Off the wire
• Spanish stock market rises 1.74 pct, closes at 10,037 points  • Albania, Switzerland sign double taxation exemption agreement  • China market's long-term driver is intact: ABB's CEO  • China ready to help S. Africa hold successful FOCAC summit: official  • Hard lessons must be drawn from Greek crisis: Juncker  • Chinese liquor wins int'l competition  • Four judges stabbed in China  • Kenya's Yego seeks early holiday after Brussels Diamond League  • Gunmen kill two Pakistani media workers in 24 hours  • BRICS countries call for closer trade ties to retain growth  
You are here: 　 Home

Hungarian president appoints Simicsko as defense minister

Xinhua, September 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Hungary's President Janos Ader appointed Istvan Simicsko as the new minister of defense on Tuesday, according to the latest issue of the Hungarian official gazette Magyar Kozlony.

The appointment is effective Sept. 10.

Former Defense Minister Csaba Hende submitted his resignation on Monday after the government's national security cabinet assessed the migration situation and heard a report about the current state of the border fence being constructed along the 175-km-long Hungarian-Serbian border.

Lajos Kosa, head of Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Law Enforcement, said on Tuesday that the reason for Hende's resignation was that Prime Minister Viktor Orban was not satisfied with the pace of the border fence construction, which is being constructed by the Hungarian Defense Force.

Both the country's defense and national security committees supported the appointment.

Simicsko said after his appointment that speeding up the construction of the border fence was a "priority".

Simicsko was born on Nov. 29, 1961. He is a Hungarian politician of the governing Fidesz-KDNP coalition. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1998 and has served as state secretary for sports at the ministry of human resources since 2014. Endit