Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that we should not forge great new plans in Europe at this time but must protect what we have already achieved.
The prime minister said there are "all sorts of plans”, but meanwhile “we are not looking where we are going”. He added that achievements to be defended are former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s “big dream”, the Schengen system and the free movement of workers.
PM Orbán made the remarks during the “Europe Scepsis – Why Do We Need Europe?” event organized by the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper.
The prime minister stressed that the success of Europe is important for Hungary because we have protected Europe’s eastern borders for centuries, “we shed a great deal of blood” for the continent, he added.
He said that a strong Europe can only exist if the member states themselves are strong, and everyone has to put in order and reinforce their own country because that will lead to a strong Europe.
The prime minister also commented on the migrant crisis and said it is simply not possible to take new ethnic groups into a country if the people living there do not want it.
"We must accept that the Hungarian people do not want to take in ethnic groups that are different from them," he said. He added that it his duty is to enforce the will of the Hungarian people as this is the essence of democracy.
The prime minister pointed out that there are thousands serving at the border at present, we have spent one billion euros on the protection of the borders from our own resources, and therefore “no one should try to teach us a lesson about solidarity” as by doing what we are doing we do not only protect Hungary but also Germany, among others.
PM Orbán also spoke about the fact that the Visegrád Group (V4) is a great European resource which rather than causing the European Union any problems contributes to its success.
“The Visegrád countries thank everyone for their enquiries, they are fine” because countries which are successful joined forces in Central-Europe. If these countries had been admitted to the EU in due time at the end of the nineties, rather than in 2004, the economic crisis would not have happened as it did, he said.