Orbán: Ukraine war a pretext for Brussels ‘coup’ against nation states
The war, “or rather Brussels’s pro-war policies feeding the war,” is the greatest challenge for Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told the plenary session of the Forum of Hungarian Lawmakers in the Carpathian Basin (KMKF) in Budapest on Thursday.
Those policies “are only bringing bad things for us and put our future at risk”, Orbán said at the event held in Parliament. “It is at the root of the rise in the price of energy and everything we need for everyday life, and this is why the European economy is ailing.”
Pro-war policies put a great burden on Europe including countries in the Carpathian Basin, he said, because it “siphons resources from development and investments that could be the foundation of the life and cooperation of all Hungarians”.
“This is not the European Union we joined,” Orbán said. “Up to this point, the union was legitimised by its successes which also gave it an identity. That was based on the aim of creating peace and prosperity in Europe after the blood-soaked first half of the 20th century. All of that is in the past now.”
Orbán: Brussels-led European superstate not in Hungarians’ interest
A centralised European superstate led by Brussels is not in the interest of Hungarians or any other peoples in the Carpathian Basin, Orbán said.
He told the session held in Parliament that Hungarians had suffered “many empires” in the past “and we would avoid repeating that if possible”. “We stayed, they fell, but the imperial wounds on Hungarians are still not healed,” he said, pointing to the Ottoman occupation, the world wars and the Trianon Treaty as examples. “These are always the sins of the empires in power, and we should not ask for seconds, not even in Brussels’s garb.”
He said Hungarians’ task was to not allow “the Brussels empire under construction to sit on our necks.”
Orbán: Majority of Europeans do not support fast-tracked Ukraine accession
The majority of Europeans are not in favour of fast-tracking Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, Orbán said. “We need a real masterstroke: while the emperor is at war, we must occupy Brussels; while Brussels is preparing for war, we must strengthen European anti-war initiatives,” the prime minister told the event in Parliament.
Orbán said the Carpathian Basin was more than a place of residence for Hungarians, it was “our historical spiritual and intellectual home”. “To be Hungarian means that our language is our soul, if we lose it, we lose ourselves,” Orbán said. “We didn’t receive our Hungarian survival as a gift; we must fight for it every day. Borders may separate us, but the nation belongs together.”
Praising the KMKF, he said it was important that it was an all-Hungarian body whose members are democratically elected MPs. He also welcomed the fact that Hungarian organisations in Transylvania and Vojvodina had been successful in their respective elections, proving the need for and the success of ethnic politics.
Orbán also said the war, “or rather Brussels’s pro-war policy feeding the war,” was the greatest challenge for Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin.
Those policies “are only bringing bad things for us and put our future at risk”, Orbán said. “It is at the root of the rise in the price of energy and everything we need for everyday life, and this is why the European economy is ailing.”
Pro-war policies put a great burden on Europe, including countries in the Carpathian Basin, he said, because it “siphons resources from development and investments that could be the foundation of the life and cooperation of all Hungarians”.
“This is not the European Union we joined,” Orbán said. “Up to this point, the union was legitimised by its successes which also gave it an identity. That was based on the aim of creating peace and prosperity in Europe after the blood-soaked first half of the 20th century. All of that is in the past now.”
“The legendary Western quality of life is now gone,” Orbán said, arguing that it was impossible to have a high quality of life in places “with masses of migrants”, where people lost their sense of homeliness, and where energy costs were twice or four times higher than two or three years earlier.
He said the European Union was “no longer legitimised by successes”, and something else was needed, which was why Brussels wanted to make it Europe’s new goal “to clash with Russia in the east”. He said “Brussels’s war propaganda” insisted that Russia could attack EU and even NATO countries, and only a preemptive strike could stop it. “In their minds the war in Ukraine is itself that preemptive strike, and the Ukrainian army is already what is stopping Russia from occupying Europe,” he added.
But the prime minister said this was not true, and Europe could be protected without continuing the war in Ukraine.
Orbán said Brussels also trusted that increasing spending on defence and armaments would boost the economy, whereas the EU was actually financing the war, but not on its own territory. This, he said, was a new economic cycle in which the EU was supplying weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine was paying for these with credit provided by the EU, and the EU would be buying Ukrainian goods.
Orbán said the war between Russia and Ukraine had become the catalyst Brussels was using to “expropriate more and more powers”, and this had become the basis for further centralisation “and the elimination of the sovereigntist element”. Orbán called this a “coup” and “the derailment of the logic” that had so far been behind European integration.
He said it was ironic that according to EU leaders the bloc’s system based on the consensus of 27 member states was too slow for crisis management, and while they criticised Hungary’s decision-making based on a two-thirds majority, unanimity was seen as a threat in Brussels.
Orbán said liberal think-tanks were working on laying the foundations for a Europe at war, creating analyses on the need for centralisation, and the conclusion of every article was that the range of issues requiring unanimity should be narrowed, and possibly even banished from foreign policy.
The end result of Brussels’s plan, Orbán said, would be the elimination of national sovereignty, democracy and freedom, adding that the ultimate goal would be the creation of an anti-democratic and unaccountable political structure making up a “United States of Europe”.
He said the tools used by Brussels were no longer democratic. “They interfere in elections, monitor sovereigntist parties, shut down right-wing conservative events, and finance federalist and pro-war pseudo-NGOs and media across Europe,” he said.
It was a new development, he said, that Brussels wanted to set up a massive financial structure based on the logic of war, as it would take billions of euros to send money to continue the war in Ukraine.
Brussels’s goal now, he said, was to federalise European taxpayers’ money, to create and order in which Brussels itself has control over the resources without influence of the member states.
The bloc’s institutional structure would be transformed in a way that the resources due to member states could be rechannelled to Ukraine, and the funds of the Common Agricultural Policy and cohesion funds would be rearranged to suit the purposes of war, the prime minister said.
Since the outbreak of the war, both the European Commission and the European Parliament had been trying to increase their own budgets, Orbán said.
Orbán: ‘Russia-Ukraine war catalyst used by Brussels to expropriate more powers’
The war between Russia and Ukraine has become the catalyst Brussels is using to try to expropriate more and more powers, Orbán said. “The legendary Western quality of life is now gone,” Orbán said, arguing that it was impossible to have a high quality of life in places “with masses of migrants”, where people lost their sense of homeliness, and where energy costs were twice or four times higher than two or three years earlier.
Orbán said the European Union was “no longer legitimised by successes”, and something else was needed, which was why Brussels wanted to make it Europe’s new goal “to clash with Russia in the east”. He said “Brussels’s war propaganda” insisted that Russia could attack EU and even NATO countries, and only a preemptive strike could stop it. “In their minds the war in Ukraine is itself that preemptive strike,” he added.
But the prime minister said this was not true, and Europe could be protected without continuing the war in Ukraine.
Orbán said the war had become the catalyst Brussels was using to “expropriate more and more powers”, and this had become the basis for further centralisation “and the elimination of the sovereigntist element”. Orbán called this a “coup” and “the derailment of the logic” that had so far been behind European integration.
Read more news about Viktor Orbán HERE.
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