19 November 2013

Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is with respect that I greet all the mothers, parents and grandparents present. I would like to salute you all in short, although it is not as if I would not have more to say, but I do not want to draw the dissatisfaction of the children, who if I see rightly, are getting rather impatient.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would first of all like to thank Károly [Károly Szita, Mayor of Kaposvár. Ed.] for being so kind as to invite me here on this occasion. In fact, it is no accident that I am here in Kaposvár. I have come because we are going to be visiting a sugar plant, where we will be inaugurating a facility, a sugar silo, which will increase Kaposvár's economic strength as well as creating some new jobs. And it also provides a glimmer of hope that the once famous Hungarian sugar industry might once again begin to gain momentum. The other reason I am here, as Károly Szita has already mentioned, is that at the beginning of the year we began to reduce our big cities' debts. I would not like to create the false illusion that settlements are free to accumulate as much debt as the wish, because at some point in the future some government will come along and take it off their shoulders, but we all know that in past years our cities, including the city of Kaposvár, have not really had any other possibility of surviving these hard times other than taking on some amount of debt. The secret behind debt is that at first it is a certain amount, then it grows, and eventually it crushes you to death. So before debt could crush our cities and crush the future of these children here, the Government decided to assume these debts so that in future it will not be the city, but the Government, who is responsible for their repayment. This is a huge relief indeed. One of the reasons I was happy to come here today was because Károly invited me. We don't usually go around complimenting each other, and quite correctly, it would perhaps not right between men, but this is a good occasion to tell you that your Mayor is the longest serving, elected mayor of a large city in Hungary. Congratulations to you, Károly, on your excellent work!

I would like to draw the attention of the young mothers here to the fact that yesterday, Parliament adopted new tax laws which include regulations for a new type of tax benefit called parental leave extra. As I travel around the country, it is my experience that young mothers know hardly anything about this new allowance, despite the fact that we have been talking about it for weeks. I would like to encourage you to investigate these new regulations. Never before have young mothers in Hungary had available such favourable regulations: childcare benefit, parental leave, work, the combined calculation of parental leave in the case of more than one child and so on. I do not wish to get into details, I would simply suggest that you investigate the possibilities, because this is an important new piece of regulation and it is my firm belief that it can open up new opportunities for life for the people present here.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

These days, people often say that since there are no borders and people are free to come and go as they please, or as far as their capabilities and finances will allow them, the world has become one, big village. And so people often think that the significance of one's place of birth is somewhat less important, because we can pack our bags at any time and go to New York, London or Vienna just as easily as to a neighbouring city in Hungary.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The truth is exactly the opposite. No matter how much the world opens up and no matter how easy it is for us to reach far-away places, as we grow up and become more mature, we increasingly realise that wherever life may take us, there is only one place that is really important to us: the place where we were born, where we belong, where we are kept account of. One of the reasons this initiative is close to my heart is that although of course these little metal plaques bear with them no money or other privilege, but everyone whose name appears on this tree can be certain that they are kept account of, that they are being counted on, that people are aware of them and know them. And in the modern world in which people are losing their roots, loosing their roots by the millions, the most important thing is that people should be aware of us, count on us, know us and pay attention to us.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This initiative bears the possibility of this becoming reality. Whether it will indeed happen is, however, not our children's responsibility, but our responsibility. On the one hand, with respect to whether we continue to build cities such as this one, and on the other, with respect to whether we raise our children so that they know, here in Kaposvár and in every single village and city in Hungary we need every single child that is born and are counting on them in the future. The Government's job is to bring good news to all corners of the land. You will have read in the papers, heard on the radio and seen on the television that Hungary is performing better. And there is much truth in that, Ladies and Gentlemen! As far as the economy, city planning and many other areas go. Nevertheless, we must all be aware that the Hungarians, we, all of us, are living our lives under a very heavy burden. And of course the country is performing better, but it is not performing well. Because a country in which the number of funerals exceeds the number of christenings is not performing well. It may be performing better than before, but not well. And Hungary will only truly have a future, the great burden will only truly be lifted from our shoulders, we will only truly come out of the dark shadow of history that we live in if we are able to say that more children are born in Hungary than the number of people who depart this earth. We are still far from achieving this. I encourage the young people of Hungary and I encourage city leaders and everyone to contribute to ensure that young people do decide to have those children who they would otherwise like to have, and they are indeed born so that Hungary can once again move onto the path of growth not just with regard to finances, but also with regard to its demographic population, and so that it not only performs better, but can become a happy country. It is in this hope that I thank you for your invitation and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be here with you.

God bless you all!

(Prime Minister’s Office)