Europe At A Crossroads, Says Orban In Berlin

Berlin, May 8 (MTI) – Hungary’s premier has warned that unless Europe considers policies such as pushing energy prices down and getting the jobless off benefits and into work it will face a rocky future and low competitiveness.

The energy sector is the most important issue as far as the future of European competitiveness is concerned, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in Berlin on Thursday.

Participating in a conference organised by WDR public radio, Orban said:

“Today’s system is destined to defeat us … energy prices must be kept radically low in order to secure Europe’s future.”

Other regulatory matters are secondary to this goal, he added. Also in his wide-ranging lecture followed by questions, Orban assessed the state of Europe and his own election win, which he characterised as a sweeping victory for the European centre. The general election in Hungary last month was a victory for the European centre, he said. Neither the left- nor the right-wing extremists got authorisation from the voters; rather “the centre has a two-thirds in parliament” to govern Hungary, Orban added.

“Water levels keep changing, and in politics the question is never about how high … the tide is for extremists are but how tall the dykes are. In Hungary, tall dykes have been built with the help of politics based on European cooperation, human dignity and economic rationality, so Hungary is stable.”

Addressing Europe’s crisis, he said jobs were key. “We in Europe can’t live on other people’s money,” he said, adding that it was only through job-creation that the bloc could develop.

In his 20-minute lecture, “Europe at a crossroads”, Orban told the audience of several hundred that no one could hope to sort out his economic woes using someone else’s money, adding that this is the reason that Hungary had paid back its IMF loan early and had put a brake on debt, as well as reducing the public debt and preventing the budget deficit from pushing above the European threshold.

Orban said the labour market must be supported, and if the private sector is unable to provide jobs for everyone then it is the role of the state to endeavour for full employment. In Hungary, “instead of benefits …. the state strives to ensure workplaces,” he said.

Speaking on the demographic situation of Europe, he said this could not be solved through mass immigration, which threatened conflict. “History has shown that civilisations unable to sustain themselves biologically will disappear,” he said. Europe should therefore prioritise a natural treatment of its demographic problem, he added. European policies should better respect nations and the Christian culture, he argued. He said that in a Christian Europe the family relationship between a man and a woman was the bedrock of coexistence.