BUDAPEST - July 27, 2024 (MTI) - The pro-war "ferment" has begun and unless Europe abandons its pro-war stance, it will remain alone in this war, Viktor Orbán said in his speech on the final day of the 33rd Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp in Tusnádfürdő on Saturday. Analysing the situation during the Russian-Ukrainian war in front of an audience gathered in front of an open-air stage, the prime minister said that a change in the world order was imminent, with Asia becoming the dominant world centre, and therefore a "Hungarian grand strategy" was needed, the first "raw" version of which had already been prepared.
At the beginning of his speech he said that he had held talks with his Romanian counterpart in Bucharest on Friday. "Romania is now Hungary's third most important economic partner and economic and trade relations are reaching new records. He said that he had discussed the Bucharest-Budapest high-speed railway project with Marcel Ciolaccio and assured him that the Hungarian EU presidency would put the issue of Romania's accession to Schengen on the agenda in October and possibly at the Justice and Home Affairs Council in December.
He said that although the Romanian side did not want to dictate what it could talk about in Tuscany this year, many in Brussels condemned the efforts of the Hungarian peace mission, even though the organisation's statutes state that "the Union's objective is peace". Time is on the side of peace, the Hungarian prime minister said, referring to the US presidential election and adding that Trump ante portas. He said that if Europe does not switch to a policy of peace before the US presidential election, then after Donald Trump's electoral victory it will have to do so only by admitting defeat, with a sense of shame, and taking political responsibility itself.
The prime minister said that Brussels is bothered by what it calls a pro-war policy, which it says is pro-war for the sake of peace. However, since the launch of the Hungarian peacekeeping mission, the US and Russian foreign ministers have spoken to each other and the foreign ministers of Switzerland and Russia have held talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky eventually called Donald Trump and the Ukrainian foreign minister went to Beijing. "So the ferment has begun," he said. Slowly but surely, he stressed, we are moving away from a pro-war European policy to a pro-peace policy.
Orbán said that the Russian-Ukrainian war - like the red berry in the movie The Matrix - reveals reality.
War, by its relentlessness, brings us to a new vantage point, a high mountain, and from there provides us with a perspective we have never seen before. In this reality, ideologies, "statistical tricks", media manipulations and "tactical lies of politicians" lose their power, widespread delusions and even conspiracy theories cease to be relevant, said the prime minister, "and reality remains pure and brutal".
The Prime Minister spoke about this fact point by point.
Firstly, he pointed out that the war had caused brutal casualties in the hundreds of thousands, yet the parties were unwilling to reconcile. The reasons are twofold: first, both believe they can win, and second, both are driven by their own real or perceived truth," he said. He added that the Ukrainians believe that this is a Russian invasion that violates international law and territorial sovereignty, and that they are in fact defending themselves and waging a war for independence. The Russians think that there have been serious NATO military events in Ukraine, Ukraine has been promised NATO membership, and they do not want to see NATO troops or NATO weapons on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Russia therefore has the right to self-defence, in their view, and this is, in fact, a provoked war. So everyone has some justice, perceived or real, and neither side will give up the war, Orbán added. This leads directly to escalation, the prime minister said, stressing that there will be no peace if it depends on both sides. Peace can only be established from the outside.
Secondly, he continued, while in previous years the United States had claimed China as its main challenger and adversary, we now see that it is waging a proxy war against Russia and constantly accusing China of covertly supporting Russia. If this is the case, Orbán added, then the question of why it is reasonable to put two such large countries in an enemy camp needs to be answered.
The third element of the reality revealed by the war was Ukraine's resilience, which exceeded all expectations and which he attributes to the fact that Ukraine was given the perspective of belonging to the West, which discovered a new meaning to its existence: it sees itself as the eastern border region of the West, instead of the "buffer zone" it was before.
Fourthly, Viktor Orbán noted that Russia is not a rigid neo-Stalinist autocracy, as the Brussels leaders are trying to make it out to be by trying to bring it to its knees with sanctions. In fact, we are talking about a country that shows technical, economic and, as we shall see, perhaps social flexibility, Viktor Orbán said.
His fifth point was that European politics had collapsed because Europe had given up defending its own interests. He added that Europe was now 'unquestioningly following the pro-democracy policies of the US, even at the cost of self-destruction', while sanctions against Russia were damaging Europe's core interests, raising energy prices and making the European economy uncompetitive.
Orbán stressed that the core of the European power system was the Paris-Berlin axis, which now either does not exist or has become "insignificant and bypassable" compared to the new power centre of London, Warsaw, Kiev, the Baltic and Scandinavian states. The Prime Minister recalled that the replacement of the Paris-Berlin axis was not a new idea, but an "old Polish plan" to make Poland the first American base on the continent, and thus "to bring the Americans there between the Germans and the Russians", but that this was only made possible by the present war. It is an old plan: Viktor Orbán has also said that the Poles are pursuing the most devious and insidious policy in all of Europe because they are 'shamelessly doing business with the Russians', and they are morally lecturing us for it.
Orbán also said that Poland has given up on Visegrad cooperation because of this strategy, because the V4, in addition to accepting the Paris-Berlin axis, means that "we recognise that there is a strong Germany, a strong Russia and between them, in cooperation with the Central European states, we are creating a third factor". Speaking of Warsaw's strength, the prime minister said that Poland's army is the second largest in Europe after France's and the country spends 5 % of its GDP on defence. In addition to the goal of peace, the peace mission also encourages Europe to finally pursue an independent policy, he said. As a sixth point, he said the war also highlighted the "intellectual loneliness" of the West, which considered itself a reference point, a kind of world benchmark, because it provided values such as liberal democracy and ecological transition that the world had to accept. In this situation, there has been a 180-degree turn in the last two years, because although the West has now ordered the world to take a moral stand against Russia and in favour of the West, the reality is that everyone is slowly moving towards supporting Russia," the prime minister said.
He added that it is not surprising that North Korea and China, for example, are doing so, but Iran, India and Turkey, a NATO member, have joined them, and the Muslim world sees Russia as a partner. In the seventh item on the list, the Prime Minister said the war exposed the fact that the biggest problem in the world today is the weakness and disintegration of the West and the narrative in the Western media that Russia and the threat it poses is the world's biggest threat. This is a fallacy, Russia is a hyper-rational country under its own leadership that is so rational and predictable, unlike the West whose behaviour is not rational and predictable, the Prime Minister assessed, adding that the West cannot even handle a situation where "two suns have appeared in the sky", meaning that a new challenge has emerged in the form of China and Asia on the rise.
The real task for Hungary is to try to understand the West again, because we Central Europeans see the West as irrational, he said. The contradiction, according to Orbán, may be that the Central European world view is based on the concept of nation states, while the West believes that these states no longer exist. He said nation-states also have a "biblical basis", but the West rejects this and other approaches, arguing that nation-states do not exist, and treats other important issues, such as migration, quite differently. In his speech, the Prime Minister pointed out that, while in the East of Europe Christian people are being killed by the hundreds of thousands, in the West hundreds of thousands of people from foreign civilisations are being let in.
From our point of view, this is absurd, a view that is not found even further west, the prime minister said, adding that the European Union not only thinks this, but also declares it, and that its goal is to "overcome the nation" and hand over the sovereignty of nation states to Brussels. Orbán said a similar struggle is taking place in the United States, which is why the stakes are so high in the US presidential election. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump seeks to return Americans from a post-national liberal state to a nation-state. That is why they want to prevent Donald Trump from running in the election. That's why they want to put him in jail, take his property, and if that doesn't work, that's why they want to kill him," he said, adding that he spoke with the former president on Friday and welcomed the campers.
The Prime Minister also touched on the political problem of elitism and populism as a political consequence of the post-national state that is shaking democracy. The elites condemn people for moving to the right and label their feelings and ideas as xenophobic, homophobic and nationalistic. In response, the people accuse the elites of not caring about what is important to them, but of wallowing in a kind of mindless globalism, Viktor Orbán said. This, he said, also raises the problem of representative democracy: the elite does not want to represent the people, and is even proud of it, while the people are not represented. Only the values of the graduates are acceptable to the elite. The consequence is that Brussels remains under the occupation of the liberal oligarchy. This liberal elite is in fact organising a transatlantic elite, not European but global, not nation-state but federal, and not democratic but political," the Prime Minister concluded.
After the war comes a change in the world order that has not been seen for 500 years, Viktor Orbán said. In the next long, long decades or perhaps centuries, Asia will be the dominant centre of the world, he said, singling out China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. Asia has a demographic advantage, it has a technological advantage in more and more areas, it has a capital advantage, its military power is equal to the West, it will have the most money, it will have the world's biggest companies, the world's best universities, the world's best research institutes, the world's biggest stock exchanges, he said. Orbán added that Donald Trump is trying to find an American answer to this situation. "In fact," he said, "Donald Trump's attempt is probably the last chance for the U.S. to maintain its world leadership." Europe has two options. The first - the one it is heading towards - is to become schizophrenic, to remain a European continent, subservient to the United States, in the role of an "underclass" that the world marvels at but that no longer has any "development momentum."
The second option, announced by French President Emmanuel Macron, is strategic autonomy. "In other words, we must enter the race to change the world order," he said. According to Orbán, Europe's ability to attract capital can be restored, major infrastructure development can be carried out, especially in central Europe, a European military alliance with a strong European defence industry, research and innovation can be created, European energy self-sufficiency can be created, which cannot do without nuclear power, and a new post-war reconciliation with Russia can be concluded. However, the Prime Minister said that the current change in the world system is not primarily a threat but an opportunity and that we have more room for manoeuvre than at any time in the last 500 years.
He stressed that 500 years ago Europe was the winner, Hungary the loser of the previous change in the world system, because while the western part of the continent had opened up a new economic space, the conquest by Islam made it a war zone for a long time, and because it could not free itself, it was forced to become part of the German-Habsburg world. Orbán said that developments in the United States "are going in our favour", but added that he did not believe that they would give us a better economic and political offer across the ocean than EU membership, but if they did, "we should consider it". He added that China has given us the maximum offer; for it, Hungary's EU membership is valuable, "unlike the Americans who keep telling us we should leave". China's offer is that "we should participate in each other's modernisation", although differences of scale need to be watched out for.
The western part of the EU will not return to the form of a nation state, the prime minister said, adding that the eastern part of the EU can defend the form of a nation state. Orbán said that the EU has lost the current war and the United States will leave it alone, adding that Brussels will not be able to finance the war in Ukraine and its operations, which means that "the European Union will have to pay the price for the war adventure", which "will be high and will affect us negatively". According to Orbán, "the European Union notes that the Central European countries will remain in the European Union, but at the same time they will remain on the basis of nation states and will pursue their own foreign policy".
They may not like it, but they will have to tolerate it, especially as the number of such countries will increase, the prime minister said, adding that "the necessary conditions for an independent national policy exist in America, Asia and Europe" and that they define the broad limits of our room for manoeuvre. If we are talking about changing the world order, we also need a "Hungarian grand strategy", the prime minister said. He said that we will implement and complete the existing political action plans, which were generally launched in 2010 and will last until 2030, but that this will no longer be enough for a longer-term change in the world order, which could last for centuries.
The basis of Hungary's grand strategy is interconnectedness, in which we will not allow ourselves to be locked into either of the emerging economies of the West or the East; we must be present in both and will not engage in a war against the East, nor in technical and trade blockades. He added that we are gathering friends and partners, not economic or ideological enemies, i.e. we are not going to join anyone's side, but we are taking a more difficult, independent path. According to the Prime Minister, an equally important principle of the strategy is the defence of sovereignty on an economic basis, the economic base of which is domestic national champions, competitive medium-sized enterprises, companies producing for the domestic market and small and medium-sized enterprises.
It is the Hungarian economy that can provide the basis for sovereignty, the prime minister said. Orbán said there are national champions in banking, energy, food industry, agricultural raw materials production, information technology, telecommunications, media, construction, real estate development, pharmaceuticals, defence industry, logistics and to some extent in the knowledge industry through universities that are competitive abroad. The SME sector of up to 15,000 inhabitants is also competitive, with the Hungarian government launching a large-scale SME programme as part of the "peace budget" for 2025, he said.
Orbán said in his speech that it was important to strengthen Hungary's financial independence, reduce its debt to 30 % and make Hungary a regional creditor. It is important that the strategy remains a production centre, not to turn it into a service-oriented economy. Orbán added that we must not make the mistake of the West, i.e. letting certain productive jobs be performed by guest workers, because if this happens it will cause social disintegration that will be difficult to stop. The prime minister said that in order to implement the strategy, Hungarian society must have a stable and flexible social structure, the basis of which is to halt demographic decline.
"We had a good start, but now we are stuck," he said, adding that a new impetus must be given and that Hungary must be demographically self-sufficient by 2035 without any talk of replacing the population with migration. If the "peace budget" is adopted, the plan is to double the child tax credit in 2025, probably in two steps, but in one year to regain the momentum of demographic improvement. In addition, he added that those from Western Europe who want to live in a Christian-national country need to be "locked in" and their numbers will gradually increase.
In his view, it is important to create wealth and financial independence for the middle class, i.e., families, and to maintain full employment, "the key to this is to maintain the current relationship between work and the Roma." "There is work, but you cannot live without work - that is the essence of business and supply," the prime minister said. He added that Hungary's current grand strategy is still "raw and fragile", i.e. undigested and incomprehensible, and that it will take a good six months to get to that stage. The prime minister said that Hungary's grand strategy must be based on national foundations. It must cover all areas inhabited by Hungarians and include all Hungarians living in the world, i.e. the system of supporting the stability of Hungarian society must be extended to areas inhabited by Hungarians beyond the country's borders.
He said that in the near future all support systems that serve the stability and resilience of Hungarian society, such as the family support system, should be extended in their entirety to the areas inhabited by Hungarians outside the country's borders. The Prime Minister also stressed that the Hungarian village system must be preserved. The village is not a symbol of backwardness. Urban services must be provided in the villages and the towns must bear the financial burden. As for the protection of sovereignty, Orbán stressed that its essence is the protection of national diversity. In addition to preserving language, this means avoiding a state of zero religion, where Christianity no longer provides moral guidance and orientation.
The Prime Minister said that politics must be adapted to our national character. The common essence to be grasped is freedom, which must be built inwards as well. We must build not only the freedom of the nation, but also the personal freedom of the Hungarian people. For the Hungarian, order is not a value in itself, but a condition necessary for the freedom in which we can live undisturbed. "My house is my house, my castle, my life, and I will decide what will make me feel comfortable in my own skin," he said.
Changing the world order is a long process - 20-25 years - during which it will be debated. Our opponents will say that we need integration rather than a national grand strategy. So they will constantly attack and work to change course. They will question not only the content of the grand strategy, but also its necessity, Orbán said, stressing that this is a fight that must be fought.
Turning to the issue of timeframe, he said that the final phase of the strategy would have to be implemented by young people in their twenties and thirties. Therefore, he said, "now and while we are still young" we must start recruiting young people. He added: "A national camp can only be formed at the sound of a bugle and gather under a raised flag, so we must find young fighters with nationalist feeling and courage.
Orbán said that "every nation has the right to express itself, and we have seen that". To another question about the insanity of Europe, he replied that what seems to us to be insanity, the irrational behaviour of Western Europeans, is in fact not insanity and irrational behaviour, but a completely different interpretation of the world. At the same time, as states, they will exist and be our partners in this 'mad state', the European Union. He said that in some ways he even likes the European Council meeting. He, as Prime Minister of Central Europe, has to lead two matrices, his and theirs, and the complex relationship between them has to be constantly translated. This is the most intellectually demanding part of politics," the prime minister said.
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