President: Hungary has many friends worldwide but they are too quiet

Those who take the time to get to know Hungarians will find that being friends with Hungary “is not that hard and is certainly a thankful undertaking”, President Katalin Novák told delegates of the Friends of Hungary Foundation in Budapest on Saturday.

Hungary has many friends worldwide and is making even more, Novák said at the presidential Sándor Palace, adding, at the same time, that Hungary also needed to make sure that its friends have more influence.

Over the past decades, Hungary’s friends “have perhaps been quieter than they should have been, or quieter than those who don’t know Hungary and therefore don’t like it that much”, the president said. She thanked the Friends of Hungary community for its words of support for Hungary.

Novák also talked about the compatibility of the family and professional life, the Stipendium Peregrinum scholarship scheme for Hungarian students who have applied to the world’s best universities and the aim to build a family-friendly Hungary.

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Hungary protects life “from the moment of conception” and keeps supporting parents after their children are born, Novák said. The president welcomed that the number of marriages in Hungary has doubled over the last ten years, noting that this was the biggest jump in marriages anywhere in the world during the period. Meanwhile, the number of divorces is at a 60-year low, the number of abortions has halved and the number of people who want to be parents is up 25 percent, she said.