In his comments on the 20th anniversary of Hungary’s accession to the EU, the country’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, stated that today the European Union is not at all the same as the one Hungary joined in 2004. Orban said this in an interview with Hungarian state radio, cited by the independent outlet Telex.
The head of the Hungarian government noted that he himself campaigned for EU membership in 2004 and still believes that it is better to be in the European Union than outside of it. However, according to Orban, the EU was not like it is today when Hungary became a member.
“I mean, at that time there was no talk of millions of migrants being admitted to the EU, and those who do not want them, like us Hungarians, would be forced to accept them. There was no talk of if someone says that a family consists of a man, a woman and a child, they would be laughed at in European liberal media. Or if a country writes in its constitution that a mother is a woman and a father is a man, like in Hungary, it will face retaliation. Europe didn’t look like this back then!” the Hungarian Prime Minister exclaimed.
He added that Hungary became an EU member because Europe meant peace and prosperity, but “now we are in an economic crisis,” and “European leaders are dragging the continent into war instead of peace.”
“The first thing to say, evaluating the last twenty years, is: gentlemen, this is not what we agreed on. Mom, this is not the horse I wanted,” Orban said, using an ancient saying mostly used by residents in rural areas of Hungary.
He also referred to the Russian-Ukrainian war as a reason for Hungary’s economic difficulties. According to him, Hungary’s economy would have doubled if there had been no war.
