We do not need more Europe, but a smarter Europe. There should be deeper integration where joint EU action is more effective than national action – Hungarian Minister of Justice Judit Varga told "Magyar Hírlap" daily.   ​ PHOTO CREDIT: JUDIT VARGA'S PRESS OFFICE

– 200 Polish doctors and medical staff members will assist their Slovak peers in coronavirus testing programme – Mateusz Morawiecki said on Friday before their departure.  PHOTO CREDIT: Piotr Nowak / PAP   (jap)

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn in at the US Capitol. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán congratulated Joe Biden in a letter on Wednesday. Photo credit. Gripas Yuri/ABACA/PAP

In early January 2021, two announcement related to Central and Eastern European energy security hit the news. Both of them, first LNG gas delivery to the Croatian LNG port and the TurkStream/Balkan Stream becoming operational, are signaling an ever continuous battle between the US and the Russian Federation. The goal?

The Virology Research Group of the University of Pécs together with Austrian biotechnology company CEBINA started a vaccine development project in June 2020. – The vaccine development project has entered its laboratory phase. We will also start animal testing in late January, early February.

Emmanuel Macron has found a new ally who is far more influential than people give him credit for: Viktor Orbán – writes Swedish economist and writer Friderik Erixon in the prestigious British conservative newspaper "The Spectator". Photo credit: OLIVIER HOSLET, PAP/EPA

“We will propose for the EU to pass laws on social media similar to the ones in Poland. Social media is meant to serve society, not the interests of their owners,” PM Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Facebook. ​ Photo credit: Gerd Altmann z Pixabay 

– Millions of Chinese vaccines could be obtained quickly by the government if the Hungarian health authority allowed it – PM Viktor Orbán said in his usual Friday morning interview on Kossuth Radio. The Prime Minister also announced that from 2022, at the latest, persons under the age of 25 years will be granted exemption from the payment of the personal income tax. The Hungarian government has started the gradual re-introduction of the 13th monthly pension, so in February the envelope will…

– We will support each other among the Visegrad Group countries in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic - announced Elżbieta Witek, the Speaker of the Sejm (a lower house of the Polish Parliament) after the conference of the Speakers of the Parliaments of the V4 countries.  ​

Both Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and President János Áder have congratulated five-time Olympic champion gymnast Ágnes Keleti on her 100th birthday. ​

The Tricolor Citizens' Movement (Trikolóra) in Czech Republic aims to introduce regular referendums on withdrawal from the European Union. – We will request a referendum on remaining in the Union to be part of every parliamentary election – says Václav Klaus Jr., the son of former Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus. ​

"That conflict, that battle between a more democratic inclusive vision, and one that’s top-down, dominant-subordinate, that’s a contest that’s taking place here in the United States, and around the world" said former US president Barack Obama in an interview with Daily Show host Trevor Noah.