Technology Minister Laszlo Palkovic, who oversees the National Meteorological Service (NMS), relieved president Cornelia Radic and her deputy Gula Horvath of their duties on Monday, but did not give a reason. The ministry did not immediately return AFP’s call for further details. The NMS had predicted thunderstorms and gusty winds in the capital, Budapest, which caused the cancellation of Saturday’s fireworks. However, the storms missed the capital. The NMS agency apologized on Sunday, citing “an uncertainty factor inherent in the profession”. Fireworks on the banks of the Danube have been billed as ‘Europe’s biggest’ to celebrate Hungary’s ‘millennium state’ on St Stephen’s Day, but have proved controversial in some quarters, meaning the prediction has become something of a political lightning rod. . The opposition called for the report to be scrapped, denouncing it as a “useless waste of money” at a time when the country’s economy is struggling and Ukraine is at war. A petition calling for its cancellation has garnered nearly 200,000 signatures. On Sunday, pro-government media criticized the NMS for their prediction. Online newspaper Origo accused the agency of giving “misleading information about the extent of the bad weather, which misled the operational team responsible for safety”. In a reaction broadcast on the social network Facebook, liberal Andras Fekete-Gyor joked: “They couldn’t produce the desired weather, they were fired. No, it’s not a dictatorship in Central Asia, it’s Hungary [ruling party] Fidesz,” he said. The screening has been rescheduled for later this week. In 2006, the annual celebrations were hit by a severe storm that killed five people and injured several hundred, causing widespread panic among the more than a million people who had gathered to watch on the banks of the Danube. With the French Agency
