We are standing on the threshold of a great era of prosperity

Dear Madam Klára, Dear Katica Makray, our Dear Hosts; Ladies and Gentlemen,

In my speech today I will be searching for the answers to three simple questions. What have we achieved? What more can we achieve? And what should we do? This is the sixteenth time that we have come together as usual to assess Hungary's situation and prospects. We have met in many different situations, in both cheerful and gloomy times, but believe me there is no task more gratifying than to meet at a time when we can share good news with each other. Good news about the fact that public utility prices in Hungary are falling for the first time in forty years. About the fact that while it is on the whole falling in Europe, the employment rate is increasing here in Hungary. About the fact that it has been decades since inflation was this low. About the fact that everyone is forecasting sustained growth for Hungary; more growth than even we ourselves anticipate. About the fact that we have successfully introduced the second largest increase in the minimum wage in Europe, and as a result people's incomes are increasing here in Hungary. About the fact that Hungary is capable of protecting, and has to some extent even increased the value of pensions. About the fact that our finances are stable and we have kept the deficit at below 3 percent for years now.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It has been more than a decade since we have been able to come forward with results like these. We might as well end today's meeting here and say goodbye with the words trust in God and keep your gunpowder dry! However, four years ago we did not simply undertake to produce, or is your prefer to create a few valuable economic achievements. In addition to which, good news creates the impression that everything is fully in order, when in fact that is not the case at all. The world of the old Kasier, in which "all is fine, all is good, I am satisfied with everything" is still a long way off for Hungary. We still have a long way to go to achieve that. Once in Transylvania, my wife leaned out of the car window and asked an old Sekler: where does this road lead? It doesn't lead us anywhere, he said, we are travelling on it of our own accord. Well, today's Hungarian reality is still much closer to that of the old Sekler than to that of Franz Joseph. And so on an occasion such as this one, we owe it to ourselves to dig a few spadefuls deeper.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Four years later, it is now clear that there was in fact a change of regime in 2010; the second in twenty years. We replaced the political and economic system that had been constructed after the fall of communism. And in fact, let us be frank, we replaced the system whose construction we ourselves were also involved in. To be precise: in 2010 we replaced the system that we had previously attempted to unsuccessfully repair. Unsuccessfully, because our four years of government between 1998 and 2002 were not enough to achieve this, and because we lost the 2002 elections. Perhaps some of you still remember, in 1998 our watchword was: more than a change in government; less than a change in regime. This was the most we could achieve. Not from a lack of will, from a lack of courage, or even from a lack of intellect, but from a lack of strength. The communists came back to power, or rather the socialists, along with their sidecar liberals. They came back to power and by 2010 they had brought the country to ruin. Financial collapse, an economic nosedive, dwindling pensions and salaries, an IMF lifeline and a whole country on life support. This is what became of the ambitious plans, the bright dreams and the soaring hopes. They were swallowed, grinded down and digested by the big, post-communist rumen.

Professor Teller calls those twenty years the system of regime change; I simply call it post-communism. Only 3 million 600 thousand people out of 10 million were employed, and only half of them, 1 million 800 thousand people, paid taxes. Hundreds and thousands of people were without work, the basis of human dignity. More and more people lived not for their children, but off their children and off the benefits received because of their children. Work had no standing, and was not paid a decent wage. Pensions were shrinking. Utility prices kept going up; service providers shamelessly abused their dominant position. Hundreds of thousand of people found themselves locked in a foreign currency debt trap, because they had been deceived by the banks. Enterprises were floundering, squashed under the weight of taxes, while banks preferred to make money from financial speculation rather than through honest lending. Most people, even if they did have a job, felt that they had to work their hearts out while the service providers and banks suck them dry, an invisible hand keeps pushing prices higher and higher and the government stumbles pathetically, politics is only interested in itself, only showing the people its back, looking down and patronising them day in and day out. How did we get so low? Prior to 1990, the state always embodied the servants of oppression and the invaders, and so we always viewed the state as our greatest enemy. We have no reason to be surprised, then, that the first change in regime resulted in the birth of a state that was incapable of defending its own citizens and unsuitable for representing the interests of the community. This is how we may come to understand that the dismantling of communism may have taken place, but the reorganisation of the State of Hungary did not. The state, whose duty it is to represent the interests of its citizens and of society, regularly found itself at odds with them. And meanwhile, instead of the acknowledgement of performance, the praising of merits and a culture of cooperation and solidarity, there developed an impulsive world of envy, suspicion and hostility. It spread and gained strength like weeds in a garden, surrounding, strangling and smothering everything that could have been the source of hope, success and a future. The nation and the national interest had neither an embodiment nor a representative. Instead, the pro-establishment lobby controlled the state of affairs in Hungary according to the whim of their superiors in the name of checks, balances and the free market. Summa summarum, it was already clear in 2010 that the post-communist system was incapable of proving its economic, social and moral superiority to its predecessor. The country felt that we had moved backwards and were in a worse position. Until in 2010, the country had had enough and voted for another regime change.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As is often the case with a regime change, everything must be reinterpreted, replanned and recreated. And if it was true that the source of our problems was Hungary's weakness, and it was, then the objective we had to set was to build a strong Hungary. The disaccorded Hungarians had to be reorganised into a new, national and political community, and in a modern democracy only the Constitution is capable of achieving this goal. This is why we needed a new Fundamental Law. Thank you to Pál Schmitt! Sovereignty and the protection of national interests had to be set right to counter external and international power groups. Things had to be put in order so we could protect ourselves against catastrophes, criminals, speculators and fraudsters, in other words against the opponents of a secure and respectable way of life. We had to forge a new treaty with our cities and villages. Local governments passed on their stifling debts, their schools and their hospitals to us, and in exchange undertook to follow stringent financial regulations and mange their finances rationally. A new economic treaty had to be concluded between the state and the people. We had to introduce the principle of reciprocity, performance and the equitable distribution of public burdens. This is why we created the tax for banks and multinationals, this is why we created the proportional tax system based on the family, this is why we introduced the reduction in public utility prices and affected an increase in wages, and this is why we launched the public work programme.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the ancients said: salus populi suprema lex; the good of the people is the utmost law. The state can have no other duty. Or to express myself in a more politically correct manner and cite a President of the United States, which is in itself PC: of the people, by the people and for the people, meaning that we must use the mandate we are given by the people to govern the country together with the people and in the interests of the people. In an unsuccessful and weak country, the people are also rarely successful. Only very few can achieve success; a handful of successful and wealthy people at the expense of many unsuccessful and poor people with no chance of advancement. This is what we had to change in 2010. This was the essence of the second regime change. We set the reinforcement of the community as our primary objective. To put things in the simplest terms: the precondition for a successful Hungary is power, meaning that the majority of people can only have an opportunity to achieve success and a higher standard of living it they have a dynamic state and a capable government that is willing to act.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is what we call the system of national cooperation. And look at the whims of fate: the mission of the two parties that make up the Fidesz-KDNP coalition has been to become a regime-changing force on two occasions within the space of twenty years. Or from another perspective: they have twice been given the unique opportunity to lay down the foundations of a new social and economic system. This is a rare and generous gift from Providence. Soli Deo gloria! The second regime change is in itself a confutation of the assumption that people do not want to take part in politics. They in fact stand ready in their masses to ask for their participation in matters that are important to them. Millions of people are ready to take action if the reduction in public utility prices needs protecting, and millions go on the march if the sovereignty of their homeland is at risk and our being reduced to the fate of colony is at stake. Thank you to the Peace March! And indeed, the people and the society that called to life the system of national cooperation, and which also represent its foundations, is a politically organised society. It is organised on the basis of traditions, values and objectives. It has twenty years of common experience. We know precisely that there are two roads before us, that we must choose between two possibilities, two ideals and two forces: the second regime change on the one hand, and the post-communist system on the other. The future and the past. Things have become very simple: building the future or a post-communist restoration.

Dear Friends,

The subject of another lecture, and it would be worthwhile holding one, could be: the left and the regime change. One symbol of this is the party leader who leads the hunger march, while he has marched hundreds of millions out to his foreign bank account. But can a politics, in which the leadership of the left wing party that undertakes to represent the losers of the regime change is increasingly full of tycoons who have become billionaires thanks to the regime change, end up in any other manner? As it is written: the Lord shall take away the flock from those who feed themselves and not the flock. I would ask everyone, despite the fact that the left is currently grappling with its own troubles, to remain prudent and never forget that in a modern democracy it is the people, the voters, who pass final judgement on every system. It was the case in 2010, and it will be the case now.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is something else that we should also clarify here, among ourselves. Were we right not to use our two-thirds electoral mandate to repair, patch-up and adjust the precious system? Was it the right decision not to search for a compromise with the left, the defenders of the post-communist system, or with the foreign interests groups who have a financial and power-related interest in maintaining post-communism, but instead to shoulder the tough domestic and foreign battles and undertake to achieve the total renewal of Hungary? This is not a question of legality, of whether it was a legal course of action, because no one can argue that we did not receive the required constitutional mandate. It is more a question of morals. Because to undertake the total reorganisation of a country and of a national community is a question not just of law, not just of courage and not just of strength, put primarily a question of moral responsibility. Is it right to use the mandate we have been given to the full, 100%? A parable from the bible: a rich man who is setting off on a long journey distributes money, called talents in the Bible, among his servants. On receives five talents, the other two and the third receives one. In the master's absence, the one who received five doubles his money, as does the one who received two, but the servant who received only one talent buries it for safekeeping. On his return, the master rewards the two provident servants, but punishes the lazy one, taking away his one talent and giving it to the servant who already has ten. The one who makes best use of the opportunities provided will be the one who receives further opportunities. None of this false egalitarianism.

Dear Friends,

We are also provident. The voters entrusted us with the advancement of the country. Let us leave God out of this particular equation. They entrusted us with this task, they gave us their talents, and they will call us to account to see how providently we have used this mandate and whether we have achieved as much as possible using it. And truth be told, we did not bury what we were entrusted with. We did not regard the two-thirds victory and the two-thirds legislative power as a well-deserved success, but as a commission and a mandate that we must use for the public good, and which we will have to account for. And we were right to. Had we behaved in any other way we would have been unfaithful and unworthy. It is true, our lives would have been more comfortable, with less attacks against us, less abuse and lots and lots of acknowledgement from the beneficiaries of post-communism for our commendable restraint. But we did not want the bowl of lentils, the thirty pieces of silver or the common mat. And besides, dogs may have owners, but we do not! We are our own masters!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

And now on to the second question: what more can we achieve? In short: much more. And we can become very successful. We are standing on the threshold of a great era of prosperity. We must now cross this threshold, all ten million or so Hungarians together. In order to cross it, we must stick by our straight-out, clear and direct way of speaking. We must not fall back into the world of beating around the bush and of on the one or other hand, in which people say of the greatest lies that not all aspects of the truth were unravelled, and where we can be accused of lying morning, noon and night. I know you are beginning to get sick of hearing this, but one must make use of even these easy pickings. The man in the restaurant orders snail pâté. The waiter confesses that it also contains a little pork, and in fact that ratio is fifty-fifty: one pig to one snail. No, not that?! Never again!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are living in a world in which only nations who have self-esteem can get ahead. The world has changed hugely over the past four years. We Hungarians have begun to believe in ourselves once again and our self-confidence is also slowly returning. When people lost everything they had from one hour to the next because of the red sludge disaster, we did not allow despair to take hold and hope to be lost. We worked together to give those affected back their future. If someone is suffering from a lack of faith, it is worth visiting Devecser and Kolontár. Or remember the time when the Brussels bureaucrats attacked Hungary roughly and threateningly. Just because we had the audacity to tax the banks and big corporations, because we didn't want to take money away from those who are rather more in need of being given some. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in peace and dignity to send the world the message: Hungary is not a colony and will not allow itself to be made into one. And then there is the case of Hungary and the Danube flood. Tens of thousands of people together on the dykes. There was no right and left, no rural and city folk and no cross-border and in-border Hungarians either. There were no ranks and titles, only Hungarians struggling to protect their country and each other. And we were victorious. And with not the slightest injury to anyone. In all three cases, we may have felt that we were faced with forces more powerful than ourselves, that could sweep us away and against which we do not in fact stand a chance. But in all three cases we overcame our fears. The soldier who sits trembling in fear in the trenches awaiting death is mocked by his fellows. To which he replies: if you were as afraid as I am, you would have run away long ago. Yes, we overcame our fears and got the upper hand of the situation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The truth is that we had had enough of the politics that is forever concerned with how we might satisfy the West, the bankers, big capital and the foreign press, and how we must put our hands up in surrender at the first word of complaint. Like those who have no past, have no self-respect and no independent will. As if we did not have our own power of judgement, our own culture and our own history. It is still amazing to me, although I did not start out in this profession yesterday, how they can have the audacity to tell us what to do and what not to do, and in fact expect us to comply. As the eastern saying goes, my feet know if my shoes are too tight. The solution of Brussels, that tells you to cut off your toes if your shoes are too tight, does now seem a well-though-out one.

Over the past four years we have overcome that kowtowing mentality, which was a subservient mentality. We once again have self-esteem and we have self-respect and we have self-confidence. Meaning Hungary will not succumb again!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, it is clear to all of us that those who know that we must take up the gauntlet are in the majority. Those who are committed to changing their lives; who do not give in to the adversities of fate; who are demanding work and not benefits, and who not only want to get by through work, but who also want to get ahead. The majority of early risers, originators and people who want to move forward, who will not give in and allow others to take away what they have worked so hard for. Who take a stand and take up the gauntlet in even the most difficult situations. We can safely say that if anything, this is certainly a true revolution and a true regime change. Hungary has become rejuvenated both in soul and in spirit. This is no longer the country it was four years ago.

Who would have thought a few years ago that Hungary, of all countries, would have the strength to tax the banks and the multinationals, and to reduce public utility prices? Who would have thought a few years ago that Hungary, of all countries, would be capable of slashing inflation and pushing the deficit to below 3 percent, an eminent achievement within the European Union? Who would have thought a few years ago that our homeland would be the country in which wages and employment would increase? Who would have thought a few years ago that Hungary would be capable of achieving a higher level of stable economic growth than the European Union average? Who would have thought a few years ago that Hungary, of all countries, would be capable of sending the International Monetary Fund home and standing on its own two feet again? Who, a few years ago, would have imagined these achievements about a country that was often mentioned in the same sentence as Greece and for whom the prognosis was collapse and financial bankruptcy? And who would have thought that the often aggressively criticised Hungarian solutions would increasingly be transposed others? As the French saying goes: don't tell the well that you will never drink from its water. In the end, the wise old Chinese philosopher will be right, who said it makes no difference if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse. Today, it is clear to everyone, Ladies and Gentlemen, that this is a different Hungary. By changing our present, we have changed our future. We will have a different future to the one foretold for us by the priests of the London and Brussels oracles. Providing the voters want it too.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have won many battles, but we have yet to win the war. What has happened is simply that instead of retreating, we have begun to fight back. Those who think that we are the ones who instigated this conflict are mistaken. When we took office in 2010, the war between the multinationals and consumers, between the banks and foreign currency debtors, and between monopolies and families were already well underway. And we Hungarians were in a losing position on all fronts. In 2010, the choice we had to make was on whose corner of the ring we should enter the fight, and we chose the red white and green corner. The balance of power has changed significantly since then; we have won several rounds, but the fight is not over. Two hundred and fifty thousand more people have jobs than they did four years ago, but there are still very many people who want to work, but who are without work. And the world owes everyone the opportunity to make a living through their own work. We have to pay less for our gas, our electricity and our district heating, but they still cost more than is fair. The rate at which the population is decreasing has slowed, but our numbers are still declining. Because we cannot build a future on aid, and it is difficult to start a family built on foreign currency debt. The minimum wage and average incomes have risen, but we are still far from security and a comfortable life.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

What should we do? Well, we must protect everything we have achieved so far. We must not allow what the people of Hungary have laboured so hard to achieve to be taken away again. We must not allow the reduction in public utility prices, the tax benefit for families with children, the increase in wages, the family allowance extra scheme, the support provided to mothers and the security of old age to be taken away. We will still not receive anything free, only what we fight to achieve. This is what we have done in the past few years, and we were right to do so. And this is something we can draw strength from now.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

And finally, historic opportunities are opening up before us in view of the fact that the whole of Central Europe is gaining importance. It is a generally accepted fact that our region is on the brink of a period of significant growth. We can set as an objective that the taxes on earnings should be reduced still further in Hungary. We can set as an objective to have the cheapest energy in Europe. We can achieve a level where everyone who wants to work can work and can make a decent living from their work, and we can reach a stage where all young people from Kolozsvár [Cluj] through Budapest to Szabadka [Subotica] can go to a good school that gives them a good chance in life. And we will be capable of reaching a stage where every young person can have as many children as they would like to. There is so much more still left in this country. Much more than anyone can imagine. We must not allow the envious to talk us out of things, the pessimistic to force us off the beaten track and those with conflicting interests to break our resolve.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. I feel our lives are rather exhilarating", good old Winston said. I am sure this is why I feel that our lives are so full of effervescence. The truth is that behind every struggle, every attack and every flying bullet lies the same intent, whether with regard to the reduction in public utility prices, the bank tax, the Constitution or anything else. The question is whether Hungary will be a country of fighters and winners, or if it will once again be the turn of the compromisers. The question is, will we make do with what we receive, or will we fight for what we have a right to. The question is, will we be a strong country who cannot be disregarded, or a weak one who runs off tail between its legs and always pulls the short straw. Now is the time for us to cling together, encourage each other and step into the future which the whole country has been working so hard to achieve for the past four years. In April, let us again show that we are strong and united. Let us show that we lick the boots of no one. Let us show that we will follow our own path. Please do not forget, if we do not control our own lives, somebody else will. And so what must we do fifty days before the elections? Blow the bugles and saddle up, because tomorrow morning, we march!

Go, Hungary! Go, Hungarians!

(Prime Minister’s Office)