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ORBÁN: DECADE OF INSECURITY, WARFARE AHEAD

The coming decade will be one of danger, insecurity and warfare, Viktor Orbán said in parliament after being re-elected as prime minister on Monday.
 

Orbán said the war in Ukraine and Europe’s sanctions policy had resulted in an energy crisis, while higher energy prices combined with US interest rate hikes aimed at combatting high inflation would lead to a period of recession and stagnation in Europe. He said epidemics were likely to recur, precipitating deepening economic downturns and intensifying migration waves to rich countries. Moreover, he added, the war in Ukraine would be protracted and global. “A decade of war is unfolding before our eyes,” Orbán said, adding that whereas it would be good this were not the case, “our starting point should not be our desires but reality”. Orbán said that keeping Hungary out of the war in Ukraine and ensuring the country’s peace and security would be the primary task of the next decade. The war in Hungary’s neighbourhood, he added, was likely to be protracted and involve an amount of weaponry that would be “hard to fathom”, thereby posing a constant security threat to the country. He said that whoever transported weapons had “one foot in the war already”.