In answer to the show host’s question regarding the fact that the Constitutional Court will decide on whether the immigration regulations adopted by the European Union take precedence over Hungarian law, Mr Orbán said for us – according to our constitutional order – what matters is what the Constitutional Court rules as we pledged to serve the Hungarian people and took our oaths on the Hungarian Constitution, rather than on Brussels bureaucrats and “abstract Brussels notions,” the Prime Minister said, adding that in the case of a dispute with Brussels, the Constitutional Court has the right to decide “at final instance,” and so the government must follow the Hungarian body’s decision.
He said we are at the peak of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, “in fact, we might have started our descent,” but we can only bring this wave to a conclusion and flatten the curve of the next wave if we have ourselves vaccinated because there is no other remedy, only the vaccine.
Mr Orbán said there is a decrease in the numbers of new infections, patients treated in hospital and those requiring assisted ventilation. 166 persons died in the pandemic in one day, “we have losses every day, but on the whole the situation is improving”.
“On Thursday, 51,666 vaccines were administered, including 42,453 third doses. This is especially important at Christmas because if we’re not vaccinated, we’ll only have a small Christmas, but if we are, we’ll have a big Christmas,” he said.
“If we want to sit around the family table on Christmas Eve without fear, if we want to feel safe and secure, then the children, parents and grandparents, too, must have been vaccinated. Otherwise, we won’t have a beautiful, elevated, uplifting Christmas, only a little Christmas spent in fear,” he said.
He also said the vaccination of children aged between 5 and 11 years will begin on 15 December for which registration will start on Wednesday. He added that 69,000 to 70,000 doses will arrive, the vaccination points have been designated, and children can also be vaccinated in the surgeries of paediatric general practitioners. He confirmed that the vaccine is safe also for this age group.
Mr Orbán stated: every pensioner can rest assured that their pensions will increase by 5 per cent from January, and additionally, the value of the thirteenth monthly pension re-introduced next year in its entirety will also increase by 5 per cent. He said the decree on the pension increase will be published in Magyar Közlöny [Hungarian Gazette] on Friday. “If there is money to give you’re happy to do so, and in the year past – and we sincerely hope that also in the year ahead – the economy has done well,” he said.
The Prime Minister observed that pensioners keep a record of every forint, we must make short reckonings with them, and “due to their personal experience in life they do well to demand short reckonings from the government; they’ve already seen governments which rather than giving, took money away from them”.
Changing over to the subject of immigration, Mr Orbán described the establishment of a large and strong anti-immigration and family-friendly European party alliance as the most important long-term objective.
Regarding the facts that next year the minimum wage will increase, those working in the cultural and social sectors will receive a 20 per cent pay rise, while soldiers, law enforcement workers and teachers will receive a 10 per cent pay rise, he said only if on the whole the economy functions well can we talk about what to spend the extra sum so generated on.
At the same time, he also warned that there is always demand for more money than the economy is able to generate. “If you give out, if you distribute money that you haven’t produced, you will go bankrupt sooner or later,” he indicated, adding that it is the government’s and the finance minister’s responsibility to prevent this from happening in Hungary.
Regarding his talks in Warsaw last week, he said the European parties that are opposed to immigration and intend to support families have been organising themselves for many long months now, but such an arrangement involves a great many organisational issues which must be settled step by step.
He added that there are personal ambitions, there are countries with rival parties, for them “it is more difficult to enter such an overarching cooperation scheme,” but they are making progress step by step, and the next meeting will be held in Spain at the beginning of next year.
He pointed out that at present they are in a minority in Europe as the majority of the parties present in the European Parliament support immigration and do not support families.
What we want is to finally lend a voice that is capable of influencing decisions in the long run, in the decades ahead, to those European people – be they French, German or Hungarian – who do not want Europe to become an immigrant continent, who do not want to turn their own countries into immigrant countries, and who instead want to help families to raise as many children as possible, he stated.
“We don’t want to be a mere alternative, we want to be the winners. We want to influence, in fact, we want to determine what Brussels’ policies should be like. Our goal is for this group to become the largest political force in Europe,” he laid down.
He added that Western Europeans “have embarked on a major experiment,” and believed that mixing together “large Muslim masses with indigenous Christians” would result in something positive. By contrast, he continued, the Hungarian people believe that embarking on such an experiment is nothing short of lethal because if the experiment backfires, it cannot be undone, and the unexpected consequences could materialise in acts of terrorism, deteriorating public security and “enormous social expenditures”.
He stated that the Hungarian government must lay down in Brussels that the Brussels immigration rules must be changed.
