Hungarian State-Owned Enterprises Their Transparency: Fill & Download for Free

From many options, I've chosen as an example: Hungary / Central Europe.Hungary (Magyarország ( listen)) is a country in Central Europe, a medium-sized member state of the European Union.Hungary's capital and its largest city and metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, classified as a leading global city.The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken Uralic language in the world.Geography of HungaryHungary's total land area is 93,030 km up 1% of Europe's area.Nearly 75% of Hungary's landscape consists of flat plains. Additional 20% of the country's area consists of foothills whose altitude is 400 m at the most. The two flat plains that take up three quarters of Hungary's area are the Great Hungarian Plain and the Little Hungarian Plain. About 83% of the country's total territory is suitable for cultivation, which is an outstanding ratio compared to other EU countries. 19% of the country is covered by forests.In European terms, Hungary's underground water reserve is one of the largest. Hence the country is rich in brooks and hot springs as well as medicinal springs and spas.The major rivers of Hungary are the Danube and the Tisza. Hungary has three major lakes. Lake Balaton is Central Europe's largest lake and a prosperous tourist spot and recreation area.Hungary lacks extensive domestic sources of energy and raw materials needed for further industrial development.Transition to a market economyAlthough Hungary enjoyed one of the most liberal and economically advanced economies of the former Eastern Bloc, both agriculture and industry began to suffer from a lack of investment in the 1970s.After the fall of communism, the former Eastern Bloc had to transition from a one-party, centrally planned economy to a market economy with a multi-party political system. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc countries suffered a significant loss in both markets for goods, and subsidizing from the Soviet Union. Hungary, for example, "lost nearly 70% of its export markets in Eastern and Central Europe." The loss of external markets in Hungary left "800,000 unemployed people because all the unprofitable and unsalvageable factories had been closed." Another form of Soviet subsidizing that greatly affected Hungary after the fall of communism was the loss of social welfare programs. Because of the lack of subsidies and a need to reduce expenditures, many social programs in Hungary had to be cut in an attempt to lower spending. As a result, many people in Hungary suffered incredible hardships during the transition to a market economy.The Start of Free Economy in HungaryWith about $18 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) since 1989, Hungary has attracted over one-third of all FDI in central and eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union. Of this, about $6 billion came from American companies. Foreign capital is attracted by skilled and relatively inexpensive labor, tax incentives, modern infrastructure, and a good telecommunications system.Hungary joined the European Union on 05/01/2004 after a successful referendum among the EU-10. The EU's free trade system helps Hungary, as it is a relatively small country and thus needs export and import.Since 1995, Hungary has pegged the forint against a basket of currencies (in which the U.S. dollar is 30%), and the Government of Hungary no longer requires IMF financial assistance and has repaid all of its debt to the fund. Consequently, Hungary enjoys favorable borrowing terms. Hungary's sovereign foreign currency debt issuance carries investment-grade ratings from all major credit-rating agencies Moody's, S&P and Fitch.The Human capitalHungary is an OECD high-income mixed economy with a very high standard of living and a skilled labor force, with the 13th lowest income inequality in the world; furthermore, it is the 14th most complex economy according to the Economic Complexity Index. The Hungarian economy is the 35th largest export economy in the world, the 57th-largest economy in the world, out of 188 countries measured by IMF, and ranks 49th in the world in terms of GDP per capita measured by purchasing power parity.As in most post-communist countries, Hungary’s economy is still affected by its social stratification in terms of income and wealth, age, gender, and racial inequalities, even the Hungary’s Gini coefficient of 0.269 ranks 11th in the world and the graph on the right show that Hungary is close to the world-leader Denmark.Hungary performs well in international rankings: it is 20th in quality of life, 24th in Good Country Index, 28th in inequality-adjusted human development, 32nd in the Social Progress Index, 33rd in Global Innovation Index and ranks as the 15th safest country in the world.Politics of HungarySince 1989 Hungary has been a parliamentary republic.The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated Hungary as "flawed democracy" in 2016.Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and has been part of the Schengen Area since 2007. Hungary is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe, the Visegrád Group and more.In 2016, the Hungarian military has about 700 troops stationed in foreign countries as part of international peacekeeping forces, and strong logistics unit to Iraq in order to help the US occupation with armed transport convoys.Present-day Hungarian economyHungary's productive capacity is more than 80% privately owned, and one of the leading nations in Central and Eastern Europe for attracting foreign direct investment, the employment structure shows the characteristics of post-industrial economies.Budapest is classified as an Alpha- world city in the study by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network and it is the second fastest-developing urban economy in Europe, the city had a gross metropolitan product of more than $100 billion in 2015, making it one of the largest regional economies in the European Union.As a result of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, from November 2011 to January 2012, all three major credit rating agencies downgraded Hungarian debt to a non-investment speculative grade, commonly called "junk status". In part, this is because of political changes creating doubts about the independence of the Hungarian National Bank.Following the mild recession of 2012, the GDP picked up again from 2014 and based on the Commission’s Winter 2015 forecast it was projected to have accelerated to 3.3%. The more dynamic economic performance attributed to a moderately growing domestic demand and supported the growth of gross fixed capital formation. The surge (3.8% in the first half of 2014), however, was only achieved via temporary measures and factors, such as the stepped-up absorption of EU-funds and the central bank’s Funding for Growth Scheme, which subsidized loans for small and medium-sized enterprises. The fundaments of growth didn't considerably change in 2015 as well - the government supported EU-fund transfers along with the moderately successful central bank loans of economic revitalization - fueled the fair GDP growth. However, from the beginning of 2016, the significantly shrunk base of available EU-funds had an immediate impact on the country's performance.The InfrastructureHungary was the world’s 24th most visited country.Hungary has 31 058 km of roads and motorways of 1118 km. Due to its location and geographical features, several transport corridors cross Hungary. Pan-European corridors no. IV, V, and X, and European routes no. E60, E71, E73, E75, and E77 go through Hungary. Thanks to its radial road system, all of these routes touch Budapest.The AgricultureHungarian agriculture is virtually self-sufficient and due to traditional reasons export-oriented, exports related to agriculture make up 20-25% of the total. About half of Hungary’s total land area is agricultural area under cultivation; this ratio is prominent among other EU members.The Health careHealth in Hungary can be described with a rapidly growing life expectancy and a very low infant mortality rate.The IndustryThe leading industry is machinery, followed by chemical industry (plastic production, pharmaceuticals), while mining, metallurgy and textile industry seemed to be losing importance in the past two decades. In spite of the significant drop in the last decade, the food industry is still giving up to 14% of total industrial production and amounts to 7-8% of the country's exports. 17% of the total Hungarian exports comes from the exports of Audi, Opel, and Suzuki.The ServicesThe tertiary sector accounted for 64% of GDP, and its role in the Hungarian economy is steadily growing due to constant investments into transport and other services in the last 15 years. Located in the heart of Central-Europe, Hungary’s geostrategic location plays a significant role in the rise of the service sector as the country’s central position makes it suitable and rewarding to invest.The Fiscal policyIn Hungary, state revenue makes up 44% and expenditure makes up 45% of the GDP which is relatively high compared to other EU members. This can be traced back to historical reasons such as socialist economic tradition as well as cultural characteristics that endorse paternalist behavior on the state’s part, meaning that people have a habitual reflex that makes them call for state subsidies.The CurrencyThe currency of Hungary is the Hungarian forint (HUF, Ft) since 1 August 1946.Along with joining the EU, the country undertook the task of joining the Eurozone as well. Therefore, the Maastricht criteria which form the condition of joining the Eurozone acts as an authoritative guide to Hungarian fiscal politics. Although there has been remarkable progress, recent years’ statistics still point to significant discrepancies between the criteria and fiscal indices. The target date for adopting the Euro has not been fixed, either.The Tax systemIn Hungary, the 1988 reform of taxes introduced a comprehensive tax system which mainly consists of central and local taxes, including a personal income tax, a corporate income tax, and a value-added tax. Among the total tax income, the ratio of local taxes is solely 5% while the EU average is 30%.The CorruptionTwenty years after the change of the regime, corruption remains to be a severe issue in Hungary. According to Transparency International Hungary, almost one-third of top managers claim they regularly bribe politicians. Most people (42%) in Hungary think that the sector most affected by bribery is the political party system. Bribery is common in the healthcare system in the form of gratitude.

Background of Palestinian NationalismHistorically, the idea and practice of a “Palestinian nation” in the Levant is very new.Further, the idea of a “Palestinian nation” whose “lands” have been stolen and their “territories” “occupied” is but the latest transparent iteration of the broader Arab-Israeli conflict raging for 100 years.In contrast to the Jewish people who had kept the same name and subjective-objective identity in each century for over 2,500 years, among local Muslim Arabs, the formation of a distinct, subjective-objective “Palestinian” identity did not generally occur before the second half of the 20th century (specifics later).For over 2,500 years, Palestine was merely a geographical area – not a national identity. It was only after the creation of British Mandate for Palestine that the world referred to Palestinian Jews, Palestinian Bedouin and Palestinian Arabs. These terms simply referred to Jews, Bedouin or Arabs living in the geographical region of Palestine.That is to say, until the 1919-1920 Paris Peace Conference, nobody in Paris knew about a “Palestinian” people.Had there then been such a Palestinian “people”, its existence would have been known to Prince Feisal, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, France’s Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, U.K. Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and to the other leaders who came to work on the peace treaties at the end of WWI and after the defeat of the German-allied Ottoman Empire from whence arose the Arab Muslim states and nations of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon in the Levant.In fact, the victorious Allied Powers agreed to create yet another Arab state of Greater Syria, which they expected would cover what is today Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel.For its part, and prior to the initiation of the Mandate for Palestine, the Ottoman Empire never had a province or sub-provincial unit called, or co-extensive with, “Palestine,” no matter how conceived.Nor had Muslim history ever known a state or province called “Palestine.”But the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920 was also majorly concerned with the task of accommodating the claims to self-determination of well-known peoples with long histories of self-affirmation and bitter suffering under foreign oppression. This was absolutely in line with Article 22 of the 1918 Covenant of the League of Nations, forerunner of today’s United Nations.This consideration on touching the self-determination issues of such famous peoples as the the Poles, the Finns, the Letts, the Latvians, the Estonians, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Slovenes, the Croats, the Serbs, the Italians, the Hungarians, the Romanians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Turks, the Kurds, the Armenians, the Arabs, and the Jews.In this larger context, just one decision among many was the creation of “a national home” for the Jewish people.The international decision to create a national home for the Jewish people was made explicitly due to “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine.” This was clear recognition of the Jewish people’s long-affirmed and continuing links to its aboriginal homeland.Even though 77% of the Palestine Mandate became Trans-Jordan (then Jordan in 1946), the years between 1922-1948 saw the remainder of the land destined for the Jewish homeland swell its Arab numbers by a little more than three times as a result of the labour and wage opportunities of Jewish settlement and enterprise on the land in line with international treaties and law (San Remo). And, for what it’s worth, here is nota single reference to the ARABS as "Palestinians" ANYWHERE in the British Mandate of Palestine.Who self-identified as Palestinian before 1948?Before 1948, the adjective “Palestinian” was very often used as a synonym for “Jewish.”For this reason, the name “Palestine” and many other specific features of the 1922 Palestine Mandate were too closely associated with Jews and Zionism to have offered much of a focus for Muslim Arabs. Therefore, they generally did not identify as “Palestinian” until the “Palestine” trademark had been definitely abandoned by the Jews in May 1948 with the declaration of the State of Israel.Palestinians in the 1960sAfter the defeat of the Ottomans, Arab leaders expressed no vision or desire to create a distinct Palestinian people. Such a “people”, touted by a baleful Arab League as “indigenous” and “ancient” only arose formally after the Arab League conference of 1964 in Cairo.This is evidenced by the historical record that at the Paris Peace Conference, Prince Feisal, as principal Arab leader at the Paris Peace Conference, specifically accepted the plan to create “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.Besides, his father, the Hashemite King of the Hedjaz (later part of Saudi Arabia) was party to the 1920 Sevres Treaty that explicitly stipulated that there would be “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.More than that, the governments of Egypt and Jordan and the broader Arab world showed absolutely no interest in the self-determination of a “Palestinian people”. This is evidenced by the fact that here was NEVER a separate political entity among the Arabs for indicating an Arab group known as "Palestinians" until 1967 and this political group was not recognized by even other Arab countries until the Rabat Summit Conference in 1974.First, they rejected the 1947 U.N. General Assembly resolution recommending an additional Arab state alongside Israel in 1948. And second, no Palestinian state was created between 1948 and 1967, when Egypt held the Gaza Strip and Jordan had East Jerusalem and the West Bank.Evidence of Palestinian NationhoodThere is no evidence the Arabs of Gaza, Judea and Samaria identified as a separate nation prior to, or much later than, 1964 due to on-going European self-interest and the Arab OPEC oil embargo of 1973.Rather, the Arabs of Gaza, Judea and Samaria saw themselves as part of the broader Arab nation and specifically denied any real Palestinian nationalism.At the risk re-quoting a telling quote, on March 31, 1977, Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, in which he said: “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.”This lack of evidence despite the currently vaunted cries of “Palestinian nationalism” is further confirmed by the Article 1 of the 1964 Palestinian National Charter which starts thus: “– The Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.” It is also flogged in the hysterical overreaction of Palestinian leaders who date their people’s ancestry to the Upper Paleolithic period suggesting deep insecurity on this issue as they desperately search for legacy.As late as 1996, Azmi Bishara, Arab Party member (at the time) of Parliament in Israel’s Knesset stated in response to a question about Palestinian nationality: “Well, I don’t think there is a Palestinian nation at all; I think there is an Arab nation. I always thought so, and I have not changed my mind.”Palestinian nationalism failed because it remained resolutely negative in character. Witness the essential symbols of Palestine: a fighter holding a rifle and a map that erases Israel completely. It is a nationalism – and, thus later, an (morbid) identity – based in large part on negation of Other, preferably through violence. Add to this the adoption of the Palestinian cause by Islamists globally to pull Palestinian identity toward continued conflict and you have, not the making of a nation state so much, as a documented recipe proven in other parts of the world for a failed state and a concomitant “national identity” which borders on chaos. Within these parameters, “national identity” today in the Arab populations of Gaza or Judea is also fractured and dysfunctional dependent as they are are on weak state and social institutions, but where the generally strong security institutions are mapped onto tribal and clan groups and where these security elites are entrenched with guns and followers.In conclusionBe that as it may, today, Palestinians (sic) have their own parliament, government(s) and police force(s). They do not have an army, nor do they control their borders. But by that same token, can Palestinians really claim that their basic right to self-determination is being hindered when they are already ruling themselves?More importantly, does self-determination (state/nationhood) take precedence over the rights of their neighbours to live in peace and security with defensible borders in light of 100 years of Arab aggression designed to drive those very neighbours out?By any definition of the term “nation” there is no doubt there is no such thing as a “Palestinian nation”. There never has been. It remains ossified in a 100 year hatred of Jews who after millennia of dispersal and oppression by Arabs and Europeans, dared to become independent in their aboriginal homeland.Chag Pesach Kasher ve Sameach.

I would start by saying, I thought the phrasing of your question interesting for the reasons the above poster has outlined. Also your sub-line implies that its just the English who conducted Empire when it was very much a joint enterprise.It would be supremely dangerous to cast all Brexit voters in the same light – Conservative voters in Portsmouth are quite different from Labour voters in Sheffield or the roughly million people in Scotland, many of whom would have inevitability been SNP voters, who voted Leave. Their attitudes, expectations and intentions are quite different and they all have different ideas about what the UK itself means.Not all would have looked upon the Spitfire Summer of 1940 in the same way (we have a convenient habit of forgetting that volunteer pilots from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, the Irish Free State, the United States and across the British Empire, many of them giving their lives, came to our aid. Also, the commander of No. 11 Group, the south-eastern area with the highest-intensity fighting was commanded by Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park MC* DFC – a New Zealander, during the height of the Battle. As the previous poster observed, the Anglo-Irish Duke of Wellington with Dutch and German troops under his command had his bacon saved by Field Marshal von Blücher’s Prussians (which we British tend to shamefully forget). And to say nothing of the Spanish Armada, which as a Scot, is not really part of my historical narrative, but is undoubtedly very important in the development of English sense of self, even a tad mythic.Yes, the demographic make-up of Leave-voters is undeniably a bit ‘grey’, my grandmother told me her vote came down to two basic themes, democracy and economics. She isn’t liberal, but she accepts social change if it serves the public good or public happiness. She knows people who are trapped in low income jobs despite their ability (me), instability which protected the powerful at the expense of ordinary people (banking bail-outs, unchecked tax evasion, Parliamentary Expenses), the pensions-deficit forcing younger people to work longer in unstable jobs for less end result (me), the unlikelihood of some of her grandchildren to ever own their own home (me again). None of that was how it was supposed to be. If you worked hard, got an education, got a profession, paid your taxes and obeyed the law, you were supposed to prosper. Not anymore.In voting to Leave my grandmother felt she was instructing the nation’s leadership to start again with a new model, as well as demand there is more transparency and localism in the decision-making. I suspect she’s really quite typical, Leave or Remain, Economic Sustainability mixed with Accountability is a universal platform.That and I think there is a fundamental disagreement about what the EU is for and what it was meant to do. To cite my grandmother again, she wholeheartedly supports our membership of trade bodies, the long-term Franco-German quest for peace which has been at the heart the European project, cross-border collaboration with foreign militaries, police forces and intelligence agencies to make us safer, but to her, the EFTA, Interpol and NATO did those things and the EU looked too much like an attempt to forge one country out of now-28. She’s well enough aware of how difficult it is to create and maintain consensus within one multi-national country (the UK), never-mind forge a newer, bigger one.The older generation undoubtedly remember ‘simpler times’, but it doesn’t automatically follow that those times, with less opportunities, poorer diets and living standards and narrower horizons, equals better and most are not so simple as to suppose other-wise. Some of my grandmother’s best friends over the course of her life are ethnic Italian and her first husband (my grandfather) is Hungarian. We have been a nation of immigrants since the Land Bridge to Europe broke c. 6,500–6,200 BCE . They know that, they aren’t stupid. She certainly does remember a higher standard of statesmanship though. My dyed-in the wool Tory grandmother remarked when Tony Benn died that we’d never see his like again – she disagreed with basically everything he ever said and yet he had an intellectual weight to him way above the majority of placemen found in the House of Commons today. She believes that the welfare state should be for those who need support and that we should be encouraged to save and look after ourselves whilst still helping out those less fortunate, but still respects and admires Clement Atlee for the vision and skill needed to create it and the generation of men and women who wanted to build a better world from the ashes of two world wars.She believes that what we have now is a broken system and wanted to give the politicians the powers to fix it, that the promises made did not live-up to the cold light of day so she voted for a fundamental change. I don’t doubt for a moment that it wasn’t a decision she did not consider at length or that she was at all naïve in her choice. She knew it was going to be a long and difficult process filled with challenge and risk - big decisions always are. Things change, history turns in cycles, we have now returned to a cycle of unpredictability, we must now accept that and do our best to ensure that this does not turn into a cycle of hatreds and conflict.I cannot speak for the majority, I merely observe that in that case, I highly doubt that nostalgia or an inflated vision of British importance was a factor at all and I would be surprised if my grandmother wasn’t surprising representative in many ways.