On Thursday in an interview with Hungarian daily Népszava, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár said that “we want more Hungary and less Brussels”.

The Minister said that over the next ten years the most important question for Hungary will be how much it is able to preserve its independence. “This is the essence of Fidesz policy: we see everything through this lens”, he noted.
Mr. Lázár explained that “To avoid misunderstandings, we do not want to extend integration. In our view the EU is primarily a community of values and interests, not a political community. And now they want to force political values on us”.

He added that “there was no mention of this in 2004; certain principles on political cooperation are laid out in the EU’s Founding Treaty, but there are no provisions on immigrants”.

Mr. Lázár noted that Hungary’s situation is a special one: “if we need workers or payroll taxes, we can invite Hungarians from Transcarpathia or Novi Sad to come to the kin-state. In this way, we do not have to take on societal and cultural risks by receiving large numbers of immigrants, as there are no linguistic or cultural differences between us and fellow Hungarians in those places: they are us”.

Talking about migrant resettlement quotas, he said that “if we open this gate once, we will never be able to close it again”, and “if the number of resettled people increases year after year, the tension in local communities will increase in parallel; our scope for action will decrease significantly, but the problem will become more and more serious”.

“Our society will reject the idea of receiving migrants resettled from Germany to Hungary. We have enough people in need as it is; if we are to give assistance, they are the ones we should give it to”, the Minister added.
He explained that professionals are needed in the Government and in its political family; this is why its own training of politicians is so important.
He stressed that “We have to find our way back to young people, we have to ensure positions for them, and we have to stand on the side of young, talented generations from the provinces for whom the nation is important”. He went on to say that current politicians could also learn – for example from former members of Bibó College.

According to Mr. Lázár, the most important achievement of Fidesz is the reorganisation of the political system and class, and that “by introducing a smaller National Assembly, we have started with changes affecting ourselves”. He said that breaking with the old interests of the past will also generate big debates in the future.

“In addition to managing various government issues, I have the privilege to work alongside the most experienced politician in Hungary – maybe even in Central Europe – and every day I learn from this. I can say without arrogance that there are only a few people who truly know something about how the Hungarian state works, or how a country of ten million needs to be governed. By 2018, I might become one of those people”, the Minister said.

(MTI)