Hungary prime minister hits out at EU interference in national day speech

[CelticViking]

Hungary's strongman prime minister, Viktor Orbán, delivered a stinging broadside against Brussels on Thursday, likening EU bureaucracy to Soviet tyranny and casting himself in the mould of Hungarian heroes fighting to free the country from foreign domination since the 19th century.

On Thursday, the prime minister rounded furiously on EU outsiders demanding changes. "Hungarians will not live as foreigners dictate, will not give up their independence or their freedom, therefore they will not give up their constitution either," he thundered in a speech with strong nationalist overtones.

"Freedom means that we decide about the laws governing our own life, we decide what is important and what isn't. From the Hungarian perspective, with a Hungarian mindset, following the rhythm of our Hungarian hearts. We will not be a colony."

His speech advocated nationalism, protectionism, and reeked of chippiness, arguing that his country was getting a raw deal in the EU. "We have with us the silently abiding Europe of many tens of millions, who still insist on national sovereignty and still believe in the Christian virtues of courage, honour, fidelity and mercy, which one day made our continent great.


"As a thousand-year-old European nation we have one demand. We demand equal standards for Hungarians. As a European nation we demand equal treatment. We will not be second-class European citizens."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...?newsfeed=true

[European Loyalist]

"We have with us the silently abiding Europe of many tens of millions, who still insist on national sovereignty and still believe in the Christian virtues of courage, honour, fidelity and mercy, which one day made our continent great."

[Edelmann]

Orbán enjoys the strongest democratic mandate in the EU, after a landslide election victory in 2010 that gave his Fidesz party a two-thirds majority in parliament.

And yet in the opening paragraph the author seemingly dismisses Orbán as a "strongman".

[Viljuska]

U got to admire the strong national spirit in Hungary.
But unfortunately, this is going to cost them.

On Wednesday, the EU suspended 495m euros ($655m; £417m) of funds due next year to Hungary

.. because of the country's budget deficit.

But the EU said it would allow three months for Hungary to pass more budget cuts.

Wow, three months.. how kind, the Hungarians will be so happy.
I guess it doesn't get easier after this.. but still very exciting.



Great article about The National Question In Hungary.

And this may be the main lesson to be derived from this exercise in orchestrated anger. Western Europe is vastly different from the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Paradoxically, the Iron Curtain was an unintended protective blanket. Hungarians, Poles, Balts, Slovaks, etc. never underwent the kind of multicult indoctrination that has succeeded so well in “Western democracies.” They remain what the German philosopher Herder referred to as “historic, cultural nations.” They do not even pretend to, let alone actually, embrace the politics of guilt toward national or civilizational victims or the human rights ideology that have stifled national awareness in Western Europe—above all in a “reeducated” and arrogantly masochistic Germany.

[Mercury]

Seems like he's just nervous about that Jobbik party catching up to his in the polls. So he's playing to them using their rhetoric.