Gödöllő, 5 July 2014
Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen!
It is with special respect that I greet President Jakab. It is with joy that I greet the President of the Chamber [of Agriculture], who through his work has shown Hungary, and especially you, that the Chamber is not our enemy and if it has suitable leadership then it can be an effective tool in your hands. It is also with respect that I greet my fellow Members of Parliament, who in turn have proven to Hungarian farmers that legislation and the National Assembly are not a source of danger but an opportunity for protection. I would especially like to thank Chairman Sándor Farkas for the composed and prudent work that he has performed at the head of the Agriculture Committee in recent years.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have not come here in vain. As the President of the youth section said a little earlier, and I quote: “Magosz provides the background for balanced government”. This is good news, because now we can all go off on holiday.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It has never been possible to accuse Magosz of lacking courage. You have now provided yet another example of this, and I congratulate you on that, President Jakab, because it requires great courage to call farmers to a gathering such as this at harvest time.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Magosz and the Parties that make up the government have always stood by each other. Our alliance is one that has stood the test of time. And this is why everyone perhaps felt that it was compulsory to be here and attend this meeting, because we have been victorious once again. We have been victorious on countless occasions during the past four years. We were victorious at the parliamentary, local government and European Parliament elections; we have been victorious in the Brussels arena, we have been victorious in the face of natural disasters and a never before seen flood, and we have achieved victory over the budget deficit and the government debt, although perhaps not fully, but we certainly look to be winning. And so our alliance is a long one that has stood the test of time. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, I also remember a time when this was not the case. I still remember those stormy years, those times of gnashing our teeth, when successfully warding off imminent catastrophe was the greatest joy we could hope for.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If I am not mistaken, Fidesz and Magosz first forged an alliance some twenty years ago. It is only proper that as Prime Minster and the Chairman of Fidesz I now say thank you for these twenty years of loyalty, for your perseverance and for your esteemed cooperation. Thank you very much! We have been fighting side-by-side for twenty years to ensure the advancement of Hungary and so that we can all live in a free and fair world. Hungary’s farmers have never wanted anything other than freedom and justice. The freedom to decide on their lives and their work themselves, and justice so that there is a sense to their work. A fair world in today’s modern times means that everyone gets what they deserve and everyone does what they are capable of. This is what we want, this is the kind of Hungary that we are working for.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Hungary has much to learn from our farmers, because you know precisely that there is no harvest without sowing. The whole country should learn this lesson. You know precisely that if you do not prepare the land with due care, ploughing and sowing will not happen in time, and then there will be no harvest. If we want to achieve victory over the financial crisis, the budget deficit and the government debt that we inherited, and if we want to overcome the negative tendencies within the Hungarian economy, then we have no choice but to get to grips with the task and get down to work. When people ask me how it is possible that Hungary, which in 2010 rejected the crisis management solutions recommended by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union and instead chose one that we had constructed ourselves; when they ask me what is the explanation for its success, then I simply suggest that they take a look at a single set of figures, and this is the set of figures I would like to draw to your attention now. If you are truly interested in understanding how a Hungarian solution that was different to the crisis management solutions dictated by the world’s financial super powers could have succeeded, then you must understand, and what we must all understand, is that there are 10 million people living within this country’s territory, and in 2010 of these 10 million people only one million eight-hundred thousand paid taxes. A country of ten million in which only one million eight-hundred thousand pay taxes is doomed. It is only a matter of time before it collapses. It is with respect that I can tell the General Assembly of Magosz that in May of 2014 there were ten million of us living in Hungary and four million one-hundred thousand people paid taxes on the work they performed. This is the change, Ladies and Gentlemen, in which, like a sea in a drop of water, everything that we have done over the past four years can be clearly recognised.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
After we succeeded in getting rid of the single party system twenty-one or so years ago, we had to face another challenge of at least equal proportions. This is where our greatest joint success lies. Because the danger that faced us was that the remnants of the communists, and there were many of them, would do everything possible, hand in hand with the liberals, to pass Hungarian farmland, to the last hectare if needed, over to foreigners, speculators and disreputable businessmen. This was the greatest peril of the past twenty years. But we, together, and I take off my hat before the members Magosz once again, did not allow them to pull the ground out from under the feet of Hungary’s farmers; we protected our Hungarian farmland. With the new Land Act, we have succeeded in assuring that Hungarian farmland will remain in the ownership and use of locally resident active farmers, who enjoy priority before all others. And we have perhaps even succeeding in managing to achieve this while bringing the new legislation into harmony with EU regulations. This is still the subject of debate and we are still involved in serious battles in Brussels; they have not accepted the Hungarian Land Act there for the moment. On my part, I will, in the name of the Hungarian Government, continue to maintain that Hungary should only have a Land Act that makes it possible for farmland to remain within a national sphere of authority and which enables us to weed our both domestic and foreign speculators from among our Hungarian farmers.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is easy to talk about but difficult to achieve, and things of this nature sometimes require strict measures even when one does not necessarily feel like being strict. But if we take what I just mentioned seriously, then we must also have suitable instruments and weapons at our disposal. From 1 July 2013, the new Penal Code includes a term of up to five years imprisonment for the illegal acquisition of farmland.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would also like to remind you that in addition to strictness, the Government has also mobilised financial instruments in the interests of protecting Hungarian farmland, because it has provided funding from the budget to enable the re-purchasing of land that was the subject of illegal land ownership agreements. We have introduced pre-emption rights for the national land fund, and as a result we have realised the pre-emptive purchasing of over 2,500 hectares of land.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Several people have spoken before me about this rule of thumb regarding the 80:20 ratio. This is an issue that goes back centuries. Obviously, people’s lives don’t span centuries, we are all living here today, and so it is the problems of living today which are most important. Rarely does one have the opportunity to stand up straight, distance oneself from the everyday bustle of life and look down on everything he has achieved from a higher perspective and over a wider horizon. But perhaps a General Assembly provides one with such a luxury. If we look at today’s farmland debate from this perspective, then what we can say is that the world that you represent and which we represent has always been on the losing side in this centuries-old debate. The periods during which the people who work the land could feel that the land that provides their living belongs primarily and before all others to them were very short-lived. And such a world did not even come about as a result of the land distribution that followed the Second World War, because the socialist system of large estates prevented it from happening. And accordingly, when we adopted the latest Land Act in Parliament and declared that we should help small and medium-sized farms to acquire 80 percent of farmland, with a preference for medium-sized farms, and no more than 20 percent should remain in the form of large estates, then we decided a very important debate that had been going on for centuries. We decided it with legislation that required a two-thirds majority of the votes in Parliament. Of course the current two-thirds majority on the one hand means what President Jakab mentioned before, that we now have the opportunity to make fine adjustments, but it also means that we are the ones with a two-thirds majority and the others don’t have a two-thirds majority, and those without a two-thirds majority are incapable of changing this legislation. It is to this and the preservation of this state of affairs that I wish you much strength and good health!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The losing position you and all of us started out from is clearly shown by the fact that in 2010, just four years ago, all state-owned farmland was in use within the framework of just 600 contracts. As things stand today, we have succeeded in making available 221,000 hectares of farmland and have signed over 6,000 land lease agreements. People may argue, but the fact is that the number of people farming state-owned land has increased tenfold over the course of just four years, and this is what is important.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Please allow me to also speak a little here before you about the performance of agriculture within the national economy. Because the performance of agriculture makes us proud and it gives you pride, which is one of the prerequisites of a job well done. Of course people work for money and to make a living, but a job that fills one with pride is totally different from work that deprives us of it. People who make a living in agriculture have good reason to raise their heads in pride, Ladies and Gentlemen! Of course not everything is perfect. Liberal economists like to show that only 4.5% of the Hungarian gross national product, which people simply call the GDP, is provided by agricultural production. But if you once again view things from a wider perspective and view all of agriculture as a full production chain, then you will find that it equates to more than 20 percent of the Hungarian national economy, which justifies our stating that not only would there be no life without agriculture because then there would be nothing to eat, but also because without the contribution of Hungarian agriculture there would be no viable Hungarian national economy either. And this is certainly cause to be proud. If we take a look at the latest figures then what I can tell you is that the performance of the sector increased by 22% last year.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today, anyone with a little common sense can see that agriculture will play a key role in the future of mankind, and so also in the future of the people of Hungary. Farmland is a treasure that no country of sound mind would be prepared to give away. The world population is continuously increasing, there are increasing numbers of people to maintain and to feed, and accordingly this sector has a future. High quality farmland, water stocks, expertise, knowledge and diligence are values that will increase in significance in the upcoming decades. It is an exceptional situation, dear General Assembly, that these values are all readily available to the people of Hungary. We have high quality farmland, water stocks, expertise, knowledge and diligence.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
But of course, while we have achieved undeniable results there are also serious changes and nobody is claiming that everything is going well. We are at least moving in the right direction, but things aren’t going well just yet. As things stand, where we are today is still not where we would like to be. The situation now is still not what we would like it to be. And accordingly there will still be reason for dissatisfaction, a yearning for change and a willingness to act in the upcoming period.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
But at the same time, I would like to remind everyone that only the communists tried to make us believe that there is such a thing as a problem-free world in which everyone only works as much as they feel like working and can otherwise take what they need from the kitty to satisfy their own requirements. In contrast, the reality is that I cannot imagine a world in which there are no problems. The opportunity we have before us is simply the chance to reduce the number of bad problems and increase the number of good ones. Let me give you an example. If you are not a member of the European Union, that’s a bad problem. If you’re in the EU, that’s a good problem. And so the government is not undertaking to create a state of affairs in the country that is a paradise, or which sounds familiar from communist propaganda, and in which everyone can otherwise get ahead without effort, without taking risks, without work and even while being sometimes unsuccessful. All we can promise is that the government is on your side and will do everything possible to reduce the number of bad problems that you can do nothing about, to open the doors that provide an opportunity to make a living and to provide you with a chance to work more and more, and accordingly to be more and more successful. This is what the current Hungarian Government has to offer honestly and in good conscience to the citizens of Hungary, including Hungarian farmers.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are all aware of the fact that the number of people living in rural villages continues to decrease, that a significant part of rural resources do not remain in situ, that few families are capable of making a living from only agriculture and that apart from agriculture, there is an extreme lack of much-needed jobs in rural Hungary. These are just a few of the problems we will have to face in the upcoming period. This means that we must keep the resources available to rural areas on site, we must create jobs in rural areas, and not just in and around our big cities, and we must somehow explain to our young people, and show them through our own example, that with the level of technical development we have our disposal in the 21st century, living in the countryside doesn’t mean living in the back of beyond, but instead it could easily be the case that we are living in the centre of the world. There is a wise saying in Britain, and I would like Hungary to achieve this stage eventually, although we are still far from that goal, which goes like this: the only place to live a truly quality life is in the country.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There will be a Magosz meeting, and perhaps I too will be invited, at which we can state that the best place to lead a truly quality life is in the country, without that having come about through a reduction in the quality of city life.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would also like to say a few words about the most important task we have before us, because everyone who took the podium before me also touched in this subject. We have put forward our estate policy, you all know about that. The biggest question is: do we have enough courage? We will need a bit portion of that. Do we have enough fortitude? Do we have enough knowledge and have we done enough work to also introduce this 80:20 percent ratio, meaning 80 percent to small and medium-sized estates and 20 percent to large estates, within the fields of area-based funding and agricultural funding? This is the big question. We are not doing badly. Whether or not you have enough courage, you will decide during the upcoming weeks, because this would mean a restructuring of such magnitude in Hungarian agricultural policy that cannot be performed by simply informing [the EU]. We must undertake many risks and serious debates in order to realise this. The deadline is short. We must come to the required decisions in August, and what’s more, we must also inform the agriculture policy centre in Brussels of our decisions in August. According to plan, we will make the required decisions at the nest cabinet meeting on Monday the 7th [of July]. I hope we can reach this stage. All I ask of you all is that while you are enthusiastically and understandably in favour of the fact that, as the agrarian bureaucrats call it in their language, digression should take place with regard to agricultural funding, the area-based, [SAPS] funding, meaning that we should not pay funding in excess of 150 thousand euros and estates that are eligible for higher levels of funding should not receive more, and we agree with this approach, in the meantime we would like to find solutions on Monday that do not lead to even a temporary decrease in employment. We must realise this restructuring without there being any redundancies in the agriculture sector. This will be no easy task. Both Magosz and the Chamber [of Agriculture] have been so kind as to make recommendations in this regard. But whatever the case, what we require now is extreme determination: to on the one hand preserve jobs, because most of them are at large estates, and on the other hand to divert a significant proportion of area-based and agrarian funding in the direction of medium-sized and small farms. My wish for you, and for ourselves, is that we have the required wisdom, tactical sense and courage to achieve this.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The issue of unity involves everyone. This is also an old subject of discussion between myself and President Jakab. When it comes to the capabilities of Hungarian farmers to act in unity, I am more carefully rumbustious than your President. And of course we both argue that we know our own kind very well. It is not impossible that we are both correct, because he is from the Great Plains, while I am from Transdanubia, but whatever the case, I am a supporter of solidarity between farmers, but what I as Prime Minister have seen so far as examples of realised cooperation have deterred me somewhat. I haven’t come here today to put anyone into the stocks by mentioning settlements or company names, but what I can tell you is that there is a long list of integrative experiments in Hungarian agriculture that have received financial support from the state and which were aimed at organising farmers and realising solidarity among them, but with regard to which the only result I was able to see was that the Hungarian taxpayer had to foot the bill. I am a supporter of solidarity. Mr. President, I am ready to play my part; I think Hungarian farmers deserve the opportunity to cooperate and work together according to their own mutual interests and I will create an opportunity for this, but I would like to remind everyone about the issue of responsibility: this kind of integration receives public finances and accordingly it is everyone’s duty to keep that in mind and to act with a suitable sense of responsibility. If the Chamber of Agriculture and Magosz undertake to guarantee this, then we can come to an agreement; if they don’t, then we shall not.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is a standpoint that I think I must stick to, as I am sure you understand. I do not want to increase the number of bad examples, but to finally see a promising and attractive success story.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our second four-year term. A great opportunity, a huge task and a serious responsibility. But President Jakab is right: we aren’t getting any younger and winning with a two-thirds majority doesn’t help us with that; we too are getting increasingly long in the tooth. We too start the day with various aches and pains, and so I must agree with the fact that we must raise a new generation of young farmers. This is your responsibility. What I must do on my part, and what is my responsibility, is to raise a new generation within the agrarian administration. When forming the new cabinet, I did my best to find the path, or at least take the first steps along the path, on which we may find the new generation of agrarian civil servants in whom you also trust; we can see this at the Ministry and within the Chamber of Agriculture. These bright youngsters are sitting right here, like the swallows used to sit on the telephone line when I was a boy, and we very much hope that they fulfil the high hopes we have of them. I will do everything possible, while taking into account your criteria and recommendations, dear Magosz General Assembly, to find those leaders within agricultural policy and agrarian administration, who over the next twenty to thirty years will be capable of continuing the policies that we have introduced over the past four years and which we will continue to practice during the upcoming four years. You know my creed: the youth to battle, the old to the council! And accordingly we await the advice of the old ones, of the older Magosz members, and we await their ideas, and at the same time we ask that you continue to send representatives of the younger generation to perform work related to the administration.
Dear Mr. President, Dear Chairman of the Chamber, Dear Committee Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Magosz delegates,
I would like to repeat that it has been an honour for me to have worked together with you during these past years. We have set great objectives for ourselves and launched major programmes, sometimes including major programmes that went against the prevailing world fashion. The four years we have ahead of us will no longer be a time for great words, but for great deeds, if you think so too. My wish for you is that we have sufficient strength and will to truly make these four years a period of great deeds.
I wish you all much strength and good health! God bless you all!
(Prime Minister's Office)
