Distinguished Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
As much as we would like to deny it, there is a piquancy to this meeting. The AfD is not a party whose leader tends to be welcomed by every prime minister in Europe; but it is high time to change that, and this is why we are here. I am delighted that the President has accepted my invitation to come to Budapest. Thank you very much!
German–Hungarian relations are an extraordinary, special relationship within Europe. One should not only think about history, but also of present-day figures. Life would be much easier for Hungary if Germany were successful, because the two economies are very closely linked. We look forward to a new era in which Germany will be successful again, and in the slipstream of Germany’s success we Hungarians and the Hungarian economy can gain added dynamism.
The President and I discussed many questions, but for us Hungarians the most important one was this: What can we expect from AfD, what can we Hungarians expect? And we can answer this question by looking at AfD’s programme and by talking to the President. And what I can tell the Hungarian public is that all of AfD’s important programme points – from migration to energy policy – are ones that would be of benefit to Hungary, and it would be good if they could be implemented. There are many Germans living in Hungary, there are some 30,000 Germans who have moved here recently, and there are hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who have German relations and ancestry. So the most important lesson that I can convey to Hungarians as a message from today’s meeting is that everything that AfD stands for today, if it were to be implemented, would be good for Hungary. I can say this with confidence on the basis of these negotiations.
Of course we talked about Europe, because Germany and Hungary are both members of the European Union. Here I was the more radical, which is no mean feat; but I told the President bluntly that I am convinced that Europe is in very big trouble, that the European Union is in very big trouble. There are two reasons for this: it is in trouble because of the content of the policy it is implementing today; and it is in trouble because of the way it wants to implement it. So, to describe the situation in a German, philosophical way, it is in trouble with the content and it is in trouble with the form.
In terms of content, the problem is that, when facing our global economic rivals, the economic policy being pursued in Brussels today condemns us to defeat. The current policy cannot put Europe on a path of growth. Migration has an economic impact, and that too must be changed; but the most important thing is to admit that the Green Deal is dead. It cannot be reformed, it cannot be rejuvenated, it cannot be reformulated: it simply has to be forgotten. A green approach is necessary, climate is an essential issue; but the way it has been put together and labelled as the Green Deal in Europe today is destroying us, because the result is that we are paying two to three times more for electricity and three to four times more for gas than our American competitors pay. One cannot win this competition, no economic competition can be won in this way. We therefore need a completely new energy policy. I am convinced that energy sanctions must be lifted, negative discrimination against nuclear energy must be eliminated, energy supply routes that have been closed must be reopened, and energy sources that have been suspended must be reintroduced into the European economy. And I have to say that there are already visible problems in the European economy, but now comes the sting in the tail: the really painful consequences of this misguided European economic policy – especially the misguided Green Deal – are only just beginning to emerge. So much for the content.
As far as the form is concerned, the European Union is in big trouble because it is trying to enact policy in opposition to the people. So while people are clearly saying that they do not want migration, Brussels is taking a pro-migration stance. I think that now the vast majority of people in Europe want peace, but the European Union wants to win a war against Russia. The people of Europe want to protect the purchasing power of their salaries, they want pro-middle class policy, and what they are getting is the opposite: they are becoming ever poorer. So in the European Union we also have a democracy problem. There is a content-related policy problem, and there is a democracy problem. If a ruling elite refuses to take note of what the people expect of it on important issues and refuses to incorporate this democratic will into its own policies, then there is a democracy problem: there is a content-related and technical problem, and then one immediately sees a democratic problem of the form in which power is exercised. Both these are present together in Europe today; and if this continues, I do not know who will ultimately save the European Union.
We also exchanged some serious thoughts on the war. It is well known that in relation to the Russo–Ukrainian war, Hungary is the only country in Europe that has been on the side of peace from the very beginning. We consider this to be a bad war; and therefore, from the very first moment, we advised the European Union that the war should be isolated, limited and made manageable in its embryonic form before it escalated. The European Union chose the opposite: it took to the warpath, dug up the hatchet, donned warpaint, and declared the war to be its own war. Hence the untold flow of expensive weaponry and very expensive financial resources from Europe into Ukraine, into a hopeless war. So I reiterated to the President that Hungary remains pro-peace, and that we consider it a great historic change that the United States has also become pro-peace. So today it is not only the Vatican and Budapest that are taking a peace position, but the Vatican, Budapest and Washington – because the US president wants to implement a peace policy. And speaking to the AfD president, I interpreted this as an encouragement and a positive sign, which we hope will bring about the end of the war as soon as possible. Alongside the rise and acceleration of the German economy, this is another very important prerequisite for us Hungarians to be able to manage our lives more easily here in Hungary.
I also told the AfD president that Hungary cannot save the European Union. We are talking about a country of ten million people, and we cannot fix the problems of the European Union; that is something that the French and the Germans must do. We must work to make Hungary successful and strong; if there is a European Union, then with it, and if there is not, then without it. It was in this optimistic mood that we concluded our meeting.
Thank you very much for your attention.