The following is a translation of an article written by Hungary Today chief editor Dániel Deme, originally published in Magyar Nemzet.

The Versailles and Trianon approach has recently been revived in Europe, which poses a huge risk for Hungary. According to these views, world wars and conflicts unleashed by the leading nations can always be settled by compromises made at the expense of small nations. In other words, small nations have a moral obligation to make the necessary sacrifices in order to restore peace between the big European countries.

In Brussels, there is a misconception that national sovereignty can be overridden by a simple majority vote, especially if it suits German and French interests. It has been completely forgotten that the veto was precisely to protect small nations from the excesses of autocratic powers.

Building a system of checks and balances against the colonial instincts that the French have (fortunately, historically) mostly exercised outside Europe and the Germans, unfortunately, mostly within Europe: between two world wars, this was the way we came to a point where it did not seem at all a great sacrifice for the sake of European peace to carve up a nation with almost a thousand years of statehood, in violation of every humanist and historically justifiable principle. And if this, moreover, contributes to calming down the conflicts between the Germans and the French, the Americans will also give their blessing to the mutilation of the nation. Let there be only calm in Europe.

This spirit has now been revived in Brussels, only transformed into a mantra of ‘European solidarity or unity’.

Unfortunately, what the Euro-radicals in Brussels have not yet understood is that unity can never be the antipode to the plurality of opinion. Consensus is not achieved by silencing opposing views—that would be dictatorship. Still, unfortunately, this was the message the EU sent to Europeans during Viktor Orban’s visit to Brussels in January.

It was not really about what the Hungarian Prime Minister did or did not achieve. This whole artificial debate has served only one purpose, and that is to obscure the most striking lesson of the extorted billions of euros being pushed into Ukraine: today, the far-left elite that dominates the EU simply does what it wants. Since the leadership of most of the Member States has succumbed to this intransigent, arbitrary bureaucracy, there is no longer any system of checks and balances in the Member States that could have resisted it.

And since the Visegrád Four have also become rather two plus two, there is really nothing to stand in the way of them playing a Versailles-style, anti-national game with the people of Europe, which is almost guaranteed to lead to another conflagration.

Fidesz MEP Enikő Győri recently shared the list of speakers in the Brussels debate on the tourist baiting Antifa heroine detained in Hungary, during which not a single Hungarian MEP was allowed to defend our country from the accusations. Hungarian-hating German MEP Katarina Barley could seethe with resentment together with several other left-wing accomplices, and a few French and Italian MEPs had the possibility to defend us, too, but we could only peer from behind the scenes while the big guys decided whether we were right or not. That is European solidarity—we do not even have to open our mouths as we would only confuse the council of wise men. About us, without us, in the name of European unity.

In the 20th century, everyone has learned in Europe that the winners and losers in history are always literally the small nations. The big ones only lose wars, and peace is always divided between them for their mutual benefit. Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that today’s European all-powerful would also have no hesitation in dividing up what is left of our country because

Europe has learned absolutely nothing from Trianon.

We can also be sure that the Americans would shrug their shoulders again if a new peace in Europe were to be built at the expense of the Hungarians or other small nations. And let there be no doubt, too, that the nation-bashing left in Hungary would volunteer far more than the bare minimum to do so. After all, they are ‘pro-Europeans’. They are used to the fact that the money comes from abroad anyway, and that ‘you can speak Hungarian as a citizen of another country as well,’ as stated by well-known left-wing historian Krisztián Ungváry.

Europe is in a serious situation, and the great powers are once again in the mood to divide up national space and sovereignty. Only this time, they would not do it by means of expulsions, but the opposite, by means of settling migrants through quotas. They have sunk so low politically and morally that they would once again get rid of the rubbish they have produced onto the small nations.

This is compounded by the worrying fact that Europe’s most powerful nation is now led, without exaggeration, by political extremists. The heads of the other large nations, France and Britain, are all cynical, complacent, and indifferent to the problems of their citizens to a degree not seen here since the French Revolution.

It is an interesting situation for us. So far, we have been the ones always divided up: by the Ottomans, Habsburgs, Germans, and French. Now they are the ones being sliced up and bid on by the hungry peoples of the Third World and the coldly calculating networks of people smugglers. However,

they would still try to solve this crisis caused by their own greed and arrogance with their old instincts,

by making some new winners and losers among us, the nations of Central and Eastern Europe.

Our task in this new situation is to grow up mentally and start thinking for ourselves, without looking to the great European Vigilantes for solutions. We Hungarians are undoubtedly leading the way in this respect, and Westerners are starting to be very disturbed that our example is becoming increasingly contagious.

But to Brussels, Paris, and Berlin, we can only respond in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, in today’s revival of the Versailles spirit, when he said to a European politician: ‘You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s “old Europe”.’

Click here to read the original article.