Orbán cabinet: Trump’s presidency ‘beacon of hope’ for Europe, Hungary

Donald Trump’s incoming presidency is a beacon of hope for Europe and Hungary alike, Zsolt Semjén, the deputy prime minister, said in an interview to public media portal hirado.hu.

Trump to bring hope?

Trump’s win “restores faith in a normal America”, and his presidency would bring back “common sense and normal human values”, he said in the interview published on Tuesday.

The Democratic Party, he added, “is destroying America” with their values and its administration wanted to force them on the world “under the name of exporting democracy”.

Semjén said it could be expected that the US and Russia would resolve the war in Ukraine, which he said was in the interest of the world and Europe in particular. Europe itself, he added, had borne the brunt of sanctions against Russia, so Trump’s presidency was a beacon of hope for Europe and Hungary.

Semjén, who leads the junior governing Christian Democrats, said his party did not support Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as this could spark a third world war. Also, if Ukraine was a NATO member, Article 5 may no longer apply in respect of all its member states, he added. First a ceasefire was necessary as a prelude to peace negotiations, he said, adding that Americans would no longer finance the war and Europeans would not have the money to spend on it either.

The deputy PM said that as long as he was in power he would “do everything to ensure that no Hungarian person dies” in the war.

Meanwhile, he said “only stupid people” failed to accept that migration “leads to disaster”. Once irregular migrants have entered the country, “it’s extremely hard to get them out, so they shouldn’t be allowed in at all”.

Also, Semjén decried “trans issues in the West”, saying gender had been distorted to the extent that was totally at odds with human nature, “to the point of absurdity”.

Regarding opposition claims that Hungary was diplomatically isolated, he said the centre of world diplomacy was in Budapest and defined in relation to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, “from Austria and Slovakia, all the way to the United States”, so the claim was “absurd”.

Photo: FB/Orbán

Semjén rejected “turning economic issues into ideological issues” and said economic cooperation was far preferable to the emergence of a Cold War.

Meanwhile, turning to party politics, he said the Christian Democrats were under attack “not because we are guilty of serious crimes but because we uphold Christian values, and this annoys the anti-church camp.”

He said Orbán was reviled by the left wing as he was “a symbol” who represented Christianity and the nation, adding that Democratic Coalition (DK) leader Ferenc Gyurcsány “hates him” as DK was “anti-Christian and Hungaro-phobic”.

Semjén said the opposition paid lip service to supporting Hungarians across the border, so Hungarians beyond the border rejected them. Hungarians communities abroad should not be the subject of everyday party politics, he said.

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