Good morning.
Honourable Presidents, Vice Presidents, Mr. Director, Dear Students, Educators and Parents, Dear Friends,
I’m glad to see you again, after another year. I look forward to this day every year. I look forward to it because meeting you gives me encouragement and affirmation. As you can see, I am not exactly your age. At my age, one is more interested in whether there will be someone to carry on what one has started. You were mostly in kindergarten or elementary school back then, so you can hardly remember when in 2010 a national government was formed and we opened the era of national politics that is still in progress today. Back then Hungary was more like a bankruptcy estate. The consensus was that you could not make a living from work, so millions of people in Hungary were living on benefits, scraping by, skirting the rules, or looking for some kind of job in the state sector. Most youngsters would try to get into a selective high school so that they could go on to higher education, and many of them trusted in a piece of paper more than in their own knowledge, hard work and willpower. Such a country has no future, such a country is doomed to terminal decline – and, sooner or later, to death. Our generation refused to accept this. We would not resign ourselves to our children and grandchildren growing up in a hopeless, floundering country unable to stand on its own feet. This is why we turned the country’s fortunes around.
Perhaps not all of you are aware of this, but you should be proud of your parents, who worked hard to pull Hungary out of bankruptcy, get it back on its feet, and restore its self-confidence. It is thanks to them that you are now students and young adults in a country full of hope and justified optimism. It is thanks to them that one million more people are in work today than were in work fifteen years ago, and that to make a secure living you do not have to beg for a state sector job. Maybe your parents do not tell you this, because Hungarians are inherently modest, boasting is not their style, and even the modern fads of Facebook and commenting on social media cannot change that. Moderation and quiet seriousness: these are still the characteristics of the majority of Hungarians. So, even if your parents will not tell you, I will tell you that it is thanks to them that work has regained its honoured status, and that once more the majority of young people want to have a secure specialist skill in their hands. It is thanks to them that in Hungary we have built the most modern vocational training system, with 140 billion forints worth of improvements to apprenticeship training places, classrooms, new buildings and machinery. It is thanks to them that there is the apprenticeship scholarship scheme, workers’ credit and tax exemption for the under-25s. It is thanks to them that a good carpenter can now take home 800,000 forints a month, that a good electrician can earn up to one million a month, and that you will earn even more if you learn your trade well and are hard-working enough. It is thanks to your parents that in Hungary the future once more belongs to the trades. In short, be proud of your parents!
And when I come here every year to see you, I see that we were not mistaken, that we were right to think that if there is work, there is everything. If there is work, there will be young people who want to work. I am sure that today’s young people – you, like us – do not want phony lives, do not want sham jobs, do not want to live off their parents’ money when they already have adult mindsets, but want meaningful lives of their own, with valuable knowledge, serious challenges and success. This is because you are capable of it, and because you want to be capable of it. This is what I feel here every year, looking down on the rows of seats and seeing that the country will be in good hands.
Dear Students, Dear Competitors,
In the future a country can only succeed if it values talented people who are highly skilled in their professions. The good news is that Hungary is such a country. Our country is not only beautiful, not only homelike, and not only placid, but when necessary also tough, fierce, and even heroic. It always has been, and it always will be. It stands up for itself, and does not run away; it does not hide, and it does what it has to do. The Hunyadi bloodline will not be disowned. All around us we see rapid changes and looming dangers. We Hungarians must stand our ground – not only individually, but also together, collectively, as a nation. You can see what is happening around us: an actual bloody war in a neighbouring country, tariff wars across the world, tides of mass migration at our borders, energy poverty in the once-rich Western countries, climate change in the natural world, and preparations for war in the salons of Brussels.
Young People,
We have our own good scenario for Hungary’s future, but the worst-case scenarios are also on the table. We live in an age of dangers, and on the difficult questions we must make our own decisions. You may have heard that a vote is taking place now on Ukraine’s membership of the European Union. This issue will decide what your next twenty years will be like: your most active, most productive, most promising twenty years. If we want Hungary to be migrant-free in the future, if we do not want to be saddled with millions of Ukrainian workers taking your jobs and pushing down your pay, then do not let others decide the matter for you over your heads. Those of you who can participate, make the decision yourselves!
Dear Students and Teachers,
Thank you for your work. Congratulations to your teachers. Congratulations to them for teaching you how to be masters of your professions. I thank your parents for raising you to be capable young people, and not good-for-nothings. Now it is your turn to show what you can do, so that everyone can see that the Hungarians have arrived. I wish you every success!
God above us all, Hungary before all else! Go Hungary, go Hungarians!