25 February 2013, Budapest

Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen!

The truth is, I thought I would pop in and give you my regards. I didn't think I'd have to say a second welcoming speech; we began the morning with some of you, I think it would be perhaps more correct to say at the unveiling of the new monument at the cemetery plots which have been declared national memorials. To those of you with whom I was able to be together this morning, thank you once again for being there with me. Parliament is also in session today. I don't want to give the impression that it was a difficult decision to decide to come here instead; I am happy to be here with you. There are several reasons for this. The first is that perhaps we owe it to the recently departed Chairman Menczer and to his memory that we should see each other occasionally, because he achieved a wonderful feat of organisation. We all know that without his organisation efforts, the legal institutions and legal solutions with which we today try in some form to acknowledge the strength of character -- let's call it heroism -- with which you and your families endured the years of persecution, would not have come into existence.

Secondly, we are an anti-communist party. It is rare to use this term in modern political nomenclature, because modern political language has become a little wishy-washy and heads of state rarely speak in direct terms with each other, although it would sometimes be a good idea to speak at least as directly as direct and ruthless history itself was. Communism should be called communism, dictatorship dictatorship, and a party that doesn't want communism to return to Hungary or to Europe ever again should be brave enough to call itself and anti-communist party. Every party with a good conscience in Europe today should be anti-communist with a history behind the continent such as we experienced during the sixty years prior to 1990. A respectable European party can nothing but anti-communist. I apologise for the fact that the Constitutional Court was perhaps inconsiderate when it retracted the regulations and act on the banning of the use of totalitarian symbols when in fact the time has not yet come for such action. It is my firm conviction that while the dictatorship is not merely a simple historical memory, but for some a time of suffering that they personally experienced -- and they are here with us today -- then a decision that pretends that the dictatorship, or rather the dictatorships, whose symbols should certainly not be worn in Hungary for a long time to come, and which we should not allow anyone to wear freely, did not happen, is inconsiderate towards you. We don't yet know what the solution will be, but our Parliamentary group is working to develop new regulations that are suitable for maintaining the respect of human dignity.

One of the other reasons I would have liked to be with your for a short time here today and express my regards, is that I think that our fight for the fate of the country is not yet over. There are two schools of thought regarding government. One believes that winning the election means the task has been completed, and occupying the position of governance means that justice has been done. We do not belong to this group. The other school of though, which we belong to, believes that work begins after winning the election, because we have not been entrusted with this mandate to have a good time, but to perform certain responsibilities. We have a calling, we have a mission, and we have a duty to perform. We are doing our utmost to perform these duties, while others are doing their best to perform their own tasks, meaning that they believe the country shouldn't be heading in the direction in which we are currently moving. Life is undoubtedly hard, a European crisis is making our daily lives difficult, however, I believe that we are trying to put the country in order while following the best European traditions, including our national and Christian traditions. Your experiences and everything you have gone through are incorporated in this tradition. From what else could we understand the future, if not from the past? I believe that it is from the lives of our own parents and grandparents that we are able to understand what future we want for ourselves, and what future must never be allowed to come to pass to that history cannot repeat itself. As Péter Boross said this morning, when we were together at the cemetery, the most important thing are these two words: "never again", in other words that a situation in which the nation and its citizens should have to live through such suffering as they had to endure during the second half of the 20th century must never be allowed to happen again.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Sparing you any theatricals and sticking with simple prose, all I would like to say to you is thank you for the support we have received from you so far. Every time that our political community was in need of support, whether with regard to the elections or the difficult period following them, you were always ready to provide it, and for that we are grateful. I would also like to say that you can count on us also. During its operation and when formulating decisions the administration takes into account the criteria that in Parliament Zsóka*** , and which in general the leaders of your organisations share with us. I would like to therefore say that just as we could count on your support in recent years, so you too may count on us, on the Government on Hungary in the future. This is a day on which you should be spoken to in a tone of respect and with the spirit of tribute. I would like to do this now. I would like once again, with these few sentences I have just spoken and without any theatricals, to express my acknowledgment of, my sympathy with and my huge appreciation for your steadfastness.

May God keep you in good health for many years to come! Thank you for your support, and I hope we will have the opportunity to meet here again, with this same group of friends, in the future. God bless you all!

*The Organisation of Former Hungarian Prisoners and Forced Labourers in the Soviet Union / Organisation of Gulag Survivors

**The Hungarian Association of Political Prisoners

***Fidesz MP Erzsébet Menczer, President of SZORAKÉSZ

(Prime Minister’s Office)