FM Szijjártó: Colour of peace is orange, name of peace is Fidesz

A decision will have to be made on the issue of war and peace in this year’s European Parliament elections and “the colour of peace is orange, the name of peace is Fidesz,” Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday.

He told an event presenting the election manifesto of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats that Hungary had been in the shadow of war for two years and “feeling the consequences directly on its skin”.

Hungary has undertaken the largest humanitarian operation in its history while it had to pay for war-time energy prices which resulted in ten billion euros in extra costs, equalling 5 percent of GDP, while having to fight against skyrocketing inflation, he said.

“It was not easy, but we were able to protect Hungarian people’s jobs, protect our energy supplies and help those in trouble,” he said.

At the same time, the most important and difficult task was for the government to keep Hungary out of the war despite the pressure and attempts of blackmail, he added.

“We have not been dragged into the war, we have been able to preserve the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people, despite all the pressure having been placed on us and still being placed on us, from the outside and also inside,” he said.

He welcomed that the government had not taken any steps that would have taken Hungary closer to war, that would have made the losses more severe, or would have carried the risk of the armed conflict expanding.

“Often we were the only ones in the transatlantic community that stood up for peace,” Szijjártó said.

At the same time, he warned that the pressuring for war would not decrease, but quite the opposite, for two main reasons.

The first reason, he said, was that the majority of European political leaders suffered from “war psychosis” and felt that they were also at war. He added that the latter was not true, arguing that Europe was not at war and nobody had attacked Europe.

He said the second reason was that the majority of leaders had made a mistake and chosen the wrong strategy, causing severe damage to the continent and its citizens, for instance in terms of the sanctions.