March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

the CEU Weekly

An independent newspaper by CEU students and alumni

Hungarian Expression Original: Ahány fej, annyi gondolat. Translation: As many heads, so many minds.

Look inside for:

Paks Nuclear Power Plant PAGE 1 Interview - Children’s Nutrition Fund PAGE 2 Budapest Open 2014 PAGE 3 Upcoming “Hate Speech” Monologues PAGE 4 “No to Hate Politics” PAGE 4 Switzerland’s exclusion PAGE 5 International Women’s Day PAGE 6 Rock’n Budapest on a Budget – Four Tigers Chinese

Market PAGE 7 Cartoon by Erikson PAGE 7 Puzzle & Upcoming Events PAGE 8

Expanding Hungarian nuclear plant with the Russian money Hungary with its small population has one nuclear plant that was built here during the Soviet time. It is called the Paks Nuclear Power Plant and it gives about 40% of the electrical power gen-erated in the country. Although this nuclear plant was origionally commissioned in 1982, just now in 2014 it has became a daily topic for all Hungarians. Why? Because the fact that the Hungar-ian government is taking loans from Russia to expand it raises many questions.

According to Reuters the Hungarian government is borrowing 10 billion Euros from the Russian government to add 2,400 MW ca-pacity at Paks plant, which means a construction of two new units in this plant. The agreement was signed between Russia and Hun-gary on the 14th of January 2014. The Prime Minister Viktor Or-bán stated in Kossuth Rádió that “Without the Paks nuclear power plant, the Hungarian economy cannot be competitive.” Continue p. 6

Message of the 2nd “Hate Speech” Monologues at CEU

Outside of Budapest some Hungarian children go without food on the weekend. The Children‘s Nutrition Fund tries to help find. Find out more in the interview with József Barát. Photo: Children‘s Nutrition Fund

Open Questions after Paks Power Plant Agreement

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the CEU Weekly

INTERVIEW March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

Interview with József Barát - Managing Director at Children’s Nutrition Fund

Hoping to increase support for Children’s Nutrition Fund (CNF) and the charitable work that it does, József Barát, Managing Director at CNF, agreed to share a few words with The CEU Weekly and its readers. The CEU Weekly-contributor Philippe-Edner Marius conducted the following interview: The CEU Weekly: Mr. Barát, what is the mission of the Chil-dren’s Nutrition Fund? József Barát: The mission of Children’s Nutrition Fund is to provide food and education for Eastern-Central-European children who would otherwise have to go without. 40,000 Hungarian children currently starving at weekends could be the first to benefit from this initiative. You have to know: nowadays 4 millions of Hungari-ans live under the poverty line, one and half millions in extreme poverty. A UNICEF study shows that every second Hungarian child lives in deprivation: they eat less than three times a day, or they have only second-hand clothes, or they do not have toys of their own, no place where they can do their homework. They do not even dream about vacations. How could they? They do not know what a vacation even is. We do not have the needed resources for feeding them all. With our Hungarian sister organization we can hand out food to 2000 children every weekend. But we firmly believe, that one day we will be able to help all the hungry children. And your readers can get us closer to that objective. TCW: What role do you play at CNF? JB: I am the Managing Director. I gave up a 40-year long, suc-cessful career in journalism, for speaking for those who are never asked for interviews. Most of them have never been to Budapest, maybe not even to the neighboring village. And they could not answer your questions in English. Many cannot even articulate their interests in Hungarian for that matter. People in deep poverty usually are the less educated, and that is why they have no strength to articulate and safeguard their interests. Sometimes they cannot even realize their best inter-ests. As they can be functionally illiterate or semiliterate, they may not know their rights, may not know how to get the needed help. They do not have the access to media, which, for poor Roma for example, would help them fight against prejudices. TCW: What have been some achievements and/or struggles of CNF? JB: Ours is the US based international sister organization of a very well known, 20 years old Hungarian charity, the Gyermekét-keztetési Alapítvány (GYEA). The formation of CNF in a way was a desperate step. Since the beginning of the economic crisis every year there are more hungry children in our region and less dona-tions. There happened a kind of miracle last year. Usually it takes 6 months for the American tax authority to grant the tax free /501(c) (3)/ status to an organization. We asked for ur-gency because the desperate situation of some gypsy Children. We got the status in 6 weeks. GYEA is a Hungarian nonprofit, founded 20 years ago in Hungary, according to the Hungarian laws. Since 2007, when the economic crisis started, the situation has worsened: much more chil-dren are starving but GYEA gets less donations. That gave a push

to the foundation of CNF, which is an American based 501(c)(3) organization, established in California in 2012. The two organiza-tions act in cooperation, but we firmly believe that in the future CNF can obtain regional, international functions. TCW: Who may help CNF and in what way? JB: You can help. And all your readers can help. Everybody can who wants to make a difference. Of course we need donations. And we need volunteers, for finding donors (individual and corpo-rate) and help in making a good website, and a Facebook page. By the way: we also need help in native language proof-reading. We would appreciate the help of a young American journalist. What do you think? But we also can help you in a way. We can help you to discover the hidden face of Hungary. During the spring we would like to organize a fundraiser-trip to a Gypsy village Bódvalenke, which is the only European fresco-village. There are murals by the best Gypsy painters in Europe and we are raising funds to build there a play-ground. I think the bus going to Bódvelenke will be packed with really good people. Don’t you want to join them? TCW: I think it’s a brilliant idea. In fact, some students here at the Central European University are required to complete in-ternships as part of their degree. Perhaps, for those of us inter-ested in work related to social justice, just a couple of ques-tions: How and when can folks apply for internship at CNF? What sort of work will be available for them, say, this sum-mer? JB: We want to give a "facelift" to our website. We need reports from remote villages, we need writers, editors and native lan-guage proof-readers. Of course we also need help in fundraising. The reporters will work in Hungary, but fundraising should be done in other countries, first of all in US. TCW: Also, so that readers may prepare their calendars, when exactly is the trip in the spring taking place? How to apply/participate in this trip? JB: The date of the spring trip is the 22nd of March, but it can be changed yet if there is an important reason for that. Anybody interested in the trip, volunteers work or internship can write me. (jozsef.barat@childnfund.org) TCW: Where may we find more information on the spring trip? JB: If there is some interest we put information on the website. But it is planned as a special event for the CEU community, and their guests. TCW: Some weeks ago, and within the past month, I believe CNF organized at CEU several times. How successful was the last activity at CEU? JB: Some CEU students, have put their names on our volunteer list. We can't wait to work together. TCW: When is the next activity and where? JB: The next activity, actually, is the trip. TCW: We thank you dearly, Jozsef, for sharing your thoughts, experience, and information on CNF opportunities with the CEU community.

Philippe-Edner Marius, Public Policy, USA

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the CEU Weekly

March 15 is one of the greatest Hungarian national holidays since 1990. Hungary commemorates the revolution and freedom fight of 1848-1849, when the country rose against the Habsburg rule and wanted to become a sovereign state. The struggle for independence was beaten down by joint forces of Austria and the Russian Empire on August 13, 1849. The following two years belong to the bloodiest times of Hungarian history. The Habsburg ruler’s vengeance led to reprisals, executions and forced ex-iles. Despite the fall of the ’48 freedom fights, this period is of great importance in Hungarian history; people collectively stood up in order to achieve the country’s independence as well as their fundamental civil and political rights. The famous episodes of the Ides of March are taught and repeated each year in pri-mary schools within the frame of school commemorations, where children dress up as Hungarian soldiers (huszár), poets, politi-cians and civilians of that time. They per-form the various stages of the day of March 15, when citizens of Budapest gath-ered in Pilvax café, next to the Danube in the 5th district. They marched from Pilvax to a press, where they printed copies of the “12 Points”, which included the twelve most important claims of people (see below). The rest of the story is found in history books,

and is not in the focus of the present article. These primary school occasions, and less exciting formal high school commemora-tions, are probably the only memories of March 15 as a national day for a majority of Hungarian youth. The official, state-organized events are highly politicized and often include the throwing of eggs and shouting of improper things at the (usually leftist) speakers. Nowadays, it is the politi-cally right and extreme right half of the society who devotes its time to attend pub-lic events on March 15. It seems to me that our national day is not about commemorat-ing those who gave their lives for freedom and for the ideas they believed in, but rather an occasion for those belonging to the same political side to get together and show their strength and solidarity towards each other, and opposition of the “rest” of society. Why is it that no substantial num-ber of liberal and leftist citizens attend these collective events? Why is it that a national commemoration has to be about politics? People are unable to put aside their politi-cal affiliations during national events in this part of the world. Moreover, in neighboring countries where the Hungarian community commemorates March 15, incidents of quarrels and fights between the majority population and Hungarians often break

loose. Commemorating 150 year-old events is a symbolic act, which should be independent of the present’s politics. It is supposed to represent the togetherness, not the frag-mentation, of the nation. In occasion of March 15, let the 12 points remind us of this notion: What the Hungarian nation wants. Let there be peace, liberty, and concord.

1. We demand the freedom of the press,

the abolition of censorship.

2. Independent Hungarian government

in Buda-Pest.

3. Annual national assembly in Pest.

4. Civil and religious equality before the

law.

5. National army.

6. Equal distribution of [tax] burdens.

7. Abolition of socage [land tenure].

8. Juries and courts based on an equal legal representation.

9. A national bank.

10. The army must take an oath on the

Constitution, send our soldiers home and take foreign soldiers away.

11. Setting free the political prisoners.

12. Union with Transylvania.

Eszter Kajtár,

School of Public Policy,

Hungary

CEU COMMUNITY

The Hungarian March 15 - National holiday or occasion for political upheaval?

March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

Belgrade Wins Budapest Open 2014 Trophy

This past weekend was intense at CEU: 180 participants from over 30 countries attended the third edition of Budapest Open –– the first and only international academic debate tournament in Hungary. Budapest Open was launched in 2012 by CEU Debate Society and Corvinus Vitaklub. With ELTE Vita joining a year later, the tournament became one of the major stu-dent events nationwide, besides being the only academic debate tournament taking place in Hungary. Every year, the Organizing Committee succeeded to reach out beyond their campuses to non-governmental organi-zations, multi-national businesses present in Budapest, as well as diplomatic missions ac-credited in Hungary. We are particularly grateful to KPMG in Hungary for their gener-ous donation and support. This year we had 56 teams in the competition, and a truly great Chief Adjudi-cation panel: Harish Natarajan (UK, ex-Cambridge Union Society), Nika Jelaska (Croatia, Zagreb Debating Union), Rebecca Meredith (UK, Cambridge Union Society), Teo Radetic (Slovenia, University of Ljubljana), and Viktor Prlja (Serbia, Open Communica-

tion). Serving as Tab Master was student Zsofia Muranyi (POLS), with student Oksana Siruk (LEGS) as co-convenor of the tourna-ment. CEU was represented at the tourna-ment by 2 teams: students Alexandru Moise and Endre Borbath (POLS), and alumni Olha Koshchiyenko and Maksat Musaev. Serving as judges were alumni Ana Gurau, Igor Gurkin, Kristina Georgieva, and Maja Nenadovic, as well as student Bridget Millman (POLS). Following 5 preliminary rounds, 8 teams qualified to the semi-finals, which were held on the motion: This House opposes the sympathetic and humanizing portrayal of Nazi soldiers in popular media. After careful delib-eration, the judges announced the 4 teams breaking to the Grand Final: Vermont GW, Cambridge A, Ben Gurion University and Belgrade University’’s team One Night in Paris. Delivering the keynote speech at the Grand Final in ELTE University’’s Aula Magna was Prof. Peter Balazs (IRES), who spoke on the importance of conflict management through debate. We were also delighted to have CEU students Sergiu Burlacu and Alisa Kama-

rova play for the audience during delibera-tion time. The Finals panel decided that the winners of Budapest Open 2014 are Helena Ivanov and Stefan Siridzanski from Belgrade. The motion in front of the house at the Final was: This House would suspend elections in countries with very high levels of government debt. At CEU, Budapest Open is undoubt-edly the largest event organized by students and alumni, enjoying a great deal of support from the Student Life Office, Recruitment Of-fice, Student Union, Communication Office and ARCS Office. We are deeply thankful to all of the CEU staff involved in the process, in particular Alexandra Zontea, Krisztina Sebok, Gloria Oh and Zsolt Ilija. In the weeks to come, CEU Debate Society will cover all the motions debated at Budapest Open 2014 in the CEU Weekly. For details on the tournament Organizing Committee, motions, participants, and a full list of supporters, please visit http://www.debatehungary.com/ Ana Gurau, Public Policy Alumna, Moldova

Tournament Director

March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

the CEU Weekly

CEU COMMUNITY

Following last year’s premier, Peter Molnar and students of his course "Enabling Policies for Responding to "Hate Speech" in Practice" offered this year by the Gender Studies Department (last year by the De-partment of Public Policy) will again stage the “Hate Speech” Monologues. A founding researcher of the Center for Media and Communication Studies, Molnar (who co-edited The Content and Context of Hate Speech, published by the Cambridge Uni-versity Press in 2012), in addition to the text-based discussions in class, he encour-aged students to express their views on the topic in form of an artistic response as one of the options in the course for real life re-sponses to “hate speech”. While a final paper, as standard form of assessment is also part of the course, students engage in more experimental ways of catalyzing their new knowledge from the course. Molnar says that the performers will share personal stories that everybody could do based on her own experiences with “hate speech”. According to Sofaya Hussein, a Gender Sudies student involved in the organization of the event, performances will include

monologues, poems, a collection of online “hate speech” comments as well as other formats. She says that due to the course and her participation in the play she has become “more aware of ‘hate speech’ online” and her own responses to witnessing incidents of “hate speech.”

This year’s “Hate Speech” Mono-logues, will be a new performance, as ex-cept Molnar, the cast is entirely new and students develop their pieces based on their own experiences or opinions on occur-rences of “hate speech” as well as the de-bates in the class room. Both Molnar and Hussein see the play as an opportunity for “learning together” and are hopeful that the performance will “contribute to self-reflection” and inspire discussion in the CEU Community on what constitutes “hate speech” and how we should deal with it. While it seems that the performance within the CEU would constitute “preaching to the choir”, it is vital to keep in mind the impor-tance of self-reflective discussion on preju-dices and their expressions even in a sup-posedly open community as CEU. While “nobody wants to be accused of ‘hate

speech’”, we are rarely challenged to check our own prejudices. In addition to attending the performance, members of the CEU com-munity were invited to participate as part of the choir that will be included in some monologues and may have its own message (as the chorus in ancient Greek theatre). Monologues and poems will be performed by: Hayk Rasmussen Abrahamyan, Adriana Becerra, Allie T Goodman, Sofaya Hussein, Sebijan Fejzula, Peter Molnar, Ada Nayer, Dinara Podgornova, Maari Põim and Ruth Simister. This year`s performance is sup-ported by the CEU Student Union.

For more information regarding the upcoming performance on Wednesday, March 12th at 7:10 PM in the Auditorium (doors open from 7 PM) search for "Hate Speech" Monologues (Event) on Facebook. A video of last year’s performance can be found on Youtube with the title "Hate Speech" Monologues - Multicultural Theater at CEU.

Julia Michalsky, History, Germany

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“Hate Speech” Monologues – Artistic response to “hate speech”

Say NO to Hate Politics! “My family on my father’s side lives

in Slovakia, close to the Hungarian border. They belong to the Hungarian ethnic minority there. My grandfather passed away last Oc-tober, so we travelled from Budapest to Slo-vakia to attend the funeral. After the service we joined our relatives at the burial-feast in my grandmother’s home. There, I went up to my 7-year old cousin to talk to him a little. I asked how school was going on, how he was – casual things like that. And then, all of a sudden, he said that he hates Slovakians. I was shocked and I asked him why. He said he just hates them because they don’t like Hun-garians and because they took away the land of Hungarians.”

What does this story tell us? It points to the fact that the rise of extreme right parties and the spread of hate speech in Europe are everyday phenomena since the 2008 financial crisis. Many people got completely disappointed in politics, which pushed them into the arms of populist par-ties. Especially young, educated adults join and vote for them. They gain seats in na-tional Parliaments, which provide a legiti-mate forum to express their ideas. They speak against and generate hate towards immigrants and Roma and Jewish people; depending on which minority lives in their country. Their rhetoric is composed of Euro-scepticism, anti-EU feelings and strong na-

tionalism. European Parliamentary elections

will be held this May. According to several news articles and forecasts, it is likely that a substantial number of Parliamentary seats will be taken by radical right wing parties. Even more seats than back in 2009. Their representation in the EP imposes an obstacle on debates over EU enlargement and integration policies. They question the functioning of the EU’s institutional system and criticize the legitimacy of their work. Sometimes they even reject the whole con-cept of the Union and urge holding a refer-endum on whether citizens wish their states remain in the EU.

Three students at CEU have re-cently launched an experimental campaign, a social movement called ‘No to Hate Poli-tics’ as a response to the emergence of ex-tremist European politics. Their aim is to mobilize and encourage students, first at CEU and later outside of it, to share their thoughts and insights about the activity of far right parties in their countries. They would like to generate an open and wide-spread debate about the issue, because they firmly believe that awareness must be raised about the serious threat which these extreme right elements represent. The goal is to convince as many people as they can to distance themselves from this type of

rhetoric and behavior. ‘No to Hate Politics’ asks every CEU

student, faculty and staff to visit, like and share their official Facebook page as a first step towards spreading the word. The movement also has a blog, where they regularly post short articles about radical European groups and their functioning.

Europe will be facing huge chal-lenges and changes this May. Even if you, dear reader, are not planning to stay in Europe, you are encouraged to take part in and support the movement, because now, for this particular period in your life, you are part of it. You are in the middle of it. Join ‘No to Hate Politics’, and spread the word across the borders of this continent.

Don’t forget: hate politics and hate speech

belong to the past. Europe must go for-

ward, not backward!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notohatepolitics

Blog:

http://notohatepolitics.wordpress.com/

Eszter Kajtár,

School of Public

Policy,

Hungary

the the CEU Weekly

WORLD

Page 5

March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

Participation in EU’s research suspended; the Swiss scholar community is shocked

The Swiss vote on the 9th of February 2014 to introduce an emigration quota for EU citizens, as well as to suspend the ex-pansion of freedom of movement from Croatia turned out to have unexpected consequences for Swiss-EU relations. The European Commission has suspended the Swiss participation in EU exchange programs such as “Horizon 2020” and “Erasmus”. Moreover, the EU has already put on hold further agreements concerning cross-border electricity threatening review of existing treaties with Swit-zerland.

Swiss relations with the EU, without going into details, can be described as bilateral negotiations by package, where both counterparts negotiate each topic separately, such as education programs or the free movement of goods. While Switzerland is not the member of EU, it is closely integrated with the Union and is a member of the Schengen zone. However, Switzerland does not automatically apply changes in the Schengen regime regarding new members of the EU; such as in the case of Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. Romanian and Bulgarian citizens are faced with “restricted access to the Swiss labor market and are subject to special quotas”, until 2016 at least.

Until now, this particular way of negotiating, excluding or including particular changes, was quite successful for Switzerland; as restricted access to the Swiss labor market for nationals of new EU member states was implemented without sanction from the EU itself. This time though, the EU reacted quite promptly by freezing immediately the participation of Switzerland in the research pro-grams mentioned, reiterating that “the free movement of labor is one of the EU’s fundamental principles.” “We should stay level-headed” said Martin Schulz, the President of European Parlia-ment, “but one thing is clear: you can’t take advantage of a big European internal market and stay outside in other questions at the same time”.

The Swiss government, who have up to three years to translate this vote into law, are caught in a tricky trap: on the one hand, the vote reflects the growing concern of the Swiss popula-tion about issues of immigration, state security and a potential growth in immigrant crime. On the other hand, it is necessary to avoid antagonism with the EU, the Swiss’ biggest trading partner, as well as influent neighbors Germany and France. Another ques-tion that has been raised is the Swiss system of direct democracy. Referendums, the “sacred cow” which allows space for reflection of popular dissatisfaction, but also the possibility to bring any subject to referendum. The Swiss population constantly votes for issues related to Switzerland’s EU relations.

Both programs, Erasmus and Horizon 2020, suspended by the EU, would cover funding from 2014 to 2020 and allow Swiss students and researchers to participate in world-class science pro-jects. Last year, Swiss researchers received 1.8 billion Euro of EU funding for research in areas such as information technology, health and nanoscience. The question of financing is very impor-tant. Only in 2013, the University of Geneva received 25 million Swiss francs from the EU. Geneva Universities send and receive approximately 300 students per year; towards which the EU fi-nances from 300,000 to 500,000 francs a year. There are alter-native such as the Coimbra exchange network, but this covers only 18.7 % of all exchanges. Moreover, it is necessary to renegotiate with each University now, while the Erasmus program facilitated exchanges within the same framework under the same, standard-ized conditions.

Another significant European research program, Horizon 2020, has a budget of 80 billion Euro. Participating in this pro-gram allow the creation of 8,000 jobs, almost 10% of which are in Geneva. Yves Flückiger, the Vice-Rector of University of Ge-neva, points out that the researchers of the University of Geneva participated in nearly 250 projects facilitated through EU pro-grams, which reported 160 million francs to the University. More-over, the University of Geneva is one of the most international Universities in Europe, with more than 40% non-Swiss teachers and students working and studying there. Thus Switzerland’s exclusion from these EU programs may also impact Swiss Universities’ inter-national rankings, which are in large part affected by interna-tional scholars and exchange programs.

The whole Swiss scholarly and University community is shocked and angry. “So, let’s split”, claims Nicolas Levrat, the Di-rector of Global studies at the University of Geneva, “why should we accept the consequences of a vote by a part of Swiss popula-tion?” Geneva students organized demonstrations, as well as a culinary event to denounce the results of the vote. The latter in-volved a table separated by wire: in order to access the meal on the table, students had to “break the wired symbolic border”. Stu-dents explained, “Our table is the opposition between the open Switzerland today and our future with borders”. Universities, EPF, Hautes écoles suisses, Academies, as well as the National Re-search Fund, released an open letter to the Federal Council asking to take “all possible measures” to ensure that Switzerland takes part in the Erasmus and Horizon 2020 programs.

Nataliya Borys, History, Ukraine Photos: Tribune de Genève

March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

the CEU Weekly

CURIOSITY

The I n t e r na t io na l Women’s Day cele-brated on the 8th of March undoubtedly originates in the Inter-na t iona l Work i ng Women’s Day. Accord-ing to the most popular version of the story,

Women’s Day is the 8th of March because on this day year 1857, female garment workers in New York organized a huge protest against poor working conditions; and the rally in 1907 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of this event gave the apropos to institutionalize the event as a holiday.

American Historian Temma Kaplan argues that neither of the aforementioned events seem to have taken place. The sig-nificance of these events lies in the fact that many Europeans view them as antecedents of International Women’s Day. Liliane Kan-del and Françoise Picq, scholars of the his-tory of feminism go further, suggesting that this myth was deliberately constructed in

order to ascribe an actually international history to this Soviet holiday.

Here we arrive at another possible origin of Women’s Day, namely the women’s strike for “Bread and Peace” in Saint Petersburg on the last Sunday in Feb-ruary 1917 (March 8 on the Gregorian calendar). Protesters demanded the end to the First World War and an end to food shortages. Being the first visible mass dem-onstration of the February Revolution, it's no wonder that Women’s Day became widely associated with Leftist revolutionary move-ments. There are yet more reasons for this association, since it was the Second Interna-tional's decision to establish an international women’s day as part of the struggle for female suffrage in 1910. Interestingly, the first actually international woman’s day influenced by this decision was celebrated on the 19th of March in 1911 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark, by over one million people demanding the right to hold public offices for women and honoring the martyrs of the Paris Commune.

No wonder the 8th of March due to its significance in the 1917 revolution be-came a very much honored holiday in the Soviet Union. In other countries of Eastern Europe, Women’s Day as a compulsory holiday was imported only after the Sec-ond World War as a corollary to the Com-munist system. As a consequence, since the fall of Communism, there were successful efforts to deprive this day from the politi-cal flavor and connotations. Women’s Day for our generation is merely a general celebration of appreciation towards women, repeating the occasion offered by Valentine’s Day to generate nice income to flower shops. Such days are nice, but I be-lieve the reason why Women’s Day does not raise much interest, but rather slight annoyance and boredom from men is pre-cisely that it is deprived from the very es-sence that made it interesting: a celebra-tion of women’s economic, political and so-cial equality, which are still not outdated

issues.

Agnes Kelemen, Hungary, NATI

Page 6

Continues from p. 1 It is argued that this nuclear power plant will add as much as one percent to Hun-gary's economic growth per year and also all the construction work regarding the plant and operating it would add up to 10,000 jobs. After the agreement the Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin added that “the central budget would collect over one billion dollars in taxes thanks to the deal.” Hungary is addicted to Russia However, for most of the people in Hun-gary and also for the opposition this deci-sion seemed to be too rushed. Before the decision there was no public discussion at all. The ruling party Fidesz that has a su-pramajority in the Parliament just pushed this decision through. Attila Mesterhazy who is the leader of the opposition party Social-ists stated to The Standart News “We op-pose the way in which the contract was signed. Orban alone has decided himself the fate of Paks, even some members of the government knew nothing about the project until the very last day before the announcement. This cannot happen in a real democracy.” The statements went even so far that Ber-nadett Szel who is the deputy of the green liberal opposition party LMP told to the national news agency MTI that "Viktor Orban practically sells Hungary out to the Russians.” The background of this statement

is that Hungary is already buying almost all his oil, gas and nuclear fuel all from Russia. This deal even deepens addiction to Russian energy resources for the decades ahead. As an Estonian this fear is quite understand-able. If we look at the former members of the Soviet Union and other former Soviet puppet states like Poland, then diversifying their energy supply and being less ad-dicted to one provider (read: Russia) has been in the agenda of these countries for a long time. The main fear that these coun-tries have is that Russia would use its end-less sources of energy as a strategic weapon. For example, they have threat-ened gas cut-offs many times and in Ukraine’s case it became a reality in 2006 and 2009. Opinions of Hungarians To get some better insights of the topic since I myself am not Hungarian, I decided to ask the opinion of several Hungarians I knew regarding this topic. The dependency from Russia however, was not the main ar-gument that they highlighted. For example Ágnes, from Jewish Studies, highlights the question of the national debt. She states that the “Fidesz government is very proud of having the IMF sent away from Hungary, without needing additional loans. However, now we are taking loans from the Russians. And now we need ap-

parantly 30 years to pay back the loans to Russia.“ She raises also the main question that the opposition higlighted: Why Hun-gary chose to take loans from Russia in-stead of IMF? “Besides that the Greens are outraged because it is a nuclear power and the Prime Minister told the Parliament about the contract after the negotiations,” she added. Orsolya from Public Policy department also agrees with Ágnes. “Yes, dependency on Russia is one concern, but there are many other problems, such as why we should in-vest in nuclear energy at all or the com-plete secrecy in which the deal is being made.” She spotlights that the government does not want to reveal the concrete condi-tions of the deal. “However, at the moment it is not understandable why it was made because it seems disadvantageous to Hun-gary,” she reckons. It is clear that being dependent on Russia’s energy is already a reality for the Hun-garians. However, at the moment too many details of the deal are unclear. The sad thing is that with the supramajority of Fi-desz, Hungarians really cannot do anything against the deal at the moment. We can only look forward and see if something will change with the Hungarian parliamentary elections that will be held in Hungary on

the 6th of April.

Karl Haljasmets, Public Policy, Estonia

The Political Flavor of the International Women’s Day

the the CEU Weekly

ROCKN’ BUDAPEST ON A BUDGET

Page 7

March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

With our remaining days in Buda-pest receding all too quickly, and new res-taurants, bars, and clubs opening faster than I can experience the old ones, I re-solved to explore a minimum of one new spot each week. My latest adventure took me to the enormous, and relatively hidden, ‘Four Tigers Chinese Market’.

Finding out where it was located and how to get there was rather tricky, as there isn’t much information available online, at least not in English. The market starts at the meeting point of Hungária krt and Kőbányai út, so there are 3 trams that can take you there; the 28 and 62 running from Blaha, and the 1 running through Hungária krt. However, if you are leaving straight from school your easiest options is

to jump on the number 9 bus which departs every ten minutes right behind the Basilica.

Once you arrive you will be greeted by signs, sounds and smells you probably never expected to find in Buda-pest. I lived in South East Asia for a year, and, fittingly, the closest comparison I can make is to the markets there; bustling with life and full of every kind of trinket imagin-able – most of them cheap and/or cheaply made. I did end up purchasing a carnival mask, iPhone charger and shiny metallic jacket, each for less than 1000 forint.

While I was hoping to find many Asian food options as well, almost every stand was only selling gyros. On a bit of wandering however, I did find a bowl of delicious soup full of thick broth, vegeta-bles, chicken and homemade noodles. The

market is huge though and, without a map, I might have missed a section dedicated

strictly to dining. Overall, I highly recommend check-

ing out the market, which is open seven days a week, although more stalls operate on the weekend. It was an exciting experi-ence and a good way to break the same tried and true routine that can be so easy to get into. Make sure to bring your cam-era too as there are endless photo oppor-tunities! Please feel free to email me if you have any specific questions, or want an adventure buddy. It’s easiest to do so at grahamhollandpatterson@gmail.com.

Now get out there and rock Buda-pest!

Graham Patterson, Public Policy, USA

Photos by author

Rock’n Budapest on a Budget – Four Tigers Chinese Market

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PUZZLE & UPCOMING EVENTS March 5, 2014, Year 4, Issue 45

This is a student-alumni initiative that seeks to provide CEU with a regularly issued newspaper. We publish our articles and additional materials on our blog as well: www.ceuweekly.blogspot.hu

Editor in Chief: Agnes Kelemen Managing Editor: Julia Michalsky Editorial Board: Imogen Bayley, Karl Haljasmets, Eszter Kajtar, Alexandra Kocsis, Erik Kotlarik, Philippe-Edner Marius, Alexandra Medzibrodszky, Graham Patterson, Ruth Pinto, Andras Szirko Proofreading and language editing: Imogen Bayley, Philippe-Edner Marius, Graham Patterson, Ruth Pinto

Social Media Management: Alexandra Medzibrodszky Distribution: Reception of Nádor 9, Nádor 11, Nádor 15; Library, Cloakroom, Dzsem Bakery, CEU Dorm, CEU Bookshop. Follow us on facebook as well!

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Send your article at ceuweekly@ceu.hu

Why don’t you take a few minutes for a bit of a brain work out and solve this puzzle?! The task is here: U n s c r a m b l e e a c h o f t h e c l u e w o r d s . Copy the letters in the numbered cells to other cells with the same number. Hint: the words on the list are related or synonyms to the word

“revolution”.

We will draw the name of the winner of the Dzsem-CEU Weekly FREE LUNCH voucher from those who send the right solution to ceuweekly@ceu.hu by March 8, 2014. Looking forward to your letters! Puzzle by Olha Pushchak, Ukraine, History alumna *Irish for “Welcome”

Fáilte* to CEU Weekly Puzzle!!!

Francophone Film Days & Francophone

Festival

This colorful mess of French language films includes pieces from countries all over the world, such as Belgium, Chad, Egypt, France, Greece, Canada, Lebanon, Roma-nia and Switzerland. The francophony doesn’t end with the last of the Film Days though - concerts, exhibitions, theatre per-formances and gastro events abound the whole of March, to the greater joy of any-one interested in Francophone culture. When: February 28th – March 28th Where: Uránia National Film Theatre More Information: http://www.franciaintezet.hu/

6th Budapest Architecture Film Days

This March the Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Center (KÉK) is organizing the

6th Budapest Architecture Film Days. Do you live in a building? Do you like movies? Then feel free to join the festival - film screenings, concerts, special exhibitions and workshops. When: March 6th –March 9th Where: Toldi Cinema More Information: http://filmnapok.kek.org.hu/en/program/

St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2014

Be Irish for the day and turn Budapest green. The annual parade will take place one day before St. Patrick’s, on March 16th. Motto: Dress Up, Wear Green, Bring a Smile! When: March 16th, 15:30 Where: Szabadság Tér More Information: h t t p s : / / w w w . f a c e b o o k . c o m /events/617696251611295/

Budapest Secret Cinema Presents:

Jameson Film Club - Leonardo Di Caprio

Budapest Secret Cinema (BSC) presents Jameson Film Club, a monthly, free pro-gramme for movie fanatics and whiskey lovers. For the third time, the audience will decide, which of the four Leonardo Di Ca-prio films BSC will screen on Saturday. The screening will be followed by a themed after-party. When: March 15th, 8pm Where: Anker’t M o r e I n f o r m a t i o n : h t t p s : / /w w w . f a c e b o o k . c o m /

events/1414320078816910

Julia Michalsky, Germany,

History

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