Orbán’s State of the Nation speech: the NATO should have accepted Russia’s territorial gains

PM Viktor Orbán held today his grandiose state of the nation speech today in Budapest’s illustrious Várkert Bazár. Of course, he talked about the ongoing war in Ukraine and said that the NATO should have accepted the Russians’ territorial gains. He listed some examples when the West did well in that respect. For example, in Georgia, in 2008 and in the case of the Crimea in 2014.

They should have done the same with the two Eastern Ukrainian counties, Luhansk and Donetsk in 2022 to evade war. Orbán’s view contradicts the West’s most powerful argument: if they let the Russians approach, nothing will be enough just like it was back in the 1930s with Hitler, 444.hu wrote.

Special thanks to the life-saving in Türkiye

If 2022 was the hardest year since Hungary’s change in political system, then 2023 will be its “most dangerous year”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Saturday in a speech assessing the nation over the past year. In his speech held in the Varkert Bazaar in Budapest, Orbán noted the dangers of migration, “which has gradually stabilised”, adding that “the war and inflation” were persistent threats. Meanwhile, the prime minister hailed the Hungarian “heroes” of the search and rescue efforts following last week’s devastating earthquake in Türkiye.

“It is in times of trouble that it becomes clear who can be counted on, and we Hungarians can be counted on,” Orbán said. A total of 167 Hungarian staff and volunteers took part in the search and rescue efforts after the earthquake in Syria and Turkiye which claimed at least 44,000 lives, the prime minister said. Risking their lives, the Hungarian teams rescued 35 people from the rubble, he added. Several of the rescuers attended Orbán ‘s speech and were greeted with a round of applause by the prime minister and other attendees.

Addressing challenges ahead, Orban said European life was undergoing “massive change”, bringing about new intellectual, political, economic and military tasks. He said that in the period following Fidesz’s election win in 2010, “we cleared away the piles of debris left by the distracted Socialist governments … [and overcame] unemployment, the shrinking economy, foreign currency loans … sky-high utility bills” as well as a culture of dependency on state handouts.

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Exhausting years for Orbán

The prime minister said employment levels in today’s Hungary were at a record high, and the economy had grown threefold, while the minimum wage was higher than the average wage under the Socialist-led government.

Furthermore, the Fidesz government created a “national Christian constitution worthy of us”, he said, adding that the government had bravely reorganised the Hungarian state “in defiance of Brussels”, and succeeded in clearing away obstacles to creating “a new Hungarian economy” which gave the chance to everyone “to find their own way”.

“It has been an exhausting ten years … but it was worth it,” Orbán said.

Meanwhile, Orbán said that Hungary’s left wing must come to realise they will not succeed in winning an election on the back of “millions of dollars” donated by “influential patrons”. Orbán said the entire left wing had united against the governing parties, and “Brussels” had attempted to deprive the state of financing.

Referring to financier George Soros, he said that “Uncle Gyuri” had pumped 4 billion forints worth of US dollars from America “so their comrades would have something to shoot us with”.

The prime minister said the opposition parties had grossly miscalculated, and they “will pay the price”, adding that it was not by accident or a matter of luck that his government had won successive election victories with a two-thirds majority.

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Rather than “returning to the right path” following the coronavirus pandemic, the world “entered years of war”. Everything changed in politics and the economy, he said, adding that “the world is clearly heading towards the Wild West”.

The prime minister said “we’ve been living our lives under constant pressure” for the past three years, adding that this “could easily be prolonged by four or possibly even five years”. “When the West entered the war” with its sanctions everything had to be reappraised, he said, adding that the government had spent the months after the April general election precisely doing this.

Goals remain clear

Orbán said there was no reason to “give up” or abandon the goals set by the government but the means by which these goal can be attained must be changed, he added.

Orbán promised to stick to his government’s family policies, the country’s labour-based economy, and to maintain price caps on household utility bills. The government is also sticking to its agreement with pensioners and providing the 13th month pension, he said.

The government is able to keep strategic sectors under Hungarian ownership such as the banking sector, the energy sector and the media industry in Hungarian hands, he said, adding that telecommuncations “will be made Hungarian again”.

The government is also keeping its promise to rural Hungary by launching unprecedented development projects, the prime minister said. “We will allocate an amount of funding not seen by rural Hungary even during the Austro-Hungarian Empire,” he added.

The government will develop a manufacturing agriculture sector and revive the food industry “which was ruined by privatisations”. “The food industry will have national champions that will be able to hold their own on the global market as well,” he added.

Plans to ensure that eastern Hungary catches up with the rest of the country are also going ahead, Orban said, noting that the Debrecen-Nyiregyhaza-Miskolc area will become an industrial zone to complement the Gyor-Szombathely-Veszprem zone.

This requires more energy than Hungary has ever needed in the past, he said, adding that Hungary will therefore build power plants and pipeline networks, “even if Brussels refuses to play a role in this”.

“We won’t give up on our most daring plan, either, namely for those who choose parenthood to have a better financial situation than those who don’t,” he said. This, he said, meant that the government would introduce more family support measures each year, such as the personal income tax exemption for mothers below the age of 30 being introduced this year.

War and inflation

Meanwhile, Orbán said that if 2022 had been the hardest year since Hungary’s change in political system, then 2023 would be its “most dangerous year”.

Orbán noted the dangers of migration, “which has gradually stabilised”, adding that “the war and inflation” were persistent threats.

Regarding the threat of war, Orbán said that if it were up to Hungarians they would “simply end it, but we don’t have the weight to do it…”

“If we want to protect Hungary and ensure a peaceful life, we have a single choice: stay out of the Russia-Ukraine war.” So far, this has not been easy, and it will not become any easier later either, because “we are part of the Western world, members of NATO and the European Union; and everyone else is on the side of war or at least acts like it,” Orbán said.

He raised the question of whether Hungary could afford to stay on the side of peace, in direct opposition to its allies. “We, of course, can, because Hungary is an independent, free and sovereign state, and we don’t recognise anyone above us other than God,” he said.

He also raised the question of whether it was “morally right for us to stay out of the war”, adding that it was not only right to do so “but the only morally right choice”.

Orbán said Russia had attacked Ukraine, which meant that Hungary had to take in Ukrainian refugees. “And we did the right thing by supporting them through the largest humanitarian aid operation in our country’s history,” he added. But the Ukraine war is not a war between “the forces of good and evil, but rather those of two Slavic countries, limited in time, and for the time being, in space”, Orbán said.

“This is their war and not ours,” he said. Hungary recognises Ukraine’s right to defend itself and fight off an attack, Orbán said, adding at the same time that it would not be right, even from a moral standpoint, to put the interests of Ukraine before those of Hungary.

He accused the Hungarian left wing of being pro-war, insisting they wanted to send weapons to Ukraine and would be willing to assume the financial burdens of the conflict and cut ties with Russia.

“We aren’t sending weapons”

“But that’s not what we’re doing,” he said. “We aren’t sending weapons. We’re also careful with money, because in the end Brussels could give Ukraine the money that we’re entitled to.”

Orbán said humanitarian support for Ukraine did not entail cutting ties with Russia, arguing that doing so would go against Hungary’s national interests. So Hungary will not support sanctions on oil or the nuclear industry, he said, adding that these would “bring Hungary to ruin”.

Hungary, he said, would maintain its economic ties with Russia and recommended that the West did the same since a ceasefire and peace talks depended on maintaining ties. Hungary, he added, would not support sanctions against people of the church.

Orbán said it was also important to “see beyond Brussels”, arguing that everyone outside Europe saw a war of limited significance. It was only in Europe that Hungary’s position was considered an outlier, he said, while it was shared by the rest of the world.

Orbán said his government did not believe it was realistic to consider Russia a threat to European security. Russia would have no chance against NATO, “and it won’t be in such a position for a long time to come”, he said.

He lamented that Europe still did not have a joint military despite Hungary’s proposal to establish one a decade ago.

Peace is important

A ceasefire and immediate peace talks in respect of the Russia-Ukraine war are the only way to save lives, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his speech on Saturday. “Our pro-peace stance and the others’ pro-war stance brings the differences to the surface and blurs the fact that we are in full agreement in terms of the strategic goals,” Orbán said. “What we want is Russia not to pose a threat to Europe and we want there to be a broad and deep enough area between Russia and Hungary that is a sovereign Ukraine.”

The difference, Orbán said, was that the “pro-war side” believed this could be achieved by defeating Russia, while Hungary believed the key was an immediate ceasefire and peace talks. “There is another serious argument that supports our proposal: only a ceasefire can save lives,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost to the war, he said, adding that only a ceasefire could prevent more pain and an increase in the number of people widowed and orphaned by the conflict.

Orbán said NATO membership was vital to Hungary, arguing that the country was located “too far on the eastern edge of the Western world” to abandon the alliance. Following the example of Austria and Switzerland, he said, Hungary could “entertain the idea of neutrality”, but “history does not allow us this luxury”.

He emphasised, at the same time, that NATO was a defence alliance rather than a “war alliance” or “war coalition”.

NATO membership does not come with any obligations beyond joint defence, and the alliance’s member states cannot expect each other to attack a third country together for some shared military objective, the prime minister said.

If some NATO members want to go to war beyond the territory of member states, then they must do so outside the framework of NATO, he said, adding that whoever believed that war could be controlled or managed step by step, no matter how powerful they are, they would overestimate their own strength and underestimate the risks of war.

The prime minister said that no resident of Brussels had given their life to the war, “but Hungarians have”, noting that the war is taking place on Hungary’s doorstep.

Meanwhile, the prime minister referred to the suffering of the Hungarian national minority in western Ukraine, noting that Hungarian symbols had been desecrated in Mukachevo (Munkacs), and Hungarians were being replaced as heads of schools, while “many are dying a heroic death on the frontline”.

The Transcarpathian Hungarian minority “does not deserve this”

The Transcarpathian Hungarian minority “does not deserve this”, Orbán said, adding: “Show more respect for Hungarians in Mukachevo, Kyiv, Brussels and Washington!”

Orbán warned that Europe had witnessed moments of being dragged into the war, and the question of whether the bloc was already in an indirect war with Russia was finely balanced.

“If you deliver weapons, provide military satellite [imagery], train the soldiers of one side, finance the operations of an entire state apparatus, and impose sanctions on the other side, then … you are at war; an indirect war.”

The danger of being sucked into the war had become permanent, he said, starting with the delivery of helmets and then weapons. Now tanks and fighter jets are on the agenda, “and before you know it, it’ll be so-called peacekeeping troops.”

Orbán said he could understand the position of “our Polish and Baltic friends”, given their history. “What about the others?”

He said a guarantee should have been made not to admit Ukraine to NATO, “but they did the opposite”.

In 2008, he said, when Russia occupied 20 percent of the territory of Georgia, the conflict was localised thanks to the “brilliant negotiating skills” of then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, “and a ceasefire was reached”. When Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, under the leadership of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the West opted for negotiations instead of war, he said, adding that “brave and strong” German-French leadership had acted in time.

“That’s how the war ended and the Minsk agreement came about,” he said.

However, a year ago, the West raised the conflict to “a pan-European level” rather than limiting the conflict to one between two Slavic states, as Hungary suggested.

Brussels superstate

This, Orbán said, was a powerful argument for strong nation states rather than a “Brussels superstate” since the decisions of member states led to peace, while decisions made “at the imperial centre” resulted in war.

He said Hungary had gradually lost its pro-peace allies. Whereas Germany was still in the peace camp a year ago, now Leopard tanks were on their way to Ukraine and towards the Russian border. “It’s even possible that they have the old maps,” he said.

The prime minister said that Germany had failed to withstand external pressure. “Now there are two of us left: Hungary and the Vatican,” he said.

Orbán said the tone towards Hungary would become “more and more harsh” as the war in Ukraine became “ever more savage”.
He said Hungary must be prepared for an intensification of “provocations, insults, threats and blackmail”. He said he could not promise that it would be easy, “but we will stand our ground”.

“We are long past the point of diplomatic pressure that respects sovereignty,” he said.

Orbán, referring to the US embassy’s former charge d’affaires, André Goodfriend, said that in 2014, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had sent “a good friend” to Hungary “to try to get Hungarians to see reason by organising anti-government protests and issuing a few US entry bans”.

Then, the cavalry arrived in the form of President Donald Trump, “fortunately not here, but in Washington”, Orbán added.

Biden sent “a press man” to force the Hungarian into the war camp

Referring to US President Joe Biden, he said that instead of sending a “good friend”, the president had sent an ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, who was “a press man”, with the aim of forcing Hungarians into the war camp at all costs, and to pressure then into declaring their intent to join the war.

He said “our Republican friends” were preparing to make a comeback in the 2024 US presidential election, while public opinion in Europe would start shifting more and more towards peace and “more sobriety”, and, if necessary, would elect new governments.

Orbán said peace would only be established if the US and Russia held talks.

Hungary’s government, he said, believed that more fighting would not bring about victory but result in the deaths of further hundreds of thousands, expand the conflict, drag countries into open war and threaten the possibility of a world war. “Let us Hungarians stay on the side of peace,” he said.

Meanwhile, Orbán accused the European Union of saddling Hungary with the “disease” of inflation on the back of higher energy prices owing to its sanctions against Russia.

The prime minister insisted that sanctions had deprived Hungarians of 4,000 billion forints (EUR 10.4bn) last year as Hungarian companies, the state and families had to spend that amount on energy instead of wage increases, tax reductions, or family support which “families could have spent on home purchases or their children”.

“Brussels”, he added, was foisting “new sanctions” on Hungary instead of extending help.

EU money needed

He said the “Brussels bureaucracy” had deprived Hungary and Poland of the recovery monies they were entitled to. Hungary did not receive money taken out as a joint loan by member states “and our share of which we will have to pay back”, he added.

Orbán said it was important for Hungarians not to think that inflation was unslayable.

Also, he said that thanks to “two dozen or so measures” to protect companies and families, the government is providing energy subsidies which helped the average household to save 181,000 forints each month. “This is unique in Europe,” he added.

Orbán vowed to keep price caps in place until inflation is set on a downward path, in the face of a left-wing demand to withdraw the price cap on basic foodstuffs. Also, the cap on interest on loans “which protects 350,000 families against spikes in interest rates” will be maintained, he added.

From May 1, cheap national bus and train passes will be offered, he said.

Orbán said 2022 “could have broken the backbone of the Hungarian economy in half”, yet employment and foreign currency reserves were at an all-time high “and the forint has also stabilised”.

Despite the high inflation rate, Hungary saw record employment, record exports and record investments in 2022, the prime minister said. He vowed to bring inflation down into the single digits by the end of the year.

Children “sacred and inviolable”

Meanwhile, Orbán said there could be “no forgiveness” for paedophilia, adding that children were “sacred and inviolable”. Parents have a responsibility to protect children at all costs, Orbán said.

“It’s not our business that the world has gone mad; the kinds of repulsive fads that some people indulge in are none of our business either. And we’re not interested in hearing how Brussels tries to excuse and explain the inexplicable,” Orbán said.

“This is Hungary, and Europe’s strictest child protection regime should be in force here,” he added.

The laws are in place, and any that are missing will be passed, but even the most dedicated government cannot be successful in this area on its own, he said. This matter, he said, would require the help of parents, grandparents, teachers and educators “because gender propaganda isn’t just some good-natured silliness, some rainbow spiel, but the biggest threat to our children.”

“We want our children to be left alone, because enough is enough,” the prime minister said. “These kinds of things have no place in Hungary, and certainly not in our schools.”

“We’re counting on every good-willed Hungarian to be able to carry out this task together once and for all in 2023,” he added.

Source: MTI, 444.hu