Hungarian government: New US president to bring ‘better world’
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Budapest, November 10 (MTI) – The Hungarian government expects “the advent of a better world” after the vote for Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, the government office chief told his regular Thursday press conference.
János Lázár expressed the government’s hope that a “fair partnership” would now develop between the two countries.
Hungary has had disputes with the US, not with its people but rather with the Democratic Party, over “the values on the basis of which the government sought to rebuild the country after 2010,” Lázár said. He also noted past US criticism of Hungary’s migration policy.
Lázár said the White House had “lectured” Hungary “quite a few times” over the past six years.
Hungary sees the new president, however, as heralding a new start, he said. For the rest of the world, too, there is great promise, he added.
He expressed hope that Hungary would get “the respect it deserves” under America’s new leadership. Lázár added, at the same time, that economic and military relations had been “excellent” between the two countries over the last six years.
Answering a question, Lázár said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had not yet spoken with Donald Trump.
He said the outcome of the election could not be interpreted as being unrelated to President Barack Obama’s performance, which Lázár insisted had caused “serious damage” among certain ranks of American society. He said another factor in the Democratic Party’s defeat was that it had preferred talking points “which were not about the majority” of the voting public.
Lázár said one lesson to be learned from the election was that anyone who had wanted to rely on the media to keep up with US public life over the past year had “bet on the wrong horse because the press had lost its ability to inform the public about the real state of affairs”.
Lázár also talked about Orbán’s Wednesday meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
He said Orbán had got an assurance that the rights of Hungarians living in the UK would not be hurt after Britain leaves the EU. If UK citizens will also be given the right to take up jobs in the EU, then the UK, on the principle of reciprocity, will guarantee those same rights for EU citizens on its own territory, Lázár said.