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PM Orbán: ‘We won’t do what Brussels dictates, if it’s not good for Hungarians’

With candid remarks about the leftward drift of the European People’s Party and the continued efforts in Brussels to impose a pro-immigration agenda, Prime Minister Orbán called on voters to turn out in large numbers at the European Parliamentary elections on May 26th and said that Hungary must not back down in the face of pressure.

“We have to show those in Brussels that what happens in Hungary is what the Hungarian people want,” said the prime minister this morning, “and they are not going to decide in Brussels among the various left-leaning or leftward drifting parties or in the offices of the so-called civic organizations of George Soros what is going to happen in Hungary and in Europe.”

“We are not willing to do what Brussels dictates,” the prime minister said, “if that’s not good for Hungarians.”

In the interview that aired on the Sunday morning radio program Vasárnapi újság, the prime minister reminded listeners that the Hungarian government has had to stand its ground in confrontation with Brussels on many occasions over the last nine years.

“In 2010,” the prime minister said, “Brussels demanded austerity to which the Hungarian government responded by sending the IMF home and reduced taxes.” Then they wanted the banks to take in the foreign currency loans from the people at exorbitant rates, but the government settled with the banks. “Brussels also wanted high utility costs, but Hungary introduced the reductions in utility costs.”

“After that, they say let the migrants in, and we built a fence. And now they say take in the migrants [in resettlement], and we are unwilling to accept the obligatory resettlement quota,” the prime minister said.

 “The pro-immigration countries have not given up on their idea that they can transform Central Europe,” he said in response to a recent comment by Chancellor Angela Merkel that it is not possible that certain member states would refuse to accept migrants

 “They can shake their fists,” he said, but “Hungary is not going to give up any of those fundamental rights which we haven’t given up for a thousand years. Hungarians will continue to be the ones who decide what happens in the decisive questions of their lives.”

The bureaucrats of Brussels live in a bubble, and they’ve lost touch with reality. However, Hungarians must stand here on our own two feet and must begin from the point of our national interests.

“We won ourselves some time,” he said, regarding the matter of Fidesz’s membership in the EPP, and considering that the initiative of the 13 political parties was something much more extreme, to expel Fidesz completely, then the result is acceptable.

“After the European elections, we will decide in Fidesz what is good for Hungary, whether we should continue within the People's Party or whether we have a place in some new party association,” he said, adding that the 13 parties in question are all pro-immigration without exception and want not to stop migration but to legitimize it.

Fidesz could not be excluded or suspended, he reiterated. Fidesz is in its fourth term in government and was the most successful European party in the last three EP elections. So if the debate had not been able to find a solution, then Fidesz would have left, and that’s why he was holding in his hand during the debate an official letter to the EPP announcing the departure, he explained.

The critics of Fidesz belong to a pro-immigration platform that runs across several parties and has “put its foot in the door in the EPP, too,” he said, and the result is that the entire EPP is constantly shifting to the left.

The pro-immigration wing of the party has made no secret about wanting a large, pro-immigration coalition after the EP election. They have “essentially shaken hands on the deal” behind the curtain, and they want a grand, pro-immigration coalition with the Greens, the Liberals and the Socialists. They also know that Fidesz would never support something like this. We would never form any kind of coalition here at home, he said, with the former Socialist prime minister’s party, with the Democratic Coalition, and we don’t want to get into a similar situation on the European level either.

The EPP is no longer the strong party that existed in the time of Helmut Kohl. It has succumbed to “an unfortunate fate.” It lost its sovereignty and the left wing dictates to it. It even wants to work with the left, which results in double standards being imposed, especially when applied to Central European countries.

The EPP must regain its sovereignty and cannot remain such a "semi-left-wing party adrift,” he said, adding that “when Fidesz decides after the EP election whether to continue in the People's Party, one of the decisive criteria will be precisely whether the double standards will continue to be used, whether the EPP will be anti-immigration, whether it will stand up for the protection of Christian values, or whether it will continue to move to the left. In the latter case,” he said, “Fidesz must do something new.”

“I will not give up in the interest of any kind of party discipline those important things that the Hungarian people decide,” such as the protection of Christian culture and stopping migration. Besides, he said, the most important decisions are not made in party discussions but in the council of prime ministers.

If EU countries continue to send to Brussels those figures who have failed in their own countries, that will not increase the confidence of the people in the EU but drastically reduce it. “Figures like Timmermans, who the voters back home have sent packing, they should not be given positions in Brussels because it weakens the whole EU cooperation.”

“They are a bit angry at us in Brussels,” the prime minister said about the remaining two months until the EP elections, because with the information campaign about the EU’s migration plans “we exposed what Brussels is preparing.” But we must remind the people that just a few weeks ago in the EP, with the votes of the left-wing Hungarian MEPs, they accepted the proposal to triple the funding for migration in the coming seven-year budget.

The job now, said the prime minister, is to continue to inform the people what they are preparing in Brussels, and we “must not back down or be afraid.”

The prime minister said that following the European Parliamentary elections, “better times should come with the active participation of Hungarians in the building of a new Europe.”