Csaba Dömötör, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister takes the view that St. Stephen’s heritage, and all that which makes Hungary Hungarian must be protected.

The Minister of State said in Gyöngyös on Saturday that the thousand years behind us did not fall into our laps as some sort of gift, and likewise, the next thousand years, too, will not come to us as a present. We must fight for our future day after day, including on 2 October, he said in reference to the quota referendum.

DownloadPhoto: Tamás Czímer

“We have always had to fight for our truth, but our position has been clear ever since the foundation of the State: we alone can decide our future on fundamental issues, and therefore we insist also in the present instance on having the possibility to decide whom we wish to live together with”, he said.

The Minister of State pointed out that the thousand-year-old message of St. Stephen’s life work is this: there is no welfare without security, the borders must be protected, the laws must be observed, our culture must be experienced, and the Hungarian people must decide on their own lives.

Upon praising the founder of the State, he said: St. Stephen succeeded in leading the country with a strong, but fair hand, in hard times, amidst external attacks and internal riots, thereby turning a people into a nation, a territory into a country and a strong State.

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All this “also imposes a duty on us: it is our responsibility to defend and to protect all that Stephen created”, he stressed.

After the foundation of the State, St. Stephen may have thought that this is a tremendous European country, with great people who know how to fight, and a rich culture. After a thousand years, we may perhaps conclude: he was right about everything, he highlighted.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister)