“Corruption and Other Threats to Democracy”
Ulaanbaatar, 29 April 2013

The Community is becoming a real international organization of the 21st century: unlike all others this is the one that de facto has been created in the 21st century, has been designed to be able to cope with the challenges and dangers of this new era. Therefore, the organization is especially valuable: it addresses the most relevant issues of the new century and we all agree its importance is rapidly growing.

I would like to thank the outgoing (Mongolian) Presidency and welcome the incoming Presidency (El Salvador) as well as express our sincere gratitude to the Secretary General, Ambassador Maria Leissner.

The race is on in the world, and the race is about efficiency and sustainability. Great powers, smaller states and alliances covering half of the globe take part in the race. They all try to provide the most efficient rise to their nation and wellbeing to their people, and try to stimulate local or attract foreign investors with the most promising conditions for turnover and success.

Who is able to keep up development in the long run, that is build a more sustainable, a more stable society, and keep up its attractive and role model feature for the rest of the world: democracies or the others? That is at stake today.

Efficiency does not only mean more money and consequently higher level defence and military technique but also developing the perspectives of life, the standards of life, which also generates a gathering soft power. In this race, democracies found strong challengers among the group of “those others”.

The best thing we can do now is to focus on the economic and social weak points of democracies and follow them closely, and keep a critical eye on those. Because if we discover the self-destructive processes and catch them in time – or any time: better later than never – and turn them back by democratic means, then we might set them off on a good trail again.

To make democracies successful and sustainable they need to use their social reserves wisely, and they need to support other democracies and cooperate with them in this field. If we want democracies to keep up the pace in the efficiency-sustainability race folding out now, then democracies must show solidarity with each other in these aspects first of all.

Very important means of this solidarity is the new generation of free trade zones linking different democracies of the world. These free trade zones do not only break down the customs but also or rather they connect markets by harmonizing their regulations. Such zones are, for example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the dream of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Such are the existing or prepared free trade agreements between Europe and Asian democracies.

It must be clear that when we are working on that it reaches over the border of self-interest, and we are preparing a better world as well. Because we believe that the world is better if it is democratic and based on free trade market.

That is why our responsibility is great when we gather democracies in such free trade zones! It is not enough to forge free trade zones: we must do it well. We need to create agreements which are democratic inside as well, meaning every member can promote her own needs in the right direction. Good free trade agreements make each partaking democracy more competitive, more efficient and more sustainable.

Corruption is the opposite of efficiency and democracy at the same time. It is the opposite of efficiency because it is expensive since it makes the economy incalculable. It is the opposite of democracy because conditions are not equal and gives uncontrolled power to persons who are not controlled and authorized by the people. Thus, it undermines legitimacy. Corruption is extremely expensive – it’s the way to poverty.

The other field where unity should be present is minimizing social costs of development and crisis management. If one does not want to fall out of the car race he or she has to take it into account how much his/her car consumes in one loop. The reconciliation between different communities is a vital question.

Hungary has been and will be very active in the Community of Democracies: the Working Group chaired by Hungary elaborated the most successful program of the Community, the Democracy Partnership Challenge program and we actively participate in the implementation process in Moldova by chairing the Security Sector Working Group – also putting up some money to implement the projects within this working group.

We are also actively working in Burma, recognizing that the situation in Burma today and for some time in the future, when the Parliament elected by the old regime’s rules and at the same time also having some freely elected representatives of the democratic opposition, works on the transition – exactly as it happened in Hungary the years before 1990. As a first step, we will receive a delegation of members of the Parliament of Burma to introduce them to this remarkable Hungarian experience and discuss with them what will be the best form of cooperation to support their efforts to bring democratic transition forward in a peaceful way.

To ensure this is primarily the responsibility of the people themselves. Freedom and democracy cannot be established let alone imposed from the outside. But we can do a lot to help in the difficult process of establishing and maintaining democracy, especially on the case of countries that have made the difficult, but wonderful experience of democratic transition recently. It is in this spirit that we concentrate our efforts on supporting transition countries during their journey towards freedom and democracy and it is why we wholeheartedly support the Community of Democracies as an important platform to develop, coordinate and carry out these efforts.

(Prime Minister’s Office)