“The Dutch Prime Minister and I have concluded the conflict and the Hungarian Ambassador can now return to Holland”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told reporters in Tallinn on Friday.
The Prime Minister was attending the summit of EU heads of state and government in the capital of Estonia, which hold the current presidency of the Council of the European Union; the main topic of the summit is digitalisation.
When he arrived at the meeting, the Hungarian Prime Minister told reporters that he had spoken with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “We successfully brought the conflict to a close, and in fact we quite like each other and agreed on very many issues”, he said, adding that Hungary’s Ambassador to Holland can now return to The Hague.
With relation to proposals for EU reform, Mr. Orbán highlighted: “We are still very far away from being able to speak about ideas for reform”, and it would be fairer to state that there is an intent to make Europe most competitive again, and that this intention is “being embodied in various suggestions”. “You found out a little more about these proposals yesterday, because not only did French President Emmanuel Macron have a suggestion, but so did Portuguese Prime Minister António Luís Santos da Costa and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker”, he explained.
“There are several recommendation on the table”, and Council President Donald Tusk has undertaken to compile these, and in two weeks’ time “there will be some kind of framework for taking care of the future”, he said, adding: “Everything comes to him who waits”.
In reply to a question, the Prime Minister also said that the V4 will be meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker at the end of October or in early November. “But we are still on speaking terms of course, because this is the kind of place where people speak to each there”, he noted.
There is nothing wrong with the Őcsény protest
In reply to a question concerning what the Prime Minister thinks of the fact that locals in the Tolna County town of Őcsény have protested against summer holiday amps for migrant children, Mr. Orbán said he saw “nothing wrong” with it. People don’t want to accept migrants, “they don’t want them in the country and they don’t want them in their village”, he said, adding that “they have been lied to so often with relation to the emigrants that they don’t believe that only children will be coming”.
“Hungarian people love children”, and are always glad to help people in need, but “there have been so many lies with relation to migration that if they are told that children will be coming, the reaction of Hungarians is: first children, then the parents, then family reunion, and there we are in trouble”. “It is quite right that they expressed their opinion loudly, determinedly and clearly”, the Prime Minster said.
On digitalisation, the subject of the EU summit, Mr. Orbán explained: “The truth is that until ow we have always felt that instead of making joint proposals, we should all just do our homework”. “The Estonians are the best at this, it must be admitted, and they are better than we are, but Hungary has nothing to be ashamed about either, we are there in their footsteps somewhere”, he said.
As he explained, we will probably be the first country in Europe in which every household has access to superfast broadband internet, and the 5G system is also in development. Hungary is among the frontrunners because “until now we have been developing the sector using our own resources”, said Mr. Orbán, according to whom there may be proposals for having a joint EU policy, possibly with EU funds, and this could serve Hungary’s interests.
(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)
