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Thank you. So now I should present an optimistic assessment of the situation that will encourage action. I will attempt to do so. First of all, I would like to respectfully welcome the House Speaker. Thank you for inviting me here.
Distinguished Representatives,
If we are talking about the Carpathian Basin, and that is the name of this forum, then of course Áron Tamási: “We are in the world to be at home somewhere in it.” To be here in the Carpathian Basin, to be somewhere, is no great feat – for others it may be enough, but we need more than that. And for us the Carpathian Basin is more than just a place of residence. With blood and sweat, over the centuries we have fought to claim our place, making ourselves worthy of the Carpathian Basin being the framework and purpose of our entire existence.
The Forum of Hungarian Representatives from the Carpathian Basin – let’s look at the meaning of all four elements. For Hungarians the Carpathian Basin is not just a geographical concept: it is our historical, spiritual and intellectual home, where rivers, mountains and plains preserve our past and shape our future, just as much as our built heritage does. So you, the Hungarian representatives of the Carpathian Basin, are part of a historical, spiritual and intellectual unity. Ultimately your work can only be understood in the totality of this unity. No matter where you live, you all represent the whole of the Carpathian Basin and the Hungarian nation. We, the leaders of the mother country, share your responsibility, and it is our duty to lead the way.
Secondly, this is a forum of representatives of the Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin – so we are Hungarians too. Here, in order to dispel any misconceptions, I will say that the question is not whether Bartók or Enescu is greater – that is a question for the liberals. Our question is this: which one is Hungarian? Whichever is Hungarian is ours. This also shows that patriotism is not a matter of reason, but of the heart. The consequences of this state of being, the destiny and mission that arise from it, are discussed often and in many places. Here I will just briefly list the most important factors. To be Hungarian means that our language is our soul; if we lose it, we lose ourselves. Hungarian survival is not a gift – we must fight for it every day. Those who protect families protect the nation. Borders may separate us, but the nation is united. A Hungarian child is the best investment in the future of the nation. If you are a Hungarian, you live in geopolitical encirclement: the Germans to the west, the Russians to the east, the Muslims to the south. To be Hungarian – as this shows – is a difficult mission.
Thirdly: Hungarian representatives from the Carpathian Basin. Mr. Speaker, the essence of politics is to be courageous and to take responsibility. Politics – as you all know – is about action. To act, you must have the authority to act. This is why it is particularly important to have a body of democratically elected representatives for all Hungarians everywhere. They are experienced, battle hardened and fit for the fight. We are pleased that the Hungarian organisations in Transylvania and Vojvodina have achieved electoral success, demonstrating the need for – and the effectiveness of – political action among ethnic minorities.
Forum of Hungarian Representatives from the Carpathian Basin: so it is a forum. A forum is a place where things can be discussed. Not like in a parliament, where debate is more of a battle, but rather a public space for shared thinking, inspiration, instincts and intuitions, a public space for seeking ways forward. This is how I will speak to you today about the situation in Hungary and Europe. Today I will probably have to speak almost exclusively about the greatest challenge facing Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin. This challenge is the war – or, more precisely, the war policy of Brussels, which is fuelling the war.
Distinguished Representatives,
These policies, these war policies, only hold harmful things in store for us, and put our future at risk. Because of this, energy is more expensive, and with it almost everything we need for everyday life. This is why today the European economy is suffering. The policies of war are placing a huge burden on the whole of Europe – including the countries of the Carpathian Basin. The policies of war are siphoning resources away from developments and investments that could be used to stimulate economic life and cooperation for all Hungarians everywhere. This is not the European Union we joined. Up to now the European Union has been validated by its successes. These successes have also given it an identity. This identity was built on the assumption that, after the bloody first half of the 20th century, the Union could bring peace and prosperity to the continent. But today that prosperity has vanished. It is strange to see this as Central Europeans, because these are richer countries than we are. Yet the West’s legendary quality of life is no more. You cannot have a good quality of life amidst masses of migrants, having lost your sense of being at home. You cannot have a good quality of life where you have to pay two to four times more for energy than you did even two or three years ago. In other words, Ladies and Gentlemen, success no longer validates the Union. We need something else. Brussels says that Europe’s new goal is to confront Russia in the East.
A related and indispensable element of the new European militaristic identity is the reinforcement of war psychosis in European public consciousness. War propaganda claims that Russia may attack EU – and even NATO – countries. The Russian threat to the whole of Europe is constantly on the agenda. Brussels propaganda says that only a pre-emptive strike can stop Russia, and in their minds the war in Ukraine is a pre-emptive strike. In their minds, the Ukrainian army is already preventing the Russians from occupying Europe. But I do not believe that this is true: Europe can be defended without continuing the war in Ukraine. Brussels also hopes that increased military spending and armament will boost the economy. The idea is that spending on war will increase defence and competitiveness at the same time, as if rearming would bring prosperity. In reality, it is a new economic cycle: we are financing war – just not on our own soil. The EU supplies Ukraine with arms, Ukraine buys them with EU loans, and the EU buys Ukrainian goods. They think – or at least they say – that this will keep the war on the Russian–Ukrainian border, and not on the Baltic, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Romanian borders.
Relying on the war situation, Honourable Representatives, they have sought a pretext for further centralisation of the Union and the elimination of the sovereigntist element. This is a derailment of what has hitherto been the logic of European integration; it is, in fact, a coup. The war between Russia and Ukraine has become the catalyst through which Brussels is seeking to usurp ever more powers. The EU elite are calling for new European responses. But as I listen to them, these are no longer about cooperation, but about the transference of powers. EU leaders believe that the 27-member EU’s consensus-based system is too slow to deal with crises. Incidentally, there is a peculiar irony in two-thirds decisions in Hungary being criticised, while unanimity in Brussels is seen as a threat.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The intellectual foundations are being laid for a Europe at war. This is what I see. I watch, I listen, I follow the conferences, and I see that the liberal think-tank world has started its work. There is a succession of analyses and expert statements about the need for centralisation. There is a prestigious institute called the ECFR [European Council on Foreign Relations], which, for example, outlines the idea of an EU “Emergency Preparedness Act”. Such a law would, in the event of a crisis, allow the EU to centrally mobilise industrial capacity and protect critical infrastructure. It would also secure supply chains and access to strategic raw materials. Other think tanks write about how EU enlargement should be accompanied by institutional reforms. In other words – and this is the conclusion of all the papers – the issues that require unanimity need to be narrowed down, for example by banishing them from foreign policy. In the final analysis, all liberal interpretations come to the same conclusion: the logic of war demands centralisation. The end result of the Brussels plan would essentially be the abolition of national sovereignty.
And not only the abolition of sovereignty, but also of freedom and democracy. For in the process of integration, the true and ultimate custodians of the democratic element have always been the nation-states. The founding fathers themselves were guided by the idea that the supranational level – which is necessarily bureaucratic – can only be controlled by the national level. In other words, the bureaucracy must remain under the control of democratically elected leaders and representatives. This was the essence of the founding idea. The federalisation agenda therefore necessarily means the elimination of popular sovereignty from the functioning of the EU. Moreover, the Brussels tools are already undemocratic. We are all experiencing this first-hand: interfering in elections, monitoring sovereigntist parties, shutting down right-leaning, conservative events, and funding federalist and pro-war pseudo-civil society elements and media throughout Europe. In other words, the United States of Europe – because that, in their minds, is the ultimate goal – would create an undemocratic and unaccountable political structure.
A new development, Ladies and Gentlemen, is that Brussels now wants to build a massive financial superstructure on the foundations of the logic of war. This is because it needs billions of euros in order to be able to send money to continue the war in Ukraine. Therefore Brussels now aims to federalise European taxpayers’ money. It wants to create an order in which Brussels itself controls the funds, without any influence from the Member States. Today almost every forint or euro in the EU comes through national budgets. They want to change that. At the same time, they want to change the institutional structure, the institutional structure of the Union, so that the funds due to the Member States can be channelled to Ukraine.
Thirdly, resources from the Common Agricultural Policy and the Cohesion Funds will be reallocated to meet the war aims. If you have seen the first proposals for the next seven-year EU budget, you will see that what I am talking about has already been put in writing. Ever since the outbreak of the war, both the European Commission and the European Parliament have been constantly trying to increase their own budgetary resources, which are now quite minimal. Their own resources mean taxes levied and collected directly by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Of course this will also mean a reduction in national tax bases. All in all, it is planned to indirectly take at least 37 billion euros a year from the Member States in this way. They are making no secret of this. Most recently, the President of the Commission said that the European Union budget should be used for other purposes. I quote: “so that we can respond to geopolitical challenges.”
One such financial instrument, another financial instrument, is collective borrowing. We agreed to collective borrowing once, when the Union decided to set up a recovery fund to deal with the consequences of the pandemic. The promise was that this money would be used to help the economies of the Member States to recover. Today I see that half of the funds raised have been given to the Member States. Half! Four years after the epidemic!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If we take on more debt, we will be reinforcing federalisation. If we give in to pressure from Brussels, we will have Europe’s “Hamilton moment”. As in the history of the United States, it will be joint debt that will make European federalisation irreversible. History has shown this. At the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, for example, the thinking is that once Europe has to arm itself, and “there is no alternative in the short term to common debt financing”.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Hungarian Presidency was the adoption of the competitiveness pact. Now, however, in Brussels they want us to shift all available resources to the military industry, which can then be distributed according to quotas. This will be a quota economy in the military industry, the products of which can be sold to Ukraine – using European money, of course. Green quota, migrant quota, gender quota – and now we will have the war quota. In Brussels, experts and veterans are openly discussing a war economy. Recently, in an amiable conversation, a famous, well-known and respected adviser to former Council President Van Rompuy said that converting Europe to a war economy is merely a matter of determination.
Distinguished Representatives,
The operational area of the Brussels war plan is Ukraine. It is a theatre of operations in the sense, first of all, that this is where the war is being waged. But it is also a theatre of operations in the sense that Ukraine is being forced into the European Union as a member. In its latest written defence policy plans, the European Commission states that Ukraine is an area of operations for Brussels. I quote: “support for Ukraine is the immediate and most pressing task for European defence. Ukraine is currently the frontline of European defence”. Accordingly, propaganda has been launched which claims that Ukraine’s integration into the European Union can be achieved at minimal cost. The equally prestigious Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels summarises, and I quote again: “Ukraine’s young and skilled workforce is also a valuable resource, and new opportunities for the flow of services and capital are opening up. The integration of Ukraine’s IT sector into European markets can contribute to the EU’s security of supply through Ukraine’s significant agricultural and raw material production capacity.” In fact, the Bruegel think tank claims that Ukraine’s accession would only cost the EU 0.13 per cent of GDP per year in the provision of cohesion and agricultural support.
We did the math too, and it’s clear to us that the Hungarian economy would collapse under the weight of Ukraine’s accession. The full integration of the country – of Ukraine – would, over several years, cost around 2,500 billion euros: twelve times the European Union’s budget for this year. The cost of rebuilding Ukraine will be enormous. Conservative estimates put it at 500 billion dollars, while Ukrainian sources – and this discrepancy is understandable – put it at 1,000 billion dollars. Moreover, it already costs 100 billion dollars a year to run Ukraine as a country. This would mean a total financial burden for Hungary of 20 trillion forints. In addition, Hungary would become a net contributor, which for us would be far too much.
Summa summarum, a centralised, Brussels-led European superstate is not in the interests of Hungarians and other peoples living in the Carpathian Basin. We have already been under the boot of many empires; we know what they are like, and although all those old empires fell and we are still here, we would not – if possible – want to repeat the experience. We have remained, they fell, but the imperial wounds inflicted on Hungarians have not healed to this day: depopulation in the Ottoman era, world war, loss of the country at Trianon. These are all the works – even the crimes – of successive empires. If there is a way of avoiding it, let us not ask for a repetition of this – not even dressed up in a Brussels costume. Therefore I believe that the task is to prevent this nascent Brussels empire from bringing its boot down on us.
But how do we prevent it? That is the question! I think we need a true hussar’s gambit. In short, while the Emperor is at war, we must occupy Brussels – à la András Hadik’s capture of Berlin. While Brussels is preparing for war, we must strengthen European anti-war initiatives. War is not only costly for us Hungarians – its burden is felt by every European. This is our chance. According to our survey, public opinion in eleven European countries does not support Ukraine’s fast-track accession, regardless of the state of the war; meanwhile public opinion in only ten countries clearly supports its accession. Similarly, we know that half of European citizens are against sending European weapons to Ukraine. Sixty-seven per cent of Europeans are against sending European troops to Ukraine. So there is plenty of political room for manoeuvre.
The Brussels plans can be derailed with good manoeuvring. In recent years we have built up the organisational base for such a plan. We created the Patriots party family, which is now the third largest group in the European Parliament. Together, the European Conservatives, the Europe of Sovereign Nations and ourselves are all anti-federalist party families. If we join forces, we could form the largest coalition of political groups in Europe. Sometime. Sometimes patience is the most important virtue, and that sometime is now. We must take things step by step if we are to hack the Brussels plans.
Finally, let me say a few words about cooperation in Central Europe. With the UK’s exit, the power dynamics in the European Union have changed. When it functions, the German–French axis can achieve anything in the EU today. The Central European countries – let’s say the Visegrád countries, which are inclined towards sovereigntism – have lost their only ally among the big states: Britain. This is why liberal governments abandoned Visegrád cooperation, with both the Czech Republic and Poland doing so. This is how they responded to this new situation, and I think it was the wrong response, because the opposite is true: it is not the French–German axis that needs to be joined, but the V4 that needs to be strengthened – it should have been, and should be today. Re-establishing Central European cooperation could be the key to ensuring that the Hungarian nation is not once again subject to the provisional rule of an imperium. From this point of view, the result of the Polish presidential election is particularly encouraging.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Hungarian representatives from beyond the borders can also play an important role in this. Building good relations with neighbouring countries is good for ethnic Hungarians and good for Central European cooperation. An important goal is to teach one million people in the Carpathian Basin to speak Hungarian within the next ten years. To do this we need training, and we need to make the values of the Hungarian world more popular. Such an initiative would facilitate dialogue – both figuratively and literally. I would like to point out that it would not hurt for Hungarians in the mother country to learn at least one or two of the languages of neighbouring countries. Good neighbourliness is the best chance for the advancement of Hungarians beyond the borders. But we must not make the mistake that left-liberal governments have made: the mistake of sacrificing national interests for good relations. Good neighbourliness can only be based on strength and respect. We need clear speech and an understandable policy on Hungarian communities beyond the borders.
According to the Hungarian government’s thinking, a clear, comprehensible policy on Hungarian communities beyond the borders consists of four elements. You are familiar with them, but I will briefly outline them. The first is that Hungarians beyond our borders come first. There can be no good neighbourly relations if the rights of Hungarians are violated. The second is that we seek good relations with the leaders of neighbouring countries. This is based on the assumption that our European geopolitical interests coincide, and so it is a mistake not to join forces. This approach has already brought success in two cases: Serbia and Slovakia are good allies, and the situation of ethnic Hungarians there is better than it was before. The third point is that if someone is hostile to Hungarians, they will be unable to gain the support of Hungarians in European politics. And the fourth point: Central Europe can only be strong with Hungary, and our survival is in the interests of all the other peoples living here.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If we do our job well, we will stop the federalist and pro-war policies of Brussels here in Central Europe. Central Europe is not Brussels’ backyard, but the continent’s main street. The task is to open it up to traffic.
All the best with your work!
