Hungarian President Pal Schmitt resigned earlier today in response to the plagiarism accusation he faced. The writing in question is his Ph.D. thesis written 20 years ago at Semmelweis University on the topic of modern Olympic Games. The university committee found the paper contains pages of translation from the works of two other authors. The resignation came in just one day after Schmitt publicly announced that he would not resign. During the press conference today, Schmitt said he does not want his personal issue to divide the country and felt it’s his duty to end his service. Schmitt is the first Hungarian president to resign since the country ended its communist ruling in 1990. He was elected to the office in 2010 for a five-year term. Hungary joined the EU in 2004 and received €20B in bailout money from the International Monetary Fund and other creditors in 2009. It had also asked for the EU and the IMF for financial assistance when the Hungarian forint (HUF) fell to all time low against the Euro at the end of 2011. The talk is still ongoing because the country has yet to meet some of EU’s requests on legal structure changes. For more news and updates, keep it right here at the Financial News Network. I’m Julia Sun.
