Orbán published an article: Central Europe responsible for shaping continent’s future

The Visegrad Group countries have a responsibility to protect Europe from external attacks and internal imperial ambitions in the interest of the continent’s future, and to preserve “the independence of our homelands and nations”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in article in the Wednesday issue of daily Magyar Nemzet.

Over the course of its history, central Europe had not just a role to play but also a duty to fulfil, “but this fact had been obscured to us by the Soviet invasion of the region until 1990”, the prime minister wrote in the article marking the 30th anniversary of the V4.

“The fight to rid ourselves of our communists narrowed our perspective and exhausted our strengths,” Orbán said. Central Europeans, he added, had fought hard to make sure that the region’s communist forces were “as far away from governing as possible, left as textbook examples of historic crimes and for our grandchildren to learn what happens when one tries to shape the future without national ideals and adhering to Christian teachings.”

“After the defeat of communism and the liberation of our countries … our hearts told us as early as 1991 that our countries, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia had to unite in some way,” he said.

“We knew that centuries come and go, but the central European peoples would share a common fate.”

“And indeed, with 30 years gone by, we can say that we are members of NATO and the fastest-growing region of the European Union,” Orbán said. “Strong growth, low unemployment, a rapid digital transformation and robust investments. That’s who we are today.”

The prime minister said the debates within the EU on the issues of migration, the demographic situation, the role of families and the conflict between national culture and multiculturalism once again called attention to the historical duty of central Europe.

“Hungarians view central Europe as the territory between the lands of the Germans and the Russians,”

Orbán said, adding that the V4 were “undoubtedly the core territory of central Europe”.

“We Hungarians have always thought that we don’t just come into the world. If you are born Hungarian, you also have a mission. This mission is greater than you, with a European horizon and significance,”

the prime minister said.

“In the territory between the German and Russian worlds where Latin Christianity borders Orthodox Christianity, which has seen the rise of many languages and national cultures, there exists a unique shared cultural quality, an outlook on life, a way of thinking and a unique posture,” Orbán said.

“This is proven by hundreds of Polish, Slovak, Czech and Hungarian poetry collections, novels and films. Our duty is to preserve this,” he added.

“Our Europe was created by the peoples that attacked the Roman Empire independent of each other at various points in history,” Orbán noted.

While preserving their own cultures, these peoples adopted Latin Christianity, he said. “History’s hammer forged these alloys … giving birth not only to nation states but national cultures, too.”

“An ideal was born: an ordinance of what Europe should be like,” Orbán said, referring to independent EU member states “spiritually united, with common cultural foundations”, but diverse at the same time.

Undermining unity would be un-European, he said. “But a bad European would seek to eradicate diversity,” he added.

Central Europeans, the prime minister said, understood that harmony did not mean uniformity or unanimity but harnessing the tension of opposites. “This is at the root of the Hungarian people and other central European peoples that sought their independence.”

Orbán said European balance and stability over the centuries rested on preserving the spirit of nations and coming together in order to protect Christian European culture against attacks from outside Europe.

“This is what defending Europe is about; and the French President is making a stretch to seek to introduce the idea of a European sovereignty emanating from Brussels,”