The regime that emerged with the peace treaties concluded after World War I chopped up the Kingdom of Hungary and rewarded its neighbours, helping them to establish themselves on the basis of the principle of national self-determination, by giving them two-thirds of Hungary’s areas and one-third of its Hungarian-speaking population. During the settlement that followed World War II, the great powers repeatedly forced this shocking decision upon Hungarians drifted to the losing side. This essay sums up the causes and events of this difficult-to-survive historical traumatism and its adverse impacts on the Central European region, in retrospect after more than a century.

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In this paper the classical rule of law, born in the 19th century, is compared to the current post-modern rule of law through the opinion of the author and of the relevant international experts. The paper focuses on nation states’ sovereignty, the settlement of jurisprudential problems between the European Union and its Member States, the elimination of anomalies in the post-modern rule of law, as an ultimate guarantee, the constitutional courts of nation states and the Conference of European Constitutional Courts.

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After the clearing of the nation of legal cultures the author shows the european legal families and legal cultures. After the examination of historical characteristics of hungarian legal cultures he deals with the possibilities and limits of approximation of the EU legal systems and cultures. Finally the paper analysis the impact of EU membership on the hungarian legal cultures.

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The study deals with the second codification wave similar to and following the first codification period of labor and public service law after the change of regime in 19921993, which took place because contrary to the previous left-liberal government policy, a very different, right-wing civilian government came to power in the parliamentary elections of 2010. The article in the previous English volume showed in detail only the employment and public service legislation of 1992-1993, while the second codification of 2011-2012 relating to these two fields of law was only outlined. In this writing we give a more profound critical analysis of the re-codification of employment and public service law in 2012 and the subsequent amendments. Our study covers both individual labor and public service law, as well as employment and public service law relations in both the fields of labor law and public service law.

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The authors have elaborated a model to correct the false demographic message of the current pension scheme, as the latter suggests that a stable pension scheme can be maintained without having children. In this model, parents are entitled to a pension supplement for their jobholder children. In order to finance this scheme, an appropriated child-to-parent pension fund is proposed: a specified part of jobholder children’s tax payments are contributed to it, and when their parents reach the specified age, their pensions are supplemented from this fund. Following the income and outflow of payments by the various generations, the proposed pension fund would thus create a kind of a generational finance within public finances. With the adoption of the child-to-parent pension element, the generational approach becomes part of both family budgets and public finances. The expression “child-to-parent” lends a symbolic power to the particular amounts, as it suggests that children represent a coverage value. According to our calculations, already the partial enforcement of the generational budget approach we propose will result in a 3 to 4 percentage point economic growth in the next few decades.

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This study provides a brief outline of a pension scheme based on human capital, an idea that stems from understanding that pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension schemes should be based on the recognition of parenting, as they distribute the yield of investments into human capital. The fact that this is not the case explains the numerous problems inherent the scheme. Similarly to a Ponzi scheme, the promises and options offered by the pension scheme are increasingly divergent: promises are becoming increasingly inflated, while options are diminishing. The system outlined below would resolve these problems. Parenting and the pension scheme are intrinsically interrelated: the former can only be made economically profitable through the latter, as evidenced by the prevailing method applied throughout most of global history, which was only made redundant in modern times.

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The natural fertility rate directly expresses the reproductive capabilities of a country. Typically, the value of this indicator is considerably lower in the economically developed part of the world than in less developed countries. However, in terms of fertility rates, developed countries are not completely homogenous either, at least in an analysis of changes in time series. Through the example of various EU Member States, this study aims to pick the economic and policy factors that may trigger improvement in the fertility rate. Apart from a few countries, it is a common problem in the surveyed states that population growth is insufficient for ensuring reproduction. Paradoxically, population decline and ageing is a problem in those countries and regions of the world where the material, economic and welfare conditions are the most favourable. It is also important to demonstrate globally detectable correlations between fertility rates and the standard of living. The aim of this study is to highlight the specific social and economic indicators with the most beneficial and most adverse impacts on developments in fertility rates. An important finding of the study is that having children is essentially not an economic, much rather a cultural matter that is closely related to the concept of responsibility, and in addition, economic stability or a balanced income distribution may increase the fertility rate. Overall, decrease in the intensity of childbearing can be considered as a legitimate concomitant of societies with advanced economies. In the study references are made to other variables that may shift the unfavourable demographic trends in a more favourable direction in the developed world.

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Cultural heritage is an integral part of Hungarian music education. Folk traditions and folk songs are taught in every school, from the capital city to the smallest villages. Thousands of songs were collected by Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók, who adopted them in their classical compositions. With this they earned fame for Hungarian folk music and traditions. Zoltán Kodály also composed a series of music reading materials, mainly based on folk songs, which is currently used on all levels of Hungarian music education. Not only the Kodály concept, but the Táncház-method was also selected in the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices of UNESCO Cultural Heritage. In our digital age, the net-generation, unlike the previous student populations, can have different habits, which is the reason why students’ music skills were tested with technology-based methods and tools. They are surrounded by popular media; however, the value that folk tradition offers should be inevitable in their education. The findings of our research provides input for the educational system about Hungarian students’s music literacy, and their familiarity with its various elements, especially with certain components of their cultural heritage.

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