20 January 2014, Budapest
Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen!
I had no doubt that I would be honoured to accept this kind invitation, but I had to think hard about what exactly I should do here, in view of the fact that I must speak to you today under very special circumstances. There is an actuality that makes this situation rather special, and that is that the President of the Republic, who if I am not mistaken you have already had the opportunity to meet, announced the date for the upcoming parliamentary elections over the weekend, and accordingly no matter how much I would like to speak in an unbiased, objective and dispassionate manner about the state of affairs in Hungary, it is highly doubtful that, with such a date looming before us, this is possible. At the same time, this is what I must attempt to do, because the people gathered here today are not political activists. You are not political activists but, simply in view of your history and profession, are more interested in what lies behind all that is happening in Hungary. Because in all probability, practically all of you know very well what is happening, since you accepted this invitation and through modern technology have been able to follow and most probably have been following from home during the past months what has been happening in Hungary. It is quite possible that you are more knowledgeable with regard to the string of events than most Hungarian voters. And so if you have any reasonable expectation of me here today, it is that I tell you about the driving forces and organisational principles that lie behind these events. I will do my best to fulfil these expectations, with the forewarning that Chairman Szilveszter E. Vizi, the former Chairman of the Academy and the current Chairman of this association that is, has asked that under no circumstances should I speak for more than half an hour. This is possible. But I should certainly not speak for half an hour in a fashion that does not provide an opportunity for discussion, but such that, after a short break, as is usual in scientific, learned and thinking circles, there is also an opportunity for an exchange of views.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Before embarking on what I would like to say, please allow me to first respectfully greet you, and through you the employees, directors and organisers of the Friends of Hungary Foundation, and in addition to greeting you to express my thanks to you for being here tonight and for organising this network, which I hope will contribute to furthering the reputation of Hungary around the world. It is an old saying that one inherits one's relatives, but you have to find your friends and enemies yourself. And if one thinks about it, it is only a small step from here to accept the truth of the fact that people generally choose their friends and gain their enemies according to who they are and how they view themselves. This is what gives truth to the saying that you can recognise a bird from its feathers and a person from his friends. And if I look around, then if truth be told, and I'm sure it is true, that the name of this group or association is the Friends of Hungary Foundation, then this is a place where one is happy to preen one's feathers.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our goal, therefore, is then to acquire new friends for Hungary and retain our old ones. To this end, however, we must occasionally look into the mirror to find out what we are like, who we actually are. Because, as I have said, that gives a prior indication as to who our friends will be, and who our critics will be. If we gather our information from the opinions of outside observers, which is not difficult in view of the fact that this issue, meaning what foreigners think of us, has a wide selection of literature, then we see that outside observers, whether they think good or bad things about us, all agree that we are a particularly unusual people. All peoples are generally unusual, every nation is unique, but the Hungarians are somehow especially unusual and even more unique. Which obviously stems from the fact that we speak a unique language, and if there is a connection between language and mind-set, I am sure there are scientists who research this topic, and as far as I am aware the official standpoint is that such a correlation exists, so if there is a connection between language and mindset, then if our language is unique, our mind-set is undoubtedly also unique. We invent unusual things and people practically everywhere say that we have an almost fateful relationship to freedom and sovereignty. The German Chancellor Bismarck said concisely and succinctly, and I quote: "The Hungarians are an unusual people, but I like them". Then, I still remember, in 2001 when I first served as prime minister, I was very interested in an article by a Dutch journalist who wrote something along the lines of: Hungary is like the Martians have landed on Earth, referring to the Hungarians' mathematics skills and computing talent. Or there is Victor Hugo, who said that Hungary is a nation of heroes. And then there are several who in contrast say that the Hungarian character is in fact haughty, often pompous; not revolutionary, but rather rebellious. And then there is the opinion, which is I think the latest important opinion regarding the nature of the Hungarians, and which Roger Scruton mentioned during a lecture at the Academy or said about us in one of his subsequent interviews. I shall try to be accurate, he is a philosopher, and so speaks in a rather convoluted manner, he said that we Hungarians are best characterised by a lack of peaceful disagreement, and this is especially true if one looks at politics.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
And so let us see what has been happening in Hungary! People often use the antonyms solidarity and dissent when describing historical developments in Hungary and Hungarian politics. This is a timely approach in view of the fact that the political community currently in government achieved a two-thirds majority at the last parliamentary elections and we have made many decisions, including the new Constitution, which have attempted to provide suitable solutions in this period of economic crisis by exploiting this solidarity. Of course, the use of such antonyms is by definition a generalisation, which doesn't count as a commendable intellectual manoeuvre at the moment. This is not something we relate to at this time, but for the sake of simplicity it is nevertheless worth describing everything that is happening in Hungary today along the lines of solidarity and dissent, national unity and divergence.
There are many who say that the current political phase – let us call it; if we were to say political era that would be false modesty and would perhaps paint too optimistic a picture of our hopes for the upcoming period, so let is stick with saying in this political phase or period of political practice – did not begin in 2010, but in 2008. Except that very few people remember this. And in any case, political memory, and especially the memory of political journalists, is extremely limited in Hungary. So, the first and perhaps decisive step in today's political developments occurred in 2008, when there was a referendum in Hungary. I'm sure there are those of you who still remember. And the referendum was called with relation to questions that were extremely dubious, because it included questions on economic issues and questions on issues of social organisation such as doctor's visit fees, daily hospital fees, and issues relating to higher education and university tuition fees. And at the time, in view of the fact that in Hungary the difference in opinion between the political elites never managed to validly decide the issue one way or another when a referendum was called, many were also very pessimistic in this regard in 2008, about whether there was any point in calling a referendum on such issues, because half of the political elite claimed one thing, while the other half claimed the exact opposite. And very many people were surprised by the result; that the referendum was clearly and unequivocally valid, and the direction in which political decision-makers were able to make future decisions was clearly defined. And so already in 2008 it could be felt that the most important political issue of the upcoming period would be whether we would succeed in finding the political instruments to enable the cooperation, consensus and solidarity, which we had seen develop with regard to fundamental issues during the referendum, to be maintained and reinforced. The Hungarian electoral system – there was a different system in force in 2010 than the one which will provide the framework for the elections on 6 April – was created with the expressed intention, and I was there when we forged the related paragraphs, of not allowing the main political power to swing in either direction, meaning it included several checks and balances that practically excluded the possibility of any party achieving a two-thirds parliamentary majority under normal circumstances. However, the financial collapse of 2008, the subsequent referendum and the errors made prior to that time, and let us not include our achievements among the causes, that would not be right, together resulted in a state of affairs in Hungary that enabled the birth of a two-thirds parliamentary majority despite electoral regulations that were expressly designed to prevent an affiliation in excess of 50%. This shows very clearly the extent of the elemental popular demand that existed in Hungary – and this is perhaps understandable two years after the financial collapse – for a strong leadership and in general for a sound political leadership.
At this point we usually disregard an important fact, and that isn't right; the 2010 parliamentary elections occurred in the shadow of a financial collapse, after all. We do not speak of it often enough, but to understand the events, including the events that are happening today, it is important to know that Greece was not the first country to collapse financially. The first country was Hungary, in 2008. The only reason this did not receive huge public attention is because Hungary is not part of the eurozone, and so the Hungarian financial collapse did not endanger the other member states of the eurozone, in contrast to the events in Greece, to carry on spreading like a virus and possibly cause financial difficulties elsewhere. But nevertheless, the fact remains that the first collapse of the global or Western European economic crisis, the first collapse that came about as a result of the crisis occurred and was first observed here in Hungary. I am sure you remember that Hungary's political leadership was generally unable to provide the country's voters with reassuring answers during the period of the financial collapse. We, or rather those who exercised power over the country at the time, were only able to conjure up one reflex, and that was the reflex of asking for outside assistance. For what people generally refer to as an IMF loan. And at the 2010 elections there could be felt a psychological element, according to which people expected the country's leaders to cope with the crisis in a way that did not rely on outside assistance, but instead rallies the country's internal strength and which, through reorganising these internal strengths, is capable of providing a solution to the crisis which enable Hungary to retain its financial independence.
This made it quite clear that there would be great changes in Hungary, because those political forces whose expertise, and it is not an unimportant field of expertise, but a major one, lay in knowing how to rely on outside financial assistance continuously in times of trouble, and often also when there was no trouble at all, and then to integrate these into the Hungarian system, draw down these funds and survive the challenges they happened to be facing with outside help, well, this expertise lost much of its value in Hungary following the 2010 elections. And the value of the expertise of the kind of leadership who claimed, and I too was one, who claimed that through the reorganisation of the country's internal resources it is possible, even in the midst of a general economic crisis in Western Europe, to bring Hungary into a state whereby it can compete with the other countries of the world during the upcoming historical era, meaning the next ten to twenty years, increased. This of course required that Hungary have a leadership with a different culture and way of thinking, than it had had during the previous eight years. There may be an adage within Fidesz, that complimenting ourselves is a task of such importance that we should not leave it to others, but if you will forgive me I shall not apply this principle now, because how would it look if I were to begin reading out the long list of great successes we have managed in achieving in the spirit of what I have just said. But please do allow me to mention a few things, just so we acquire a rough picture.
Hungary did after all succeed in overcoming the largest flood of the century thanks to the solidarity that came about in 2010; we have after all succeeded in kick-starting the economy and economic growth. The situation is, after all, that foreign analysts are expecting even better economic performance than we have forecast ourselves. And it is true, after all, that a quarter of a million, 250 thousand more people are working now than were employed in 2010 before the new government took office. And it is important after all, if for nothing else, then certainly for our self esteem, that the number of people in employment has once again reached and exceeded four million, something which was last the case in Hungary at the end of 1991 and in early 1992. Everyone here, although political economy may not be their area of expertise, is I am sure aware of the fundamental economic relationships and so will understand the numbers I am about to mention. In 2010, the situation was that some ten million people lived here in Hungary, of whom three million six-hundred and eighty thousand worked and one million eight-hundred thousand paid taxes. And so, in 2010, we were a country that was attempting to maintain a way of life, a European way of life, for ten million people in Hungary with only one million eight-hundred thousand taxpayers, which is impossible mathematically, an economic absurdity, and can only lead to collapse, as we indeed observed in 2010. And in addition to employment data, it is also important to note, and I am sure that you all remember the Hungary of the seventies and eighties, when the greatest complaint was always that prices were continuously rising, hey presto, Hungary is now a country in which you almost need a microscope to find inflation, without there of course being any danger of deflation within the economy. I am not the competent person to tell you how this was possible, but it could instead be the subject of a lecture by the Minister for National Economy and the Governor of the national bank.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If you will allow me, I would now like to say a few words about the apropos for today's gathering. When I speak about the national strategy, because without having called it by name I have been speaking about the national strategy all along, there is a circumstance that we must take very seriously and to which we must give the greatest possible weight with regard to the future of our community. And this is the problem of fragmentation and dissemination; fragmentation within the Carpathian Basin and dissemination around the world, which we understandably view as a tragedy and a huge loss. We are now trying, and we have even found a suitable linguistic form for it, to see how it would be possible to gain something from this situation, given the current state of affairs. Is it possible? And if so, how can we put our global dissemination to our advantage? We have begun using the term global nation to describe this state of affairs. We are not sure if this term makes sense, but perhaps we have a chance to fill it with meaning. The Hungarians are, after all, a nation with some two-million six-hundred and fifty-four thousand two-hundred and ten bridgeheads around the globe, according to statistics. Because according to our records there are two-million six-hundred and fifty-four thousand two-hundred and ten people, or rather our records include this many people, who do not live in the Carpathian Basin today, but who, as expatriates let us say, live outside it as citizens of Hungarian descent. And if we could make the routes that lead to these people accessible, and somehow create a working network out of them using the instruments of modern technology and science, then perhaps the term global nation could truly make sense. One of the most important tasks of this Foundation, association or group, could be to make these routes accessible.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Getting back to the subject of solidarity, I must tell you that today, if I search for principles, pillars, foundations or driving forces behind certain political decisions, then in my opinion there are four basic pillars on which there is consensus in Hungary. There is consensus among the vast majority of voters and, although this political system is based on a principle of competition and so we should not really admit this, I believe there is also consensus on these among politicians. These four pillars are as follows. They did not exist before, and I believe they are all the result of the past three-and-a-half to four years, and if we calculate from 2008 then of the past six years, of political effort. The first pillar of consensus in our view is the principle of the system of national cooperation according to which people who are capable of working should make a living from work rather than living off benefits. This logic includes the fact that the consensus expects the Hungarian Government to find the instruments that enable people who are capable of working to make a living from work. People are not interested in the fact that apparently one modern theory of economics states that a system in which every person who is capable of working makes a living from work and nobody is unemployed does not exist. I think it is worth challenging this theory. I believe that there can exist a system in which the level of unemployment is so low that people only find themselves outside the world of employment temporarily and have a continuous chance of finding employment again. A Dutch kind of system with 3-4% unemployment is close to what we could call full employment, meaning a system in which everyone who is capable of working and who wants to has the opportunity to make a living from work rather than from benefits. In Hungary, the fact that the economic system should operate like this is the first pillar of consensus.
The second pillar of consensus that has been established in my view is that those who base their lives on debt can never be truly free. And accordingly debt, and especially public debt or government debt, and debt that is in excess of rational levels, should be regarded as a public enemy and should be fought against. This is not easy to achieve. I am sure that you are aware that the Hungarian Government has assumed the debts of all of the country's local governments; it has bought off the debts of every local government. Parallel to this, we have introduced regulations that make irresponsible indebtedness and the accumulation of unbridled debts impossible in the world of local government, which manages a portion of public monies. And we have also introduced the principle of the debt limit, which has made it a constitutional regulation that it is forbidden for the Hungarian Parliament to adopt an annual national budget that would lead to an increase in public debt. It is nice that we have such regulations, but we have also succeeded in complying with them so far!
The third pillar of consensus, of this new consensus that I am propagating, is that childbearing and families must be supported with all possible and rational means. I am sure that you are aware of the related measures we have introduced; there is no need for me to go into detail here. And the fourth pillar is that cross-border Hungarians, meaning Hungarians who live outside the country's current borders today, including those who live in the Carpathian Basin and expatriates who live further afield, must be regarded as full members of the Hungarian nation. These four pillars of this new consensus have already become established. We could do with a few more, of course. It would be better if I could tell you about five, sex or seven, but at the moment I can with good conscience and in all honesty only tell you that we have managed four such pillars, but we have succeeded in building up these four.
And now, please allow me to say a few words about the future of Hungary as I see it. European politics is experiencing an extremely exciting period. We have spirited and illuminating debates within the European Union when we analyse the challenges faced by Europe and the economic opportunities at prime ministerial summits. As far as I see it, and of course everyone's standpoint is different to everyone else's to a certain extent, but there is a line based on which every standpoint can be regarded as falling into one of two groups, the dividing line is between those who believe that when the current economic difficulties are over or the crisis ends, things will to all intents and purposes fall back into place to where they were before the crisis, and those who believe that this will not happen. If I had to describe the situation at a suitable abstract level, I would say that the dividing line falls between those who think the crisis is conjunctural and those who think it is structural. Hungary is a member of the group who says that we are dealing with a crisis of a structural nature. Meaning that when we eventually exit the crisis, we will not go back to the principles, practices and policies of social and economic organisation that characterised the Western economies prior to the crisis. In other words, we believe that we are experiencing a period of transformation that of course is painful, but which also means the beginning of a new era. It is important to determine this fact as a starting point for political thinking, because it is according to this that we can decide whether we want to simply survive the crisis, or whether we see an opportunity within the crisis. Churchill once said, and this is an important guideline for me in political thinking, that the pessimist recognises the difficulty in every opportunity, but the optimist recognises the opportunity in every difficulty. And how one regards things is fundamentally a question of choice. I like to view things optimistically, meaning I search for the opportunity within the difficulties, and in view of the fact that the crisis is not conjunctural but structural, we can only conquer the crisis through major restructuring. But if we are successful in our restructuring and we grasp the opportunities provided by it, then we can in fact succeed in exiting the crisis in a stronger position than we were in when we were hit by the crisis, or rather when the crisis kicked open our door. Accordingly, I even view the crisis in a decidedly positive and optimistic light, and I think we have reason to be encouraged because during the past three-and-a-half to four years of government we have succeeded in pinpointing those areas that, if changed, will give Hungary a competitive edge following the crisis. And in our language of politics we usually say that Hungary realised this and acted accordingly when it said that the age of Western European welfare-based methods of social organisation is over, and the task everywhere is to instead establish not a welfare-based society but a work-based society. If we take into account the fact that when we realised this and made this principle our own, the participation rate in Hungary was around 56 percent, while in the EU it was 66 percent, 76 percent in the United States and 86 percent in China, it is clear that we aimed to exit the crisis using a route that would result in our employment figures first ceasing to lag behind, then catching up with the European Union average, and then catching up with the United States. And so our image, the image that we see before us, is one of a participation and employment rate in excess of 70 percent, like that of the United States. So we do not simply want to survive the crisis at the bottom of the heap, but would like to be one of the frontrunners of everything that is happening within the European Union today. It is our belief that it is possible to achieve Chinese figures in Europe; none of us have been brave enough to think or say this bold statement so far, but the performance of the United States can be reproduced in Hungary. This is one of the openly undertaken programmes of the current administration.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have spoken rather at length about this because it is here that you may find the solution to what the Western media usually describes simply as unorthodox social and economic policy. Because, and of course what we are doing can also be described using that word; innovative would be a little more polite perhaps and, how should I put it, a more acknowledging term, or perhaps the term courageous or original would make one feel even better, but it seems we must make do with the term unorthodox, but the essence of things is that there are periods of change, and the generation that bears responsibility for current political decision-making is experiencing such a period for the first time, when free thinking is not just a possibility, but a necessity. There are periods when the previous norms and the previous methods for finding solutions are quite simply no longer valid. The question is not whether they are good or bad, because they may well have been good in their time, but instead that they are no longer valid in the new world that is currently taking shape. This was the case here in Hungary in 1989, and this is the case with regard to what the Europeans call the global economic crisis, and which is in fact only a Western economic crisis, in which the opportunity did not simply arise for us to recognise the opportunity within the crisis, but in which it was compulsory for us to think that way, in a free way, about the phenomena of the crisis to enable us to find the path that would lead us to valid norms and a valid system of social organisations once again.
Well, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Accordingly, Hungary must not be afraid if it needs to learn. In my view, Hungary, including Hungarian politics, must learn from the United States and it must learn from the Japanese; we must state clearly and boldly, although of course with due respect for our partners, that although Europe is suffering from an illness, that illness came from outside, and it is the related complications that are preventing Europe from finding the solutions that would make the European Union competitive in the world following the crisis. This should not fill us with fear, but we should instead positively find inspiration mutatis mutandis from the economic way of thinking that characterises the United States today, and which characterises Japan, who are now applying economic tools that they did not apply previously. Japan has done something quite revolutionary by doubling the amount of cash in circulation, but the United States is also applying a flawless tool when it supplements its economic policy with its monetary policy. All sorts of things are happening in the countries that are providing successful solutions, from which Hungary would do well to learn. And in the current situation, the current global situation, we are not being provincial if we do not look beyond Hungary's borders, but we are being provincial if we do not look beyond Europe's borders. And European provinciality is not too pretty either. And so it is worthwhile for Hungary's political elite, be they a group from the right or the left, to look beyond what is happening here in Europe and beyond the instruments and measures applied here in Europe.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I do not mean this to be intimidating of course; I simply wanted to indicate that the long list of innovative measures is not over yet. Because it is my belief that the upcoming years, and I do not mean only for Hungary, but for the global economy, that the upcoming years will also all be about searching for new paths, both within the global economy and with regard to methods of social organisation that are desirable and possible in view of the economy. This is why Hungary must continue to view everything that is happening in the world openly and with a desire to learn; with the spirit of a science pupil or university student who wants to learn and is open to innovative ideas, because we can be sure of the fact that this process, which I repeat is not a global crisis but one we instead should call a Western European social and economic crisis, is not over. It will continue for several years. Its effects will remain serious and severe in the upcoming years, and for the moment there is no proven recipe anywhere in the world, although as I have said, there are some who are ahead of us, for how to handle this situation. And so it is time for Hungary to look beyond itself and the borders of Europe, and this is where I arrive at the end of what I would like to say to you, because in my view, today, you are the ones who can do the most to help us with this task.
It is of course also a great help if you blow the whistle when you hear of any atrocities against Hungary. It is important, if we see that a campaign is being organised against Hungary, and that campaign lacks any factual and moral basis, that we act against it in the spirit of good patriots. And this is indeed a great service to Hungary, especially in the short term. But what will really be a great help to us, and at the same time a task, for us, Mr. Chairman, if I may, because we have still to build the receiving stations, so that with regard to the experiences with which you make headway day-by-day in your current new homes; if you see what has and hasn't worked in your own countries, and what new ideas have appeared which, perhaps not immediately, but within a few years will lead to a radical change in life in Holland, Australia, the United States or Great Britain for instance, and if you introduce these into Hungarian public thinking with due speed and with suitable gravity, and make them available to political decision-makers. What I would like to say is this: what we are expecting of you is that we should not be provincial. It is with great respect that I thank you in advance for your help with this task.
Bon Appétit!
(Prime Minister's Office)