Viktor Orbán: Our Decision is to Avoid Changing the Cultural or Ethnic Composition of Our Homeland

The following video shows excerpts from remarks made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at a news conference following the latest EU summit on March 10.

As always, Mr. Orbán is calm, reasonable, intelligent, and humane in what he has to say. Despite that — or maybe because of it — he stands out among all other Western political leaders. He simply says in his matter-of-fact way that it is his duty to protect and preserve the people and culture of Hungary, and he refuses to back down from it.

Many thanks to CrossWare for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

00:00   …there was a two-day summit for the prime ministers
00:04   of the European Union …
00:08   You might have already received a brief called “Conclusions”;
00:12   if not, you will be getting it very soon.
00:16   … By my own logic,
00:20   we had three big questions,
00:24   we exchanged ideas and made some decisions.
00:28   And the first one was the election of
00:32   the President of European Council.
00:36   The second that I had to solve
00:40   concerned the latest migration-related
00:44   decisions at home — I had to make
00:48   the leaders of the member states accept them.
00:52   And the third one was to discuss
00:56   the future of Europe based on the circumstance that
01:00   soon it will be 60 years ago, exactly to the day,
01:04   when we signed the Treaty of Rome, and for that we will have a Summit in Rome,
01:08   where we would like to bring a message to the voting citizens,
01:12   bring a message, a European program for them.
01:16   So the formulation of an appropriate text was the task.
01:20   The basic pillars of the document about the future of the European Union
01:24   we tried to define today…
01:28   As for the case of President of the European Council,
01:32   We elected Donald Tusk again.
01:36  
01:40   For Hungary this decision was about Europe, the viability of the EU,
01:44   and NOT about one or another member state.
01:48   We must acknowledge that European
01:52   politics is based on a party system.
01:56   The Hungarian government’s party is a member of the European People’s Party,
02:00   and there was only one candidate who belonged to that party.
02:04   so I could not keep my promise I made to
02:08   President Kaczyński, because …
02:12   the candidate of the Polish government quit the party
02:16   just before the session — my friend, Saryusz Wolski — so
02:20   there was only a single candidate left there for the European People’s Party.
02:24   As this situation emerged, I notified the Polish
02:28   prime minister in a letter
02:32   a couple of days before the Summit in Brussels.
02:36   So it was not a surprise for them…
02:40   But the situation was tense at this point on the agenda,
02:44   so I believe we will need composure in the next period.
02:48   What we could — we have done everything we could
02:52   to achieve a reasonable compromise, but in personnel-related issues
02:56   it is very difficult to make compromises, especially reasonable ones.
03:00   I would like to note that this was a battle we could not have won,
03:04   from the Polish standpoint, so we must acquiesce
03:08   in the results. Even though there is a member state,
03:12   Poland, for whom this result is not acceptable.
03:16   …It is important from the perspective of
03:20   Polish-Hungarian relations to underline
03:24   that this will not change the Polish-Hungarian alliance;
03:28   we will continue to stand strongly at Poland’s side
03:32   in every case when inequitable attacks are directed at Poland —
03:36   we have many of those in the European Union.
03:40   With the exception of this personnel-related question, Poland can expect Hungarian solidarity.
03:44   This disagreement can’t be used against any of the member states,
03:48   so Poland deserves the same respect and equal treatment in the future.
03:52   …Otherwise
03:56   our esteem for Poland
04:00   and our friendly emotions towards President Kaczyński are unchanged.
04:04   This is all I can say about this personnel decision to you.
04:08   Concerning the migration discussion,
04:12   …I could sum up the results
04:16   this way: that the prime ministers of the member states did not
04:20   raise concerns and did not protest when I described the new
04:24   Hungarian legislation, while underlining to them
04:28   that the content of this legislation lines up with
04:32   those requirements that were brought up by the Germans and the Austrians;
04:36   that is, they should not receive anyone from Hungarian territory
04:40   — not even with legal loopholes and trickery —
04:44   nobody should arrive into German or Austrian soil
04:48   whose case was not sorted out and determined in Hungary.
04:52   The creation of these conditions is now complete.
04:56   They cannot enter Hungarian soil, so they cannot move freely,
05:00   those persons whose identification,
05:04   reason to enter, purpose of travel are not examined,
05:08   and we have not yet made a decision about whether to let them
05:12   enter Hungary, and with that into Europe.
05:16   They will stay in custody.
05:20   In the legal expression “custody”, it is very important to make a distinction from “confinement”,
05:24   because from confinement nobody can leave,
05:28   but from this police custody of aliens, they can: out of Hungary.
05:32   So they cannot enter into the territory of the EU,
05:36   But they are not arrested. If someone thinks they do not wish
05:40   wait in this transit-zone until the process of his case is concluded, they may leave
05:44   in the direction of Serbia. We are not locking up anybody anywhere! But they cannot enter
05:48   the territory of Hungary. Anybody who has a trouble imagining what that look like
05:52   should take the airports as an analogy. As in the airports,
05:56   the transit zone is what this legal solution resembles.
06:00   And this is what we will apply at the Hungarian border.
06:04   I count it as a success that the leaders of the member states understood; they did not protest
06:08   our new legal processes. They understood why we are doing it. What will happen with the bureaucrats
06:12   in Brussels is a very different question. Here in Brussels are not only
06:15   member states’ officials, but bureaucrats, thousands of them,
06:20   and usually those are the ones who have all kinds of excuses and complaints,
06:24   and they have power and authority, which they use to force Hungary
06:28   to change our decision when they do not like something.
06:32   This battle still ahead of us, but I feel,
06:36   based on my experiences on this summit, that we will have some good chances
06:40   in this fight too.
06:44   About the future of Europe, admittedly
06:48   a hard — or more precisely — exciting
06:52   time awaits us when we get to the 60th anniversary
06:56   of the Treaty of Rome. Because no smaller
07:00   task awaits us than to define what the place of Europe is in the “New World Order”
07:04   after the British — or more precisely —
07:08   Great Britain left the European Union.
07:12   What that means to us from the point of view of security and foreign policy,
07:16   what kind of economic consequences we will experience… All of this needs to
07:20   to be discussed frequently, and I suggested that
07:24   we should have an optimistic point of view. First of all,
07:28   we should make clear that despite our difficulties, Europe is still the best
07:32   place on Earth to live in. So at all events,
07:36   so we let’s place some emphasis on what we have achieved; European culture,
07:40   the European civilization and economy after the Second World War
07:44   reached unprecedented heights,
07:48   and if today we look at where one could live with the highest chance of happiness,
07:52   and settle down, then Europe has a great chance to be the
07:56   first place of choice. We should not omit this fact, and make it clear:
08:00   the target for the next couple of years to preserve that position.
08:04   I also proposed that concerning the rights of the member states,
08:08   simple and clear texts should be created.
08:12   So there will be none of that stealth withdrawal of powers,
08:16   no constitutional or any other modification to the Basic Treaty could happen;
08:20   the document we will accept there shall not infringe on the member states in any way.
08:24   Let’s make it clear: we do not want to step back
08:28   and destroy everything we have built so far. The Benelux states made another proposal,
08:32   in parallel with the Visegrad Four — well, careful reading that
08:36   brings up some suspicions that the paper and the intentions of the Benelux states are
08:40   directed at moving things backward. This is something which must be
08:44   discussed, and for that we will have a Benelux vs. Visegrad Four
08:48   Summit; we decided that, somewhere at the beginning of the summer.
08:52   Still under the Polish Presidency [of the V4].
08:56   … About “multi-speed” Europe,
09:00   we tried to skirt the issue. For Hungary the equality of rights
09:04   is a very important question, but we also do not want
09:08   to look like a dysfunctional family, where
09:12   there’s a dilemma in front of the family that either everyone
09:16   goes hiking or everyone stays at home. So this version
09:20   we do not want. Living in such a “family” is not promising, nor
09:24   and attractive. If some wants to go “hiking” it’s fine;
09:28   our home stays the same, so we should not force each other to do things we
09:32   do not want to — even though the common rules of “living together” must be observed by everyone.
09:36   So the Hungarian position about two-speed Europe cannot be
09:40   created. So there is no such thing as primary and secondary,
09:44   there is no core and periphery, so this whole two-speed thing is
09:48   one of the most antipathetic thing to us; but at the same time,
09:52   using the tools of strengthened cooperation, we are not against the notion
09:56   that different countries in specific cases would go ahead and
10:00   get further ahead than others. There are successful Central European examples for this,
10:04   which we quoted on the discussions about
10:08   the case of patent rights,
10:12   where most Central European nations joined, while some Western ones
10:16   did not join. Or the question of the European Prosecutor’s Office, where
10:20   some Western and Central European countries did not join, while others
10:24   want to create such an office,
10:28   the institution of the European Prosecutor’s Office. So let’s leave one another to go
10:32   ahead following their interests within some reasonable range.
10:36   So they could progress at their own pace. So if someone wants to go hiking,
10:40   they can go hiking; if someone wants to stay home, they could stay home, too.
10:44   But by and large this was not the issue that caused the most difficulties for Hungary,
10:48   in the document about the future, but the question of migration.
10:52   Unfortunately, once again came into the dilemma
10:56   surfaced that is behind the whole migration issue.
11:00   For the writers of the proposal and the people behind the motion,
11:04   many countries’ approach about migration is contained in the following phrase:
11:08   that “it should be managed humanely and correctly”.
11:12   Our point of view is to resist the migration pressure.
11:16   And these are two totally different philosophies.
11:20   Our intention is not to bring the migrants in an orderly manner into Europe;
11:24   our intention is not to bring migrants into Europe AT ALL. Or, if someone brings them
11:28   into Europe, then they should not try to send them over to us.
11:32   This is a very clear position and I had to use some very definite language to explain it.
11:36   I proposed that we either do not include anything in this document, or
11:40   concerning the question of migration, we could elegantly put this issue in brackets,
11:44   or if that can’t be done, then our point of view is explicit
11:48   that there are countries that do not wish to
11:52   receive migrants, and they wish to resist the migration pressure.
11:56   That their decision is not whether to handle it “humanely”, but to
12:00   avoid changing the cultural or ethnic composition of their homeland.
12:04   That was perhaps the most controversial argument there.
 

9 thoughts on “Viktor Orbán: Our Decision is to Avoid Changing the Cultural or Ethnic Composition of Our Homeland

  1. Well, that is well and good, but I am hearing from Czechia that rich Arabs are slyly buying up whole streets of houses and adjacent village land, in a certain town (Teplice). Apparently this is a spa town that Arab tourists have frequented for some time. How do you cope with that, Mr. Orban? Unless you ban foreign land ownership, I don’t think you can. And I am pretty sure EU would not allow banning foreign land ownership.

    Greece used to ban it, but that was way back when, when Greece was still its own country. There were ways around it, but they were pretty arduous, and if you were challenged in the courts, you’d probably lose as a foreigner.

    • You don’t have to give residence rights to people who buy houses. It is also possible to impose punitive taxes on foreign owners.

    • I know in Hungary there is a law preventing to sell agricultural land to foreigners. I am not sure about buildings though.
      At this moment a couple of rich arab could not change the homogeneity of a society and they would have to tolerate the local kafirs. The rich arabic buyout happened decades ago in the west and what you see now: those rich arabs are trying to import the rest of their gang into the new land they want to conquer, with the help of the EU treacherous leaders, because after all what it worth being rich when you do not have an adoring mass to rule over?!

      • Y’all forget they bought the political leaders and the police and judges and just about everybody in the good ol’ boys’ network. They got more money than anybody. That sort of arrangement is simply unsustainable. And here I have to add that capitalism as we know it feeds this sort of thing. It needs an upgrade. And then we need alternatives to oil.

        • “And then we need alternatives to oil.”

          Sorry. You’re absolutely wrong on that.

          We are already energy-independent, for all practical purposes. Fracking and other technologies that allow almost unlimited domestic energy production have eliminated our dependency on Saudi Arabia and other oil states.

          The only response by the globalists to our current energy independence was obstruction. The Obama administration, predictably anti-American, held up the Keystone pipeline, tried to regulate coal out of existence, hampered offshore drilling, took vast areas of land out of exploration, and was ramping up to cut off fracking, a most productive means of oil recovery.

          The danger of the Arab oil states is not that they have any strategic hold over us concerning oil: they do not. The danger is the oceans of money they still have to bribe our politicians and bureaucrats, and the vast treasury notes they hold. In other words, the big danger is the inability of the US government to live within its means.

  2. Again, thank you CrossWare for your superb job of translation.

    My impression is that Orban, either sincerely, or as a strategy to avoid unnecessary conflict, is still beholden to the idea of Europe acting as a whole in limited areas. For instance, the idea of a European Prosecutor is obviously a path to bringing charges against officials who resist the EU bureaucracy, and should be rejected out of hand. But, again, I don’t know if Orban is simply being strategic, as the leader of a relatively small and vulnerable country, or if he, with an understanding of all the abuses, still holds to the idea that Europe can act in concert on some issues.

    Again, Orban talks about the opt-out for member states if they disagree with the EU bureaucracy in Brussels. But, as we see in the US, the concept of states rights has constantly eroded to the point that federal legislation takes total precedence over state legislation, regardless of the Constitutional provision that states hold all the powers not specifically granted by the Constitution to the federal government.

    Trump thankfully pulled the US out of the TPP. He did it on the grounds that it was a bad deal. The really evil part of the TPP, though, was that it contained mandatory provisions for arbitration that was a path to regulation that did not go through the US Congress. In other words, it was a surrender of national sovereignty. Hungary has to be careful in rejecting such a deal out of hand. The US does not.

    It’s disconcerting how close the US came to total annihilation. Obama would have been more than happy to run for a third term, and would have won. That would have been the end of us as a coherent nation. Hillary was Obama’s surrogate, but was too incompetent to pull it off.

    I believe the deep state, or the shadow government, however you wish to term it, intended that Jeb Bush would win the Republican nomination and then the Presidency. His policies would not have been substantially different from Obama’s or Hillary’s but it would at least have given the appearance of a two-party election. By the time it was apparent Trump would win, the Democratic choice was between Hillary and Sanders.

    But, my point is, even if Trump maintains course, and wins a second term, what happens at the end of his Presidency? If the trends continue, NATO will be used as the enforcement arm of the EU bureaucracy, the European Prosecutor will be used to charge maverick leaders like Orban, the UN will take on unelected legislative powers, and INTERPOL will issue warrants for government officials who maintain the right of national sovereignty.

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