Hungarian politician: Europe’s future can’t be decided without Europeans

Europe’s future cannot be decided over the heads of Europeans by making globalist decisions along a liberal ideology, Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, told a conference in Bratislava on Friday.

Speaking at the Istropolis Summit conference organised by the Mattheus Corvinus Collegium, Orbán said the conference has expanded into an international event from a regional one with the arrival of US and European contributors from all corners of the continent, “which shows how robust Hungary’s collectivity-centered approach is, and that Hungary is looking for friends rather than opponents in politics.”

Hungary has strategic partnerships with the US and China and maintains pragmatic cooperation with Russia despite the war, Orbán said, calling on Europe to take a leaf out of their book and start strategic cooperation with world powers. “But the leaders in the Brussels bubble are isolated and making bad decisions” on issues such as the war, migration and the green transition, he said.

“It’s time … that nation states take over steering European cooperation and change hitherto failed strategies,” he said.

The conference was an opportunity, he added, to review areas of national-conservative cooperation. While its participants had diverging views on many issues, they all agreed that Europeans should have a say in decisions on their future, he added. Hungary would be the first to ask its citizens’ opinion on Ukraine’s EU membership, Orbán said, adding that he hoped many countries would follow in Hungary’s footsteps.

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