Orbán: The point of illiberal politics was Christian freedom

The Hungarian nation today has the political and economic means to protect itself and preserve its independence, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Saturday in his annual address at the “Tusványos” summer university.

Soon it will have the physical means to defend itself, too, Orbán told several thousand people gathered at the event held in Baile Tusnad (Tusnádfürdő), in central Romania.

Orbán said the country was on a promising path but dangers to its continued development came not from domestic sources but were external.

Outlining Hungary’s post-communist past, he said that between 1989 and 1991, the task of the transition generation had been secure the country’s freedom and independence. The following four years were about building a capitalist market economy and a democratic legal and political system. Between 1994 and 2010, “the successors to the socialist system and their internationalist helpers” reigned and had then to be defeated, he said. A new community-based national system was then introduced and built, while Fidesz won the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to achieve this, Orbán added.

The prime minister said

his political generation would now be “prime time” for the next 15 years and the most important tasks lay ahead.

Hungary’s government has succeeded in regaining the country’s sovereignty and protecting its borders against migration, Orbán said. The International Monetary Fund “went home”, he added. “Our generation has been given a historic opportunity to strengthen the Hungarian nation,” the prime minister said. “This has been an unfairly hard struggle up until now and will remain an unfairly hard one going forward.”

He said that over the course of the 30 years since the country’s democratic transition, Hungarians had realised that “it’s not about setting a goal for a certain time period, but rather about giving meaning to our own lives within a period of time.”

“This is true not just of individuals but of each generation,” Orbán said, underlining the need for the current generation to “give meaning” to its life.

“Hungary today is on a promising path, its finances in order, the public debt is falling, growth is strong, wages are rising, small and medium-sized businesses are expanding, families are getting bigger, and nation-building is vibrant,” he said.

Orbán said that thanks to complicated maneuvers, US billionaire “George Soros’s man has been prevented from taking over the European Commission and placing his ideological guerrillas in important European positions.”

The prime minister said the commission should act as the guardian of the European treaties.

“Political activism must be stopped,” he said.

“It’s not a political body … its job isn’t to organise political attacks against member states.” “It sets the direction and the strategic decisions are made by the European Council of elected prime ministers,” he added.

Orbán insisted that “errors made in the EU over the last five years” must be corrected, especially in the areas of migration and the economy. The commission should no longer preoccupy itself with migration, he said, adding that a council of interior ministers of Schengen area member states should take over all responsibilities related to migration.

He called for European socialism to be stopped in its tracks and for a competitive European economy to be restored.

“We must support successful economies and reject the idea of raising unemployment benefits at European level,” Orbán said.

Instead, jobs must be created and taxes reduced everywhere, he said, adding that red tape must be cut and investments encouraged in place of austerity policies.

The prime minister said that if the government’s assessment of the European economic outlook turned out to be the case next spring, it would be necessary to draw up a second economic protection plan by then, and possibly a third one in the autumn of 2020. The action plans would have to be geared towards improving the country’s competitiveness, he said, adding that western European economies were not developing well enough to support Hungary’s desired growth trajectory. He said

Hungary must rethink its plans for 2020-2021 in order to minimise external risks and mobilise internal resources.

Speaking about the impending agenda, Orbán said Hungary would be embroiled in a battle of the rule of law, too. He added, however, that Hungary must “hold its nerve” but at the same time “we shouldn’t offend our partners”.

Referring to the Finnish EU presidency, Orbán said: “We will evaluate the state of Hungarian rule of law with our Finnish friends.”

liberal democracies were the natural order in a world pervaded by “a kind of liberal internationalism” leading to the formation of a “liberal empire”.