In the next decades Asia will be at the centre of the world order, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his address at the Bálványos Summer University in Băile Tuşnad, Romania. “Europe can then decide whether it wants to be an open-air museum or a part of global competition,” he said, adding that changes were now afoot that had not been seen in the past 500 years. Leading powers had come from the West over the past 150 years while change was now coming from Asia, he declared, citing Asia’s “demographic, technological and capital” advantage in more and more areas. Orbán referred to Asia’s military power and financial prowess, saying “the world’s biggest companies will be Asian” and the best universities and research institutes and largest stock exchanges would be based there. Orbán said former US president Donald Trump was seeking an American response to this state of affairs, and this represented America’s “last chance” to remain as a world leader. The prime minister said that Europe had two options: to become an open-air museum in a “subordinated role to the US” or to follow French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to achieve strategic autonomy and “enter the competition for changing the world order”. Orbán insisted that it was feasible to recover Europe’s ability to attract capital and implement big infrastructure developments, “especially in central Europe”. “We need a European military alliance with strong European military industry,” he said, adding that Europe must also be self-sufficient in terms of energy, for which nuclear power was indispensable. All this, he added, must be concluded after a post-war agreement with Russia is forged.
Orbán said changes in the current world order presented more of an opportunity than a danger, “and our room for manoeuver is broader than at any time in the last 500 years”. Orbán said that 500 years ago Europe had been a winner, while Hungary had been a loser of the previous global paradigm shift, arguing that whereas a new economic space had opened up for the western part of the continent, the Muslim conquests had turned Hungary into a war zone for a long period, which afterwards had been forced to integrate into a German-Habsburg world. He said developments in the United States “are going favourably for us”, adding, however, that he did not believe that the US could give Hungary “a better economic-political offer” than European Union membership could. “But if they can, we must take it into consideration,” he said.
Orbán said China had given Hungary “the maximum it can offer” and considered Hungary’s EU membership an asset, “unlike the Americans, who always imply that we should leave [the EU].” China’s offer, he said, was that “we should participate in each other’s modernisation”, even if the differences in size should be kept in mind.
Given fundamental changes in the world order, a “Hungarian grand strategy” is needed, Orbán said. Policies for the period between 2010 and 2030 “will be carried out and completed”, he said. “But given [epochal] changes in the world order, these won’t be enough,” he said, explaining that connectivity was key to Hungary’s “grand strategy”. He said Hungary must not find itself locked into either of the emerging Western or Eastern economies. “We must be present in both,” he said. “We won’t enter into a war against the East or into technical and commercial blockades,” he added. Also, the strategy encompassed sovereignty rooted in economic foundations, he said, adding that this meant fostering domestic national champions, competitive medium-sized firms, companies producing for the domestic market, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Orbán said several Hungarian national champions were competitive abroad in the banking sector, the energy sector, the food industry, the production of agricultural raw materials, IT, telecommunications, the media, the construction industry, real estate development, the pharmaceutical industry, military industry, logistics, and also “somewhat” in the knowledge industry via universities. He said the medium-sized enterprise sector was also competitive, and the Hungarian government will launch a large programme for SMEs in the 2025 “peace budget”.
Orbán said bolstering Hungary’s financial independence, reducing the debt stock to 30%, and turning the country into a regional creditor were key goals. This meant retaining the country’s production capacities rather than turning into a service-centred economy, Orbán said. “We mustn’t make the same mistake as the West of outsourcing manufacturing jobs to guest workers … as this would lead to a barely stoppable social breakdown,” he said. He emphasised the importance of Hungarian society’s “solid and flexible social structure”, and halting demographic decline. “We got off to a good start, but now we’re stuck,” he said. New momentum was needed, he said, and by 2035 “Hungary has to be demographically self-sustaining so that any idea of the population being replaced by migrants would be out of the question”. He said it was likely that tax discounts for children in 2025 would have to be doubled in a single year so as to regain demographic momentum. Orbán highlighted the importance of creating wealth and the financial independence of the middle class and preserving full employment, “and the key to this is maintaining the current relationship between work and Gypsies”. “Work is available, but to live you need to work,” he said.
Orbán said the Hungarian grand strategy would take another six months to ripen and evolve. The strategy “must be based on national foundations” and should include all Hungarians around the world, Orbán said. Support systems which underpin the stability and flexibility of Hungarian society, such as family support, must be spread out to all areas inhabited by Hungarians beyond the borders within the foreseeable future. He said Hungarian villages must be maintained. “The village is not a symbol of backwardness; city-level services must also be provided in villages, and cities must bear the financial burden of this,” he said.
On the topic of protecting sovereignty, Orbán said it was important to protect national diversity, and as well as preserving the language it was vital to preserve religion, too, as without Christianity there would be no moral compass or guidance. Politics, he said, must be adapted to “our national character”. Freedom, he added, must be built internally. The personal freedom of Hungarians must be built as well as the freedom of the nation, he said. Order, he added, was not an intrinsic value but a condition for freedom. “Our opponents will say that instead of an independent national grand strategy, integration is needed. So they’ll attack constantly… They’ll question not only the grand strategy’s content but its necessity, too. This fight must be taken up.” Orbán said the strategy’s success also depended on people in their twenties and thirties. “[We] must find brave, young fighters with the sentiment of the nation,” he said.