The text is an edited version of a speech given by the Director General of the Centre for Fundamental Rights at a conference organised by Nazione Futura on Italian conservatism, in Rome, Italy last week
Io sono Miklós, sono un uomo, sono padre, sono ungherese, sono cristiano.
Ladies and Gentlemen — I apologise for addressing you as belonging to either of these two sexes, but under the Hungarian Constitution and the laws of nature only these two exist.
Thank you for having me here. In addition to my gratitude, congratulations are in order. So, please allow me to offer my compliments to you, not only for this fantastic event, but also to all my friends on the Italian Right for the historic election victory. As we say in Hungary: ‘The timid do not conquer their enemies’—and you were not timid, you stood up to the Left and vanquished them. It was you alone who achieved this triumph, this success, but please allow us to share in your joy, because a friend is a friend in joy and in sorrow. And we Hungarian conservatives are your friends, come rain or shine.
But one victory will not save Europe. For Europe is in a state of grave distress. Europe is our home, the EU is our family—and you fear for your home and worry for your family, just as you worry for your children if they do something foolish.
Today, Brussels is behaving as if it were an infantile teenager—in spite of all the warnings that things would go wrong, it continues to play with fire. Whether it is purely out of spite or on purpose is hard to say.
All caution in vain, the Eurocratic elite of today, caught up in its wokeness and political correctness, wants to create a political union, a United States of Europe on our continent. This goes against the intentions of the founding fathers who knew full well that although European are like a large extended family, there was no such thing as a single European demos. And none has emerged since their time.
And for the sake of this artificial political surgery, akin to a sex change operation for an entire continent, they are putting the Member States under institutional pressure on the one hand, and ideological pressure on the other.
By invoking the European values of the ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy’, they want to outsource decision-making from the local, national to the federal level. This is behind all the ‘rule of law’ and infringement procedures, the creeping legislation by the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of the European Union. Moreover, when they do not like the outcome of certain elections, they tend to ignore the genuine democratic expressions of the popular will. They claim that in terms of legitimacy, compliance with the so-called EU values is more important than the voice of the people—as Jean-Claude Junker said earlier about the Hungarian referendum on migration, or as Ursula von der Leyen did when she recently declared that they have ‘the tools’ to deal with Italy if the Right should come to power. It seems as though Brussels has exported so much democracy abroad that little is now left to limit their own actions.
Furthermore, invoking the EU values of ‘equality’ and ‘justice’, they put countries under ideological pressure: ‘You can only be a good person if you renounce the Judeo-Christian foundations of European civilisation,’ they say. In fact, in the name of diversity, they want to create a uniform commune in Europe. They want a multicultural, mixed society everywhere, everything must be covered in rainbows, men must be able to give birth everywhere—or at least have the right to do so in every Member State. ‘EU values’ are said to be neutral—because in principle they are the ‘common values that we all share’—but at the end of the day, it always turns out that for them a democracy can only be liberal. If it is not liberal, it is supposedly no longer a democracy.
Sanctions are supposed to hurt the one that they are imposed upon more than the side that imposes them
The denial of our roots, cancel culture, the abandoning of history for the supposed sins of our past, has led to political amnesia. The European progressive vanguard has lost the political know-how, the political competence to deal with the historical conflicts that are very much still with us. This is what we are witnessing with regard to the war in Ukraine, which was the result of Russian aggression. An energy-dependent EU is imposing sanctions on Russia, one of the world’s largest energy exporters. My understanding was that sanctions are supposed to hurt the one that they are imposed upon more than the side that imposes them. However, this is clearly not the current state of affairs. Russia, which started the war, has not been brought to its knees, peace is slipping away, while in Europe, rising energy prices due to flawed sanctions are leading to an inflationary spiral and, as a result, an economic crisis. So, with these sanctions Brussels has imported the economic effects of the war into the EU.
What do we see, what is the big picture nowadays? The cyclical nature of politics: the Left comes to power by issuing wild promises, creates a crisis, and then people turn to the conservatives to put things right. This has happened before in Hungary and Poland, and now in Italy. And usually, once the situation returns to normal, the Left comes back with promising the moon again. Europe now is at the point where the Left has caused an existential crisis.
Given all that, what is our task now to save our nations and to rescue Europe? We must preserve the majority and serve the truth at the same time. Because if the majority does not serve the cause of justice, then the majority is worthless. But if we cannot bring justice to the majority, we cannot act for the truth.
So, justice without vigour—and vice versa—is of little value. The rallying of the Italian, Hungarian or Polish Right in their respective countries shows that conservatives can be both strong and represent the cause of justice. The task ahead is to achieve this unity at the international level. To make the liberal nightmare of the international cooperation of national forces a reality.
Let us therefore focus not on what separates us, but on what unites us. We must realise that the triune value of God, Homeland and Family is under a global assault that we cannot escape. Not here in Rome, not in Budapest, not in Warsaw, nor across the Atlantic. With common sense, with realistic pragmatism, but also with courage and integrity, we must take up the fight against the network of Open Society. We have to recognise that we are simultaneously threatened by two imperialist socialist dogmas: one from the West and one from the East. We reject both, we refuse to be absorbed into either.
Hungary has set an example in the past 12 years by preserving our strategic autonomy in decision-making. We have successfully protected our national culture, our state sovereignty and our energy security. We continue to support the family, to protect children and to develop a workfare society—one where an honest day’s work guarantees that you can get ahead. And all this time, we have never forgotten (and will never forget) the first and most important rule of conservative politics: never play by the Liberals’ rules!
Yet to fight this battle with any hope of victory having justice and strength on our side is not enough. We also need strong and righteous allies. That is why we are now turning our attention to Italy. We hope that the New York Times and the BBC will—for once—prove right, and this new government in charge of the EU’s third and the world’s eighth largest economy is indeed a cause for concern. Concern for Brussels, for George Soros, and for the intellectuals who have turned from pink communists into shallow liberals.
We share your joy, we believe in you, our Italian conservative friend
We, however, are not concerned. We share your joy, we believe in you, our Italian conservative friends. And together we believe in God, Homeland, Family and a Europe that will—in the hour of its greatest moral, economic and political peril – prove to be up to the challenge. We hope that the sovereign peoples of Europe will revert to common sense and offer the reins of government to a European conservative movement that has a shared voice across all our nations. One that will guide all of us to a safe harbour on these stormy seas of history.
United we stand.
Divided we fall.
Thank you! Grazie!
