Honourable Presidents Schmitt and Áder, former First Ladies, Honourable Speaker, Dear Leaders of Hungarians outside our borders, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The year 2024 could not have started in a worse way. Our President of the Republic has submitted her resignation to Parliament. This is like a nightmare, and it is taking a toll on us all. We see the departure of a respected and highly esteemed president, who worked – indeed fought – for her country, the Hungarian people and their families, and represented Hungary in the wider world with great honour. We all saw her as someone truly cut out to be President of the Republic. She embodied the better side of the Hungarian people, our good characteristics. A mother, a kind and highly capable person who wanted to prove her aptitude not in competition with men, and not by their standards. This always greatly impressed me. In her own natural way she showed us men that the realm of women’s feelings and thoughts is essential and irreplaceable in every walk of life – including in politics. Because separate from each other a man and a woman are only two halves; but together they form a whole which is able to create a full, healthy and happy life in the family as well as in the homeland. While her departure is right, it is a great loss for Hungary. The reason for her resignation is that she granted a presidential pardon to a person who was convicted of covering up crimes which harmed children. The vast majority of Hungarians did not accept the validity of her presidential pardon, and rejected it. But the finest – and at the same time most difficult – task of the President is to sustain the unity of the nation; and if for any reason this balance is upset, so too is the possibility of its restoration. From the reasoning accompanying her resignation we have learned that it was her decision that compromised the unity of the nation, and so she herself was no longer able to restore that unity. Therefore we must acknowledge that in this situation what happened was what had to happen. Only with the resignation of the President and the inauguration of a new one can the upset balance be restored, the great waves of indignation be tamed, and the nation be reunited on the issue of the protection of families and children. In accordance with constitutional customs, and in line with the uninterrupted practice of twenty-five years, a presidential decision was countersigned by the Minister of Justice. Her departure is an inevitable – and, I believe, unfair – consequence of the laws of politics.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good people, too, make bad decisions. This happens to the best of us. If there was a time machine and we could fly back to the past, I am sure we would rectify the mistake. But there is no time machine. And so the task falling upon the Government is to put the time “back in joint”, to restore the moral order and to remedy the emergent situation – including in the legal sphere. Children must be inviolable, and their molestation must result in the severest possible punishment. In such cases there shall be no place for pardon. Therefore resignation was the right course of action, and it makes us stronger. It is with a heavy heart that, on behalf of us all, I thank the President and the Justice Minister for their hard work. As regards the debate surrounding the resignation, all I can – and all I must – say is that there is more dignity in the little finger of each of the two departing ladies than there is in all the leaders of the Left combined.
Dear Friends,
Now that trouble has struck, we should at least profit from it by learning from it together. Let us not waste this opportunity. The drama unfolding before our eyes reminds us of the risks we must face every day. The risks are especially great nowadays, when what counts is ever less a debate about views and plans, and when the independence and sovereignty of nation states is in the crosshairs of the world’s dominant centres of money and power. It is a valuable lesson that in politics today the laws of boxing are more useful than the rules of ballet. Even if you are a Mike Tyson, or for that matter a Muhammad Ali, you need to know that in politics you are always only one punch away from the canvas. Therefore your only defence is careful consideration and vigilant caution. And of course, if you knock your opponent out with an intercepting right cross… But that is another lesson, and another speech about the fact that it is better to give than to receive. What matters is that the iron law of modern politics is humility: the service of the nation also requires personal humility, and you must be aware that no matter how high your position, you can never be smart enough on your own. There is no safe space, and mistakes can be made even by those in the highest office. Of course, even if there is an explanation for it, a political mistake is distressing. And all the more so if there is no explanation! For the Right, what has raised indignation about the decision to grant a pardon to the level of rage is that it was not a decision taken in a complex situation: it was an unforced error. For the Right this is as clear as day: there can be no pardon for crimes involving paedophilia! But that which has fanned the flames of rage on the Right should also subdue them. The resignation serves as both redress, and as an example for the country. It has given Hungary the chance to emerge from our troubles with greater strength. And we shall.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In addition to the lessons, there are also tasks. The Hungarian child protection system must be strengthened. It must be revised, and the legal rules serving to protect our children must be supplemented – all the way from the Constitution to ministerial decrees. The ordeal of the victims places obligations on us. It compels us to strengthen the management and oversight of our child protection institutions, as well as the rules and restrictions applicable to the people working there. And we must submit all these to the National Assembly in the form of a new child protection legislative package. The hypocritical and two-faced Left can battle it out there. There, they will have a chance to fight on. The election of a new President of the Republic is an urgent task. I ask the governing party's parliamentary group to start the procedure leading to the election of a new president on the day of the incumbent president’s departure. As is right for a large and strong government party, we should minimise the transitional period.
Dear Friends,
With this I have completed my most important and most urgent duty. Life goes on in whatever way it does, work continues, and the tasks in 2024 will not be any easier or simpler. We may perhaps remember that 2019 was the last “year of peace”. In February 2020 the COVID pandemic broke loose, while in 2022 the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out. All these years we have been forced to live and work under extraordinary circumstances and massive pressure. This takes its toll on everyone: each of us individually, our families, and also our wider common family, the Hungarian nation. For the fifth year the entire country and every family is working hard to protect all that we previously achieved. There are some things that we have managed to protect, and there are others that we have not. We have managed to protect what is most important: jobs. In fact, what we see is that never before in Hungary have as many people been in employment as now. We have honoured the biggest pledge we made in 2010: the creation of one million new jobs. Here too, of course, the fans behind the goal are right: “More, more, more, this much isn't enough!” The employment rate currently stands at 75 per cent, but we want to reach 85 per cent – and we will. According to our estimates, here in Hungary there are at least another 300,000 people who are able to enter the world of work; and every year more people are coming back home than going abroad as guest workers. We have also managed to protect pensions. This could be expected of us, because this is what we agreed with pensioners when our national government first came to power. But what is more a feat than something to be expected – even if one is also gradually becoming used to feats – is that we have also succeeded in giving back the thirteenth month's pension. This is what the Left took away from the people. Every year raising the funds for this requires a superhuman effort and a fiscal tightrope walk from Finance Minister Mihály Varga. We thank him for it! He is under a lot of pressure, because – according to liberal economists – in this world economic situation the thirteenth month's pension is a fiscal luxury that Hungary cannot afford. I understand that it is embarrassing for the Left to be faced – year after year – with the fact that we are giving back what they took away. But this consideration can hardly take priority over the best interests of pensioners and the respect that they deserve. We have not succeeded in protecting the pre-COVID rate of economic growth, nor the low budget deficit. We have, however, succeeded in retaining the high value of foreign trade and exports. As a result, we have managed to avoid the financial phenomenon referred to by economists as “twin deficit” when the budget deficit and the foreign trade balance deteriorate simultaneously. This is something which usually results in bankruptcy and economic austerity. The fact that this has not happened is due to the inestimable qualities of Minister Péter Szijjártó, who is responsible for foreign trade. Thank you very much! Difficult year or not, last year we again managed to bring Hungarians outside our borders closer to us; after all, we are a national government. We have built three bridges on the River Ipoly, there are ten rail services a day between Szeged and Szabadka/Subotica, and there are three fights a week between Budapest and Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca. We should not be dissatisfied if we add to this the following: rushing to the aid of the Hungarian National Bank, we managed to push inflation down from a record high of 25 per cent to below 4 per cent; we kept the budget deficit on a downward trend line; we raised the minimum wage by 15 per cent, and the minimum wage of skilled workers by 10 per cent. We managed to zigzag unscathed out of the extra difficult year of 2023.
Dear Friends, zigzagging and escaping peril is a fine thing, and repelling dangers may be a feat, but one aspires to more than that – one expects more from life than that. In football, too, the winner is not the team with the most saves, but the one that scores the most goals. So what awaits us in 2024, what can we achieve? I suggest that we close our eyes for a second, and envisage the last year of peace: the year 2019. Inflation is just 3 per cent, while the economy is growing by 5 per cent. The budget deficit remains below 2 per cent and national debt is well below 70 per cent, and is continuously decreasing. The number of new homes built is 21,000, and almost 90,000 children will have been born. Such were the heights we had reached when COVID struck. This is the path we must climb back onto in 2024. At any rate, the bookmakers are betting on Hungary; it is enough to take a look at the European Union's economic forecasts for Hungary that were released yesterday. But even so, it will not be a walk in the park for Minister for National Economy Márton Nagy. Go Minister!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
After we have found our way back to the carriageway we were forced to abandon in 2019, we must also take account of the fact that since then the world has changed a great deal. This is something else we cannot ignore. In the economy, we see that the era of green energy is no longer knocking on our door: it has kicked the door in. The future belongs to green energy – and of course to those who are able to change over to it rapidly and intelligently. The stability of Hungarian politics is known and recognised worldwide, we have a two-thirds parliamentary majority, and the Government itself is united because Fidesz–KDNP is an alliance of brothers-in-arms rather than a coalition. From the public's point of view, the meaning and advantage of this stability, this unity, this enormous government power, lies in the very fact that it enables us to adapt to new circumstances as fast as lightning. If we keep our wits about us, if we react quickly enough and if we use our strength well, then no one in the whole of Europe can adapt to change as fast as we can. This is an unbeatable competitive advantage. This is why so many are up in arms about it.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The green transition is just what Hungary needs. We can kill two birds with one stone: our country will become more liveable, and we can finally release ourselves from the energy dependence that has bedevilled us ever since the disintegration of the Dual Monarchy. The green transition requires two things: green energy must be generated, and it must be stored. Our plan is to build Paks II [nuclear reactors], extend the lifespan of Paks I, and rapidly build smaller and bigger solar power plants. The world has already realised that without nuclear energy it will be impossible to abandon fossil fuels, while Brussels has finally accepted the need to sooner or later add nuclear power plants to the list of recognised green energy sources. This is what a scientific debate is like in Brussels if France is behind it. I have vivid childhood memories of newspaper articles beginning with the phrase “according to Soviet scientists…” And if anyone tells us that there is no progress in the world… Our solar power plant construction programme is proceeding so rapidly that sometimes it reminds one of a horse in headlong gallop. Soon we need to restrain it and rein it in. We have exceeded all plans and broken all records. We already have solar capacity of more than 5,600 megawatts. There are 255,000 households in Hungary which operate mini family power plants. As a result, we already generate 15 per cent of our energy consumption with solar panels. Eventually Minister Csaba Lantos may truly work miracles. Our back-up power plants will be built soon. We have already connected our electricity grid with those of our neighbours, and our natural gas connection has just a single missing element: in the direction of Slovenia. Energy independence is within our reach, only a few years away. There are those who say that there will not be enough energy for the development of the Hungarian economy and our industrial strategy. They do not know what they are talking about, or at best cannot see the wood for the trees. Storing the green energy thus generated is a tougher nut to crack. Furthermore, technology itself is making huge strides. In this we are in the European vanguard – and in fact that of the world. It will only be a few years before energy storage devices are present in every area of our lives, including our personal lives: in our cars, in our homes, at our workplaces, in factories, in industrial facilities. The Hungarian government is setting an enormous amount of money – hundreds of billions of forints – aside for this purpose.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The introduction of every new technology is accompanied by exciting debates. At times, we also hear a few unhinged arguments such as us not having enough water – when everyone knows that present-day Hungary is a large basin. The waters of our rivers flood into the country, and we alone decide how much water we keep here – while there is still plenty left for our neighbours, too. At the same time, the public’s legitimate environmental and security considerations must also be taken into consideration; in fact, they must be given priority, and we must only operate plants that adhere to European standards. But we would also do well to remember that we obtain a large part of our green energy investments – which are often in the billions of euros – in an extremely keen struggle; we could even call it cut-throat. Sometimes this is against our neighbours, and sometimes against super heavyweight opponents such as France, Germany or Spain. And here we must keep our wits about us because it is a widely known, admitted – even publicly admitted – fact that the “Dollar Left” is financed from abroad. And I hardly believe that nothing is expected from them in return. We should not be simpletons. Just so that the Left, too, understand: vigilance, comrades! The diplomatic struggle fought for investments is more like an open water swimming race where one must scuffle whilst swimming – or at least push one’s way through. In this we are not bad. In fact, Kristóf Rasovszky has just won the world championship title in the ten-kilometre category. Bravo! We would like to imitate him. For the first time since time immemorial we are not mere followers of a technological revolution, but its global leaders. And with this we will also save our car factories. In the Western world, many car manufacturing plants are being closed down and relocated. We must avoid this in Hungary. Just imagine Győr without Audi, or Kecskemét without Mercedes. Additionally, we’re good at this, we have learnt the ins and outs of this trade, we have excellent workers, engineers and development researchers. We cannot afford the lunacy of the German Greens, who believe that the only good car is the one that is never made. In Győr, a ten-year car manufacturing record has been broken, in Kecskemét we have started making high-end electric cars, in Debrecen we will manufacture electric cars which are not yet available on the world market. The world’s largest electric car manufacturer will bring its first European factory to Szeged, and the residents of Szentgotthárd, too, can finally relax: the production of new electric motors will start in the same production hall where the production of petrol engines started thirty years ago.
The production value of the Hungarian automotive industry is now above 13,000 billion forints. It provides a living for hundreds of thousands of families, and we have accumulated enormous professional and engineering knowledge. There are a few things in which we are successful to the highest world standards, such as the pharmaceutical industry, the production of sowing seeds, the food industry and car production. We are not so rich as to be able to afford surrendering any one of them. Therefore, the green transition in the automotive industry in Hungary is an enormous technological and political achievement. We are not so rich as to be able to surrender any one of our industrial sectors.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As regards the future, on the national side there was never a shortage of plans. The situation, the goals and the means are clear: the Hungarian people are better off than they were during the Gyurcsány era, but are not as well off as we would like them to be. We want Hungary to become one of Europe’s best countries. A strong, safe and prosperous country which is looked upon in the world with acknowledgement and appreciation. We have a good plan for this. The first step is to be among the first to understand and to appreciate the change in the world order. As a second step, we must be the fastest in adapting to the changed situation. We will be adroit, swift and persevering. As a third step, we will stay out of the policy of war and sanctions, and resist the development of blocs, which is nothing but a new Cold War. As a fourth step, we will open doors and trade, we will build roads, bridges, railway lines, and we will develop airports. We will build an education system that will produce further Nobel laureates. As a fifth step, we will provide support for Hungarian businesses that want to grow and also prove to be successful abroad, we will underpin our traditionally robust industries, and we will invest in entirely new, world-leading sectors. With this we will place Hungary and Budapest back on the world map as a crucial political, economic, cultural and trade point of gravitation. In this region, we will be unavoidable and inescapable again because we will offer the best, and those who cooperate with us will find that they benefit from this arrangement. Our neighbours can rest assured that should they find themselves in trouble, they can always count on the Hungarians. At present, as many as 1,500 schools provide education for the children of families that fled Ukraine, in Petrinja and Topolovac in Croatia we rebuilt the schools that were damaged in the earthquake, we were there during the floods in Slovenia and the hospital fire in Romania, the Hungarians assisted with the vaccination campaign in Slovakia, and even when stocks were in very short supply, we gave our Czech friends hundreds of thousands of vaccines. We need not brag, but this is good for the country's self-esteem.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All our plans are ready, and we are able to implement them. 2024 will be a year of success for Hungary again. The only question is the kind of environment in which we will have to fight for success: where we can expect support from, where we can expect a maintenance of distance, and where can we expect attacks from. On the night of the Polish elections, the film “Kelly’s Heroes” came to mind: “To the left, the British Army, to our rear, our own artillery, and besides all that it’s raining; the good thing about the weather… it keeps our Air Corps from blowing us to Hell… because it’s too lousy to fly.” Well, this is what we should try to avoid. It will not be easy, but neither is it impossible. The good news is that our current dispute with Sweden is moving towards a conclusion. Together with the Swedish prime minister, we have taken important steps in order to rebuild trust. We are on course to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO at the beginning of Parliament’s spring session.
This is all well and good, but the European Union is our natural environment. The thing is, however, that 2023 was a year of failures for the European Union. And this drags us down, pulls us back, it is a deadweight that we must carry. Can we be successful if the West happens to be unsuccessful? This is the million-dollar question. To bring in reinforcements, the Africans say that if you want to lean on a tree, first make sure it can hold your weight. We joined the European Union twenty years ago. By now, we know it well, and it is doubtful whether we can lean on it. This is a strange feeling. In school we are taught that for a thousand years almost exclusively all good things have come from the West. Naturally, when we think about it, we will find that bad things have come, too. The Jacobins, the Nazis – and in fact the communists, too – came from the West. It is true that the latter mowed down poor Hungary arriving on a roundabout route, rather than directly. However, despite the disturbing side incidents, it is true that good things came from the West many times. Even if we had to adjust them, at the end of the day, Christianity, King Matthias’s humanists, the Reform Era and the achievements of dualism all came from the West.
The situation has changed by now. One hardly wants to believe one’s eyes. Now, what we see is that only ever more trouble is coming our way from Brussels. Brussels’ Ukraine strategy has failed spectacularly. Not only on the battlefield where the situation is nothing short of disastrous, but in international politics too. In vain we said that this is a war between two Slavic peoples, and not ours; Brussels threw itself into the conflict head first. We have remained on our own with our pro-peace position, just as with our anti-migration policy earlier. We will be right on the issue of the war, just as we were right on the issue of migration. It is a tragedy that in the meantime hundreds of thousands of people have had to die. Hungary’s position remains unchanged. We will not allow ourselves to be dragged into the war. We will not supply weapons. Even if there are great powers which do not like this. We could even say that Brussels’ crisis management is ingenious in its own way: it is brilliant for America, but not for anyone else. The exertion of pressure has reached a level where ambassadors go to Parliament to check whether the Dollar Left is behaving well. As a way to help, we can tell them that this is not a good tactic. We Hungarians have had enough time to learn how to handle pressure. We are like a good espresso: it takes high pressure to press the best out of us. If the issue in question was not a war, we could even be grateful. Dear Friends, sooner or later people everywhere will realise that everyone is better off if they leave us alone. In diplomacy, this is elegantly referred to as a “tolerance offer”. We patiently wait until it is finally accepted.
Dear Friends,
While we remain out of the war, we are not yet out of deep water. It is an open secret in Brussels that the 50 billion euros intended for Ukraine for a period of four years will not be enough, because this year alone there is a 37-billion-euro hole in the Ukrainian budget. The United States is becoming ever more reluctant, and they are financing Ukraine less and less enthusiastically. An increasingly large part of the burden is falling on a Europe with an ailing economy. The stakes are high, we will all be struck down, and the entire continent could succumb. This is why we are reluctant to take out ever more loans together with the other Member States of the European Union. If you share your purse with others, it will end in tears. If one of them falls, the others will fall with them. We cannot afford this. We must carve this into stone: collective borrowing is no longer an acceptable option for Hungary. Here, too, I ask for the help of the government party groups. And if that was not enough trouble, the new agricultural regulations and the opening of the market to Ukraine have landed the whole of Europe’s agriculture in an impossible situation. Instead of healthy, locally produced foodstuffs, they are dumping artificial meat and poor-quality GMO products on us. In Brussels they talk nonsense, and try to feed us insects. The farmers out there demonstrating with their tractors, too, told me they should feed these trendy Brussels delicacies to people who have two mothers. And this is a polite translation. All the farmers demonstrating throughout Europe want is that mandatory legislation should not be written by climate fanatics running up and down Brussels corridors and crazy armchair scientists. It is a mystery why only the Hungarians seem to be aware that the European Union is responsible for barely 7 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The United States and China combined are responsible for 40 per cent. Why cannot others see that this is a poisoned kiss – except it kills the one who gives it, not the one who receives it? Ladies and Gentlemen, I have bad news about migration, too. According to the chief of the European border and coast guard agency – whose duty it ought to be to protect the borders – “nothing can stop people from crossing a border.” The response of us indigenous people in our vernacular is, “Like Hell!” Even the blind can see that migration is a security risk, and is additionally a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and uproots European societies from their European soil. They themselves enticed migrants in: they sat there in Brussels and Berlin with candy floss in their hands, and then they were surprised when they were swarmed by wasps.
Dear Friends,
There is an unnerving passage in the Bible, asking “when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Slowly, we ourselves could ask this question: If we visit the West in twenty years’ time, will we find Europe there, or something completely different? Western countries have good standards of living, they are rich, they still have money – more money than we have. This covers up the problems for a while. But it is time to face up to the reality that European competitiveness has been enfeebled by war, sanctions and the emergence of rival blocs at global level; and the fatal consequence of this will be the downward slide of the middle class. And then time will be called on democracy. And if the economic woes were not enough, added to this are the political blunders. Instead of an objective process based on merit, enlargement has become a communication vehicle to aid the Ukrainians in immediate political objectives. And meanwhile, because money is needed for Ukraine, Brussels has left the Balkan countries to their own devices. On top of all this, European procedures related to values and. the rule of law were exposed as – and then admitted to be – mere political weapons eagerly used by Brussels to attack those who will not fall into line.
Dear Friends,
To put it briefly, Brussels has abandoned the people of Europe. Never before has the distance between Brussels politics and the interests and will of ordinary Europeans been this large. This is why change is needed in Brussels. As Attila József would say: “It is not I who cry out – it is the earth that thunders.” But this change will not happen by itself: it must be forced into existence. Europe must take back Brussels. Let there at last also be some Europeans among the Brusseleers.
Dear Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The year of 2024 could be a watershed: a “super election” year, when people in Brussels, America, India and a dozen other places will decide what leadership they want in the current of global economic transformation and its crashing ice floes. For Hungary, all that is important from this is that we. are presented with great opportunities. At the end of the year the global political scene will look very different from how it looked at the beginning of this year; and, with God's help, Hungary's room for manoeuvre will not be reduced, but will be expanded to an extent that we have not seen for a long time. We cannot interfere in other countries' elections, but we would very much like to see President Donald Trump return to the White House and make peace here in the eastern. half of Europe. It is time for another “Make America Great Again” presidency in the United States.
We ourselves are preparing for a presidency. I am talking about the Hungarian EU Presidency. Make Europe Great Again! Over there MAGA, over here MEGA. Incidentally, Zoltán Mága [the violinist] if here with us today. So, the revival of greatness in America and Europe, connectivity, hopefully stronger regional cooperation among Slovaks, Austrians, Serbs and Hungarians, and a sovereigntist turn in Brussels: this is what we ask to be put under the Christmas tree at the end of the year. My friends, the bureaucrats in Brussels will not bail Europe out. Real change can be brought about by a new European Right, of which we Hungarians are a part. Down with Brussels, long live Europe! But let's be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater: the new Right should not be an alternative to Europe, but a European alternative. That is how we should – and must – approach the upcoming European elections, and this is how and why we should fight for victory.
Hungary before all else, God above us all! Go Hungary, go Hungarians!