Orbán calls on opposition to ‘side with nation’ on ‘national affairs’

When it comes to “national affairs”, opposition parties should never vote against Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in parliament on Monday.

Addressing lawmakers on the opening day of the legislature’s autumn session, Orbán said that in the general election five months ago, the Hungarian people had decided to give their confidence in the government and the go-ahead to continue its family, economic and national policies, and to continue taking action against migration.

“If you don’t want to get stuck in the past and in the same old rut, you may consider following the people,” the prime minister told opposition lawmakers. “It really helps.”

“In this way, the issues that are important for the Hungarian people and their lives can be represented in the legislature,” Orbán said.

He added that the Hungarian government will not give up its right to control the country’s borders in his address at the opening of parliament’s autumn season.

“We will not allow anyone to take away one iota of our border control rights,” Orbán said, adding that “we have more skill in controlling the border than anyone in Brussels”.

Orbán insisted that Hungary’s border guards were “not only professionals but patriots”, who had taken an oath to protect the country and “this is something money cannot buy”.

He added that “Brussels does not aim to protect the European Union’s borders but to set up a reception service to manage immigration rather than to stop it.”

“Hungary is neither a passageway nor refugee camp; if we wanted to mix with other cultures or civilisations we would hold consultations first,” Orbán said. He added that he would “not advocate that idea to the Hungarian people”.

According to the Prime Minister, the issue of migration is not a partisan matter but a priority for the nation. He said it was a “historic error” on the part of the “European elite” to have “failed to keep Britain inside the European Union and migrants out”.

He said those fighting against immigration were under “constant attack”, one element of which he said was the Sargentini report approved by the European Parliament last week.

“The document was drafted against Hungary and not the Hungarian government,” Orbán insisted, adding that its text contained “absurdities” about anti-Semitism in Hungary, among other issues. “The centre of modern anti-Semitism is in fact in Brussels, from where anti-Israel political operations are financed,” Orbán said.

He also touched upon the subject of economy, saying that Hungary’s economic model had again performed well over the summer.

“If there is work, there is everything,” Orbán said, describing the essence of the “Hungarian model”. “Hungary is building a labour-based economy as opposed to a welfare-based one,” the prime minister said.

He said the Hungarian economy has added 800,000 jobs since 2010, 600,000 of which have been created in the private sector. Wages have been on the rise for 65 months, he added. And the economy grew by 4.8 percent in the second quarter this year, twice the rate of the European Union average, the prime minister said.

Orbán said his government had stuck to its commitment to make it worthwhile to work and to have children in Hungary. He said he believed Hungary would one day be among the five “best and most liveable” countries in the EU.

Featured image: MTI

Source: MTI