Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s welcome speech after the V4 counter-terrorism exercise
6 October 2016, Budapest

Good afternoon.

Allow me to first welcome our own, and immediately after that our guests. We are grateful to the Poles, the Czechs and the Slovaks for having come here, and for having participated in this exercise with us. It is not simple to observe such an exercise. We were used to seeing such scenes in movies, and now we regularly see them on the evening news. I would like you to know that we have come here because we greatly appreciate the work that you do. General Hajdu obviously regularly informs you that the Government directly monitors your preparedness, your preparations, and the supplies you have at your disposal. We set ourselves the goal of ensuring that if a young Hungarian decides to do the hard work needed in the field of counter-terrorism – for which we are eternally grateful – then their equipment, level of safety, supplies and the appreciation they enjoy must be no different from that of their American, German or Austrian counterparts. Hungary today is a serious enough country to be able to promise and to deliver the same level of safety, the same equipment and the same attention to its soldiers, police and counter-terrorism personnel as any advanced Western European country. I sincerely hope that this is the case – or if it is not yet so, I strongly request that the General develops the Counter Terrorism Centre in that direction.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The most dramatic aspect one experiences in an exercise like this is the suddenness. I can imagine how hard it must be for you to prepare for this, because the recording shows that the events in the last incident involving an explosion – on Teréz Boulevard in Budapest – all happened within eight seconds: just eight seconds, if the Interior Minister’s calculation is correct. Meanwhile you need to prepare for years for the emergence of a challenge that will demand that you act to deal with an incident lasting eight seconds. I would like to ask you to maintain your patience and perseverance, and your preparedness – as I hope you have done to date. At the same time, we ourselves are fully aware that here we are not talking to some bureaucrats. Those ranged against us and who we have to face up to are normally the most determined characters, and we must be at least as determined – we must be at least as tough as they are. If we are not at least as good as the perpetrators – if we aren’t at least as committed in what we do, and – if needs be – as ferocious as they are, we shall not be able to prevent and punish the acts perpetrated against us. So I not only congratulate all of you on your performance in today’s exercise, but also on last night’s preparations.

I wish you much strength and good health. In your work you can rely on the Government, and we shall all do our jobs so as to ensure that if there is danger, if any citizen of Hungary finds themselves in danger through an act of terrorism, we may all – including those in danger and the leaders of the country – rely upon your efforts. This is the spirit in which all of us should work.
I wish you the best of luck and good health, and I ask those of you with families to pass on my best wishes to your family members. I’d like to especially thank our foreign guests for having come here.

Good night to you all.