Recently the Hungarian ministry of defence bought one hundred tanks from the government of Belarus. The deal violated several items of the law. This is, however, not an isolated case, i.e. the citizens have no guarantees that similar violations do not happen in other areas.

The six-party agreement in the Hungarian parliament assumes that integration into the European Union and into NATO are the two sides of the same coin. The author claims, however, that regional specificities tell us to deconstruct this package, and deal separately not only with the two institutions but also with various components of the EU i.e. the common market, redistribution, and monetary union.

Conventional left-wing ideologies are unable to guide progressive politics among the new structures of social cleavages. This does not mean that we are facing totally new types of conflicts. The point is that in order to restore the viability of the left, we must address problems ignored in the past.

Human Rights Watch: Right Denied: The Roma of Hungary. New York, 1996.

 

The perils of the Hungarian roma population has been well known. A recent study by the American Human Rights Watch organisation presented a shocking summary of the suffering of the roma in Hungary.