Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, addressing a graduation ceremony of new police, disaster management and prison officers at the National University of Public Service in Budapest, spoke about the importance of patriotism, saying that lawfulness, law and order were at the heart of Hungary. “Everyday patriotism means feeling that the country one lives in is one’s homeland of which there is only one,” the prime minister said. “If this [one homeland] is lost, one can only continue their life in a place that belongs to someone else and where we could only ever hope to be tolerated, or, in a best case scenario, accepted.”
“So we’re ready to preserve it, and if necessary, fight for it from generation to generation, because this is the most valuable thing we can pass on to our children,” Orbán said, adding that the feeling of patriotism “binds us to a shared fate that is great and unique”. This sentiment is especially strong in Hungarians, he said, adding that without patriotism, Hungary would hardly have been able to survive for as long as it has. The prime minister added that if the newly graduated officers aimed to be good policemen, firefighters and disaster response officers, they would also need self-esteem.