Hungary’s house speaker: Europe locked in ‘civilisational struggle’

Europe is locked in a “civilisational struggle” between those seeking to preserve the continent’s Christian and national principles and those who would rather see it become “post-Christian and post-national”, Hungary’s parliamentary speaker said in Dresden on Friday.

Central Europe holds the key to the future of a Europe that seeks to return to its Christian and national roots, László Kövér was quoted as saying by parliament’s press office at a conference organised by the Saxony state parliament. In his address, Kövér added that the region could set an example for western Europe.

He said that although the struggle Europe was going through was “nothing new”, the “intensity of the ideological aggression displayed by those who want to see the end of Europe’s Christian and national era” was a new aspect. The speaker said those on this side of the struggle had deployed “astounding weapons such as, for example, the mass migration wave thrust onto Europe”.

Kövér said Europe was “the target of ideological carpet bombing”.

“Those who want to put an end to the era of Christianity, nations and nation states in Europe to further their own power goals are inciting and preaching anti-Christianity in the name of value neutrality, anti-national sentiments in the name of multiculturalism, and anti-state views in the name of globalism,” he added.

Kövér said central Europe was experienced in this area, arguing that the region had spent more than four decades “under the rule of an anti-Christian and anti-nation power called the Soviet Union”.

This was why, Kövér speculated, central Europe was better at recognising threats than the western part of the continent. “And this could also explain why central Europe is becoming more valuable; why its nations are bolstering their cooperation and why their national identity is getting stronger with the deepening of Europe’s civilizational struggle,” the speaker added.

Abandoning Christian and national values comes with severe moral, political and economic consequences, Kövér warned, insisting that the European Union’s “demographic decline”, the deterioration of the middle class’s income situation and the indebtedness of the EU’s member states were signs of this.