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Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I must also begin with what started our meeting today, as we have lost an old brother-in-arms. After the passing of our friend, Árpád Potápi, I personally am one of the biggest losers. We haven’t had much luck with the timing of MÁÉRT: at the end of 2022 Miklós Duray passed away, a few weeks before last year’s MÁÉRT we said goodbye to István Pásztor, and now we’ve bade farewell to Árpád Potápi. Perhaps I’ll quote the words he used to encourage us with from time to time, which we saw on the video here, quoting one of his Szekler ancestors, who said that the world is a better place with us than without us. The world was a better place with Árpád, and we shall miss him.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Last year, 2023, together with this year of 2024, has been a period in Hungarian foreign and policy on Hungarian communities abroad in which the stakes have rarely been higher. But before I highlight some of the events that have had the strongest impact on our work together, I’ll complete the obligatory exercise of summarising where we are today in terms of achievements in our policy on Hungarian communities abroad. At the outset I’ll say that we never thought that, no matter how strong the motherland was, we could fundamentally change power relations and realities in Central Europe. That’s something we always thought we could do with a successful and high-performing motherland, which would keep alive the hope that when things return to normal, the Hungarians won’t stand unprepared and powerless, but will be prepared mentally, spiritually and economically to be able to use our strength to reorganise the world in a way that’s more natural to us, and to stand our ground when the world finally turns in a way that presents us with favourable opportunities rather than unfavourable ones. So what I’m saying now, as a result of policy on Hungarian communities abroad, isn’t a solution, but a way of keeping hope alive. And perhaps this is more important than the few specific things that lie behind these numbers.
In any case, since 2010 we’ve spent a total of 1,374 billion forints on policy on Hungarian communities abroad. If I break it down, that’s 100 billion forints per year. We’re at a meeting related to policy on Hungarian communities abroad, and it’s not our task here to bring in Hungarian domestic political battles, but nevertheless you have to use comparisons if you want to put something in spatial and temporal context. So over the last ten or more years we’ve spent 100 billion forints a year to keep our national hopes alive. Up until 2009 that figure was only 9.1 billion forints a year, and so we’ve multiplied all that by ten. This doesn’t include the economic development programmes – those need to be added to that. This isn’t exactly a small amount either, because we implemented 9,300 investments worth 330 billion forints in the Carpathian Basin, outside Hungary’s borders. We’ve also built networks that have proved to be viable, with perhaps the teachers’ associations being closest to our hearts. And this year we’ve been able to provide 2.5 billion forints of support to various organisations in the fields of education, culture, churches, sport and youth, ensuring the continued operation of ninety-six institutions of national importance. We can clearly see that in the future State Secretary Nacsa, who has succeeded our friend Mr. Potápi, will have a fine task if he wants to maintain what we’ve achieved so far. Well, that’s the obligatory task. This is how it is if we look at the reality of Hungarian policy on Hungarian communities abroad through the budget and through financial support. This isn’t unreasonable, given that the Hungarian parliament is currently discussing next year’s budget.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When we met a year ago, we introduced the phrase “the world is sliding apart”, and in a world that’s sliding apart the most important thing is to be able to strengthen ourselves. More dramatically, perhaps, we also said that if we cannot save the world, we must at least save ourselves – which seems an ambitious but justified objective. Again, I’ll quote my friend Árpád Potápi: “It’s not so difficult to be Hungarian”, we heard him just now, “you simply have to grow into it.” Then you understand the saying, “We are who we were, and we will be who we are.” So when at our last meeting we decided that if we cannot save the world we should save ourselves, we were thinking that we certainly don’t want to lose the prospects and opportunities for development that we’ve worked hard to create for ourselves in the past decade. With hindsight, looking back over the events of this year from here at the end of November back to the first of January, I have to admit that when we made that assessment and set our goals we were faint-hearted, because over the past year we haven’t had to save ourselves – there was no question of that; but huge opportunities have unexpectedly opened up for us. We’ve succeeded in significantly expanding Hungary’s room for manoeuvre, primarily in the international political arena. This is particularly important for you, Dear Leaders from beyond the borders, because the expansion of the motherland’s diplomatic and foreign policy room for manoeuvre also gives you the opportunity to strengthen your own countries. Now, at the end of the year, we can say that 2024 has been the busiest year in the history of Hungarian diplomacy. In May the Chinese president was here. In addition to Paris and Belgrade, on his European trip he also chose to come to Hungary. At the beginning of July, when Hungary took over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, we launched a peace mission which, it emerged, enjoys support from all over the world, in all the major centres of power, with Hungarian initiatives in this area being welcomed. Then the European Political Community Summit took place here in Budapest recently – with the Hungarian government supposedly isolated. Forty or so European heads of state came here to isolate us. And then there was the informal summit of the twenty-seven Member States of the European Union, where we adopted the Budapest Declaration – which is perhaps our last attempt to save European competitiveness. A lot of things are being dealt with today in that Brussels bubble, but the least of them is improving the competitiveness of the European economy. And here in Budapest European leaders dug in their heels and, in a Budapest Declaration – a document of perhaps historic importance – they gave the Brussels bureaucracy tasks to do in the next six months if we don’t want President Macron of France to be right and in three years’ time Europe has to shut up shop, because quite simply we’re losing our markets. So I very much hope that, with the European Council meeting here and the adoption of the Budapest Declaration, Budapest has also given a European impetus, which will bring the European economy back into the world of competitiveness and competitive civilisations. We’ve also fulfilled the hope that we expressed during the European election campaign – remember, there was a European election campaign this year – to be part of the changes that will result within the Western world. Here I’m using ideological categories – not to annoy anyone, but because I have to somehow describe the reality that the majority in the Western world should be formed by patriotic forces, as opposed to liberal, progressive political forces. This has happened, we’ve achieved this objective. It’s true that with the formation of the Patriots for Europe group we’ve been able to form only the third largest political group in our own backyard here in Europe; but compared with the fact that previously we had no organised forces in the European Parliament, it’s perhaps a reasonable achievement to form, as a first step, the third largest group. And this was coupled with the big election result across the ocean, whereby America took – or is taking – a patriotic turn, if they can last until 20 January, when the new administration is scheduled to take office. It’s America that has to achieve this turnaround, because they can see that, regardless of the election victory, the times ahead will be tough.
So, all in all, in this year of 2024, with the US presidential election, the European election and our successful diplomatic work over the whole year, we’ve been able to expand the scope of Hungarian foreign policy to an unprecedented extent. Two political schools of thought coexist in Hungarian foreign policy thinking – sometimes formulated as doctrine, sometimes only as drift. When we’re in a better state intellectually and can formulate them, they exist not only side by side but also in competition with each other. This is still in the tradition of the Enlightenment – and perhaps even more in the tradition of Hungarian students who went to Calvinist Europe, who drew our attention to the fact that to the west of us a more competitive, more developed and happier life was possible, a more modern world existed, so to speak. And one of the schools of Hungarian foreign policy thinking has always said that if this is the case, then our task is only to understand it, to acquaint ourselves with it, to “Magyarise” it where necessary mutatis mutandis, and to transfer it here to Hungary. Which was a great idea. The entire Hungarian transition from communism – from 1988 or the mid-eighties onwards – based its plans, programmes and activities on this chain of thought. But in recent times we’ve also seen that the assumed validity of this idea has been called into question – and perhaps even lost. Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank and former Italian prime minister, has published his vision of the situation in Europe – not unsolicited by the way, but at the request of the European Commission, at the express invitation of the Brussels bubble. In these few hundred pages he’s described the situation and prospects of the European economy. There may be differences of opinion on this, but since this report was published enthusiasm for the idea that we should adopt, mutatis mutandis, everything that’s done in the West has suddenly died. It had already died earlier among some, like me for example, but those in whom it still lives can immediately see that there’s a problem if they read the document, the first seventy to eighty pages of which can be understood by even people like us with minds that are not mathematical or trained in economics. The subsequent chapters are a little more difficult to understand, but if you read the first seventy to eighty pages you can see the problem. What’s happened in Europe is what we so often say about ourselves, in fine literary style: we’ve lost our way. Only this time it’s not Hungary that’s lost its way, but Europe. From this report it’s clear that if there are no courageous and new political decisions in Europe, then there will be an exponential increase – that is to say, multiplying over time – in Europe’s disconnection from the economic and political centres of the world outside our continent that today are growing stronger.
I’ve come here from making a speech, from a conference called the Eurasia Forum: a three-day conference hosted by the Hungarian National Bank. And last night when I was writing my speech, one of the most telling examples I could cite today, and which I picked out of the many figures that I had last night, is the following. This isn’t easy, but let’s imagine the European Union as it is today being a state in the United States of America. If it were, we’d be the third poorest state in the United States. And here I’m not even talking about the fact that – looking only at this year and perhaps also looking at the forecasts for next year – the European economy isn’t growing. This year it will grow by less than 1 per cent, the US will grow by 3–4 per cent, and the Far East and Asian centres will grow by 5–7 per cent a year. This situation and these figures show that we Hungarians need to think. We need to think about finding our own way, based on our own logic and interests. Because I have the impression, Ladies and Gentlemen, that at the moment Europe isn’t in a position to develop a strategy that will enable it to regain its competitiveness. If we’re not disappointed in our hopes, then the last chance is indeed ahead of us with the Budapest Declaration on competitiveness, which says that tangible changes must take place within six months, otherwise European competitiveness may well be irreversibly reduced, be left behind. Today, thanks to the sanctions imposed as a result of the war, natural gas costs four times as much as it does in the United States, and the price of electricity is one and a half to double the price in the United States. As the Draghi Report makes clear, you can’t compete in any sector with such a price competition disadvantage. There’s no way of organising a company, no technological innovation, that can compensate for such a disadvantage related to the most basic factor: the energy needed to run the economy. There’s no such thing! So if within six months, with lightning speed, we don’t take decisions here in Europe that radically transform the economic fundamentals of our common market today, we’ll be irretrievably left behind.
We Hungarians can think two things about this. One is that it will succeed, the other is that it won’t. If it succeeds, then we won’t have much to do: we’ll have a crutch on which the Hungarian economy can lean. However, I have the suspicion that there’s at least as much chance of it failing. And then we’ll have nothing to look forward to, because Europe won’t come up with an economic strategy that will put all the Member States of the European Union – by definition, by virtue of the fact that they’re members of the European Union – on a successful strategic path. Consequently, it’s time to align ourselves with words, to align ourselves with ideas that come from the second school of the two Hungarian foreign policy schools of thought that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. Such an idea is that of “going our own way, not copying the West”. We probably need to align ourselves with terms like “economic neutrality”. We have to align ourselves with ideas like national self-interest. We need to align ourselves with ideas that replace the last thirty years of thoughts, words, theories, principles and political practice that have been aimed specifically at our place in Western integration, and still make Hungary successful in this European context that’s unable to help itself. This is the task. We’re not doing so badly.
If we look back over the past few years, Hungary has taken the decisions which – even in an environment which is changing unfavourably for us in Europe – ensure not only Hungary’s survival, but also its ability to produce the resources that are essential for policy on Hungarian communities abroad. For without a robust and successful economic policy, there can be no policy on Hungarian communities abroad that’s supported, strong and financially stable. That would leave us with MÁÉRT meetings in which we’d convincingly explain to each other why this or that isn’t possible. I’m glad that the last ten or more years haven’t been about us meeting in the framework of the MÁÉRT to explain to each other what a pity it is that we can’t do this or that, even though we’ve already thought out how much we need it – a university, for example. By contrast, the meetings of the MÁÉRT have been about the fact that we have opportunities, we have resources, and we just need to put in order the things that we need, we need to make an implementation schedule, and we’ll move towards our goals. To keep it this way in 2025 and 2026, we need a robust, successful, strong Hungarian economic policy, a new economic policy that adapts to the realities that I’ve just outlined to you here.
All of you are obviously interested in what we can expect from the political turnaround in the United States, given Hungary’s special relationship with the US president who’s just won the election and will soon take office. Perhaps I’ll also say a few words to you about that. The first and most important thing is to make it clear that, whoever the new US president is, the President of the US is never our saviour, but only our brother-in-arms – at best. At worst, he’s our adversary. This is something we’ve learned over the past four years. At best he’s our brother-in-arms. I don’t believe that there’s any leader – and certainly not the preeminent one – who gets up and goes to bed wondering how he can help the Hungarians. Only the Hungarians can help themselves out of their troubles, and only they can take the initiative to do what’s important to them. The difference now is that in Washington this won’t be greeted with hostility, but with explicitly supportive and friendly reactions. So there’s a good chance that in the international arena – where Hungary has had to fight many difficult battles – we’ll be less lonely than we’ve been so far. Indeed, in these battles we’ll no longer have to be on the front line, because now the largest country will be on the front line when it comes to migration, whether in the UN or in other organisations, or when it comes to family protection and combating gender ideology, or when it comes to the issue of war and peace. This is a great relief! In these matters, on the international stage we’ve very often felt that Hungary has been on its own. This is about to change dramatically, giving us a breath of fresh air, new opportunities, and the chance for a better allocation of our energies. The second thing that’s been gained from the US election is that there’s a good chance that we can conclude a comprehensive US–Hungary agreement in which we can settle the issue of reviving our achievements that were destroyed by the Democratic administration – for example, the fact that there’s no double taxation agreement between Hungary and the United States. In these circumstances, it’s no wonder that if we look at foreign working capital in Hungary – we’ll leave the Germans aside for now, because they’re in a different category – we see that a year ago or two years ago there was 9 billion dollars of US investment in Hungary, basically in industrial, commercial and services sectors. There’s 9 billion dollars of Chinese investment, and by the end of the year the Chinese figure will be 12–13 billion, or maybe even 14 billion, while the US figure will remain unchanged. So if we don’t correct the failings which have arisen in relations between the two countries as a result of the decisions of the US administration in recent times, symbolised by the lack of a double taxation agreement, which isn’t itself the only failing but which is emblematic, then America will lose the weight and the opportunity that its presence in the Hungarian economy would otherwise offer – both to them and to us. So I’m confident that we’ll be able to conclude an agreement – and this is more than confidence, because I see a significant chance that we’ll be able to conclude an agreement between the United States and Hungary. In this we’ll partly resolve and correct the issues that have gone wrong in the past, and we’ll be able to develop strong economic cooperation in areas that can be considered serious in technological terms. This will bring tangible benefits not only to Hungarian diplomacy, but also to every Hungarian family and every Hungarian business. So we also hope that the US election result will bring benefits that won’t remain among the diplomatic pinnacles of high politics, but will be felt by Hungarian voters in their everyday lives. And then perhaps the Hungarian public will also understand that, although it’s difficult on the international battlefield, we must stand up for our national interests even when the wind is blowing against us or when we’re in pain. Because one of the most important rules of Hungarian foreign policy, which we must understand, is that in Hungarian foreign policy difficulties aren’t exceptional phenomena, but built-in constant accompaniments; and therefore the injuries, struggles and pains we suffer in international battles aren’t unnatural, but natural. But since we’re not our own enemies, we don’t undertake these struggles in order never to do well, but in order that, from time to time – at a particular moment in time – these efforts may be beneficial and bring results for Hungary. And now we’re at the end of a long, four-year struggle, when we can say that it was worthwhile to stand by the American Republicans in foreign policy, and to stand by the values and goals that Hungarian foreign policy has undertaken – from national self-interest and the defence of traditional values to action against migration and the advocacy of peace, with all the associated consequences. And this gives meaning to the coach’s phrase, inherited from our childhood, from the childhood of sportsmen and women, but which one doesn’t understand when one’s young: “Dear Friend, pain is our friend.” And in training camp this is undoubtedly true, because the greater the pain, the greater the success. The more energy you mobilise to achieve results against great adversity, the greater the reward when you succeed. And there are moments when we do succeed; this is why at such times it’s worth pausing for a moment and looking at foreign policy as something in which our interest isn’t simply to survive and avoid a deterioration of our position, but in which making a significant improvement in our position can be a realistic goal.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Now I’d like to make a few comments on our relations with our neighbouring countries. The Prime Minister of Romania is visiting Budapest on Friday. I don’t even know the last time a Romanian prime minister visited Hungary. Recently our relations have been exciting. We’re now hoping, especially on the eve of the Romanian elections, that in the coming years – not independent of the outcome of the US presidential election – relations between our two countries will be more positive than they’ve been so far.
In my conversations in Brussels with Prime Minister Robert Fico about Slovakia and Slovak–Hungarian cooperation, I sometimes smilingly say that today the most vehement and committed defenders of Slovak state sovereignty are the Hungarians of Felvidék. And this is true, given that Slovakia, like Hungary, wants to pursue a sovereign foreign policy in Brussels – despite the fact that their EU integration is even stronger than ours, as they have the euro. The Slovaks are attempting to pursue foreign policy based on national interests. And in this we’re good fellow warriors. I’d also like to thank the Hungarians in Felvidék for clearly seeing this dimension and for having made it part of their policy in Felvidék in recent times.
As far as Slovenian relations are concerned, we’re looking forward to better times. Our relations with the Slovenian government are balanced, which is a fine achievement – although earlier they weren’t balanced, but fantastic. Compared to that, the current situation is restrained. I see the domestic political movements in Slovenia, and I hope that there will be an opportunity to bring the intensity and quality of Slovenian–Hungarian cooperation back to the level we managed to reach with the previous government.
As for Croatia, whatever conflicts we have, one always speaks of this relationship with good humour – given that everyone thinks of the Adriatic, the sea, the summer that they look forward to, and not being able to wait to visit Croatia. There are around seven to eight hundred thousand Hungarians who, according to the Minister for National Economy, take their money in an utterly deplorable way and, instead of spending it in the Hungarian domestic tourism market, spend it in Croatia. Sometimes the Hungarian prime minister is included among them. But this is a fact that cannot really be changed, because, as Géza Szőcs said – God rest his soul – a Hungarian must see the sea at least once a year, otherwise he’ll go mad. I don’t know if this is true, and perhaps the exaggeration is acceptable from a poet and not offensive to those who don’t see the sea every year. But there is indeed a yearning in the Hungarian soul for the infinite, which can be satisfied if not by the steppe, then by the sea. And the Croats are the economic beneficiaries of this. So, despite all the difficulties, the fact that Croatia is based on tourism, and that Hungary is one of Croatia’s most important customers, helps us through the political conflicts and disputes that occasionally arise. And I hope that this will continue to be the case in the future.
There’s a new situation in Austria. Austria’s a strange country. Hungarians living there can tell you more about it than I can. I don’t know if you remember that this is the country where a presidential election, an election for the President of the Republic, had to be repeated because the electoral commission found that the flaps on ballot envelopes hadn’t been stuck down well enough. And so the presidential election had to be repeated! It’s a strange country. If something like that had happened in Hungary, all NATO’s forces would have marched on Budapest, shouting “Dictatorship!” But somehow the world has come to blithely accept this from Austria. Just as now the world is blithely accepting the fact that a party won the elections there and they forgot to ask it to form a government. They’ve decided that it’s best not to ask the party that came first, but rather the one that came second. No NATO troops have turned up in this case either, but we simply acknowledge with good humour that this is what life is like in Austria. Incidentally, we’re in an alliance with the political party that won the election, and our wish was for them to be able to form a government. But we’re also on very good terms with the incumbent Austrian chancellor, so Austro–Hungarian relations can continue to be balanced, regardless of this mishap and the fact that we don’t have our closest allies in government in Austria. This is something Austria will need very much, if you look at the figures for the Austrian economy.
As far as the Serbian relationship is concerned, I can tell you that in the coming period we’ll also be sailing into new, previously uncharted waters. As a result of the efforts of the last ten or more years, we’ve become accustomed to the fact that every year we can say that Serbian–Hungarian relations have never been as good; in other words, they’ve been constantly improving. For keeping this success alive and growing year by year, we owe a debt of gratitude to István Pásztor and his organisation, his son and successor. When I talk about expanding our relations to new areas, I’m thinking of the fact that perhaps a week ago, a large Serb delegation led by the Serbian president was here. There’s an organisation called the Strategic Cooperation Council, which is an annual meeting of the two countries’ governments. There we agreed that in the coming period we’ll also start to develop cooperation on security and military issues. In a world of successor states such as the one we live in now, if we succeed in achieving this, then developing such a high-quality relationship with a neighbour – not within an international organisation, not within NATO, but on a bilateral basis – would be unprecedented. In any case, the governments of the two countries are committed to exploring this dimension, and to finding common interests here too.
If I’m not mistaken, I’ve made the circuit. Ukraine is the remaining country, where we need to talk about the country not so much in the context of the Hungarian minority, but in a broader context – although for us Hungarians what happens to the Hungarians in Transcarpathia can never be secondary: we can’t understand what the Ukrainians are doing to the Hungarians there, why they don’t have enough problems as it is, why they have to pick fights, why they need to take people’s rights away and cause operational difficulties, and why they have to intrude on the intellectual and cultural existence of the Hungarian minority living there. We can’t understand why this is a good thing, when they’re at war with Russia; but still they pursue this policy. But it won’t be long-lived, given that the framework conditions for negotiations on Ukraine’s membership of the European Union – a major diplomatic success this year, but one that dates back to January or February – aren’t simply about Ukraine wanting to move closer to the European Union, but also about upholding principles of minority rights: this framework agreement, which is the basis of the negotiations, and without fulfilment of which there can be no progress towards accession, also lists the specific measures that Ukraine must implement with regard to the Hungarian minority. These are concrete, and if they’re not implemented there will be no new chapter, no negotiations, no progress. So Hungarian interests must be represented very clearly and forcefully. We expect a Ukraine that wants to move closer to Europe to fully restore the minority protection standards and the historical rights that we enjoyed in the past, and to guarantee them for the minority living there. We shall insist on this, and we shall certainly enforce it.
Unfortunately, however, I cannot end this brief section on Ukraine without mentioning the war, because the war between Ukraine and Russia is the number one issue in European politics today. And here I have no good news for you. I believe that we’ve never experienced such a dangerous period as the two months that are ahead of us. Such are the unfortunate alignments. The President of the United States will swear his oath of office on 20 January; our wish is that he makes it there, then he’ll take office and make decisions. There’s a debate going on in America in which, if I’m not mistaken, the prevailing view is that a president-elect’s scope for action on the diplomatic front is extremely small, and those of a constitutionalist mindset say that any action by him at this time would raise doubts. And so in terms of his radius of action, to put it so elegantly, in these two months I see the incoming president’s diplomatic activity being curtailed. So at the moment he has no decisive and substantial influence over what’s happening in US foreign policy. This means, however, that until 20 January the previous administration still has control over all the important decisions, including those of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States. This means all the military decisions. And I understand that there’s also a debate there about what these two months should be used for. It must be appropriately acknowledged that the American people have made their decision, and their will isn’t something that will only come into existence after 20 January, but what they want already exists now. Therefore it wouldn’t be right to act in a direction contrary to the decision they made in the presidential election. This is one school of thought. The other school says that things must be interpreted legally: when the new President arrives he can do something else, but until then we’ll implement the programme that we were mandated to carry out four years ago. This second school of thought says that in light of this, everything that Ukraine might need in the context of the Ukrainian–Russian war should be given to it now. This is linked to the decisions that you’ve seen, enabling the Ukrainians to use US weaponry – especially long-range missiles – to launch attacks not on the territory being fought over in the war, but on Russian territory beyond. This is dangerous for us, because everyone who’s involved knows that these are strike missiles that can only be operated by US targeting systems – including satellite systems and so on. So the Ukrainians aren’t able to get these missiles from Point A to Point B on their own, but can only do so with active Western involvement. This is another level, a new level of involvement in the war. This is why everyone’s afraid of what kind of retaliatory strike Russia will launch, who will be affected, and, to use [the Hungarian poet] János Arany’s phrase, “who will be hit and how”. This is what everyone is guessing at – most of all, those who are up to their necks in this war. Because, as this involves a European country, they believe that this war isn’t between two Slavic peoples, a fratricidal war, as we Hungarians believe, but their war: a war of the West against the East. And therefore they must support Ukraine – which, in their view, is fighting for Western interests – for as long as they can. And perhaps even beyond that. So at this moment, Ladies and Gentlemen, there’s a general uncertainty throughout Europe, because no one knows what the next two months will be like. Neither do I. I’d like to tell you reassuring things, but I can’t; because no one can be sure what military action will be taken in the next 24 hours, we cannot be sure what the response will be from the other side, and which European countries could be affected by that response. One thing I’m sure of, and not without good reason, is that in this precarious situation Hungary is relatively safe – partly because of NATO, and partly because we’re not seen as a military opponent by any of the belligerents. Consequently, there’s a good chance that Transcarpathia will emerge from this Ukrainian–Russian war with the minimum possible losses – and, God willing, perhaps without any losses.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All in all, I can give you this overview. This is also the time when we usually give a summary of our goals in policy on Hungarian communities abroad. Lately – perhaps because of my age – I’ve been moving towards simplicity; I think that the simpler an idea is, the more convincing it is and the more useful it is. I summarise Hungarian policy on Hungarian communities abroad in the following idea, and I see the Hungarian government’s actions as the fulfilment of this idea. After the First World War our adversaries – at the time they were our enemies – decided that Hungary should be small and poor; and in 2010 we decided that Hungary should be big and rich. This is also the aim of our policy on Hungarian communities abroad, this is why we’re working, and we hope that to achieve this goal we’ll be able to use Hungary’s widened room for manoeuvre in foreign policy that I’ve just described to you here.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
