Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Parliament on Tuesday that Hungary needs a feisty, responsible government that unites the country while showing the necessary strength.
Speaking ahead of the oath-taking ceremony of his fifth government, PM Orbán said the new cabinet’s tasks are outlined by “dangers and especially the war”. The government will have to preserve and strengthen the physical, material and cultural security of Hungary and the Carpathian Basin, support Hungarian families, boost Hungarian companies and keep the economy on a path of growth, Orbán said. Members of the new government were tapped with those tasks in mind, he added.
No government since 1990 has received as “great and united” a mandate as the fourth consecutive Orbán government, the prime minister said. Its members will have to “justify this trust, which has been partly earned, partly given in advance,” he said. “That will be especially taxing, as we barely left the coronavirus pandemic behind, we have a war in our neighbourhood, and Brussels has got its wires crossed, so we cannot expect help from there,” he said. The strong mandate and the “uncertain future” has increased the government’s responsibility, he added.
The “decade of dangers, uncertainty and wars” of 2020-2030 has so far brought about a “flood of refugees, an unprecedented rise in energy and fuel prices and inflation,” Orbán said. Meanwhile, the largest geopolitical reorganisation of the 21st century is looming, along with a global energy and food crisis, he said. A destabilisation of “vulnerable countries with large populations” may bring other waves of migration and so growing challenges for the “richer part of the world, including Hungary”, he said. All that would prove a challenge even “for a robust, eminently led European Union”. Instead, the bloc is showing “delays, confounded ideologies and irrational decisions,” he said. “At such times, Hungary cannot afford irresponsibility, division and weakness,” he said.
Photo credit: MTI