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Mr Orbán said we have been waiting all this time to make Hungary great again. This endeavour cannot succeed in a headwind, but with a tailwind it may. The wind is already blowing in the right direction from the Atlantic; now, we only have to change the direction of the wind blowing from Brussels.
The Prime Minister took the view that the liberal West had had its day; the whole world is changing, everyone has to redesignate and reoccupy their own place in the new world.
“Now, every nation has been given back its own baton: there are some who throw it on the fire and will have a good night; there are others who gather a team with it, set a direction and start forward,” he said.
He added that “we Hungarians” had always longed for peace, freedom and creation, “we have been waiting all this time to make Hungary great again.” The Prime Minister stressed that “this endeavour cannot succeed in a headwind, but with a tailwind it may.” The wind is already blowing in the right direction from the Atlantic; now, we only have to change the direction of the wind blowing from Brussels.”
“The war is over, 2025 will be the first year of peace. It couldn’t come at a better time. We had way too many problems and hardships, it’s a miracle that we got this far with all this baggage. New year, new times, new chances. Now, we can and must think big and brave,” Mr Orbán said, adding that the time has now come to try things that we had prepared for for a long time: for instance, we should implement Europe’s biggest tax reduction.
He confirmed that from this October all mothers with three children “can forget about” personal income tax, while from January 2026, mothers of two – in the first phase, those under the age of 40 years – will be next. He indicated that if we accomplish this, we may reach a point where there will be millions of people in Hungary who are no longer required to pay personal income tax during their entire lives.
He took the view that the Hungarian was a diverse, tolerant and proud nation, while Brussels was becoming ever more secluded and isolated. The secret of Hungary’s success has always been that here people meet, cooperate and “stick together in good and in bad, in sickness and in health,” the Prime Minister added, pointing out that in his view, the Veszprém CODE Centre for Digital Experiences, too, will be precisely such a place.
He stressed that while the liberals claimed that the world had come to an end, in actual fact, the liberal world had come to an end. “All their secrets have been exposed, and the entire international structure is tumbling down like a house of cards before our eyes,” he said, adding that they have been fighting against “a global influencing network” for 15 years.
“This is indeed over, or we are now putting an end to it, but history is far from over. While the liberal world has had its day, freedom is coming back,” he stated.
He recalled that the government had supported the programmes and projects of the European Capital of Culture with HUF 74 billion, and church reconstruction projects with an amount of the same magnitude.
“For me, CODE is brave and unusual, meaning a symbol of unorthodox thinking. This is not a mere projection, this is the real world here,” he stated.
Mr Orbán also said Veszprém is special not only because of its past, but also because here “you can see the future with the naked eye.” Veszprém demonstrates “how to be ingenious in a conservative way,” he said.
He stressed that ingenuity was an old thing in Hungary, we Hungarians “take pleasure in uprooting the world’s iron laws in inventive ways, the more ingenious the better.” “If needs be, we shoot our arrows forward, if needs be, backward,” he said, adding that “there is no absurd situation that a Hungarian wouldn’t be able to resolve.” The Veszprém CODE Centre, too, could come into being on account of Hungarian ingenuity, and the building is without doubt a fine example of Hungarian ingenuity.
He recalled that in its place the villa of the central bank’s local director had stood originally, which had later been occupied by the Arrow Cross, and later still by the State Protection Authority. It was eventually destroyed by the communists, and they built in its place “an education centre in the veritable style of social realism, named after the son of the Bulgarian nation Georgi Dimitrov.”
Normal thinking would dictate that one would rather avoid places like this like the plague. However, the people of Veszprém thought otherwise, they thought that they could turn something bad into something good. They brought back the arts within the walls of this building, they digitised it, they modernised it, they made it innovative, they literally painted it with light, he said.
He recalled that in 2023 Veszprém and its environs had been European Capital of Culture. He took the view that while the government was fighting “cutthroat battles” with Brussels, this city was proof of the fact that there was also successful European Union-Hungarian cooperation. In this instance, we owed this successful cooperation solely and exclusively to the fact that “we were given carte blanche.” “This is what happens when the Hungarians are allowed to work and to create on their own,” he said.
They have always said that Europe is not in Brussels, or at least that it is less and less there, and with the series of programmes lasting for 365 days, they demonstrated that “Europe is here in Veszprém,” Mr Orbán said.
Introducing the spaces of CODE, Alíz Markovits, Chief Executive Officer of Veszprém-Balaton 2023 Zrt. said in the next six months, the institution will host multiple spectacular productions.
The CODE Centre for Digital Experiences consists of three principal spaces: the installation space is a meeting place for digital arts and analogue techniques, the studio serves as a 180-degree immersive projection space with 3D and interactive experiences, while the Hexagon is a 400-square-metre hexagonal space with 360-degree immersive projections, audiovisual shows and hybrid events.
