Ensuring the right to national identity is vital for every European nation and state, Speaker of Parliament László Kövér said in Budapest on Friday.
 
In a speech opening the plenary session of the Forum of Hungarian Lawmakers from the Carpathian Basin (KMKF), Kövér said private powers such as multinational companies presented a new challenge to the power of nation states. At stake in the fight between states and multinationals is control over countries’ financial, economic, natural and human resources, he added.

Kövér said private powers were looking to weaken and even eliminate national identity in order to establish a new global world order.

 
Ensuring, codifying and enforcing the right to national identity could be “an effective weapon of self-defence”
 
for nation states against private powers, he said.

Addressing the plenary session, Justice Minister Judit Varga said Hungary regarded its national minorities as an asset and considered it neighbours a partner. “These two basic principles describe best how Hungary views Europe’s future,” she said. She said good neighbourly relations were highly important for Hungary, which Varga said was determined by the situation of ethnic Hungarian communities in neighbouring countries.

 
Brutal video shows how migrants attack the Hungarian border fence
 

The justice minister said that in addition to
 
strengthening cultural, economic, social and educational activities, supporting organisations that represent Hungarian interests was also important for the Hungarian government.
 
“We are, however, doing all this not with a hostile intent, but by respecting and consistently representing European principles,” Varga said.