Serbs and Hungarian living side-by-side

Issue 2010/1-2 of the periodical História is available. The main issue discussed is the topic of the co-existence of Hungarians and Serbs. It includes the leading article by Ferenc Glatz entitled ”Serbian-Hungarian Historical Repertory”.

Dialogue for the Countryside – cross border rural development

Issue 2010/1 of the periodical Dialogue for the Countryside has been published. The issue includes the lectures held at the National Rural Forum in Szabadka in November 2009 on the Serbian-Hungarian relationship, cross border development and the building of the rural network in Vojvodina. The introductory article and the closing words were written by Ferenc Glatz.

Co-operatives: past and future

At the General Assembly meeting of the Árpád Agrár Co-op in Szentes summoned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the co-operative, Ferenc Glatz, president of the Hungarian Rural Network, held a lecture entitled “Co-operatives between 1960 and 2010”.

Evaluation and future plans – extended directing board meeting of HNRN

The agenda of this year’s last meeting of the directing board of the Hungarian National Rural Network included reports on the most important events and programmes in 2009 and the approval of the 2010 schedule.

The rural young – the key of renewal

The Hungarian National Rural Networkand the Hungarian Young Farmers’ Association organised a joint conference in Budapest entitled The rural young. The invited speakers outlined the situation of young people living in rural areas, their future perspectives and their possible role in rural public life. In the opening speech of the conference Ferenc Glatz referred to the fact that the European Union only began to deal with social and cultural policy at the turn of the millennium, and devoted special attention to the young generation as part of this new focus. From this time on, the EU strives to see the young as a separate, unique medium (with regard to their biological development, family problems and community building), and young people slowly gain on emphasis in the individual policy fields, including rural policy. Glatz pointed out that many people still do not understand that the human capital and community building activities targeted in rural areas produce an immense economic profit. Our views on farming people in the countryside should be more diversified and innovative rural young are needed to achieve this goal.

HNRN report in the Agriculture Committee of the Hungarian Parliament

Ferenc Glatz, President of the Hungarian National Rural Network informed the Agriculture Committee of the Hungarian Parliament on the antecedents of the founding of the network, the activities of the civil organisation and the legal and financial conditions of its operation. The president of the HNRN confirmed that in order to sustain the successful work of the network it would be expedient to provide self-governance and public-law corporation status to the organisation. After the detailed report of the president, Sándor Font, head of the parliamentary committee summarised the outcome of the discussion and expressed his appreciation for the results that the HNRH has accomplished so far. He also assured the network of his support.

The future of CAP – conference in Domonyvölgy

The Hungarian National Rural Network organised a conference entitled The future of the Common Agricultural Policy. The Lázár Equestrian Park in Domonyvölgy provided the venue of the event, the introductory speech of which was given by Ferenc Glatz, president of the HNRN under the title Agricultural policy, rural policy and rural development. He spoke about the creation of a European common agricultural policy by 2013 that applies a bottom-up approach and takes the interrelated interests of individual groups of society and that of regions and minor rural areas with equal emphasis into consideration.

Rural development and the co-existence of nations

The conference Rural development and the co-existence of nations hosted by the city hall of Szabadka aroused widespread public interest. The event examined the mutual advantages of cross-border rural and spatial development by involving experts living in Hungary and in Vojvodina. In the opening speech of the conference, Ferenc Glatz pointed out that Serbs and Hungarians have never had as many shared interest as they have now. But in order to enforce these interests we should resolve minority conflicts and leave the centuries-old mutual assaults behind. The local tasks deriving from recent development tendencies in the world, the possibilities lying in European integration and urging minority problems should be brought on a common denominator. The new path of keeping Hungarians together is to extend the actions institutionalising our national self-identity with unified policies in various fields (e.g. nature and biodiversity protection, water management and rural development).

We need a modern rural policy

What is the role of science in development? What role is assigned to the representatives of science in today’s society? What lessons are to be learned from the past 20 years and the current world economic crisis? To what extent is the prestige and role of agriculture and rural development changing? These questions were raised by the Hungarian weekly Magyar Mezőgazdaság (Hungarian Agriculture) in a recently published interview with Ferenc Glatz on occasion of the Hungarian Science Festival. In the interview entitled The history-making role, Glatz summarized the major tasks of Hungarian agriculture and modern rural policy in the current global competition.

Honorary citizen of Budapest

At the festive session of the General Assembly of Budapest on the occasion of the 136th anniversary of the unification of Pest, Buda and Old Buda, Ferenc Glatz was awarded the title of honorary citizen for his merits in researching Hungarian history, the propagation of historical knowledge and the transmission of democratic traditions in the past decades. In his speech spoken on behalf of all those who were rewarded during the ceremony Glatz accentuated the necessity of reaching a new balance and mew ways of cooperation between politics and the intellectuals, between policy-making and public life.