New components were added to the most popular EU funded program. Erasmus started as a classical exchange program lasted for a semester or a full year, but in the past few years it was extended with language preparatory courses and also with traineeships. The newest member of the Erasmus family is the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Program (EYE), which is aiming to help young entrepreneurs to start their own business with an insight from other European countries. We took a closer look of the program!

The main goal of the program is to facilitate the experiences and know how between newly established and experienced entrepreneurs. The 1-6 months long internship mainly focuses on the enterprise management. The program is open for everyone who wants to start or already successfully runs a small business, there is no need to have an academic qualification and there is also no age limit. However, the applicants are mostly under the age of 30.

The ambitious candidates are helped with the general information by four local organizations during the preparation and the administration process whose contact data can be found on the official website of EYE. We saw the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Hungary (CCIU) about further details. Füredi Gábor, the project coordinator there principally directs the applicants to Italy, but it has happened before to choose an other country for the participants, for exampe Cyprus. The financial support is bigger than the usual grant in an Erasmus program, it’s about 700-1000 euros a month depending on the country that a person can get. Although the program’s name is Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs there is no requirement about having a running business or starting one after the exchange.

From 1 January to 30 June 2012 Denmark holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union for the seventh time since joining the European community. In Budapest, the European Point information center’s programmes provided great opportunities in January to get to know the culture of the country. We could get informed about a special Danish high school (called folk high school or Folkehøjskole), we could assist a Danish film evening, and at the end of the month, favoring the very young generation, Danish Children’s Day was celebrated.

Those who visited the lecture 'Copenhagen by bike' on 12 January, could learn a lot about the Danish transportation system. Beyond discovering the 'City of Cyclists', we could also see the photo exhibition of Cycle Chic founder, Mikael Colville-Andersen. After the opening speech by Tamás Szűcs, head of the The European Commission Representation in Hungary, Hanne Tornøe, head of the Danish Cultural Institute in Budapest said some words about the biking culture in Copenhagen. It was followed by short presentations given by János László, president of the Hungarian Bicycle Club and Péter Dalos, traffic engineer at Danish origin architecture company, COWI. While various statistics were reported, the audience could draw obvious parallels between the biking life of Copenhagen and Budapest.

Greenpeace: the reservoir of Almásfüzitő leaks

More than one year had passed since the red sludge catastrophe in Kolontár. On the 4th of October 2010 the dike of the red sludge reservoir between Kolontár and Ajka ruptured and more than half a million cubic metres of toxic waste spread across the area. The highly alkaline, corrosive liquid caused serious damages in three villages: Kolontár, Devecser and Somlóvásárhely. Since then new houses have been built but the environment is still not recovered from the contamination. The media and certain NGOs started to deal with the case of the red sludge reservoir of Almásfüzitő and the risks it poses after the tragedy in Ajka. We asked Gergely Simon the chemicals expert of Greenpeace Hungary about the problems and dangers of the reservoir.

Cafebabel: First we should talk about what happened in Kolontár. What has changed over the last year? Is the red sludge completely transferred?

Gergely Simon: The contamination is mostly removed. Few months ago when Greenpeace carried out measurements there, we found some the toxic metals in the soil which can be the consequence of the red sludge contamination, but they were below the threshold limit value. The current problem is that the factory lets out the liquid that used to be on top of the reservoir. Although it is neutralized, its salt content is still high. Furthermore its molybdenum content is also very high and every now and then it contains other toxic materials too. The problem is that instead of obliging them to pay an indemnity, the authorities raise the threshold limit values so that the recorded values can not be regarded as contamination. It is not good either when the contaminating material is let out on occasional permissions, nor is it better when cement is mixed with the red sludge, mainly because it is a bit inexperienced method and threatens to pose more risks. On the whole, we can say that the cleaning of the area has been carried out properly but the spending of the 15 billion Hungarian Forints meant to cover the restoration raises another issue. Even the Members of the Parliament would like to know that in detail.

Although in Hungary the technology is still in its infancy and the legal background not clarified, the emergence of digital texts and e-readers along with the fall of printed book turnover is a phenomenon which is experienced throughout the world. So the question comes up: what’s next? Give me the latest version of the iPad and Kindle or leave me alone with all this stuff because I’m a bibliophile? Experts who were invited to the topic-related presentation of the fifth MEDIA Conference in Budapest were searching for answers together with students to the issues of copyright and content-sharing problems as well as to questions connected to publishers’ and distributors’ strategies.


Among the guests were Eszter Gyuricza, head of Hungary’s leading publisher and bookstore Alexandra; dr. Balázs Bodó economist, senior lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics; and Péter Weiler, managing director of eBook Hungary Ltd .

First of all, the presenters made it clear that having different ideas about technological innovations comes naturally to the youth because they grew up in a digital world.

According to Péter Weiler, eBook Hungary started with an approach which aimed at preparing readers for a new world where digital texts succeed traditional books, which is already well-known in the Western countries. Whether books are really going to disappear or not is a controversial point because, despite preliminary expectations, the radio was also not abolished by television, but the market is definitely undergoing a change. The company invests its faith not in technology, but in people who may love digital reading in the future.