A speech by the Hungarian Prime Minister over the weekend caused outrage because it contained racist terms. What was lost was that Orban also promised a whole new balance of power in the EU.
Austria’s Chancellor received Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday: It was his first appearance after a provocative speech a few days earlier.
Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer would probably not have chosen this guest at the moment: of all days, in the week in which Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is being subjected to severe criticism for ethnic statements, a meeting of the two heads of government took place in Vienna.
Nehammer was faced with the diplomatically delicate task of how to deal with the difficult neighbor. On the one hand he could not afford to remain silent politically, on the other hand Austria is dependent on good relations with Hungary. The country’s companies are important investors in the neighboring country, and Vienna needs Budapest’s cooperation on the migration issue.
Warning of a “mixed race world”
The controversy was once again triggered by a speech by Orban. Last weekend, the traditional summer academy of the Hungarian governing party Fidesz took place in the small Romanian town of Baile Tusnad for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic. The inhabitants of the region are mostly Magyars. In Baile Tusnad, Orban announced eight years ago that “the state we are building is an illiberal state”.
This time Orban used the occasion for a programmatic speech. In the past few days, one passage in particular had offended Western European politicians: Orban stated that the European peoples were mixing with migrants who immigrated from other continents. This would create a “mixed-race world”, as the official German translation puts it. The Western European countries are therefore no longer nations, but “conglomerates of peoples”.
The Hungarians would never have wanted such a world, which is why they stopped the Turks near Vienna in the 16th century. Today, however, Islamic civilization is flooding the West. Orban tried to smooth things over on Wednesday. His country has a zero-tolerance policy on racism and anti-Semitism, he said.
Nevertheless, Orban’s visit to Vienna suddenly aroused a great deal of interest: Would Nehammer refer to Orban’s statements, and would he come back to them? Asked those who otherwise consider official visits by politicians to be a boring routine matter. Media interest was correspondingly high.
Nehammer then expressed himself as cautiously as Orban before. “We reject any form of trivialization of racism and anti-Semitism,” he said rather clichély. The chancellor obviously tried not to let the matter boil over again – Hungary is too important as a partner. The shrewd rhetorician Orban was a bit more talkative. With the term “race” he did not make a biological assessment, but a cultural one, he said.
Orban’s statements might not have garnered so much attention if they hadn’t led to the resignation of a close aide. Zsuzsa Hegedüs, the social integration officer, resigned mid-week. She described Orban’s speech as “pure Nazi text” reminiscent of Goebbels. In a letter to the prime minister, she said the lecture had violated her core values.
A tasteless saying by Orban may have contributed to this: The politician is massively bothered that the EU is asking member states to limit gas consumption by 15 percent. In his speech in Baile Tusnad, he said he didn’t see how Brussels wanted to force it, “although there was German know-how from the past.”
Critique of Civilization in the West
As understandable as the outrage at the statements is, this is not the first time that the politician has given a deep insight into his construct of ideas, which he wants to use to bind voters on the far right to himself. Because the country is going through very difficult times economically, Orban apparently saw it as necessary to tighten the rhetoric again compared to previous years and to spice it up with tastelessness.
However, the passage that deals with the dangers of a multiracial Europe only covers one page in the 22-page speech script. In addition, the politician touches on many topics, almost all of which are under the motto “We Hungarians against the EU and the USA”. As a flawless populist, Orban once again acted as if he were speaking for the entire Hungarian nation.
His speech contained a lot of criticism of the West, which according to Orban is increasingly losing strength. The prestige and agency of Western civilization are on the point of dwindling. Actually, this is just a “postal west” – the real west has moved to Central Europe in a spiritual sense. A battle is now raging between the two halves of Europe, and Orban demands that they “leave each other in peace”. This applies to the Prime Minister, for example in the areas of migration and gender issues.
How often did Orban go far into the past to explain Hungary’s mission to the audience. Orban’s statements are often strangely ahistorical, for example when he acts as if everything Hungarian is immovable and stands above all historical and social developments.
For Orban, the music will play in Central Europe in the future
At the same time, Orban looked to the future and described what he believed to be the situation in the EU in 2030. “We Central Europeans will become net contributors by then.” This will create a new balance of power. “Whoever pays, orders the music,” says Orban.
Such statements are a declaration of war against the western partners in the EU and all the more astonishing since Hungary is dependent on their good will. The country has still not received any money from the EU’s recovery fund, but could use it at the moment.
There is little to suggest that by 2030 Hungary will be such a powerhouse as Orban envisions. Inflation is high and the weakness is also reflected in the depreciation of the forint. The latter is always a vote of no confidence on the part of investors: they no longer trust the government’s economic policy.