Seriously, I wonder if the editors at DPA listened to the same speech, the State of the Nation address, that the rest of us heard yesterday afternoon. Prime Minister Orbán spoke about the current state of Hungary and his vision for the future, should voters reelect him as prime minister in the April 3 parliamentary elections.
While PM Orbán did talk about the challenges of the Hungary-European Union relationship, he definitely didn’t say what German press agency DPA picked up as their headline. This is the title they ran in several, major German media outlets:
“Orban hints at possibility of Hungary leaving EU.”
No. That’s false. Here’s what Prime Minister Orbán really said:
“We, for our part, want to keep the European Union together, and that is why we have repeatedly made offers of tolerance to Brussels and to Berlin.”
For those who could be bothered with the facts and context, here’s an unofficial transcript of that part of the PM’s address. You can judge for yourself.
“So here we are, and the truth is that we don't want to become like them, and we can hardly believe that they want to become like us. There is no point in denying the differences. This debate within the western world is inevitable. The debate is of course important, but it is not the most important.
“The most important thing is whether we want to stay together. Especially here in Europe because the European Union only has a future if we can stay together despite the growing cultural alienation. We, for our part, want to keep the European Union together, and that is why we have repeatedly made offers of tolerance to Brussels and to Berlin.
“We do not expect them to adopt Hungarian migration policy, Hungarian family policy or Hungarian foreign and national policy as their own, to raise them to a European level. But neither can they demand that we adopt theirs. There is no other solution but tolerance. Only in this way can we find a common path, and the EU must also move forward, not backwards.”
As you can see, PM Orbán, in fact, is calling for keeping the EU together, for tolerance between the EU’s western member states and the ones in Central Europe. He has repeatedly confirmed that Hungary wants the EU to “stay together” and explained that we only have a future together.
So, why did the editors at DPA come up with this ridiculous, sensationalist headline? Because this is how Germany’s fake news factory works.
Here’s a headline they should have run instead: “Orbán says the EU only has a future if we stay together.”