Orbán: We are glad that we are still allowed to speak in Brussels

"We are glad that we are still allowed to speak in Brussels," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Wednesday at the National Conservatism Conference (NATCON), according to MTI’s report. The event could only be held at the third chosen venue, but on the first day, police arrived with a ban from the local mayor ordering the event to be shut down. The speeches were eventually allowed to continue but no new arrivals could enter. The mayor's decision ended up being suspended by a court late Tuesday, making it possible for the second day's programme to go ahead uninterrupted.

The Prime Minister said the banning of NATCON and the ensuing suspension of the decision was reminiscent of Hungary in the late 1980s, when "the forces of freedom and the forces of oppression were fighting each other". He described the event as symbolic, a representation of the situation in Europe, with the continent balancing on the border between freedom and oppression. Based on the posts of NATCON on X (formerly Twitter), the Prime Minister brought up the case of a Fidesz event in the 1980s, where something similar had happened.

On the European Parliament elections in June, he said that if a leadership is found to be bad, it must be replaced, and this leadership is bad. Orbán said that farmers across Europe were suffering, the handling of migration was worse than ever and the sanctions had not stopped the war. Thus, new leadership is needed.

"Living in a Christian civilisation is the best thing. Why should we give that up?" – he asked, according to Mandiner, but then added that the Islamic civilization is also valuable. He said the stakes of migration were what kind of civilisation Europe would have. "We cannot force people to follow any religion." Orbán added that the desire to have children was slowly increasing (in Hungary – TN), and said: "we are trying to support families, to convince young people that having a family is a good thing".

The paper said that when asked about Vladimir Putin, he considered the use of the term "alliance" to be very strong, but said he did not intend to give up the good economic relationship. He doesn't want to share a border with Russia, "we respect Ukraine's sovereignty and international rights", but the country is "today just a protectorate of the West" and added that "this is not the war of the Hungarians".

Because of the 200,000 Israelis of Hungarian origin, Israel is "not just a geopolitical issue for us", furthermore, one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe is living in Budapest. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a "great leader" and Orbán wished him God-given wisdom in resolving the situation, hoping that the war would not spread, Mandiner reported.

The Prime Minister also took part in a discussion at the European Parliament on Tuesday. According to Népszava, here he said that the current EU leadership failed in its handling of migration, the green transition and the recovery following the epidemic. At the discussion hosted by the eurosceptic-conservative ECR group, he referred to an article by George Soros written almost a decade ago, saying that we are still fighting an "organised gang" led by the billionaire, who he believes wants to bring a million migrants into Europe every year.

According to MTI, when commenting on the EU's Migration and Asylum Pact, which is nearing adoption, Orbán said on Tuesday that the question of residence while being processed was the key to solving the issue. "If we don't have the courage to say that everyone must stay outside the borders until a decision is made on their case, whatever other decision we make is not going to work."