Photo: Eszter Gordon
The ministry will spend HUF 100 million on conferences, exhibitions and publications to commemorate Batthyány and his work. Programmes during the year will pay respect to the great statesmen as well as reinforce national price and reaffirm national identity, Hiller said.
"We can only be deserving and proud citizens of the European Union if we are also proud of being Hungarians," Hiller said at the celebratory event, adding that European nations are experiencing a renaissance.
A special Batthyány album will be published, Parliament will hold a memorial session in April, and a Batthyány tent will be set up at the Sziget Festival - a week-long music festival which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. On Saturday, exactly 200 years after Batthyány's birth, some of Hungary's highest state officials will lay wreathes at the Batthyány mausoleum.
The National Bank of Hungary will mint 20,000 Batthyány memorial coins, and the Hungarian post will issue 300,000 Batthyány stamps. A full-size statue of Batthyány is to be erected in Batthyány Square sometime in October. A tender for the state, expected to cost HUF 25 million, will be called in a few weeks.
Minister of Defence Imre Szekeres said the Armed Forces would participate at many of the events planned during the year. Not many people are aware that Batthyány was the founder of the Hungarian Armed Forces, Europe's most modern and well-organised, military at the time, he noted.
Events will also take place at the Vas County estate of the Batthyány family, said head of the local council Ferenc Kovács.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
