Jobbik leader Vona adresses to the Krynica Forum – VIDEO

We have a wage union and an integrated Europe, or Europe will remain two-speed for a while and finally fall apart, opposition Jobbik leader Gábor Vona told an economic forum in Krynica in southern Poland on Wednesday. 

Read Vona’s full speech which was published on jobbik.com, or watch the video of the speech.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, let me greet you all and thank you for the opportunity to tell my opinion about such an important issue, in this great company.

The title only named two potential future scenarios: “the two-speed Europe or the two Europes”. Let me raise a provocative question: how did we end up here, where a single, integrated, powerful Europe of solidarity is talked about less and less? Do we really want a Europe like that, or are these just fancy but empty words aimed for the media and the public?

First of all, let me state that the two-speed Europe is not a future scenario. It’s the past and the present. This is the reality we live in. So the question is not really if a single Europe falls apart. On the contrary, the question is if the economically, socially and culturally fragmented Europe can be integrated at all?

In 2004, several Eastern European countries joined the EU. It was the largest expansion in the history of the community. The historic moment was celebrated with fireworks everywhere, the hearts of the people of the former Socialist block were filled with hope. Hope for freedom and wealth.

13 years have passed since then. The fireworks stopped. The hope has been lost. For the people of today’s Eastern Central Europe, the EU is not at all a happy historical fulfilment but a lost illusion. It is a place where they live in lack of a better one. I know these are harsh words but they are not exaggerating at all. All opinion polls show that the confidence in the EU has dropped dramatically in the region after the accession. The economies of the former Socialist countries were unable to truly integrate into the European economy. The free competition and the single market caused a deterioration of their national economies. The reality behind the often bright GDP figures is depressing.

While we are flooded by Western European industrial products, only a few Eastern Central European companies are able to enter the western markets. Dual economies were created with two separate worlds. There are the competitive and capital-intensive multinational companies with exportable products and there are the uncompetitive domestic enterprises that are poor in capital, have no exportable products and only a few of them can connect into the bloodstream of the global or even the continental economy.

But the people’s biggest disappointment was caused by the wages. As we can see, the single market did bring a certain kind of equilibrium in terms of prices. If a Polish, a Hungarian, a French and a German buys the same products in the supermarket, they will more or less pay the same amount at the cashier’s. When they get their paycheck at the end of the month however, the people in the Eastern region receive three-four times less money for the same work. If you look at buying power parity, the situation is not better, either. During the 13 years since the accession, the gap between the eastern and the western wages did not diminish at all; in fact, it even increased in some member states. People feel that the price union is already here but the wage union is not. If this is not a two-speed Europe, I don’t know what is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro7j3kl6yq0

This is the reason why millions (mostly young people) leave Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia and the other eastern member states behind. For them, it is not the free movement of people and labour; it is a social pressure. For them, it is not going on an adventure but becoming an economic refugee. They cannot prosper in their own homeland. If we cannot stop this process, and right now it seems we can’t, then our region will face unsolvable demographic, social security, labour market and family disasters.