reminded me to a symbolic story back from the year of the European Union accession. I was visiting a small railway station that had been used for many years by the former station agent for his own subsistence farming needs. The station was out of use but the local community wanted to start using it again both as a station and as the village library. The former agent has passed away that year. An old person reminded the municipality that they have to be careful when they start refurbishing the small station because there is plenty of explosives inside. It turned out that the explosive was given to the station agents to blow up the railway in case of a Czechoslovakian military invasion. By 2004 there was no Czechoslovakian army, Hungary and Slovakia had been military allies for ten years within NATO and the railway line was hardly in used anyway. Still, the explosives were taken away when the two countries became members of the European Union. (This story is mentioned in my article, Vasút a határon / Railway on the borderline in 2004).

Visegrad trends in January 2008

2008-01-06T15:31:00.000+01:00

The former Polish prime minister, Mr. Kaczyński told a Hungarian interviewer that the V4 group does not exist in reality. In a way I think he was right: there is hardly any interest for the term 'Visegrad' from Poland in Google Trends.

The most searches come from Bosnia/Herzegovina, but I guess it goes to their own Visegrad, and so is most of the Serbian searches. The second most interest comes from Hungary, but Visegrad is a Hungarian tourist attraction, so it may not be connected always to the Visegrad group. The same can be said about the Slovakian interest, since Visegrad is just a stone-throw away from the Slovakian border.

The Economist magazine recently argued that the countries of the former Habsburg Empire increasingly behave as a powerful lobby group within the EU. I think that explains the cool attituted of the Polish to the Visegrad group (all three other members were united in the K.u.K empire, indivisibiliter et inseparabiliter). Anyway, far more people type in the form Visegrad from Austria than from Poland.

Marked items on the news trend:
A Visegrad Four to take joint stand on EU issues - Hungarian spokeswoman
B The warlord of Visegrad
C Visegrad Group meets in Hungary to mark anniversary, discuss EU-related issues
D President Klaus attends Visegrad Group summit in Hungary
E Visegrad Four not in agreement on Kosovo

Somehow it is only a coincidence that Bosnia-Herzegovina has a Visegrad, too. I believe that there is almost as much interest in this part of Central-Europe in Budapest than in Poland. How about a Visegrad-Visegrad summit?

US elections from Hungary

2008-01-05T17:50:00.000+01:00

The American presidential campaign is the most influential democratic competition in world affairs. Ironically, the outcome has an effect on almost all citizens on the Earth less than 5% per cent has a vote, and much less actually casts one. So the rest of the world, like the people of Hungary, are following and debating the American campaign with very little influence on the whole process.

Most of the EU countries, including Hungary are military allies of the US. The EU and the USA have some rivalry in international relations, but in most of the cases they stick together, almost as if there was a formal alliance between the two blocks.

What can Europe expect from the next president of the United States? I think most Europeans agree that we would like to see a president who is positively engaged in the affairs of the world, respect international law and institutions - including a better UN and a workable WTO, who is a predictable political partner and a reliable military ally, and who would join the European efforts on climate policy.

I guess that many people in Europe or in Hungary have a favorite candidate. I guess that the intellectually interesting Ron Paul has more supporters outside the US than inside, and I tend to agree that his very unlikely election would not give too much comfort to Europe. You could argue that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be constructive partners for Europe on the Democratic side, and John Edwards sounds great till he does not talk about trade policy. The Republican candidates have been much less predictable in the past decades, but even the surprise winner of the Iowa caucus, Mike Huckabee might become more cautious if he will be the president of the U.S. and not the governor of Arkansas. Mitt Romney is pro-NATO and Join McCain is talking about forming an alliance of democracies and not exporting the American one. Should he run, the most likely independent candidate Michael Bloomberg has the most effective and straightforward climate policy. His unlikely presidency would make the somewhat hypocritical European position on this issue turn to something more serious. (Image: OpenDemocracy)

So, after Iowa you cannot expect a disaster in international relations, but the top six candidates have really different policies and attitudes. It is up to our American friends to choose: we will have to form a constructive partnership with the winner anyway.

I follow international affairs through the Foreign Policy blog, so this is what I have on this issue:
The top 10 foreign policy gaffes from the campaign trail
Who will sally forth and defend free trade?

Essays by the candidates in the Foreign Policy magazine:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Rudolph Guiliani, Michael D. Huckabee, Barack Obama, John McCain, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney.

Happy new year!

2008-01-01T17:56:00.001+01:00

City light installations in Budapest

2007-12-30T15:21:00.001+01:00

It has became a recent tradition that on the last weeks of the year there are city light installations all over Budapest. You can find a lot of pictures on m.varos's flickr photostream.

Eastpark - the Hungarian South Park movies

2007-12-30T15:09:00.000+01:00

The Eastpark is an anonimous animation film inspired by South Park. Its creator is unknown and the movies can be downloaded free of charge from its webpage.
The characters are young Budapest professionals. In Tüntetés (Demonstration)they hack a tipical Budapest political demonstration, in Go East! they take a trip from Budapest to the countryside (yes, on a MÁV train). Karácsonyi rész (Christmas Episode) and A nagy karácsonyi borzalom (The Great Christmas Nightmare) are universal themes, so is the Stars Wars special. Basic Hungarian language skills or knowledge of the Budapest increases the enjoyment but I think the movies are great anyway.

It's a white Christmas in Budapest

2007-12-25T01:49:00.000+01:00

When I was a child we were always hoping for a white Christmas when snow falls on Christmas Eve. Digging up my memories and the meteorology archives we had more snow days in Budapest back than but still I remember only one or two such nights, most of the years we had ordinary, black Christmas, when the trees have no leaves and the grass hardly covers the black soil of the garden. This year it is a white Christmas again.

The previous year was the first year when we did not have a proper winter. Having no snow, no real cold, theres was no time to sit in the room, pause and reflect on the previous year. I did not have to have my coat cleaned as I hardly needed it. In January the average temperature was more than 6 centigrades above the average. The plants grew burgeons too early and we hoped that a freezing day will not harm them. The animals were crazy as they felt that something unusual was happening. Than we realized that worms that usually freeze in the winter will do harm in the resting leaveless trees. And then it was gone, no cold days, short springtime and a hell of a summer. I was really hoping for a winter this year.

A white Christmas is beautiful. The mist before the snow clears up the air. The low traffic on Christmas Eve has even less noise as the snow absorbs most of the resonance. This is the most quite night than can fall on Budapest. The snow reflects the light from the streetlamps and everything is visible. This is exactly what we have tonight.

It is a relief. It is not only nostalgic, it feels natural. You know that all the nature and all the people were tired from the heat and the hight speed of the warm days. Now it is clear, cold and quite. As it came on Christmas Eve you can hardly believe that it is not a godly. I went out to the top of Gellérthegy, the hill I was brought up. I just arrived to the distant sound of the churchbells ringing all over the city for the midnight mass. I realized that Budapest has never been so beautiful. It had great architecture in the 19th century but it had no lights so you could hardly have such a view back than. After the world wars most of the buildings were damaged and remained so until the end of Communism. In the planned economy there were higher priorities than to renovate the city. Now most of the building are in proper shape, and we have more lights than ever. I thought that it is the same technology that makes this city so beautiful and which threatens its ecology. It occured to me that despite all the worry this could be a very nice century after all if we find balance. If we don't screw it up.

I was thinking about my family members and friends abroad who I miss tonight. I was driving through the city and took a few pictures for them. I hope you will like them. I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Update: It looks that people in the English-speaking word also use the term White Christmas and are hoping for it, too. And they are happy to have one.

Hungary ratifies Lisbon Treaty, changes health care

2007-12-18T07:38:00.001+01:00

The Hungarian Parliament was first to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which has replaced the draft Constitution. I was a big supporter of the Constitution, which had been ratified in Hungary before the Dutch and the French voters rejected it. The parliamentary vote was 325-5 in favor of ratification, with 14 abstentions. I believe that the Lisbon Treaty is in fact a constitution and I am proud of our Parliament's decision. It is a rare find that a political body gives up power in favor or others.

It was a big day in our Parliament: among others, the Parliament approved a bill on health care reform and rejected the president's candidates to two ombudsman positions.

Icelandic-Hungarian military diplomacy

2007-12-16T11:16:00.001+01:00

Hungary became a member of NATO after a ballot in 1995. Our ex-Warsaw Pact Army and our new democratic politicians were not really up to the task at that time, about one per cent of the Hungarian Army was capable and equipped to take part in any NATO operations. This irony was reflected in a series of objects designed by a great Hungarian artist, Lakner, Antal, who designed some military equipment to our new ally, Iceland. The Foreign Relations ministry of Hungary as an underperforming NATO member informally pressed the artist's curator not to put Lakner's equipment on display in a foreign gallery which was close to a NATO office because they feared that this film make our tension with our unimpressed new allies ever more dramatic. Luckily, the Icelandic diplomacy had a good laugh at Lakner's one person submarines and survival kits and the whole project had a good audience, too. (I hope the artist will not mind that I put his Plankton-class submarine image here). I just recalled this story about the turbulent Icelandic military diplomacy after the previous post on an American-Icelandic misunderstanding.
Here is a Hungarian blog post on an exhibition of Lakner's Icelandic Army apparel with a few photos.

Transatlantic news before Christmas

2007-12-16T10:50:00.000+01:00

I thought I was one of those Hungarians who are not ignoring the United States where I have many ties, still I thought that the Barney Cam series was a joke until now. I really cannot form an opinion on this because it would be so impossible in the Sándor Palace with our president - I still find it nice that Tony Blair who lost his support when he became nicknamed Bush's Poodle appears on the latest Barney video. I thought for a day that at least the White House cannot be hacked.

Now there comes this story about the Icelandic kid who happened to have the number of the white house on his mobile phone card, and pretending to be president Grímmsson he secured a telephone call through the other president's secretary. (A nice Icelandic blog can tell you a nice twist in the end of the story.) Anyhow, these are the story that get through the Atlantic and raise some interest - the never ending story about American-Iranian relations do not have much more readers in my country than the writer of this blog. I really cannot tell if this could have happened in Hungary - we do not have submarines posted in Iceland, so I guess very few people happen to recognize Mr. Grímmsons name, altough he is a NATO ally, but I am almost sure that the Sandor Palace will never offer to call you back the other day.

More: Bush és Blair on the Lego Axis of Evil, Blair wishes good luck to Sarkozy, my reader on the USA and links about the USA as seen from Hungary. (I will keep an eye on Iceland, too)

Images of Albania

2007-12-08T23:18:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week I visited Albania on an official trip to the SEETO Summit. Unfortunately I did not have either much free time or a camera with me, but I made some snapshots with my mobile telephone. Both the country and its new relationship with NATO and the EU made a huge impact on me, so expect more posts.
You can have a look at my photos.

You have the power

2007-12-03T01:32:00.000+01:00

Public broadcast by the Victorian Goverment in Melbourne, Australia. Hat tip: Dávid

Head of EIU on Hungary

2007-12-01T19:18:00.000+01:00

Portfolio.hu has published an interview with Daniel Thorniley, Senior Vice President of the Economist Group and head of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
Mr. Thorniley is quite optimistic about Hungary's economic prospects and seems to have a very pessimistic view on Hungarian politics.

From an economic point of view, [he fiscal adjustment measures are] doing reasonably well. The target is to tighten up the budget deficit and that is happening. Everybody expected that more fundamental structural reforms on pensions, healthcare, wages might be slower, and they have been. [...] I think what Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány wants to do is to try and put some measures in place [...] where different governments, as they come into power, cannot play with the budget deficit and the fiscal numbers. I think this is probably a good idea, because all governments in the world try to “buy and bribe" the electorate before elections. [...] Hungary has probably been the worst example of the extent to how this political, economic bribery takes place. And all political parties share the blame. [...] I think all Hungarian politicians have been very good at telling lies.

The broader picture is much better than the current Hungarian economic and political situation appears.

Core Central Europe - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, even Hungary when it sorts itself out, Romania - are in a very strong economic and financial position. Growth in some of these markets very strong, inflation is low, budget and current account deficits are low, so if you look at the region as a whole there's a lot to be positive about.

I always hope that it helps us to see our country from a different perspective outside the box and I wish more people read this excellent interview inside the box.

You need to be a genius to read this blog

2007-11-25T23:31:00.000+01:00

According to a funny test, you have to be a genius to understand my non-native English blog.

You can make it even worse with The Dialectizer. Anyhow, it's not worse than The Economist or Barack Obama's homepage. Hat tip to FP Passport.

A Subtle Plague in Tilos az Á

2007-11-07T22:41:00.001+01:00

Globally recognized music groups

2007-11-04T11:04:00.000+01:00

The Gracenote Music Maps shows which are the most sought after album covers in each country of the world. (Album covers are downloaded when somebody listens to an old records digitized, legal copy, or to illegally downloaded music). After many millions of downloads there are very visible trends that will take culture studies students to understand in the following years.

Let's have a look at the taste of the Central-European, former Soviet Bloc V4 countries. Each list represents the popularity of artists from #1 to #10.

Hungary: Linkin Park, Depeche Mode, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Tankcsapda, Madonna, Queen, The Beatles, Nightwish, AC/DC.
Czech Republic: Linkin Park, Kabát, The Beatles, Daniel Landr, Madonna, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, Queen, Nightwish.
Poland: Linkin Park, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Džem, System of a Down, Verba, Nirvana, Nelly Furtado, O.S.T.R, Happysad.
Slovakia: Horkýže Slíže, Metallica, Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Elán, Depeche Mode, U2, Desmod, Madonna, Imt Smile.

Each country has a few big homegrown stars in the national language. (If you look at individual records, Rúzsa Magdi is in the top list but she has only very few records yet). There are absolute evergreens, and each country has a global star that has remained big on the particular national soil. This is the Depeche Mode in Hungary, Nirvana in Poland, and Madonna in the two post-Czechoslovakian countries. Queen is big in all over Central-Europe, they have made one of their official concert movies in Budapest singing our folk song távászi szél vizet árászt with a British accent.

Taking a glance of the reference countries of Central-Europe, not only the similarities are striking, but also the fact, that this region cannot be conquered in German language any more. That is a historically significant change.

Austria: Die Ärzte, The Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, Metallica, Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung, AC/DC, Linkin Park, Green Day
United Kingdom: The Beatles, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Oasis, Green Day, Queen, Robbie Williams, U2, Pink Floyd.
Germany: Die Ärzte, Böse Onkelz, The Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, AC/DC, Metallica, Linkin Park, Die Toten Hosen, Robbie Williams, Rammstein.

The Beatles and the Pink Floyd are as much evergreens as AC/DC and Metallica.

Now let's contradict some prejudice about the impossibility of global dialog with the young in the urbanized Islamic countries. The Wall movie could be a global reference point in the secondary school curriculum to facilitate global understanding and promote democracy. If the United Nations wants to embrace more pop stars to promote peace I would suggest approaching Céline Dion.

Iran: Hayedesh, Googoosh, Pink Floyd, Céline Dion, Dariush, Anastacia, Ebi, Metallica, Shiavash Ghomaysi, Anathema
Pakistan: Atif Ashlam, Metallica, Linkin Park, Nushrat Fateh Ali Khan, Guns 'n' Roses, Eminem, Judas Priest, Ali Zafir, The Beatles, U2.

Maybe we could also check out Hayedesh or Atif Ashlam. Anyhow, I recall a great Iranian women who told me that she is freely travelling the country without the burqa with two globally recognized objects: David Beckham posters for militiamen with a daughter at home and Pink Floyd tapes for those whose child is a boy.

Indie rock in Budapest

2007-10-22T10:59:00.000+02:00

You can freely download the first EP of the Budapest indie band, Óriás. This is one the few good Hungarian indie bands. The band is based on two great indie guitarists who played in Amber Smith, the former flagship of the Budapest scence, and the now defunct Annabarbi band. Amber Smith has more or less relocated to the German scene, so there is a healthy competition for the first place in Budapest. The Óriás EP consists of five Hungarian language songs, I find four of them very good, and if you understand only some of our language you can read the lyrics on your iPod. Great words, good way to improve your Hungarian!

Óriás will play in Budapest on 15 November in Süss fel nap, Amber Smith will play in Budapest on 26 October on A38 ship, 27 October in Dresden and a few shows in Lithuania in the winter period.

The birth of Hungarian democracy in the New York Times archive

2007-10-14T20:21:00.000+02:00

The New York Times has opened its online archive from 1981. This makes the articles on the birth of Hungarian democracy (and the regime change all over Central Europe) freely available through the eyes of the American left-leaning daily newspaper. Here is the search engine set to 23 October 1988 - 23 March 1990. A few highlights: an essay from Adam Michnik (Notes From the Revolution), an early article about investment opportunities and brain drain, and a report on the first democratic election campaign in more than 40 years.

Hungary supports the reform treaty

2007-10-04T22:44:00.001+02:00

Hungary was one of the member states that had ratified the European Constitution, so it is not very surprising that it was announced today that we also support what remained after the refusal by the Dutch and the French people. The full text of the reform treaty will be available from the homepage of the EU presidency. In 2004 I had a series of articles arguing in favour of the constitution, somewhat in the style, but not the grandeur of the federalist papers.

Better in the long run - improving institutional indicators

2007-09-26T23:41:00.000+02:00

Hungary has lost much of its early transition competitive edge in Central Europe and has been going through a very painful fiscal stabilization in the past two years. In the short run, all the neighbors and Poland are doing much better. However, for the first time there is some evidence that the fundamentals are changing. Hungary jumped from the 66th place to the 45th on the World Bank Doing Business ranking, which shows the ease of doing business in a national economy. Slovakia takes the 32nd place in the ranking, the other countries in the region are behind Hungary now. Actually no EU member has ever performed such an improvement in a year since the World Bank records these indicators. An even better news is that after four years Hungary improved on the perceived corruption score of Transparency International, taking the 39-40th best score with Cyprus. (Czech Republic - 41; Slovakia - 48; Poland - 61; Romania - 68). Looking at the breath-taking pace of the Slovakian, Polish or Romanian economies we used to say that these countries are catching up with those short-term quick fixes of the economic transition that the Hungarians already used in the 1990s and we are trying to improve the fundamentals that count on the long-run. The quality of the business climate and the level of corruption do count in the long-run, they help underpin a higher stable growth rate, and are much harder to improve than to sell a bankrupt state monopoly. Our short-term macroeconomic indicators are really not very nice, but as an economist with an institutionalist mindset I believe that this will help. In Hungary's Competitiveness Roundtable I will push forward this agenda.

Pub music deregulation II

2007-09-21T19:31:00.000+02:00

I have just posted about the anniversary of the deregulation of the DJ industry and here is the latest news from the rent-seeker galaxy: the Hungarian gypsy musicians are demonstrating the have the regulation re-established. The old regulation that turned the Communist-era censorship committee into a small scale music industry entry barrier has protected a number of gypsy musicians from competitions. Regulation 43/1998. (VI. 24.) IKIM made not only DJ shows but all forms of live music performance regulated in Hungary. Now a group of gypsy musicians make the surreal claim that it violates their human rights, namely the right to dignity that non-licensed gypsy musicians can perform traditional gypsy music in restaurants, hotels and other public spaces. According to Mr Raduly (Hungarian bio), a chairman of a foundation and also a former member of the council of Budapest VII district, gypsy musicians were not allowed to perform live in Hungary for seventy years which gave a standing and dignity to those who had to pass the exam. His claim is that the abolition of the regulation degrades their work to simple skilled labor. Stalin may be smiling in hell: an segregated ethnic minority wants segregation back in the name of right for human dignity, because regulated work creates dignity. How about the liberty of arts in Europe? And freedom of enterprise? Link: Cigányzenés tüntetés várható Gyurcsány és Kóka miatt Thanks David for the link. Image: Kálló, János in Thermal Hotel Héviz, cc Simon1944.

Related: Iran declares war on rappers

Vatican offsets carbon emission in Hungary

2007-09-20T22:52:00.000+02:00

The Vatican State has announced to offset all its carbon emissions in July. Though less sure than reducing energy use, it is still forward-thinking and the prayers may help, too. Even if the carbon offset theory fails the forest will be there. The offset forest happens to be in Hungary near Tiszakeszi in the beautiful If you happen to visit this 700-years-old village, have a look at the growing trees and think about it. More in the International Hearld Tribune. Image: Habeebee in another Hungarian forest.

Who's interested in Visegrad countries?

2007-09-20T21:20:00.000+02:00

An update to the interest in V4 countries: Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic. Many believe that this region is at its best when nobody speaks about us and we work quietly.

The latest analysis is up-to-date, although earlier Google Trends worked with a significant time delay. Fortunately Hungary is not in the top six most sought after articles and we have not been quoted too much since last autumn. The smaller trendlines in the bottom show the number of appearance in the news, the larger above the number of searches in English for these country names in Google. (The Kaczyński twins have a considerable media impact). And where do the searches come from: the most from Austria to the Czech Republic, from Ireland and the UK to Poland and from Romania to Hungary. The overall picture is very similar if you analyze the German language searches and news.

There is a significant difference in the detail: the most German language searches from Austria go to Hungary, the most from Germany goes to Poland but here Hungary and the Czech Republic are equals. From the Switzerland Hungary gets the most searches but Poland follows as very closely. Earlier: Interest for V4 Central European countries.

Unregulated DJ services in Hungary

2007-09-19T23:57:00.001+02:00

Can you believe it that disk jockey services were regulated in Hungary until the end of 2006? A state-commissioned authority, which was closely related to the copyright holders association, examined the abilities both in theory and practice of the would be DJs. Unlicenced DJ and clubs were subject to fines if they played for the public. The regulation was meant to protect the consumers of leisure services. The same committee had controlled the public stages from artistic subversion during the Communist years. The economy minister abolished the regulation a year ago. No consumer groups have complaint in the first year of the unregulated Hungarian DJ market. However, the opposition managed to secure a referendum on undoing the partial liberalization of the drug market. If the referendum will be successful, non-prescription drugs will not be available in supermarkets and petrol stations. A bit more in Hungarian.

Pictures from Croatia

2007-09-06T22:53:00.000+02:00

This is how I saw Croatia in 2007, from the island of Korčula and Split. Korčula is the sixth biggest isle on the Adriatic with a land surface of 279 km2, roughly half the size of Budapest, and it has about 17 thousand inhabitants. This is quite how you would imagine Eden, 61 percent is sill covered with forests. Those who got their childhood education from Gerald Durrell's book may find the original name, Black Korfu, tempting and telling. In the 12th century through some quite remote feudalistic arrangements it came a few times under the sovereignty of the Hungarian king. The locals claim the Marco Polo was born here, too. Slideshow.

Hungary in the firing line

2007-08-26T19:31:00.000+02:00

The Economist Intelligence Unit has an assessment of the current Hungarian economic situation. You can find the most important facts on Hungary Economy Watch: the forint is weakening, the national budget has a large deficit and we have a large public debt, which makes financing the Hungarian economy difficult in times of short liquidity. Magyarul.

fastr mini game

2007-08-24T15:42:00.001+02:00

Top 100 given names for Hungarian men

2007-08-12T14:35:00.001+02:00

The founder of Hungary, our first Christian king and saint was Stephen I of Hungary, or Szent István. The most common name in the Hungarian male population is István.

Not unlike the given names of Hungarian women, the most popular names of Hungarian men are deeply connected to our history. In 2006 quite different names were in fashion for new-borne Hungarian boys: Bence (33. in total male population of Hungary), Máté (44), Levente (49). A generation ago Hungary's historical figures inspired the most name-giving. Nowadays biblical and ancient pre-Christian Hungarian names dominate the top ten for both girs and boys.

You can view the dataset and analyse the chart on ManyEyes.

Top 100 given names for Hungarian women

2007-08-12T14:06:00.000+02:00

Regnum Mariae Patronae Hungariae
"Kingdom of Mary the Patroness of Hungary"

The old Hungarian Kingdom's patroness was Mary (Mária) and still it is the most common Hungarian given name.

Anna (6. in the whole population), Boglárka (76) and Réka (60) were the three most common given names for girls borne in 2006. It seems to be the season for biblical, ancient, or ancient-sounding Hungarian names for both boys and girls. Patronesses and state founders are less fashionable nowadays. Fashion comes and goes but society changes at a much slower pace: Mary and Stephen still rule the statistics of the Hungarian population.

You can analyse the dataset and the chart on ManyEyes.

Europe's interest in a peaceful globalization

2007-08-10T11:44:00.001+02:00

The American-Chinese rivalisation tends to get some cold-war flavor. China is in an arm's race, the US is threatening with economic sanctions. The Chines government seems to have found a grip on its rival's economy.

China keeps $1,33 trillion in reserves - that is €971 billion, or 244,6 trillion Hungarian forints. The Chinese government silently threats to dump this amount on the world market. (Switzerland and Russia has done so, for different reasons. Mr Putin wants to make a world currency out of the rouble).

What will happen? It is hard to believe that all this amount will be sold off, but the dollar will loose value. That will conclude a sharp rise in the dollar interest rates, because people will need an extra compensation to hold the loser currency. The Americans will close the door the the world because their money will not worth much outside their home country. China will loose a lot of money on the sale, and the euro will become the worlds premiere reserve currency. That may be an opportunity for the European Union: the world trust us more than the Chinese and the Americans. These changes are already felt, because Europe as a region has become the center of world finance a after a hundred years. These would be even more so, were the British with us, but they have opted out.

It would be very early to be happy about this. The Europeans will be closed to their Single Market because this process will drive up the euro rate so high that the rest of the world will not be able to buy what euro-payed workers produce. And than comes the problem of the EU that her domestic market is shrinking due to ageing.

The bottom line is that those countries which are open to the world economy and which are competitive on the world market may be very worse off in this process. Both America and China has a huge and growing domestic market and are less bothered by a disruption of the world economy. A currency crisis may halt the world trade for many years, and those countries, which have little natural reserves, or a little and shrinking domestic market, like Hungary, may be very badly hurt. As the US, Russia and China are more sliding into power politics, the EU will need to further enhance its soft power and needs to be very constructive in world politics. Countries like Hungary are interested in world peace and a peaceful globalisation of the world economy: international trade and international migration without burdens.

How much shall we pay for health care?

2007-08-04T16:31:00.001+02:00

Health Affairs published an excellent article on What Should a Country Spend on Health Care? The article shows why is it so difficult to answer this question in any useful way, and how can you reformulate the question to get meaningful answers. I made a chart from the OECD countries' health spending (proportional to GDP per capita). On the vertical axis, which starts with 3% there are the 1995 results and on the horizontal axis which starts with 5% the 2004 results. Hungary is market with the orange dot. All OECD countries have both increased their GDP per capita and also the proportion of health care spending per capita.
Analyse further the data and chart: Many Eyes.

Hungary spends 8 per cent of her GDP on health care which is far above 5 per cent recommended by the UN. However, all OECD countries tend to spend more because they have a more expensive system, a more elderly population. The typical Hungarian is 13,5 years older than the typical inhabitant of the Earth.

It is not very meaningful per se if you ask if Hungary's 8 per cent is a lot or is it too low. The US is an outlier on the chart, the Americans spend 15,3 per cent of their domestic income on health care and it hardly pays of. There are African countries plauges with AIDS that cannot maintain their population with the Hungarian level of spending.

Chart: Child mortality and health care spending.

It seems, that there exist only one clear but important link between higher proportional health care spending and health: the child mortality rate, which is very important for such low fertility-rate countries as Hungary or the V4 countries. But even in this case it is not sure what causes this phenomenon. So, you should read What Should a Country Spend on Health Care? if you want to ask the right question in this complex problem. I think that is the first step to for a health care funding reform policy. More blogs on health care and budget.

V4 wages and tax burden

2007-07-29T23:19:00.000+02:00

I found an interesting comparison of wages in V4 countries on Central-European Economics Watch.

Analyse further the data on Many Eyes.

Super-gross wages (SGW) include wage, tax and social security; gross wage (GW) includes wage plus tax; net wage (NW) is what the earner gets. All data are in 2004 euors. (All four countries have a universal, compulsory health and pension coverage and none of them pays with euros so far).

Country	SGW	GW	NW	GW/SGW	NW/SGW
CZ	1854	1374	1064	74,11%	57,39%
HU	1531	1136	750	74,20%	48,99%
PL	1634	1356	920	82,99%	56,30%
SK	1250	988	768	79,04%	61,44%

Altough the social security contributions buy various public goods in these countries, Hungarians do not seem to get a very good deal.

ReCaptcha on this blog

2007-07-29T22:23:00.001+02:00

About 60 million such puzzles are solved by humans around the world every day to retrieve e-mails, passwords a blogposts, because spammers and their robots do not have the time and energy for that. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that's not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day. Carnegie Melon University has launched an application which makes you such puzzles from digitized texts. Each time you or your reader types in the solution the reCaptcha application feeds back the information into a database. This way you help to digitize old books and make them available for the public. I love applications that pull together the public resources so I installed it on the right-hand side.

Tax evasion and wages

2007-07-22T17:56:00.000+02:00

The Hungary Economy Watch cited the latest Hungarian labour statistics which show a 1.3% after tax increase in the private sector wages (12.3% nominal wage increase and -6.6% decrease in real terms).For the first sight it looks a rather bad news. However, we tend to cite more and more the graph above which shows the budget of Hungary's single, universal, tax-financed health care system. The dark green columns represent health costs that the National Health Fund actually had to reimburse the year before. The light green columns represent income received the year before by the fund on a monthly basis. The blue column stands for monthly costs that were reimbursed by the Fund this year. The light blue columns shows the income received in this year by the Fund. The bottom line is the two curves: brown shows balance 2006 and red shows balance in 2007. The Fund had a surplus in January, February, April and May due to higher contribution per capita but also to an increase of 140 000 payers in the first 4 months. (pdf report, Hungarian).

We tend to believe, or at least we hope that the dramatic nominal increase in wages marks a trend where low-payed workers changed their illegal income to a higher, tax-paying wage. Although slightly less Hungarians were employed in 2007 (the first quarterly decrease is about 47,000) the number of health fund contributors have risen by 140,000. The net effect is that the size of the black labour market has shrunk and the legally operating labour market is slightly relieved. However, both he number of people working legally and their living standard is in decline.

Hot like hell in Hungary

2007-07-21T17:49:00.000+02:00

Hungary has been very slow to start any governmental or academic debate on the climate change and the Hungarian public is not very prepared for changes in lifestyle. Sadly, because landlocked Hungary is one of the most effected countries in the world. The average temperature in January waws 6,2C above the long-term average which effected both the fauna and the flora of Hungary quite dramatically. On 20 July the absolute heat record was broken, it was 41C in the shade. The catastrophic heat lead to a series of nights when the air did not cool below 27C which lead to a 30 per cent increase in the daily mortality rates. The National Climate Change Strategy is under public debate till the 31 August 2007. Hungary is as hot as hell, I hope it will increase the heat of very much neglected debate. (Links of public debates and data in Hungarian).

Hungarian managerial wages

2007-07-18T22:37:00.000+02:00

According to an international survey of Hay Group Hungarian managers receive 6,1 times the compensation of their workers. Among the 49 countries surveyed Hungary ranks 39th. Polish managers receive 8,9 times more, Romanians 8,8 times more than their non-executive co-workers. In Slovakia this ratio is 4,8:1 and in Austria merely 3,5:1. Polish managers receive on average $39,000 more, Romanian managers $24,000 more than Hungarians. The difference is partly caused by the lower mobility of Hungarians. Executive pays buy different living standards in the world. A Hungarian manager's living standard is less lower than the wage difference would imply: Hungary still offers a very good average quality of public services.

Nations young and competitive and those who are left behind

2007-07-08T22:21:00.000+02:00

I just took a glance at those countries which are young, and the most competitive in their age group (meaning they have a younger typical age than the world average and there is no country which is both more competitive and younger). I also took a glance at those countries which are ageing and the least competitive in their age group (meaning that their typical female inhabitant is over 28.5 years and there is no older country which is not more competitive). But first of all let's have a look at the distribution of the worlds over 65 population on Worldmapper. I am interested in the hypothesis that ageing societies need to collect revenues (export or remittances) from abroad.
Here is a slightly modified version of the chart from the previous post. The dots represent countries, the size of the dots are proportional with the country population's age (larger dots, older populations). The horizontal or X values are the typical ages of the countries and vertical or Y values are the GCI competitiveness scores.
The left-hand covering curve represents the most competitive young societies, from left to right: Uganda, Gambia, Kenya, Honduras, Guatemala, Kuwait, Quatar, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. The typical Malaysian citizen is just 25 years old! These countries have many young people and they find comparatively good revenues in the world market. The right-hand bottom curve represents those ageing countries that are the least competitive: Guyana, Albania, Armenia, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria. These countries have many old inhabitants and they are struggling to earn money in the world market.

I did not dig deeply in the data just looked up this excellent Worldmapper cartogram which distorts the size of the countries by the proportion of their emigration (people leaving the country). It is not surprising that the young are leaving the least competitive places and the remaining population depends very heavily on remittances sent home. More blogs on ageing societies or demography and export.

Ageing and competitiveness

2007-07-03T00:39:00.000+02:00

There must be something in the hypothesis of ageing and exporting. I plotted the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index against the medium age of these societies. The most competitive economies are rather old, or rather experienced. The least competitive societies are very young indeed: their typical inhabitant is a teenager.

It looks very logical to me that an ageing society must find its revenues abroad. It also looks very logical to me that you have to be experienced and developed to find revenues on the world market. If these assumptions are true than those nations will be in a trouble which are ageing but are not competitive on the world market. Ageing nations need to support a growing number of elderly, thus they need to improve labour productivity lifelong and stay longer active, as the World Bank suggests, or need to attract immigration, as the Hungarian Economy Watch says.

Hungary is market with the orange dot in the chart. The horizontal line is drawn at the median age of the Earth, the vertical line is halfway between the most and the least competitive national economy on the world market. Hungary is placed in the NW quarter of the map: she is more competitive than the average country, but also far more ageing. The NE countries have a very good chance to gain even stronger positions on the world market: they are already very competitive with a very young population, such as India, the United Arab Emirates, or Malaysia. In the SE corner you find very young societies with teenagers as typical citizens and very low competitiveness in the world economy. These countries are almost all Sub-Saharan African countries. There demography is sometimes very sad: the active age group is very small due to the AIDS plague. Countries in the SW corner are under the double pressure: an ageing society with very little to sell to the rest of the world - countries in the Balkans or Uruguay and Armenia. People are already leaving these places and the countries are getting dependent on their remittances home.

Hungary is not in a very bad situation, but could do much better: Thailand, India, Kuwait and Oman have a similiar competitiveness score with almost 20 years younger populations. The typical age of the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Denmark and Switzerland ave very similar, but their competitiveness is higher. In fact, the most competitive nations in the world have very similar typical ages than Hungary. To analyse further see Many Eyes Chart or read more demography or hungary related blog posts. Update: Nations young and competitive and those who are left behind

Exporting from an ageing country

2007-07-01T22:08:00.000+02:00

For a number of years it is becoming evident for Hungarian economists that the greatest challenge in our country is our demography. Beside the social changes that an ageing society has to cope with there are huge economic problems: the economic equilibrium among generations (the young depending on the parent generation's support, the active generation and the old depending on the children generation's support) may be harmed and even there can be a shortage of labor. The equilibrium at least in a basic sense is certainly broken: we have a shrinking population. Photo: photoreb.

I find the blog posts in Demography Matters very interesting. The Fertility Trap Hypothesis and a sort of an economic corollary: an ageing society must turn export-oriented is very much worth investigating in Hungary. The core of the argument as far as I understand is that there is a certain 'age' of a society where the people who drive domestic demand through home-building, borrowing to start a life and so on, namely the young become a minority. When a society is becoming 'old' it needs no more homes and other earthly things to build up only revenues to support itself. On a shrinking domestic market it must turn to the rest of the world and export. Chart: Raito of people aged above 65 on Many Eyes.

The 'age' of a society is best measured with the median age. The median age of Hungarian women is 41.5 years which means that exactly half of the Hungarian women are under 41.5 and half of the Hungarian women are over 41.5 years. The weighted average of the countries and territories on my source is 28.5 years for women, which is a good approximation to the age of the typical woman on Earth. It is very easy to understand what makes the Hungarian society an 'ageing' one. The typical woman on the Earth is 28.5 years old, thus she is very likely to raise children and to give birth to another child. The typical Hungarian woman is 41.5 years old and she is very unlikely to give birth to another child. (A quick V4 comparison: Slovakia 37.9 years, Poland 39.3 years, Czeck Republic 41.3 years; Austria and Germany has an older, the US has a younger typical woman). Photo: Bitca.

Were the export-orientation hypothesis true, the question of Hungarian competitiveness would gain even more weight. Please do not hesitate to comment on this. Update: Ageing and competitiveness.

The Durgas are back to Hungary

2007-06-23T16:42:00.000+02:00

The Durgas are back to Hungary in July 2007. These great guys have been around the Hungarian indie scene since 1993 (A Subtle Plague, A Drastic Measure) and were the local indie band in Tilos az Á. Don't miss their show in Gödör on the 12th or in the Besence where they play on the village festival on the 14th. If you want to find out more about their music, visit their MySpace page or play their new record on their webpage.

Hungary in the Global Corruption Report

2007-06-12T21:44:00.000+02:00

Hungary ranks 40-42th on country list of the Global Corruption Report 2007. According to Transparency International Hungary's corruption score was 4,8 in 2004, 5,0 in 2005 and now it has worsened to 5,2. The least corrupt countries in Central Europe are Austria (11), Estonia (21), Slovenia (28). Hungary still scores better than the Czech Republic and Lithuania (46th), Latvia and Slovakia (49), Bulgaria (57), Poland (61), Croatia (69) and Romania (84).
I have put some of the least corrupt and most corrupt countries on the map above. In the chart a measure of happiness in the country is mapped against its income per head. The peoples in the upper right hand corner are happy and rich, in the upper left hand corner poor and happy, and in the lower left hand corner unhappy and poor. Happy and rich countries tend to be clear and corrupt countries are usually very unhappy with themselves.

My Hungarian post is longer. Further links: corruption, korrupció.

Update on naming pandas

2007-06-10T19:59:00.000+02:00

Here's an update upon request on the panda naming game. The pandas actually got their names. From the No. 1 to the No. 18, they respectively are: Si Xue, Bao Le, Mei Xi, Mei Xin, Tao Tao, Si Jia, Huan Huan, Fu Ni, Fu Wa, Feng Yi, Lang Lang, Cui Cui, Yi Bao, Qian Qian, Duo Duo, Meng Meng, Mei An and Xi Dou. According to the China Daily they were accepting English names, too, but it is very hard to find out if this was only a PR attraction, or they have actually considering English names, or, as it is quite usual in China, they have chosen a Chinese and an English name at the same time. (Many Chinese people use an English name in international company for ease of communication...)
It was a pleasure to make this little research because the cubs are very cute! (The YouTube file may be slow to download but it's worth waiting for.) More blogs on pandas.

V4 relative performance in the past decade

2007-06-10T19:43:00.000+02:00

Here are some interesting data on the relative performance of the V4 countries. Taking the gross income of each country in 1995, and adjusting for difference price levels, you can see that over a decade it has almost doubled in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia and had a bit more modest growth in the Czech Republic.

If you click on the Many Eyes data set, and leave the relative to 1995 ticker out, you can see the actual purchising parity price adjusted GDP data. It is very interesting to see that all the four countries had a very similar growth path and the income differences remained very stable. Poland almost took on Slovakia in 2000. Despite their sluggish performance the Czech Republic and Hungary could maintain its lead over this time - altough Slovakia's remarkable past three years may change the picture soon.

Hungary and the EU in the Global Peace Index

2007-06-09T15:45:00.000+02:00

The Economist Intelligence Unit has produced the Global Peace Ranking. The score of each country represents its people's peacefulnes with each other and the rest of the world - how much violence is present within their society, levels of violent crime, conflicts, size of armies and so on. The most peaceful country in the world is Norway. The EU is a remarkable success: it was invented 50 years ago to prevent war in a continent which was the bloodiest. In 2007 the EU members are among the most peaceful nations in the world. Hungary ranks 18th despite its current unhappiness with itself. See the data on a world map or read more blogs:Hungary, EU, Norway, Global Peace Index. You can also go to Many Eyes to analyse the data further with the help of this great tool.

Interest for V4 Central European countries

2007-06-02T16:07:00.000+02:00

Here is a graphic analysis of search trends and news appearance of the four Visegrad countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia on Google Trend:

Poland is most searched after in Poland, Nigeria, Lithuania, Ireland, Belarus, Latvia, Ukraine, Czeck Republic, Slovakia, United Kingdom.
Czeck Republic is searched after in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ireland, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, United Kingdom.
Hungary is most searched after Hungary, Serbia & Montenegro, Slovakia, Nigeria, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, Czeck Republic, Ireland, Bulgaria.
Slovakia is most searched after in Slovakia, Czeck Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ireland, Croatia, Serbia & Montenegro, Estonia.

The historical ties are apparent. Part of Lithuania used to be Polish, and there are many family links. The Czeck and the Slovaks have spent almost a century in a common state, before that in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Part of Serbia and Romania used to belong to the Hungarian Kingdom, Hungary and Croatia were politically united under the Hungarian king, and today's Slovakia were part of the Hungarian kingdom for centuries.

What is probably more interesting is to see quickly reforming and transition countries watching each others moves: a genuine interest of the Irish in the V4 countries, the interest of the Baltic countries in Poland, Slovakia and Czeck Republic, and the links with the UK. Both Britain and Ireland opened the borders for Central Europeans in 2004. Many Central European young people live and work in these countries, and there is a strong interest for Central Europe either as a tourist destination or an investment destination by the British and the Irish.

It is very telling that the most searches in English for the V4 countries are coming from Slovakia, out of the 10 top cities starting a search in the world the top seven are Slovakian towns, Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic coming ranking 8th and 9th and Budapest in Hungary taking the 10th place.

Now here is the same trend in German (Polen, Tschechien, Ungarn and Slowakei):

Poland is most searched after in Germany, Cyprus, Denmark, Palestine, Sweden, Austria, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg.
Czeck Republic is searched after in Austria, Germany, Cyprus, Palestine, Liechtenstein, Czeck Republic, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Greece and Hungary.
Hungary is most searched after Hungary in Austria, Liechtenstein, Hungary, Germany, Cyprus, Palestine, Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway.
Slovakia is most searched after in Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland, Cyprus, Palestine, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary.

Historical links are apparent in the German language domain, too. In Austria, searching ranks Hungary, Czech Republic (parts of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) Poland and Slovakia, in Germany Poland, Czech Republic (both have German minorities, territories that changes sovereignty) Hungary and Czech Republic. Switzerland has an almost identical interest for Hungary and Poland, less for the Czech Republic and even less for Slovakia.

Out of the ten top cities that launched Google searches in German for these countries the first seven are Austrian towns, followed by Dresden, Chemnitz and Munich in Germany.

All in all, Slovakia, which is the smallest and has the more central location in the v4 group seems to care about it the most. Outside the group it seems to be Austria that is most interested in the region - after having dominated Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia for five hundred years, and partly Poland for a few centuries.

And finally how much we Hungarians are interested in the region. For easier comparison I added Croatia and Romania (there was no traceable interest for Serbia, all keyword were added in Hungarian, so they are Horvátország, Szlovákia, Csehország, Lengyelország, Románia).
Google Trends does not work very well with Hungarian language queries before May 2006. Croatia is the probably the most important Hungarian tourist destination and each year it gets massive interest in July. Slovakia is very much present in the Hungarian searches all over the year as much as Romania is, although Romania is very highly over-represented in the Hungarian online media. The Czech Republic and Poland is searched very little in Hungarian, altough these two countries get as much coverage in the Hungarian online press as Croatia.

Most common names in Hungary

2007-04-13T18:38:00.000+02:00

Hungary has been waiting long for a hike in births which eventually arrived in 2006. Scientists say that this is just a short rise in a declining trend but hopefully last year's newborns will grow up in health and peace. If you meet any of them most their most likely names are:

Girls born in 2006 (2005 rank):
1. Anna (1) - self explanatory
2. Boglárka (5) - Hungarian name of Ranuculus flower
3. Réka (7) - wife of Attila the Hun

Boys born in 2006 (2005 rank):
1. Bence (1) - Benedict is very fashionable
2. Máté (2) - Matthew, like all the evangelists is very popular
3. Levente (9) - is a truly Hungarian traditionalist name

Hungarian women in total population:
1. Mária - Mary is Hungary's patron
2. Erzsébet - Elisabeth
3. Ilona - Helen in Hungarian

Hungarian men in total population:
1. László - Ladislaus is a Slavik royal name
2. István - Stephen is also the name of our first king
3. József - Joseph in Hungarian

Update: Statistics of the given names of the whole female and male population of Hungary in 2006.

Hungarian competitiveness

2007-04-11T21:15:00.000+02:00

I have only posted to my Hungarian blog for a while and I have become a member of Hungary's new Competitiveness Roundtable, a non-partisan body delegated by the prime minister, Parliament, commercial chambers and the Hungarian National Academy. The aim is to regain Hungary's competitiveness, something we have at least partially achieved in our rail sector. Here is the rough picture: Hungary scores 41th in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2006 (down from 35th the year before); we are 19th on the CER Lisbon Scorecard (down from 14th at our EU accession and 15th the year before) and our GDP per head adjusted for prices also ranks 41th in the world. Early this year inflation jumped to 9%, unemployment is somewhere at 7,5% and our previous year's GDP growth was 3,9%. Hardly sustainable, hardly enough to catch up with Europe not to mention the rest of the world. I just published an essay on the issue which came out today in Magyar Narancs, and I have started a link collection that is part English part Hungarian. Suggestions and comments are welcome. We try to improve.

Hungary in 2006: the first annual statistics

2007-02-25T13:35:00.000+01:00

The best news about Hungary in 2006 is that the rate of population loss slowed down significantly. Hungary still has more than 10 million citizens, exactly 10,067 millions. Our demographics is still very gloomy. It is widely felt by those mere 3,953 million employed Hungarians who pay for the social services and the extreme deficit of our universal pension system. Gross average wages were 7,9% up, net wages only 7,4% up due mid-year tax-hike. The rise of unemployment to 7,5% was considered partly good news: many inactive people, who had not been registered as unemployed, started to look for a job in 2006. Inflation was 6,5% at the end of the year.

The Hungarian GDP growth rate ended somewhere between 3,9-4,0% by the end of the year. This is a very good rate within the EU, mediocre in the world economy, and quite low among new EU member states. The industrial growth rate was the highest since 2000, rising by 10,1%. Although the EU regards services as the most important possible area of growth, the Hungarian economy is very much industry-based. In fact, after the 18 years of economic transition, Hungary became one of the most developed industrial nations of the world. In contrast, the role of agriculture is rather political in the Hungarian economy. In this sector there were three notable changes. The profitability of our crops rose sharply, and the profitability of animal farming dropped dramatically, too. Not independently from climate change and energy shortage canola production rose by 18,1% setting a new record. You can make biofuel from its oil. On the other hand, production of sugar beet dropped to record low. Europe became sugar-addicted in the middeaval times and started subsidizing this substitute plant during the Napoleonic wars when the sea blockade cut the supply of tropical sugar. The subsidy was wiped out only last year.

The Hungarian foreign trade deficit reduced somewhat: both the real price of our export products rose somewhat, and the volumes were up, too. Hungary has no significant natural resources and has a very open economy, so export volumes always pull import volumes up, letting the gap close only very slowly.

Compared to its size and population Hungary is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world. The newsreels with burning cars made a lot of harm to this, the number of visitors was down in the last quarter and prices increased below inflation. Source: KSH

Please try to find Hungary on the map of GDP distribution in the world. Technorati: hungary

Hungary ranks 44th in economic freedom

2007-02-10T10:01:00.000+01:00

The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal has been measuring the level of economic liberties in the national economies of the world since 1995. According to the latest evaluation,
which was published yesterday, the is moderately free (66,2%). Compared to the rest of the world this means a relatively free, compared to the rest of Europe a relatively not free economy. The Hungarian economy could be much more free from the government. Since 1995. Hungary's highest score was in 2001, reflecting the state of the Hungarian economy in 2000.

There is a very stable link between the Heritage scores of economic freedom and GDP per capita: more freedom, more income.

Baby pandas to be named

2007-02-05T19:02:00.000+01:00

The Chinese Wolong Natural Reserve is so successful with its giant panda preservation work that in 2006 18 pandas were born in their program. The China Daily has been authorized to collect English name-proposals on the Internet. This is great PR-work for both panda preservation and China. On the picture the 35-days-old No.12. She was born on 25 August 2006. Link for an update with film!

Haley Bonar

2007-01-31T21:12:00.000+01:00

Cardigans has been one of my favorite European bands, especially their altcountry flavored Long Gone Before Daylight. However, Nina Persson's on-stage moodiness never made them a great live act and the new record sucks. Anyhow, here is South-Dakota born Haley Bonar and her band from Minneapolis, the most Cardigans-reminiscent act from the U.S. with a beautiful female voice, good lyrics and music and nice winter mood. On their myspace page the default track is one of their best, Ransom, from the new Lure the Fox album. Us is even better. Hope to see Haley Bonar in Europe soon. Magyarul.

Two new Budapest indie bands

2007-01-24T06:24:00.000+01:00

Two new bands came out from the small Hungarian indie scene. Envoy made its first demo in November. You can listen to it on their homepage. Their debut gig was this week, but a nasty flu did not let me go. The Óriás homepage is brand new, they don't have dowloads yet. However, this is a better-known band in Budapest, they had a few gigs, and the members come from great former Budapest indie bands, the early Amber Smith and Annabarbi. The new Amber Smith, following its singer/songwriter's physical move went onder the .de domain and their live gigs are now truly first-class European indie. The schedule of all the three Budapest indie bands can be found on indie.hu. Magyarul.

Nirvana live in Budapest

2007-01-17T15:44:00.001+01:00

There is a lot of urban myth about Nirvana's 1989 live gig in Budapest, which is claimed to have happened during the days of our peaceful democratic revolution. The livenirvana.com knows about the 21 November 1989 show, and Nirvana bassist Kris Novoselic claims that this image was taken on their day in Budapest. According to various sources Nirvana was a supporting act for Sexepil, a great Hungarian alternative rock band of the time and there were about 200 people present. It might not have been a great gig as nobody has claimed in the past years to have actually seen the act. Magyarul.

Hello Sun

2007-01-08T21:08:00.000+01:00

Amber Smith live in Budapest