The European Union needs work-based societies to be able to compete with China or the United States, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in Marseille on Thursday.

Viktor Orban said at a congress of the European People's Party that the EU's employment rate was just 65 percent compared to China's 85 percent."Instead of a welfare society, we need a work-based one," he said.

The prime minister cautioned the EU not make changes to its basic treaty since this would involve lengthy debates for which there was no time. A quick solution is needed, he said. He added, however, that the problems of the euro zone should be fixed within the single-currency bloc. Viktor Orban gave warning that the response to the euro crisis should not end up fragmenting the 27 EU members.

He said the euro was still attractive for countries outside the currency bloc.Viktor Orban said politics should not be held hostage to the logic of business and the markets, adding that business and politics were two separate things and it was not necessarily the case that a good businessman made a good politician.

(MTI)