Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Attendees at the Free University.
This is our last speech here during this government term, the closing speech of this government term. My plan is that next year my speech here will be the opening speech here of the next government term. The closing event of a term is a kind of summary – and that is something I cannot avoid now. Furthermore, the world has been turned upside down, and current events are dynamic. So I have a great deal to say, my time is limited, and we have a strict moderator. I suggest we proceed by first going through the mandatory overview of current events, and then delving deeper. We will see how long we can last – or rather, how long you can last, being grilled there in the sun.
The first current event is next year’s election in Hungary. Democracy means that every election is open: this is both the beauty and the danger of it. There are never any guarantees – anyone who wants a guarantee of victory has come to the wrong place. It will be as the people decide. Today, eight months before the election, I can tell you that – according to our own internal polling – if the election was held this Sunday we would win 80 of the 106 individual constituencies. That is a resounding victory and an overwhelming majority, but I am not satisfied with it, and I ask you not to be either: in 2022, we won 87 constituencies; why should we settle for less in 2026? We will not settle for less! I would like to remind you that every Hungarian election poses the greatest risk to Hungarians outside the borders. There are always two possible outcomes. The credo of the Hungarian opposition, controlled from Brussels, was already obvious when they came to Nagyvárad/Oradea, and simply said that it is Romanian land. Anyone with ears to hear knows what this means. We represent the opposite: we say that the state has borders, but the nation does not. This is why you can always count on the national government; we stand up for Hungarians and we will fight for you too. I only ask that you also stand up for your own future.
The second current issue: the day before yesterday – more precisely, late on Wednesday evening – I was able to meet Romania’s new prime minister. I would like to say a few words about this: my 24th counterpart. But I hope that we Hungarians have not completely lost our sense of fairness; and we would add that the stability of the Romanian political system – unlike the Hungarian one – is not ensured by the stability of governments and the permanence of prime ministers, but by the President. So this is the factor from which conclusions must be drawn. Romanians also have their own political capacity to ensure the stability of their system. I can tell you that I met a heavyweight politician, a man from Nagyvárad/Oradea. He operates within the same coding system and cultural pattern as we do. I met a Romanian patriot who will fight for Romanian national interests – let there be no doubt about that – and who also desires joint Romanian–Hungarian successes, has an interest in joint Romanian–Hungarian successes, and will work to achieve them. So there is a chance for good cooperation – if Romania can overcome the difficult economic situation it finds itself in. It is not for me to judge that, but I can say that I met a prime minister who has a chance of meeting this challenge.
Thirdly, the third current issue: a stir is being caused at home by the fact that we have banned an anti-Semitic rock band that glorifies terrorism from entering Hungary. It is important to say that, in a turbulent world, Hungary is an island of freedom and peace: here, no one can be harassed because of their origin or religion – not even verbally. The organizers should have had the sense not to invite them, and not to put Hungary in this situation. But now there is a certain phenomenon in show business in Hungary: one person calls those he does not like “protozoa”; another shoots the prime minister in the head on stage; and a third invites an anti-Semitic band that supports terrorism. So here, before the election, something in Hungarian show business has clearly gone off track. I understand that everyone lives off money, but money cannot be that important.
The fourth current issue: I am taking advantage of this opportunity and the increased attention today to announce the launch of digital civic circles. We have already established the first digital civic circle, and when I put down the microphone at the end of my speech today, this first digital civic circle and its website will be launched, and all the information will be available there. The establishment of digital civic circles has electoral significance, but it goes far beyond that. As a civic, Christian, conservative national community of the Right in Hungary, we too must start doing something in the virtual space. Today this is hostile territory, and that is not good: we need a digital civic force. You may have noticed that over the past decade and a half something has changed in the world: we have replaced cafés with webcams, meetings among friends with internet forums, and we have moved conversations to chat groups. If something does not have its origins on the internet, then it will come to nothing. This change has swept across the entire Western world, and there is nothing peculiarly Hungarian about it. But there is something peculiarly Hungarian: coarseness, insults, trolling, and digital violence. Anyone who espouses conservative, non-leftist, non-progressive, non-libby beliefs is attacked, ridiculed and insulted. The digital space is dominated by trolling, destruction, division and the digital communities built on them. So we must do something: we must reorganise our communities in line with the modern age and recognise that a community can only function if it has a digital presence. We must create a countermovement in the digital space as well against the culture of destruction: a culture of construction, building the country, creation, and love of country. In the face of digital aggression we have already created the “Fight Club”, and this is important. But fighting is not for everyone: some people are fed up with conflict. This is why we need a place, a space, for those who do not want to participate in direct political battles, but want to participate in building the country. We need a space, a support system, political and community protection, and many digital civic circles.
Dear Summer Camp,
This is also important from the perspective of national sovereignty, as globalists, leftists and warmongers are already rampaging around cyberspace. We also need a digital homeland conquest. We must create an immune system, we must create our moral source code and our national algorithm. Go digital civic circles!
The fifth current issue: there is a debate at home about what Hungarians have gained from Donald Trump’s victory. I would like to comment on this and tell you that, first of all, his victory has enabled us to avoid a world war – for now. Political discrimination against Hungary has come to an end. Economic sanctions against the Paks Nuclear Power Plant have been lifted, so we can complete it. And American investments in Hungary have begun: so far, there have been four major investments in research and development, and three more are expected in September.
Well, Dear Summer Camp, now we can bid farewell to superficial observers and the press, and dive headfirst into the really serious stuff. Will there be a world war? There is no definite answer. With President Trump taking office, the chances of this happening have decreased, but they have not disappeared. What I see in international politics is that the whole world is feeling the first cool breeze of the winds of war. I will share the results of a European survey with you. The question was this: Will World War III break out within 5–10 years? The French said yes – 55 per cent; the Spaniards, yes – 50 per cent; the Italians, yes – 46 per cent; the Americans, yes – 45 per cent; the British, yes – 41 per cent; the Germans, yes – 41 per cent. Meanwhile, dozens of studies, books and analyses are being published on the problem of World War III. I would like to tell you that a breeze signifying an approaching storm is not always followed by a storm – but there is an ominous darkness. I have compiled a list of the portents that were identified before the previous world war, because world wars rarely break out unexpectedly – there are preliminary indications, and processes lead us towards war. I have identified the following preliminary signs. Before world wars there is always an intensification of rivalry between great powers. I spoke about this here two years ago: if you remember, I said that there were two suns in the sky. Now I will say that when it comes to war, there are not two suns in the sky, but three: after the Russo–Ukrainian war, the Russians have returned to the world map; there are Russian, Chinese, and American suns in the sky. There are five members of the UN Security Council, among which the French and the British are in a lower category in terms of nuclear strike power. There are three serious military powers, and the Security Council has three such members: the Russians, the Chinese and the Americans. Another sign is that before a world war the number of armed conflicts tends to rise. In 1990 there were 111 armed conflicts worldwide; in 2024, there were 184 armed conflicts. Since 2010 the number of conflicts involving states – not only armed conflicts, but conflicts involving states – has doubled. Before every major war there is an intensification of the arms race. I have looked at the figures: between 1990 and 2025, military expenditure has increased by one and a half times. The turnover of the world’s 100 largest arms manufacturers has increased by one and a half times. What’s more, most arms procurement is financed by loans, which means that weapons must produce a return on investment. In the case of weapons, the return on investment is war itself. A harbinger of great wars is the division of the global economy into economic blocs – at least that was the case on the first two occasions. In such cases, the major geopolitical blocs close their markets to one another. I have calculated that in ten years, the number of measures restricting free trade in the global economy has increased fivefold. Another sign of war is the intensification of mass population movement – what we call migration. Compared to 1990, global migration is twice as high today, affecting 300 million people. On perhaps the most important question – whether there will be a third world war – it is not irresponsible of me to say that the likelihood of a world war is continuously increasing.
What does this mean for Hungarians? The first consequence: “easy does it”, composure, strategic calm. For example, Ukraine should not be admitted to the European Union, bringing in the war with it – even if the whole of Brussels responds by throwing a fit. The second consequence of this situation is that we must make efforts to achieve peace. The limits of Hungary’s diplomatic and political influence are obvious. I experienced this myself when I visited President Zelenskyy in Kyiv/Kiev a year ago, and tried to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire, or – perish the thought – to peace negotiations. I used the simple and obvious argument that in the Russo–Ukrainian war time was not on Ukraine’s side. Therefore – I told him a year ago – it would be better to have a ceasefire as soon as possible, because the longer the war continued, the greater the losses the Ukrainians would suffer, as time was not on his side. The limitations of our influence are demonstrated by his response: I was wrong, because time was on their side, the war had to continue, and they would win. This clearly shows that Hungary should, of course, make peace efforts in the world of the great powers, but first and foremost we must focus on regional peace, on our neighbours. We must form peace alliances with whomever we can. We have such alliances with the Serbs and the Slovaks, and I hope we will have one with the Romanians as well. Perhaps we will have one with the Czechs after the elections there. Poland has already partly returned, and we should not give up on the Austrians either. Regional peace alliances – this is what we can do for peace.
The third consequence of the threat of war is that if war breaks out we must prepare ourselves to stay out of it. I have been doing this for years; and at the highest level of abstraction, this is the guiding principle of Hungarian foreign policy. We must prepare to stay out of the war; it is not enough to declare that we will stay out – we must know how to stay out of it, and that is a skill. There are five pillars to this skill. So if we want to stay out, we must prepare to stay out.
The first condition and task is not to be vulnerable: to maintain good relations with all the centres of power in the world. Today we have good relations with five of the six centres of power in the world – and there is one with which we do not have good relations. We are on good terms with the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians and the Turkic world. And we are not on good terms with Brussels. When I say that we need to be on good terms with everyone, I do not mean that we need to clink glasses and assure one another of our mutual, theoretical friendship. Nor do I mean political sympathy. Instead what I mean is that everyone, every major power, should have an economic and material interest in Hungary’s success; this means that no one should have an interest in destroying and weakening Hungary.
The next condition for staying out of it is that we should have the strength to defend ourselves. On this there is still work to be done! This is despite the fact that defence spending already stands at 1.75 trillion forints. We have created a chain of military defence industry centres. If you look at the map, you can see it: Győr, Zalaegerszeg, Kaposvár, Várpalota, Kiskunfélegyháza, Gyula. We have purchased combat helicopters and transport aircraft, and we are also developing our land forces. In fact, we have even joined in international military technology developments at the highest level. The Hungarian army must gain technological superiority: to defend ourselves we need a kind of precision army. There is still a lot to do on that.
The third condition for a country to stay out of the war is the development of crisis-resistant capabilities – or, to put it more simply, self-sufficiency. If one wants to stay out of war, there are four areas in which one needs to be self-sufficient: the military industry, energy, food, and digital capabilities. I will not go through all of these now, as we have already talked about them. I would just like to say a few words about digital capabilities, where the emergence of artificial intelligence is changing everything. There is a global competition in progress. People try to imagine this as the United States and China tracking each other on a monthly basis and, based on specific metrics, determining who has the advantage in the use of artificial intelligence and how many months one is behind the other. The stakes are huge: we do not yet perceive this with the gravity it deserves, but artificial intelligence is transforming the world of work, the structure of the economy, health care, transport, the military, and public administration. This is regardless of whether or not we believe it. We can joke about not wanting the intelligence we acquire to be artificial but natural, yet the truth is that anything that can be made more efficient through computation, algorithms and data analysis will be made more efficient through it. We must do this work at the national level, because in this competition the European Union is worthless. We will get nowhere if we wait for the European Union in order to develop our Hungarian artificial intelligence capabilities within its framework. We must therefore be prepared to enter this competition independently, to become a key regional player, and to work together with other countries in the region.
The fourth pillar, the fourth condition for staying out of the war, is superiority in human resources. Klebelsberg and his colleagues used to call this “cultural superiority”. One needs to mention that, in terms of gross domestic product, today Hungary is spending more on education than any other country in Europe – certainly on higher education. We are among the European leaders in vocational training, with three Hungarian universities in the top 2 per cent worldwide, and nine Hungarian universities in the top 5 per cent.
The fifth pillar and condition for staying out: a long-term plan. This should be a plan that provides the stability, the political stability, that will enable us to stay out of the war: in other words a plan that spans political terms – and, if possible, generations. This plan is at the heart of the matter, and so in Hungary we need to build complete national consensus around the proposition that we must not lock ourselves into any bloc. We are part of the Western alliance system, but we also need to be part of the Eastern economy. This is not openness, but balance. Hungarian foreign policy and Hungarian national strategy must strive for balance if we want to live through the coming decades as a nation, as the Hungarian nation.
After the world war, let us return to Europe. Will there be a European war? The threatening shadows of a world war are visible, and European war is a reality. This is not a question of a future European war, but a current European war: the Russo–Ukrainian war is a European war. In fact Europe has been playing with fire – or, I could say, with hell – since 2014 and the Crimean conflict, if you remember. Western politics describes the Russo–Ukrainian conflict as a clash between democracy and authoritarianism. I do not know if they really believe this or if they are just saying it, but it certainly has nothing to do with reality – or if it has, it is completely irrelevant in this case, the case of war. In fact, democracy or no democracy, the idea that Ukraine belongs – or could belong – to the West actually means the breakdown of the power equilibrium between the West and Russia. And a breakdown in the power equilibrium – especially if it is military in nature and Ukraine’s NATO membership is at stake – will always be an existential crisis for those involved. This is how they will react. The West did not understand this, and therefore started a spiral of war by seeking to draw Ukraine closer to the West – or, to put it more charitably, by accepting Ukraine’s aspiration for such closeness. It is important to remind ourselves that it is natural for a nation to aspire to belong somewhere – for example to the West. And then it would be natural for those who it wants to be among – NATO or the European Union, for example – to say, “Of course, come on in!” But only amateurs think in this way. This is because every such move will upset the power equilibrium, and inevitably trigger an immediate reaction from the opposing side – for whom it is a matter of existential importance, a matter of security. The lesson for the West is that even good intentions can trigger war, if they are misplaced or misguided. Let us pause here and recall the genius of Helmut Kohl in the matter of German reunification, which was the most significant event of the past thirty years. He was the one who presented the good cause of German reunification at the right time, in the right place, and in the right way. By contrast, our approach to drawing Ukraine towards the West came at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and in the wrong way – resulting in war.
In other words, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must say that war – the war in Europe – was not a decision. If there is a world war, it will not be an identifiable decision either, but an outcome. The global system is fragile. In our profession there is a humorous cliché that whoever invented the global order also invented global collapse – because whoever invents a train also invents train crashes. The same is true here. And if that happens, and there is no global order, then there will only be regional survival zones. Then the question will be what the European survival zone will look like – in other words, what the European Union will look like in five to ten years’ time, given that we have become involved in the war in Ukraine. What I can tell you is based on the experience I have gathered at the last few summits of European prime ministers. The European Union has decided to go to war, and it has decided that even if the United States withdraws, the European Union will continue to support Ukraine. This is disappointing to me, as this means that the European Union, which was founded as a peace project, has become a war project. Hungary has decided not to go to war. The European Union has decided that Hungary must also go to war. The European Union has decided that in order for Hungary to go to war, there must be a pro-Ukrainian and pro-Brussels government in Hungary. This is the basic pattern of Hungarian domestic politics today. We have decided that, because we want Hungary to have a pro-peace and national government, we will not allow either the Tisza Party or DK [the Democratic Coalition] to form a government.
In relation to this, the European Union has also published its seven-year budget plan. Reading it is heavy going. If you work your way through it, you will see that it is a war budget. Everything in it is formulated according to the logic of war. Twenty per cent of the money will go to Ukraine, and what money remains will not be spent on development, agriculture or farmers, but on preparations for war. This budget is about a European Union that is at war with Russia, waging war on Russia on Ukrainian territory. This is the budget of a European Union that wants to defeat Russia on Ukrainian territory in the hope that defeat in the war will shake the Russian government system and pave the way for a change of power – to parenthetically quote President Biden, “Putin must fail”. This will then pave the way for liberal politics, the return of the Yeltsin era, and it will be open for “business”. Briefly, this is how I can sum up the answer to the question “Why?” Hungary has no interest in a war budget; we need a budget that supports peace and development, which is why we do not accept the draft which has been presented as a basis for negotiation. We need another one. Our task is made easier by the fact that, as I see it, they do not really want to discuss it with us until after the election. We will see what happens, as we are talking about a negotiation period of at least two years. I would like to digress for a moment and talk about European Union funds. Who will bring these home, and at what cost? We have already brought home half of the money we are entitled to: 12 billion euros. This is in our account and is being used by the Hungarian economy. But the other half must also be brought home. That will also happen, because the adoption of the new seven-year budget requires unanimity. And until we receive the money we are owed, there will be no new European budget. We will bring it home, and we will not make any concessions on our sovereignty. The truth is that the Tisza Party and DK people, and their tandem, will also bring it home. I think they have an agreement with Brussels: they will get the money in exchange for supporting the war in Ukraine, agreeing to Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, implementing the migration pact, repealing the child protection Act, abolishing taxes on multinationals, and abolishing reductions in household energy bills. In other words, money will be offered in exchange for our sovereignty. That is the option they are proposing. I suggest that, instead of that, we should be the ones who bring it home.
I must also say a few words about what Europe is doing and why. Today Europe is doing what was decided at successive summits of the prime ministers: the European Union is assuming the role of supporting, at a global level, the ideology – which we might call progressive or woke – that President Trump has been fighting against in the United States, and is now in the process of dismantling. In other words, the European Union has manoeuvred itself into a position in which the US presidential administration does not view the European Union as an international organisation with which it has disagreements, but as a political opponent. Therefore – and I say this to you because of the ongoing tariff disputes – the current leadership of the European Union will always be the last to reach agreements with the United States, and those agreements will always be the worst. The current leadership of the European Union has put the Union on a collision course, and this collision course will lead us to a trade war that we cannot win. In the European Union a change of leadership is needed. The leaders of the Union also thought that if we confronted the Chinese together with the United States, it would bring us closer to the United States. In this regard, von der Leyen and her colleagues have been disappointed, because relations between the European Union and China have also deteriorated dramatically, alongside those with the United States. In addition, the United States is gradually and steadily withdrawing from the Russo–Ukrainian war. Its last generous offer was that Europeans could buy American weapons and give them to the Ukrainians. That is where we stand. This means that Brussels, unwilling to accept a ceasefire and peace, is seeking to fill the economic, financial and military vacuum created by the withdrawal of the United States. This rules out the possibility of normalising our relations with Russia. In other words, the situation in Europe today is that Brussels is essentially preparing for a trade – or cold – war with the United States and China, and is in a hot war with Russia, simultaneously seeking to prolong and deepen its involvement in the war in Ukraine. This is the situation.
Any sane person must ask this question: “Why? What is the point of this?” Especially if it is our conviction that this is contrary to the interests of the Member States, and that the majority of European people are increasingly unwilling to support this policy. Why are they doing it? Of course, I can only offer my opinion – “the [Antal] Rogán Mill” has not yet managed to obtain the secret documentation related to this. Therefore we can only rely on our intellectual resources, and to answer this question I can only offer some viewpoints. The first viewpoint is that there is a federalist master plan. The European Commission in Brussels sees every crisis as another opportunity to build a federal Europe, a United States of Europe. Take a look: whatever crisis – whether financial, migration, virological, COVID, and now war – has emerged, every time the decision has been taken to further expand the powers of Brussels and take powers away from the nation states. Every crisis is an opportunity, a launch vehicle, a platform. So the war crisis is also an opportunity for further construction work on the Brussels federation.
The second consideration on which we can base our answer is that in fact, due to its loss of competitiveness, the European Union’s budgetary management can now only be sustained by a wartime economy and war loans.
And thirdly, another consideration may be that Ukraine’s EU membership could protect the interests of certain economic actors there by creating a tightly controlled EU Member State. This is clearly evident in the current dispute between Zelenskyy and the European Commission. All I want to say to you about this is that in the past ten years we have let Britain exit, and now we want to let Ukraine enter. This is economic madness, but there is method in it. It is madness, but there is method in it. Because Britain is sovereigntist and would never agree to a federal United States of Europe, while Ukraine would. Leave Britain out – or let Britain out – and let Ukraine in? It is madness, but there is method in it.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have much to say about what we can do about this – but, at Zsolt’s urging, I will put that aside for now. However, I would like to share a few thoughts on two other matters. Firstly, about the Hungarian grand strategy. Since Zsolt has squeezed me for time, there will be less opportunity for a sophisticated and nuanced explanation here, and more opportunity in the marquees, during policy debates. Here I will just give you a summary.
What is the Hungarian grand strategy? Now, in our own language, as we are sitting here. Do not be disappointed – I could say this much more elegantly, and in the language of Brussels. The essence of the Hungarian grand strategy stems from the fact that we were defeated in 1920, and at that time our defeat was finalised or blessed by the powers of the time. At that time our enemies decided our fate. Our enemies decided that Hungary would be small and poor. That was our destiny. We are in politics, and the essence of our national strategy is to change that destiny, so that Hungary will be great and rich. This is the core of the Hungarian national strategy. Before the diplomatic protest notes start being drafted in neighbouring countries, I advise that, when they come to the section entitled “Hungary will be great”, the translators should use the word “great” in the same way as it is used by the President of the United States, when he says “Make America Great Again!” So, to avoid misunderstanding, this should not be translated as “big”.
What questions must a Hungarian grand strategy answer? The first question is this: Where will we get people from? Second: Where will we get raw materials and energy from? Third: Where will we get capital from? Fourth: Where will we get knowledge from? Fifth: How will we be able to defend ourselves? And sixth: How can we ensure that we are not left out of international decisions? There could also be a longer speech on this, which – at Zsolt’s urging – I will also put aside. But I will say this much to you: we are not preparing to import people. So we need a family-friendly nation, which – if we write family-friendly as one word – is, at least, two words. Another opportunity for linguists. For family and for nation. Do not believe any of the European Union statistics that are now claiming that the Hungarian family support system is somehow in the lower half of the table among Member States. They are only counting direct, directly delivered financial support. The reality is that, when you add up all the tax breaks, home creation schemes and everything else, our spending on family support is the highest in the entire European Union. What’s more, something is happening in Hungary right now that is not only unheard of anywhere else in Europe, but also unimaginable. I sense this because when I tell them about it, I have to repeat myself – and not because of my slapdash English, but because they think they have misheard me: in Hungary, women who have given birth to at least two children will not pay personal income tax for the rest of their lives – regardless of the age of their children. Nowhere else in the world does this happen! And now we are going to implement this – or, rather, we are offering the possibility of a breakthrough for young people. You have surely heard about the 3 per cent fixed-rate home loan available in Hungary. If you have not heard about it, then you will surely hear about it when the publicity campaign starts. This means that when a young Hungarian becomes an adult at the age of 18 and decides that they want to be part of the nation not only culturally and in terms of traditions, but also as an owner, they will have the opportunity to have their own home, and the instalments they have to pay for their loan will be the same – or less – than what they would pay in rent. So we are opening up a huge opportunity for young people. It is up to them to become part of the nation – not only culturally, but also financially, as owners. In this way we are strengthening families, young people and the nation. This programme is now getting underway, and I am very confident that it will be successful.
After all this, I would finally like to talk about why Central Europe is the future. Because of migration, Dear Friends! It is worth asking why the West has been unable to protect itself from migration, and why Central Europe has been able to do so. Here are a few facts to illustrate the seriousness of the situation. In Germany, 42 per cent of schoolchildren come from a migrant background. In France, 40 per cent of children under the age of four have a migrant background. In Vienna, 41.2 per cent of schoolchildren are Muslim, while 34.5 per cent are Christian. This is the situation in Vienna – 230 kilometres from Budapest! From this and many other statistics, it follows that the countries to the west of us have irreversibly transformed into mixed societies – with growing Muslim populations. Within the foreseeable future, large cities will become Muslim-majority areas, and the population in large cities will change. Europe will remain a destination for migration. Host communities are already established here. Those who set out for Europe do not arrive in a vacuum, but come to people who will take care of them. And when Africa really starts to move, something which lies ahead of us, such a large migrant population within its borders will mean that the West will be unable to defend itself. I have to say that in about ten years’ time one of the most important tasks of the Prime Minister, the government majority and the country will be to protect our western borders from migration – not just the southern borders, but the western ones too! Let us not let this question pass us by, because, Dear Zsolt, we cannot talk about it anywhere else except at a free university: Why have they been unable to defend themselves? Perhaps this is the biggest lesson for us, in terms of what mistakes we should not make. The water in the pot is slowly reaching boiling point, the frog is still blinking, but it is no longer able to jump out. Why did it not jump out earlier?
On the Franco–German axis and the area north of it – leaving aside the Spanish and Southern Italians for now – the last conflict deciding the existence of nations, where survival as a nation was linked to Christianity, took place at Poitiers in 732 AD. That was around 1,300 years ago. For 1,300 years the Western world has not experienced the preservation of Christianity being linked to national survival. We do not know how, but if you lose Christianity, sooner or later you will somehow lose your national existence as well. This realisation is not part of their national system of instincts. By contrast, the Hungarian constitution is clear, saying the following: “We recognise the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood.” When I say this in the West – and I sometimes do – they do not understand, because this has not been the case in their history. Quite simply, until now this sentence has been meaningless to them. They are beginning to understand – but now it is too late! The alarm bells did not ring in their heads – this reflex is not part of their national instincts, and so their old, familiar homeland no longer exists. The question is whether Christianity will still hold us together in the face of this constantly present – and, incidentally, ever-increasing – migration pressure.
As I mentioned earlier, between 1990 and 2020 the world’s migrant population doubled to 300 million. This is how many people are on the move. And if you look at Africa, you can see what is happening there and what challenges Europe will face. I think a lot about the relationship between Christianity and politics as it relates to migration, but I will spare you a long lecture on that subject. Suffice to say that, in my opinion, there are basically three stages in the relationship between Christianity and politics. There are three stages. There is a stage that I must refer to in the past tense: there was a time in European history when the majority of European nations had a living faith. It was not only religious or cultural: it was a living faith, which we call Christianity of faith. Secularisation steadily stifled this. We have slipped back to a point at which living faith is shrinking, but the culture that grew out of Christian faith still exists for people as a system of coordinates: what is good, what is bad, what to think about male–female relationships, family, children, parents, responsibility, our neighbours, ourselves, what sin is, what virtue is, what punishment is, what forgiveness is. We answer these questions in the context of Christian culture, which grew out of Christianity and living faith. This is what I call cultural Christianity. This is where Central Europe is today. What comes next is the third stage, the stage of zero religion – which I might also call “zero Christianity”. This is the stage in which Christianity as a culture no longer serves as a code or coordinate system and is simply pushed out of the life of countries. There is a tipping point, a moment of cultural surrender, which comes, I believe, when same-sex marriage is accepted and made legal. This is the tipping point. This decision rejects the basic principles of Christian coexistence. This is where Westerners are today, and it is in this stage that mass migration has overtaken them, rendering them defenceless. I do not know the answers to the questions of whether they can sink any lower, whether we can stand our ground where we are, or whether we can climb back into the world of living faith. But I do know that it is up to us, the young people, the children we have raised. Have we taught them that if they are Hungarian, they have a duty? That duty is to preserve what we have, to acquire what we do not yet have but need, and to reject what we do not need. Now it will be decided what kind of parents we have been.
Thank you for your attention.