Orbán’s State of the Nation speech: the NATO should have accepted Russia’s territorial gains
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PM Viktor Orbán held today his grandiose state of the nation speech today in Budapest’s illustrious Várkert Bazár. Of course, he talked about the ongoing war in Ukraine and said that the NATO should have accepted the Russians’ territorial gains. He listed some examples when the West did well in that respect. For example, in Georgia, in 2008 and in the case of the Crimea in 2014.
They should have done the same with the two Eastern Ukrainian counties, Luhansk and Donetsk in 2022 to evade war. Orbán’s view contradicts the West’s most powerful argument: if they let the Russians approach, nothing will be enough just like it was back in the 1930s with Hitler, 444.hu wrote.
Special thanks to the life-saving in Türkiye
If 2022 was the hardest year since Hungary’s change in political system, then 2023 will be its “most dangerous year”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Saturday in a speech assessing the nation over the past year. In his speech held in the Varkert Bazaar in Budapest, Orbán noted the dangers of migration, “which has gradually stabilised”, adding that “the war and inflation” were persistent threats. Meanwhile, the prime minister hailed the Hungarian “heroes” of the search and rescue efforts following last week’s devastating earthquake in Türkiye.
“It is in times of trouble that it becomes clear who can be counted on, and we Hungarians can be counted on,” Orbán said. A total of 167 Hungarian staff and volunteers took part in the search and rescue efforts after the earthquake in Syria and Turkiye which claimed at least 44,000 lives, the prime minister said. Risking their lives, the Hungarian teams rescued 35 people from the rubble, he added. Several of the rescuers attended Orbán ‘s speech and were greeted with a round of applause by the prime minister and other attendees.
Addressing challenges ahead, Orban said European life was undergoing “massive change”, bringing about new intellectual, political, economic and military tasks. He said that in the period following Fidesz’s election win in 2010, “we cleared away the piles of debris left by the distracted Socialist governments … [and overcame] unemployment, the shrinking economy, foreign currency loans … sky-high utility bills” as well as a culture of dependency on state handouts.
Exhausting years for Orbán
The prime minister said employment levels in today’s Hungary were at a record high, and the economy had grown threefold, while the minimum wage was higher than the average wage under the Socialist-led government.
Furthermore, the Fidesz government created a “national Christian constitution worthy of us”, he said, adding that the government had bravely reorganised the Hungarian state “in defiance of Brussels”, and succeeded in clearing away obstacles to creating “a new Hungarian economy” which gave the chance to everyone “to find their own way”.
“It has been an exhausting ten years … but it was worth it,” Orbán said.
Meanwhile, Orbán said that Hungary’s left wing must come to realise they will not succeed in winning an election on the back of “millions of dollars” donated by “influential patrons”. Orbán said the entire left wing had united against the governing parties, and “Brussels” had attempted to deprive the state of financing.
Referring to financier George Soros, he said that “Uncle Gyuri” had pumped 4 billion forints worth of US dollars from America “so their comrades would have something to shoot us with”.
The prime minister said the opposition parties had grossly miscalculated, and they “will pay the price”, adding that it was not by accident or a matter of luck that his government had won successive election victories with a two-thirds majority.
Rather than “returning to the right path” following the coronavirus pandemic, the world “entered years of war”. Everything changed in politics and the economy, he said, adding that “the world is clearly heading towards the Wild West”.
The prime minister said “we’ve been living our lives under constant pressure” for the past three years, adding that this “could easily be prolonged by four or possibly even five years”. “When the West entered the war” with its sanctions everything had to be reappraised, he said, adding that the government had spent the months after the April general election precisely doing this.
Goals remain clear
Orbán said there was no reason to “give up” or abandon the goals set by the government but the means by which these goal can be attained must be changed, he added.
Orbán promised to stick to his government’s family policies, the country’s labour-based economy, and to maintain price caps on household utility bills. The government is also sticking to its agreement with pensioners and providing the 13th month pension, he said.
The government is able to keep strategic sectors under Hungarian ownership such as the banking sector, the energy sector and the media industry in Hungarian hands, he said, adding that telecommuncations “will be made Hungarian again”.
The government is also keeping its promise to rural Hungary by launching unprecedented development projects, the prime minister said. “We will allocate an amount of funding not seen by rural Hungary even during the Austro-Hungarian Empire,” he added.
The government will develop a manufacturing agriculture sector and revive the food industry “which was ruined by privatisations”. “The food industry will have national champions that will be able to hold their own on the global market as well,” he added.
Plans to ensure that eastern Hungary catches up with the rest of the country are also going ahead, Orban said, noting that the Debrecen-Nyiregyhaza-Miskolc area will become an industrial zone to complement the Gyor-Szombathely-Veszprem zone.
This requires more energy than Hungary has ever needed in the past, he said, adding that Hungary will therefore build power plants and pipeline networks, “even if Brussels refuses to play a role in this”.
“We won’t give up on our most daring plan, either, namely for those who choose parenthood to have a better financial situation than those who don’t,” he said. This, he said, meant that the government would introduce more family support measures each year, such as the personal income tax exemption for mothers below the age of 30 being introduced this year.
War and inflation
Meanwhile, Orbán said that if 2022 had been the hardest year since Hungary’s change in political system, then 2023 would be its “most dangerous year”.
Orbán noted the dangers of migration, “which has gradually stabilised”, adding that “the war and inflation” were persistent threats.
Regarding the threat of war, Orbán said that if it were up to Hungarians they would “simply end it, but we don’t have the weight to do it…”
“If we want to protect Hungary and ensure a peaceful life, we have a single choice: stay out of the Russia-Ukraine war.” So far, this has not been easy, and it will not become any easier later either, because “we are part of the Western world, members of NATO and the European Union; and everyone else is on the side of war or at least acts like it,” Orbán said.
He raised the question of whether Hungary could afford to stay on the side of peace, in direct opposition to its allies. “We, of course, can, because Hungary is an independent, free and sovereign state, and we don’t recognise anyone above us other than God,” he said.
He also raised the question of whether it was “morally right for us to stay out of the war”, adding that it was not only right to do so “but the only morally right choice”.
Orbán said Russia had attacked Ukraine, which meant that Hungary had to take in Ukrainian refugees. “And we did the right thing by supporting them through the largest humanitarian aid operation in our country’s history,” he added. But the Ukraine war is not a war between “the forces of good and evil, but rather those of two Slavic countries, limited in time, and for the time being, in space”, Orbán said.
“This is their war and not ours,” he said. Hungary recognises Ukraine’s right to defend itself and fight off an attack, Orbán said, adding at the same time that it would not be right, even from a moral standpoint, to put the interests of Ukraine before those of Hungary.
He accused the Hungarian left wing of being pro-war, insisting they wanted to send weapons to Ukraine and would be willing to assume the financial burdens of the conflict and cut ties with Russia.
“We aren’t sending weapons”
“But that’s not what we’re doing,” he said. “We aren’t sending weapons. We’re also careful with money, because in the end Brussels could give Ukraine the money that we’re entitled to.”
Orbán said humanitarian support for Ukraine did not entail cutting ties with Russia, arguing that doing so would go against Hungary’s national interests. So Hungary will not support sanctions on oil or the nuclear industry, he said, adding that these would “bring Hungary to ruin”.
Hungary, he said, would maintain its economic ties with Russia and recommended that the West did the same since a ceasefire and peace talks depended on maintaining ties. Hungary, he added, would not support sanctions against people of the church.
Orbán said it was also important to “see beyond Brussels”, arguing that everyone outside Europe saw a war of limited significance. It was only in Europe that Hungary’s position was considered an outlier, he said, while it was shared by the rest of the world.
Orbán said his government did not believe it was realistic to consider Russia a threat to European security. Russia would have no chance against NATO, “and it won’t be in such a position for a long time to come”, he said.
He lamented that Europe still did not have a joint military despite Hungary’s proposal to establish one a decade ago.
Wow!
What a rousing speech. All hail, our Messiah.
Yes indeed! We’ve gone from Goulash Communism to pseudo-Authoritarianism. Aren’t we the “very lucky” chosen people.
…And if we don’t all turn against the big bad nasty EU, then it will drag us into the war.