Far-right AfD co-leader: Hungary and Orbán model for Germany

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party, called Hungary and its Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “an example for AfD”, after talks with Orbán in Budapest on Wednesday.

At a press conference held jointly with Orbán, Weidel said her country’s ties had worsened in the region, especially with Hungary, as well as with such great powers as Russia, the United States and China. She said it was her primary task to improve those relations. Germany has weakened, she insisted, adding that the country had “weak leadership, weak economic policy, ruined energy policy and an ill-advised green policy introduced by Angela Merkel”.

“Merkel ruined our country,” Weidel said, adding that her country was suffering from illegal migration, “imported crime”, and a high rate of juvenile delinquency. She said employees in Germany were paying the highest taxes. If AfD wins power, it will “follow the path of Hungary, the great ideal” and put Germany “back on its feet”, she pledged.

“We want to be proud of our country the way you are proud of yours,” she said to Orban, calling Hungary a “symbol of common sense, sovereignty and independence”. She said that as chancellor candidate she vowed to tackle illegal migration and take steps in the interest of a rational energy policy, rational energy prices and major tax cuts.

She said Hungary was also a model for Germany when it came to freedom of expression, adding that she wanted Germany to be a free and sovereign country that had good relations with its neighbours and both East and West. Weidel said the European Union had to be reformed from within through strong and self-conscious nations and called for dismantling the EU’s “bureaucratic, expensive and corrupt construct”.

In response to a question, she said it was a mistake to fine Hungary for the measures it has taken against illegal migration. She said the Schengen system should have been scrapped “long ago”, arguing that the conditions for its original aim of securing the external borders while abolishing the internal ones were no longer met.

Weidel said she considered it important for there to be a “strong, free and conservative voice in Europe”, adding that Europe, Germany and France were all “without leadership”, when it was important to be able to sit down and negotiate with the new US president. She said AfD wanted peace in Ukraine, accusing the German ruling parties and the EU of “feeding an escalation spiral”.

Weidel’s views on family

In response to a question, she rejected the view that AfD was a “far-right” party, calling for the need to “dispel this myth”. She said this label had been tagged on her party by the Germany secret services.

Asked about her gender and family policies, Weidel said the traditional family was a “guiding principle” for her party, because “just about 100 percent of children grow up in such families”. Weidel said she was a liberal who lives with another woman raising two boys, adding, however, that this did not hold her back from standing by a principle that was important as the fundamental unit of society.

Orbán: EU in ‘great trouble’ due to ‘policies against will of people’

The European Union “is in great trouble because it is trying to pursue policies against the will of the people,” Orbán said. While voters are “clearly against” migration, Brussels promotes a “pro-migration” stance, Orbán said. Most people wish for peace in Europe, and still the EU seeks to win a war against Russia, Orbán said. Europeans “want to protect the purchasing power of their salaries and want policies supporting the middle classes, and what they get is just the opposite: they are getting poorer,” added.

‘If the ruling elite won’t realise what the people want it to do in cardinal issues and is unwilling to incorporate that democratic will in its policies it reflects a problem with democracy,” Orbán said. The community has a “professional, substantive and governance problem simultaneously”, Orbán said, adding that “if it goes on like that I don’t know who will save the EU.”

Hungary, Orbán said, had endured “very difficult years” under “huge pressure from Germany” to change its migration regulations and take in migrants. He said Hungary was being fined a daily one million euros in addition to an earlier fine of 200 million and under pressure to change its migration policy because it was not letting in illegal migrants. “But this is still cheaper for Hungary than if we let in illegal migrants,” he said.

Orbán vowed that Hungary would not budge on the issue of migration, stressing that illegal entry was a crime, and illegal migrants would be convicted and expelled from the country. He said the reason for the “uneasy feeling” towards the Germans in Hungary was that Germany was not acknowledging that Hungary was protecting the Schengen area, the entirety of the EU and Germany from the south by not welcoming migrants. “We’d at least expect them not to penalise us if they don’t have anything nice to say about us,” he added.

Orbán said he had “no hopes” for a reform of the EU’s current migration pact because it was “bad the way it is and should be thrown out”. He regretted, however, that the “bureaucrats in Brussels can’t be convinced of this”, adding that the only option in the current migration situation and legal environment was to “rebel”. “Hungary already rose up in 2016, now the Poles have followed suit … and AfD has practically modelled its programme on Hungary’s regulations,” Orbán said, suggesting that Germany “should finally also rise up against the migration pact and help us out this way”.

Speaking about Hungary’s relations with AfD, Orbán said an obstacle to nurturing those was the policy based on the principle that it was in Hungary’s vital interest to maintain good relations with the incumbent German government, irrespective of its composition. “So there’s a world of interstate relations where there exists a Hungarian interest,” he said. “And there’s the world of party relations. And I will never allow myself to destroy the Hungarian interests tied to interstate relations for the sake of party relations.”

He said this was why he had taken a cautious approach to AfD so far, but by now it had become “obvious that AfD is the future”. “If a ruling elite refuses to side with the people, but a party that sides with the people comes along, then they are the future,” Orbán said. “And since AfD’s support has reached 20 percent, their base is almost double the population of Hungary.” Orbán said the moment had come when having relations with AfD could not be punished by anyone, including the German government.

Speaking about the new US administration, the prime minister said “the first and most important thing” was that the “American liberal progressive boot has been lifted off our chest” and the immense international pressure Hungary had to face “has been at least halved”. Orbán said it had also come to light “that all of the Hungarian government’s opponents including the progressive, left-wing media outlets and NGO-s have received funding”. “But this is over now, the political competition will be fairer than it was before.”

He said US President Donald Trump was “changing the world” by declaring that migration and war were “bad things” and that peace was good. Trump was also changing “the way we think about the Green Deal”, he said, arguing that green policy that did not take economic aspects into consideration was bad. Orbán said Trump was also putting an end to the practice of “mocking” Christianity and the family, adding that the president was also an advocate of free speech and against political correctness.

Asked about European-US economic relations, Orbán criticised EU leaders, saying they were “hiding like coward hares in the wheat field waiting for their fate, waiting to see what the US president will do”. He said the EU should “stand up … with confidence and offer proposals to the Americans”. He said that because European institutions “can’t be taken seriously”, Europe’s future was in the hands of France and Germany. “If they provide Europe with leadership, then there will be leadership, but if they don’t then there won’t be, but then the entire continent will suffer economically because there’s no mercy for the weak,” he added.

Asked about next week’s federal election in Germany, Orbán said “Hungary isn’t dealt any cards in this”, adding, at the same time, that he hoped Germany would have a government whose economic policy also served the interests of the Hungarian economy. “Today I’ve become convinced that AfD has such a programme,” he said.

The prime minister said his other hope was that the new German government would not allow Brussels to “abuse its power”. “We would like a German government that stands up for the fair and respectful treatment of nation-states,” he said.

Meanwhile, Orbán said Weidel was a “leader and a freedom fighter” whom he had invited because he welcomed all chancellor candidates, “although there wasn’t a long line”. He said the date of the meeting had been chosen by Weidel, adding that he, too, considered it advantageous. “I’m convinced that after the election, everyone will see AfD as a successful party, and then many people will be lining up to congratulate them,” Orban said.

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