Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Speech at the Inauguration of Tranzit-Food Ltd's new Production Unit in Nyírgelse

Thank you for having invited me to be here with you and for enabling us to be together here today. I have already learned much, and I will also relay the words of the respected owner to the next Government: we shouldn't complain. Because the situation is undoubtedly better than it was four years ago, but the next Government will certainly have need of this motto, Ladies and Gentlemen! My warmest greetings to the Mayors and Members of Parliament present, to the Minister of State and primarily of course to the family, the Szabó family, who are the owners of this plant. They are the reason we are here, in fact. Of course we will now pretend that it is because of the plant we are about to inaugurate, and quite rightly, but in reality I think the majority of people here have come to express their appreciation for a Hungarian family business that deserves our respect, that is worthy of acknowledgement and the likes of which, and this is the reason I am here, we would like to see much more of not just here in your county, but throughout the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would also have come here today were there no election campaign going on, because an investment of this kind and an investment of this size on the part of a successful family business is worthy of national attention. Perhaps a visit by the Prime Minister also draws some national attention and reminds us, the Hungarians, that we are also capable of achieving things like this. We speak so much about our weaknesses, our deficiencies and our bad sides and so little about our good sides. And in our profession there is a saying that goes: our own successes are so important that we cannot entrust their praise to others. But this is somehow in contrast to the spirit of the Hungarian people; we don't like talking about our own successes and our own abilities. Hungarians usually feel, and it must be something we inherited from the Kuruc people, that our work speaks louder than words.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I, however, can allow myself to perhaps speak instead of the owners and say yes, it is very important that we hear more about this enterprise and successes like this one in Hungary, because these are the successes that give back our self-respect and which prove that we Hungarians can succeed. It may be true that not everyone can win on the lottery and few of us are lucky enough to have success fall into our laps and for opportunity not just to knock, but to come banging on our doors, but you have to work hard if you want to achieve success.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

One of the other reasons I was happy to come here today, and I hope the Szabó family doesn't take this as an insult, is that I have always had the greatest respect for old-fashioned people and I believe that the values that go together with being old-fashioned have a future. I believe in what we have heard here, that fortune and international renown cannot be gained through speculation and that there do exist old-fashioned people who believe in the words work, prudence, development and trust, in the given word and in giving work to others and managing a business in a way that is good not just for the owner but for everyone who comes into contact with that enterprise. And so I would like to congratulate the owner and thank the head of the family once again from having been so kind as to invite me here today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If you're going to have a goose, it might as well be fat, as the old saying goes, and there is much truth to it, and I am glad that there are entrepreneurs in this country who take this saying seriously.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have heard the names of the countries to which this Hungarian family business not only exports its products, but sells its products while overtaking and overshadowing the businesses of larger countries with much better circumstances. And these are not just any old markets, as I am sure you all know here in Szabolcs district, because selling products in Germany, Austria, Russia, Japan, Canada and the United States is a great feat. There's no complaining or explaining to do there, there's not beating around the bush; all that counts there is quality, performance, shipping, deadline and price. Full stop; and those who can stick with it stay on the market, while those who fail are replaced by someone else.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Listing these countries as export destinations is in itself compelling. And, Ladies and Gentlemen, the fact that a food industry business in Hungary is capable of assuming the role of market leader, or rather that the sector it belongs to is capable of being the market leader, like our goose meat industry, is especially worthy of acknowledgement. I must now share with you a few facts that are important not just to you, here, but to the national public in general. We are enjoying the hospitality of a company that provides work to one thousand people, in addition to which it is continuously undertaking new developments and expanding, meaning that it will be creating even more jobs in the future. As we have heard, and I would like to repeat it as a representative of the authorities, that we are talking about a primary taxpayer that always pays its taxes properly, and not just properly but always on time and contributes over a billion forints-a-year, some 1250 million forints in fact, to the country and to the economies of the settlements in the area. And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, looking a little beyond this, out of this tent here, please allow me to also say a few things about small and medium-sized enterprises in general. I have said to the President previously that I can hardly wait to be invited to a place where my job isn't to inaugurate the production hall of a huge, international company, although that makes us very happy too, who wouldn’t be happy to have an Audi here and who wouldn't be happy to have a Mercedes here, or who wouldn’t be happy to have a large international investment that bears the name LEGO, for instance, sprouting up here in your county? Such investments make us all very happy, because they create jobs, they generate taxes and they create value, but somehow you always have the feeling that yes, they've invited you, but it's as if I were just a guest. Of course, we work there, we manufacture it, those Mercedes' will have "Made in Hungary" written on them, but they are still Mercedes' after all.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a different feeling to be invited to a place where the owner is Hungarian too, where the capital was also generated by Hungarians and where the profits are generated by Hungarians and the profit goes into the pockets of Hungarians. And if they manage their business well, as does our host, then that will result in the realisation of new investments and in the creation of new jobs. And so it is not simply for reasons of economic soundness, but also for reasons of the heart, that it is right for the backbone of the Hungarian economy to be made up of businesses that are in Hungarian hands. This is what we need to achieve, Ladies and Gentlemen! We are not there yet. You know the reasons just as well as I do, and with at least as much certainty. Nevertheless, it is no accident that we have succeeded in achieving internationally acknowledged success in precisely this field, because we Hungarians have inherited farmland with some of the best capabilities in Europe. The climate is after all what we can call more balanced than not, our soil is excellent and industrial pollution, which many other countries suffer from by the way, is still at a very low level here. In addition to which our agricultural capabilities are coupled with a farming culture that we have developed over several centuries, the instinct for and professional knowledge of farm management, which in short I could describe by saying that Hungarians are generally excellent farmers.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have used the expression small and medium-sized enterprise, when in fact you will have seen from the numbers that this is a large enterprise, but I am sure the family can confirm that in European and World comparison it may be regarded as being in the small and medium-sized category. Such enterprises especially require a well-functioning, courageous and nationally-committed government. Because the conditions for Hungarian farming today are not just determined by Budapest; many rules, regulations and laws are formulated in Brussels. And for this reason the spirit, make-up and way of thinking of the members of the government cannot be disregarded. Do they know their job; do they know what they need to do in important debates within the European Union? If you think back on recent years, and I would not like to remind you of the political battles on this occasion, because you will have seen those on television, but we indeed fought many battles on less exciting and specifically economic issues such as in the interests of protecting the level of funding for the poultry sector. We fought huge battles. The result is that Hungary received permission to continue paying animal welfare support until 2018, which in the case of the poultry sector meant that we were able to immediately double the funding available for this purpose and increase it to eight billion forints. There is a popular misconception that I would like to clear up: we are not fighting against the EU, but are instead fighting for the interests of the Hungarian people within the EU. To those who don't understand this, all I can say is if the calf isn't hers, the cow won't lick it. It's our duty to protect the interests of the Hungarians; nobody is going to do is for us. I have never met a single German, Frenchman or Italian who was in Brussels to protect the interests of the Hungarian people. And so if we don't take up the gauntlet, if we don't protect the interests of the Hungarian meat industry, then nobody else in Europe is going to stand up and do it for us, and in the end our meat sector will suffer the same fate as our sugar industry did.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We will be making significant changes to the rules and regulations regarding the distribution of the funding available for economic development within the upcoming seven-year period. We will not only make it simpler, it will not only be less bureaucratic, but we also plan to and will inject at least 60 percent of the funding available directly into the economy. I would like to explain the reason why such radical changes are necessary. Main squares and fountains are important too, let there be no misunderstanding, but in the upcoming period we need to inject the funding available into the economy. According to our calculations, and I am telling you this based on information from the Eximbank database, it would seem that today there are around two thousand small and medium-sized enterprises in Hungary that are capable of producing their own goods or services and selling them for export. And according to our economic experts, with whom I agree in this regard, the Hungarian economy will stand firm on its own two feet, will be practically immoveable and will be capable of competing with countries that are in a much better situation than we are, if the number of enterprises of this kind increases from two thousand to twelve thousand. The objective of the current Hungarian Government, and if the country's voters help us, then the objective of the next Hungarian Government also, is to increase the number of export-producing small and medium-sized enterprises in Hungary from two thousand to twelve thousand. If this is realised, and the loan, financing and monetary frameworks required to facilitate such an increase are now available, then the Hungarian economy will be standing on immovably firm foundations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to congratulate our host once again. I am sure he will forgive me for trying to make the most of the crop, like a good Hungarian farmer, but I cannot leave without saying a few words about the fact that that something important will happen in this country on 6 April. And what happens will not be just any old event; it will be an event that determines our lives and our future, a celebration of democracy if you like. Both good and bad can be said about democracy, but there is one thing that democracy cannot, cannot in any way be accused of, and that is that it isn't we who in the end decide the direction our homeland will move in. We will be deciding this on 6 April, Ladies and Gentlemen! This is the celebration of democracy. We can take part, go out to vote and make this choice – every vote counts – that otherwise decides our common future. My task here today is not to praise our own horse or horses, but I would at least like to draw your attention to the fact that the four years between 2010 and 2014 were not easy, as you have heard. Hungary was teetering on the edge of financial collapse and crisis. We lived in a welfare-based economy instead of in a work-based economy. I can't tell you that Hungary is performing well, but what I can tell you is that Hungary is performing better that it used to. We have after all succeeded in moving from a welfare-based economy in the direction of a work-based economy. My feeling is that the Hungarians have begun to believe in the fact that there is a sense in working. That there is a sense in doing business, there is a sense in realising development projects and there is a sense in investing, because the work applied will eventually bring with it the expected success.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

How Hungary's small and medium-sized businesses decide at the upcoming elections is important for the national economy. There are many entrepreneurs living in Hungary, many more than we would otherwise think. Businesses do hold weight, dear Mr. Szabó, family businesses like this one are important; who they vote for is important, what they decide to strengthen through their own example is important. My wish for Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County, my wish for the surrounding settlements and my wish for Hungary is that small and medium-sized businesses always stand up on the side of Hungary and vote for a government that is worthy of Hungary.

Thank you for your kind attention.

(Prime Minister’s Office)