The Traditional State of the Nation Speech of Viktor Orbán

Created: 10th March, 2009 15:59	print	send

The chairman of Fidesz said the news about the crisis missed but the essential meaning of it and concealed the truth about it. "The crisis is just the surface of a profound change which means the end of eight decades of our history", he pointed out, emphasising the need to distinguish between the crisis and the ongoing change itself. "It's not the details that we have to change, entirely genuine solutions are required", he added, stating that the present world economic order has "simply outgrown" itself.

The former prime minister claimed that the much-quoted Great Depression of 1929-33 differed substantially from today's crisis. "In 1929 it was overproduction of goods which led to the crisis. Today's, however, is caused by the overproduction of money. The world has upheld a financial system which had no real financial basis. This is why it has collapsed. The world's financial markets now need to renew themselves and this change has already begun", he stated. Mr Orbán said the crisis could have been prevented had the states not committed the mistake and given up their rights to oversee the national financial markets and thus an uncontrolled money creation would not have taken place.

According to the chairman of Fidesz, "an 80 year-old era has ended in the world and a 20 year-old one in Central Europe", and the transitional crisis "will be deeper and wider than we would've thought before". Mr Orbán said that over the course of the 20th century, the state overstretched and became dictatorial, followed by "a swing to the other extreme". The current global crisis could, however, "usher in an era of sanely managed, rational market economy". In order for this to happen, "control over the national financial markets must be restored" and instead of weakening the state, "its managing functions and rights and the order of these must be strengthened". Mr Orbán said mere ad hoc crisis managing programs were insufficient and completely new economic policy guidelines were needed instead.

"We need to forget the notion that the state is but a needless weight on the market", continued the chairman of Fidesz. "Why is it worth selling all of our banks and strategic industries to foreigners?" he asked, when the future, Mr Orbán argued, is secured by keeping key sectors in at least partially the state's hands. "In this present sinking world we have been told that everything coming from abroad was good by default. We were told to believe that everything that had to do with the state was wrong. We need not accept this", declared the chairman of Fidesz, stating that Hungary's incumbent leaders offered no solution for the country and the people to leave the "old world order" behind. "There will be no change if the very same people who led us astray and indebted our country continue to lead us" because these socialist politicians, knowing only their old methods and solutions, were afraid of change. "Their bluffs will not suffice in the new days because from now on real knowledge will be more important than ever and these people of the old world order are incapable of carrying out the changes", emphasised the leader of Fidesz.

The Hungarian socialists, he said, committed "the sin, not the mistake" of financing welfare expenditures from foreign credit, thereby breaking an agreement formed during the talks of the democratic transition to never again borrow money from abroad for the purpose of such spending. "In 2002, it seemed that we would introduce the Euro together with Slovenia in 2007 or with Slovakia in 2009, but every single forint was spent on debt financing and Hungary is practically on the verge of bankruptcy. The socialists know nothing but to borrow more and more money and the prime minister calls it an elegant solution that repaying the IMF loan will start when this government leaves office: "the money is theirs, the trouble stays with us", he added, referring to the recent $15.7 billion bailout loan from IMF.

"Everywhere I hear the same, short and clear sentence: enough is enough", said the chairman of Fidesz. "Twenty years ago when Hungary embarked on the democratic transition it seemed real that we would once arrive at a quality of life similar to that of Austria but instead we found ourselves not in the centre but the periphery of Europe", said Mr Orbán, promising, however, to prove "public security can be restored, there are tools to put the economy back on the right track and that a generation can be brought up so that each and every person is given appropriate education upon entering the labour market". The former prime minister emphasised that he and Fidesz did not simply want to "defeat the government" but to "leave them behind", ending his speech by calling for a new direction for Hungary and the Hungarians.