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Good afternoon,
I also welcome you. I am grateful to my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico, for inviting me to this tripartite summit. I am glad that he has not only survived, but is in explosive form. I have no doubt that he will outlive us all, and that is what I wish for him. When the assassination attempt occurred, we in Hungary experienced it as a trauma – and I, too, was surprised when confronted with my own emotions. The shooting of the Slovak prime minister was certainly a deep trauma for Slovakia, but in Hungary, too, there was also an atmosphere which told us that this was not just a trauma for the Slovaks, but also for us. And I must say that I have never seen pro-Slovak sentiment in Hungary as strong as it was after the assassination attempt on him. This shows that the work of the past few years, Dear Robert, has not been in vain: our peoples are now much closer than they have been at any time in the past hundred years. So we also express our warm gratitude for all the work you have done for Slovak–Hungarian friendship.
I have calculated that together the three of us have spent a combined total of forty years leading our countries. Forty years is not a bad start! These forty years represent experience, and experience comes with obligations. It obliges us to recognise connections that are perhaps not recognised by those less experienced than we are. And today’s discussion has also convinced me that this experience obliges all three of us to feel a sense of responsibility for the whole region. Of course each one of us has a responsibility first and foremost towards his own country, but we also bear responsibility for regional cooperation; and today we have tried to live up to that responsibility in the area of migration in particular.
I agree with what Prime Minister Fico said: what has happened is exactly what we said would happen. One did not have to be a Nobel Prize-winning nuclear physicist to foresee that this was exactly what was going to happen. In 2015 you could see that there would be trouble if you let millions of people from foreign cultures into your continent without permission or screening. So we can be sure that within the European Union neither Robert Fico nor I bear responsibility for what has happened; because we were the ones who said in advance that if you do not follow our example, if you do not fight illegal migration, you will get into trouble. They did not listen to us, and now the West must succumb to reality. The reality is the following. Since 2015, eight million asylum applications have been lodged in the EU. Eight million! Since 2015 the number of illegal attempts to enter stands at 3.8 million. So eight million applications have been made and there have been 3.8 million attempts to illegally cross the border. Of these 3.8 million attempts, Hungary alone has arrested one million people. The facts are also stubborn when it comes to deportations. The European Union is unable to expel migrants who have entered its territory illegally. Now I am talking about last year. In the EU last year, 430,000 decisions were taken to expel illegal migrants. There were 430,000 decisions, and of these 84,000 were implemented. The figure Prime Minister Fico gave is true: they cannot implement 80 per cent of their own decisions. And this was exactly foreseeable.
What is this leading to? Panic. Western leaders are panicking. Panic leads to bad decisions. What are the decisions now? They are suspending Schengen. So illegal migration is in fact destroying the European Union’s greatest achievement: free movement across borders. They are reintroducing border controls, and all this could have been foreseen. It was foreseeable that crime would increase. We also saw that the EU migration pact will not solve the problem, but increase the problem – the Slovak government made this clear last time, and so did we. The migration pact is not a solution, but is itself the problem. Think about it: they want to distribute illegal migrants according to quotas again. According to quotas! If you do not take them in, you will have to pay 20,000 euros per person. And on top of that, if there is a crisis, the Commission will distribute any number of people over and above these quotas. And what constitutes a crisis is determined unilaterally by the Commission. I have not come here to complain, but you know that Hungary is also being penalised separately. We will not let in illegal migrants, and so we have had to pay 200 million euros in one lump sum, and every day we will pay one million euros for defending Europe. Let us say, with all due modesty, that so far there has been only one model that has worked against illegal migration, and that is the Hungarian model: no one should be allowed in without a decision being taken on their individual case. To put it the other way round: someone may only enter the territory of the country if a decision has already been made on his or her case. You have to wait outside. All other solutions are ineffective.
There are two ways to lose your home. Within the whole migration pact, at the heart of the internal political problem that is stressing Westerners stands the question of home. There are two ways to lose your home. One is to be driven from your home. The other is to stay at home, but to suddenly find everything around you changing, without your having consented to it. You find that the sense of home that you lived your life in and wanted for your children and grandchildren has gone. It has gone, and is irretrievable. There is no bigger political problem than that. Let us thank God that Slovakia and Hungary have defended themselves against this problem. The Slovaks can feel at home and the Hungarians can feel at home; and it is my wish that the Serbs – whose accession to the European Union both Hungary and Slovakia wholeheartedly support – will also succeed in maintaining a sense of home in their own country. I am pleased that it will be possible to continue cooperation in this format in the future. Hungary is ready for this.
Our relations with the two countries standing next to me represent fundamental interests to us. In our economic relations, Slovakia is one of our ten most important economic partners, and during President Vučić’s time in office we have increased our trade with Serbia sixfold. Serbian–Hungarian relations also play a role in Hungary’s economic neutrality, because Serbia has a free trade agreement with China. Slovakia and Serbia are also crucial countries for Hungary in terms of energy independence. At a time when the eastern connection is not working and is currently being wound down, Serbia supplies us with energy from the south, and Slovakia can supply us from the north. So we thank both the Serbs and the Slovaks for helping to preserve Hungary’s energy independence. And I am glad that today I have been able to participate in a meeting in which the word “peace” was not an expletive. Today I have been in a Christian environment, where politicians in office and in power see the most important Christian commandment – to strive for peace – as the most important moral imperative.
Thank you very much, Prime Minister Fico, Dear Robert, for hosting me here today.
