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Mr Orbán said modernity is no longer a western category, and the period ahead will be the century of Eurasia. Mr Orbán spoke about the fact that the period after the fall of communism in Hungary was dominated by the guiding thought that it was worth turning our attention to the West not only because people there had a better life, but also because they had discovered a self-adjusting political and economic system sometime from the 17th century on which guaranteed strategic security in the long term. He stressed that this conviction had been broken in 2008-2009 when it had become evident that the unfolding financial crisis “was, in fact, a logical consequence of the profound transformation ongoing in the whole world economy which will radically transform the geopolitical situation of the past and will elevate new centres in the world, primarily in Asia, and these centres will create a situation in which modernity is no longer a western category.”
He recalled that this was how the incumbent Hungarian political leadership’s attention had turned – in addition to and in times instead of Western Europe – to the East. “That was when we decided that it was time to look not only to the West, but also to the East,” he said, reminding his audience that in 2009 – upon the advice of the late Sándor Demján – he and central bank governor György Matolcsy travelled to China together.
Mr Orbán said changes are fast, and the essence of politics lies in a sense of rhythm. A government is able to gather together all the knowledge present in the world, it is readily available and obtainable knowledge which can partly be purchased for money, but there is always available knowledge. Politics, however, he said in continuation, is a realm of application, rather than a realm of knowledge, and the essence of application lies in pace. It is not enough to apply good solutions; they must be applied at the right time, and the smaller a country, the truer this is. In the case of a country the size of Hungary, a temporary loss of rhythm can be fatal, he said.
The Prime Minister said, looking at the Hungarian history of the past 150 years, one can recurringly detect the problem of missing the right moment, a confusion in the sense of rhythm. He mentioned as an example the ill-chosen moment in World War II of the attempt to leave the Germans’ side which brought Hungary to a disadvantage that could not be compensated for against our rivals in the next 60 to 70 years who had a better sense of rhythm than Hungary. He said in summary that a country the size of Hungary cannot be foolish, cannot be slow, cannot be boring, cannot be a mere follower, cannot rely on the understanding and interpretations of others. A country the size of Hungary – if it wants to live at the level we want to, if it wants to be worthy of historical traditions such as our history of a thousand years – must be sharp, quick and clever, open to the world, and must keep thinking in order to not miss the right moment in the case of the necessary decisions, he stated.
Mr Orbán said Hungary is a member of the European Union in vain; it cannot afford the luxury that large European countries can and that enables them to progress at a more cautious pace, meaning the luxury of weight, size, economic significance, the size of the GDP, the size of the army, and the enormous strength of military technology.
He further spoke about the fact that between Europe and Asia there are no natural geographical borders, and based on the conclusions of the history of the economy, this natural geographical unity has also resulted in natural economic unity; one complemented the other well. In this region, the most prosperous regions of human civilisation, culture and the economy lived side by side. He said the existence of Eurasia as a natural economic unit has been hindered by three factors in the past centuries. The first one is that world trade’s centre of gravity shifted to the seas, and this resulted in a completely different orientation. The second one is that, in consequence of this rearrangement, western civilisation achieved a dominant status, and this upset the balance between the civilisations that can be found in the Eurasian region and tipped it towards the West. The third obstacle – and this is a phenomenon of the modern era – is that after the Cold War, the western elite decided to not want to restore the integral Eurasian unity, but to westernise the whole world instead, he pointed out.
He mentioned the Arab Spring as the harshest example and most evident failure of this strategy. Mr Orbán stressed we all felt that this mentality, this western strategy, including the strategy of Europe was “invalid, unsuccessful, and something has come to an end.” “The liberal, progressive dominance” within the western world has come to an end, the notion that the whole world must be organised on the basis of the western model and that the selected peoples will be prepared to accept this in return for economic and financial advantages has failed.
In his view, the states of Asia have gained in strength and have proved that they are able to rise, exist and remain in existence on a long-term basis as independent economic and political power centres. In consequence of this, the centre of the world economy has shifted towards the East; eastern economies are today growing four times faster than western ones, and while the added value of western industry accounts for 40 per cent in the world, that of eastern industry has risen to 50 per cent.
He said another new development is that the western world has “lost its wind” also in its own environment. Issues emerged on the agenda which the liberal-progressive mentality was unable to respond to, he said, mentioning migration, gender ideology, ethnic conflicts and the Russo-Ukrainian war. The European political system based on liberal-progressive dominance is less and less capable of governing even itself, Mr Orbán said in evaluation, adding that in consequence of the West’s hesitation, the 500 years of its dominance as a civilisation, too, has come to an end.
Listing the main arguments for the Hungarian government’s view regarding the renaissance of Eurasia, the Prime Minister highlighted that Eurasia is the largest single land mass on the planet, in this region the players of politics and trade are constant, and the region includes multiple civilisations which is a major competitive advantage. Seventy per cent of the world’s population lives in this region, and Asia’s share in the world economy now stands at 70 per cent, he stated, listing the details.
He said today Europe is the number one loser of the changes taking place in the world. He pointed out that at purchasing power parity, the EU would be the third poorest member state of the United States, there was no longer a European country among the world’s five largest economies, European innovation, too, had “evaporated,” there was no European among the world’s 20 largest technological centres, only Americans, South Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. He said if it is true that the century ahead will be Eurasia’s century, we must realise that Europe is unable to find its place in this context of thought because some of the western leaders fail to admit the significance of Eurasia, while others “do, but they don’t like it.”
The Prime Minister stressed that the European elite had settled for protecting the status quo of the old glory which would lead to the development of trade, economic and political blocs. He is convinced that unless Europe is able to break out of this status quo and to switch from the development of blocs to the idea of connectivity, the process that Europe is a loser of the changes taking place today will continue also in the long run. Europe must break out of this thought bubble, must find its place in its relationship with Asia, must understand that Europe is a part of the Eurasian region, and must exploit all the advantages arising from this fact because without doing so, we cannot compete with the other power centres of the world, Mr Orbán stressed.
He said we would need a good European strategy, but in his view, Europe will not be able to develop such a strategy. Hungary must therefore not wait for Europe to develop a strategy in which it will seek its own place because the timeframes that are necessary for making the right decisions will close.
“The period ahead will be the century of Eurasia, and we ourselves must designate our place in it, rather than derive it from a European strategy,” he said. In continuation, he pointed out that Hungary had such a strategy, it was implementing a very deliberate strategy regarding nation policy and the national economy, a determining, but not exclusive element of which was the fact that Hungary was situated in Eurasia. He said all of Hungary’s disputes with Brussels stem from the fact that the country has an independent strategy which is based on the new realities, acknowledges the country’s features, and it is within these boundaries that it finds Hungary’s place, regardless of the prevailing Brussels doctrine.
Mr Orbán said this does not lessen the fact that Hungary is a member of NATO and that it must also define itself in relation to the United States. He expressed hope that it would be easier to establish good relations with the new administration than it had been with the old one “which is not much of an expectation, given that with the old administration we utterly failed in this endeavour.”
He indicated that Hungary trades with everyone, in the past ten years, the value of Hungarian exports has doubled in such a way that we have simultaneously doubled our western and eastern exports and have successfully diversified our investment policy as well as our energy procurements. He took the view that the fact that in 2025 investments on a significant scale even by global standards will be completed in Hungary will justify the validity of the strategy. He said according to the draft budget, next year, as many as three hundred projects supported by the state will commence.
Mr Orbán observed that there were few countries in Europe today where such a conference could be organised, and we would probably find none where the prime minister spoke about Eurasia in such a context. In his view, the reason for this is that “we are the living Eurasian idea. We are an embodiment of this word, a reincarnation as we are a people that came from Asia.” The Hungarians came from Asia, and have in the meantime become a western, European people through and through, he added.
The Prime Minister said he is convinced that things will turn out well for Hungary as we are facing a period, of which “we ourselves are almost the expressions and authors, and then we have reason to believe that the world economy and the European economy are finally about to face a lucky period which will offer Hungary, too, an historic opportunity of growth.”
At the beginning of his speech, Mr Orbán spoke in words of praise about the work completed by György Matolcsy as central bank governor and former minister of the economy – who spoke before him – stressing that after 2010 it was György Matolcsy who laid the foundations of the current modern Hungarian economic policy, and when he became governor of the National Bank of Hungary, instead of a strategy “living in bright isolation,” he implemented an active central bank strategy.
