House Speaker László Kövér said that amending the Constitution to authorise the government to make fast decisions concerning the war in Ukraine is in Hungary’s national interest.
Kövér, who was re-elected speaker on Monday, told commercial Inforádió that with one of the world’s biggest nuclear powers at war in Hungary’s neighboring country, it was in Hungary’s national interest to allow the government to act quickly without having to go through the parliamentary procedure. The model is the same as what was applied during the pandemic, he said. Kövér said the world was becoming increasingly unpredictable, and it was crucial to protect Hungary’s achievements of the last 12 years. “If we stay out of the war chorus, we’ve already done a lot to ensure that this war ends as soon as possible with as few casualties as possible,” Kövér said.
The speaker said many believed that the conflict in Ukraine was not a war between Russia and Ukraine, but rather Russia and the United States and a prelude to a geostrategic conflict between the US and China. A possible goal of this conflict is to detach Europe from Russia and Asia economically and politically, with a view to preventing the formation of a united political-economic area stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Kövér said. The US could not compete with the potential of such an economic area, he added.
Concerning the Visegrad Group, Kövér said the changes in government in the Czech Republic and Slovakia had not helped the grouping, arguing that the foreign ministers of both countries were from parties that were not committed to the V4 and did not see this cooperation as a priority.
He said that because of the war in Ukraine, Hungarian-Polish relations were not as strong as before, adding, however, that the problem could be overcome if the two countries got back to the starting point. As regards his re-election as speaker with 170 votes in favour, Kövér said that not all opposition MPs had exited the House chamber after taking their oaths. He said this could signify the beginning of a “new chapter” in cooperation between the government and the opposition. If the opposition is open to this, the ruling parties are too, he said.
Photo credit: MTI