Hungarians are a nation of freedom fighters who only feel good if they live in an “order of freedom”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on the 25th anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic, a peaceful demonstration which led to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.
The Prime Minister participated in a public discussion as part of a commemoration in front of a crowd of over ten thousand people in Sopron, a town at the Hungarian-Austrian border.
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During the discussion, he stated that the level of freedom, including the freedom of movement, the freedom of property and political freedoms, had indisputably improved over the past 25 years and in this respect the democratic transition has earned top marks.
However, inflation, the government debt and unemployment remained high following 1989 and the situation became worse with regard to public assets and order. The successes of the political transition must be preserved, whereas unfavourable developments must be changed, he underlined.
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In the second half of the eighties it was a given idea that the "East" should take over the western model, but by now it has become clear that Western Europe’s economy is also extremely vulnerable, he pointed out. Today, the whole of Western Europe is calling for renewal, he concluded.
He also noted that Hungary cannot borrow economic models directly from countries such as China, Russia, Japan or South Korea, because of cultural differences. At the same time, it also cannot simply join a Western European method of advancement that is clearly losing its reserves, and perhaps has already depleted them.
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“We are Hungarians with a fundamentally Christian culture and are motivated by freedom, and so we must construct our own system with regard to both the economy and politics”, the Prime Minister said.
In reply to a question, Prime Minister Orbán said average wages in Hungary would soon catch up with the European Union average if the current economic policies can continue, which requires an increase in economic growth from the current 2-4 percent range to a 4-6 percent range.
The Prime Minister also mentioned that in the early nineties, in lack of a two-thirds majority, it was not possible to take certain steps. However, the 2010 Fidesz election victory was “revolutionary” in this respect, and was repeated again this year. Similarly, the Socialist-Free Democrat coalition performed its own two-thirds majority revolution in 1994, completely changing local government election procedure and “re-drawing” Budapest following the elections.
He highlighted that as the Kádár regime grew out of the crushing of the 1956 revolution, the communist system remained unsteady in Hungary. Even if Hungary was described as the “happiest barrack in the socialist camp”, as soon as there was chance to fight for freedom, opposition movements emerged. In the eighties, four major rallies involving different sections of the public were held which showed that there was political resistance aimed at overthrowing communism, the Prime Minister explained.
Recalling the Opposition Round Table, a series of negotiations between the ruling communists and the opposition preceding the regime change, he said that members of Fidesz, which was a radical, anti-communist independence movement at the time, decided in favor of the most radical solution possible: fundamental change.
(Prime Minister's Office)
