“The past eight years have been a success, and better than we expected,” PM Orbán said during his state of the nation speech at Budapest’s Várkert Bazár on Sunday.
“We are perhaps ahead of where we expected to be,” he said, adding that the Fidesz government had promised to create 1 million jobs in 10 years, and by now 736,000 new jobs had been forged.
The prime minister also highlighted the agreement to raise wages and cut taxes, and the extra payment pensioners received at Christmas time.
“Taking into account the errors, too, I think the past eight years are not only presentable but we can be proud of many achievements,” PM Orbán said. He wished Hungary another “eight years that are not worse”.
The prime minister said the country looked better than it did eight years ago but added, “we have not yet finished our work; there’s still plenty left to do”.
PM Orbán insisted that the country was now performing better, but not yet as well as its talents could deliver. He said Hungary is a place where “hard work is rewarded, a place where more people are in work, taking home more and keeping families across the country.”
“The Hungarian model is working,” PM Orbán said. Its success was due to “the millions of Hungarians who believe in it,” he added.
“To honour work, support families, retain national identity, preserve independence; this is the future and this future can be ours.”
The prime minister said a key result of the past eight years was that financial vulnerability was now a thing of the past. “Families are no longer paying for the profits of multinationals through their household bills,” he said.
PM Orbán also insisted that the era of energy dependence was also a thing of the past, given that soon natural gas would not only come from Russia but from Romania and Poland.
The prime minster noted that over 50 percent of the Hungarian banking sector was now “in the hands of the nation” and this was also true of the media. He added that there would be no national independence without a Hungarian banking system and media.
“We now have our independence,” he said, warning however that this independence would have to be protected “from time to time”.
“Don’t forget that the country’s fate should never be handed over to internationalists,” he said. “We are not only a civic government but a government of the nation,” PM Orbán said. “The homeland comes before all else,” he added.
The prime minister also warned that 60 million people, according to a NATO assessment, were poised to migrate to Europe by 2020. Most of the would-be migrants are from Muslim countries and they would form “a clear Muslim majority in Europe’s metropolises.”
“Hungary comes first”, the prime minister said in relation to the dispute between western and central Europe over migration. He said western Europe had become a zone of immigration and mixed populations, while central Europe was moving in the direction of a new future of development in various ways.
The prime minister praised the “exemplary performance of the Hungarian police force” and the double border fence which “has successfully protected the country’s southern border”.
He also spoke about Christianity as being Europe’s last hope. “It’s fashionable these days to say that Hungary should be similar to them out of solidarity … so let’s make it clear: Hungary stands in solidarity with those western Europeans and their leaders who want to save their countries and their Christian culture,” Orbán said.
He also highlighted how George Soros’s network and the bureaucrats “on his payroll” are far from giving up. “Some still sniff the money; others don’t want to lose their positions or wages drawn from globalist elites.” He also insisted that the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Nils Muiznieks, “has let slip” that the “breeding of Soros-like humans” has secretly been in the making for years.
”If there is a need, we will introduce stronger and stronger weapons of the law” to combat the “Soros plan,” PM Orbán said.