Orbán: Europe’s current leaders were “inadequate” and incapable of protecting the continent from migration

In a keynote speech, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that every European country has the right to protect its Christian culture and the traditional family model, as well as the right to reject immigration.

Orbán insisted that Europe’s current leaders were “inadequate” and incapable of protecting the continent from migration. He said the European elite had become bankrupted, and the symbol of this bankruptcy was the European Commission, whose days, he insisted, were numbered.

Addressing a forum at the 29th Balvanyos Summer University in Baile Tusnad (Tusnádfürdő), in central Romania, on Saturday, Orbán said the commission’s job was to be impartial and to guarantee the EU’s four freedoms. Instead, the commission has become biased “because it sides with the liberals”, Orbán said. “It is biased because it works against central Europe and is not a friend of freedom; it works to build a European Socialism instead of freedom.”

“The exclusively liberal European elite denies its roots and is building an open society instead of a Europe based on Christianity,” he added.

The prime minister said there was an alternative to liberal democracy and he dismissed the idea that Christian Democracy could also be liberal, saying that Christian democracy was “illiberal”.

Liberal democracy stands for multiculturalism and it undertakes the model of immigration and a flexible definition of the family. “Christian Democracy, on the other hand, gives priority to Christian culture, anti-immigration and the Christian family.”

The result of next year’s EP elections would result in waving goodbye to liberal democracy and to “the elite of the 1968”. Instead of the 1968 generation, the time has come for anti-communist, Christian, nationally committed generation of 1990, he proclaimed.

Meanwhile, Orbán said

the EU was currently pursuing a primitive policy towards Russia and “a nuanced policy is needed instead”.

The security of Hungary and the whole of the Carpathian Basin, as well as that of Europe, depends on whether Turkey, Israel and Egypt are stable enough to stop the influx of Muslims, he added.

Orbán set out five principles that were necessary for central Europe to occupy a “worthy place” in Europe. Every European country had the right to protect its Christian culture and to reject “the ideology of multiculturalism”. Also, the traditional family model and the principle that “every child has the right to a mother and a father” must be upheld. Further, central European countries have the right to protect their nationally strategic sectors and markets. Countries also have a fundamental right to defend their borders and to reject immigration, he said.

The principle of “one nation, one vote” on the most important issues should be insisted upon, he said, adding that this principle cannot be bypassed in the EU.

“We central Europeans hold that there is life beyond globalisation and that central Europe follows the path of an alliance of free nations,” the prime minister said.

Orbán declared that immigration would be the single serious issue in next year’s European parliamentary elections. He linked the outcome of the EP elections to the fate of its leadership, saying that when European citizens decide on the issue of immigration, they will have also passed judgement on the European elite and whether it has handled immigration properly.

“There is liberalism but there is no democracy,” he said, adding that this assertion was supported by a general tendency in western Europe to curb freedom of expression and introduce censorship.

The prime minister said that after eight successive years of a Fidesz government, in the April general election it received a two-thirds majority and with it “authorisation to build a new era”. The process of Hungarian unification has now turned into one of nation-building, he added.

Hungarians have shown they are able to understand complex situations, he said. “If need be, we have the will to decide on our destiny and move as a nation.”

“From Szeklerland, I can say that Hungarians from beyond the border have stood up for Hungarians of the motherland,” he said, adding that every vote was an undertaking of responsibility for Hungary.

He said Fidesz’s two-thirds majority won in 2010 had entitled the government to build a new system with a Hungarian model for the economy and a new constitutional order based on national and Christian foundations. In 2014, it was similarly endorsed to stabilise this system, he added. Following the outcome of this year’s election, Orbán said it was time to build a new era and to embed the political system into this new cultural era. “A new intellectual and cultural approach is needed,” he said.

Based on this stability, the government has set goals that could only have been dreamed of in the past, Orbán said. He declared that by 2030 Hungary would be among the top five countries in the EU for quality of life. Further, it will have stopped its declining population, he said. Motorways will have reached all its borders and it will have created energy independence, he continued, adding that will have built up its defence forces.

“Thirty years ago, we thought that Europe is our future, we now think we are the future of Europe,” the prime minister said, concluding his speech.

Fidesz will not leave European People’s Party

Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party will not leave the European People’s Party of its own volition, PM orbán said.

Orbán said loyalty was important and Fidesz wanted to contest the European parliamentary elections as part of the European People’s Party.

He noted, however, that the EPP contained parties with views that were far apart and bridging them would be “extremely hard” to do.

Fidesz represents the EPP’s Christian Democratic platform, he said, adding “we can be strong” by combining their forces together even at the cost of making internal compromises.

Talking about regional matters, the prime minister insisted that Serbia, just like Montenegro, “belonged” to central Europe rather than to the Balkans. Hungary, he said, must do everything possible to ensure they can join the European Union as soon as possible.

Asked whether support for Hungary’s ruling parties had peaked, Orbán said he calculated that between 63 and 65 percent of voters had taken part in some sort of “joint action” in the past and would consider voting for the Fidesz-led alliance in the future.

Meanwhile, the prime minister said the government was bound to consider both the motherland and the entire nation when it came to policymaking and nation-building. He said this is why the government had launched an economic development programme which encompasses the national community in Transylvania, too, and he pledged to continue it. He added that

it was also in Hungary’s interest that Romania should be strong and stable.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI