Gergely Gulyás spoke yesterday at the Debrecen presentation of German historian Andreas Rödder's book Konservatív 21.0 – The program of bourgeois Germany, about how the theory of conservatism and its everyday practice meet in Hungary, in Hungarian government work.

During the German-language panel discussion, the minister said, speaking about the achievements of the Hungarian government so far: Hungary has had one million new citizens with the help of preferential naturalization in the last ten years, so the concept of the nation in Hungary transcends national borders and extends to the cultural and ethnic interpretation of the nation.

As he said, low unemployment and strong competitiveness are also part of Hungarian conservative politics, and among the government's achievements in this area, he highlighted the strong state family support system and the almost one million new jobs created in the country in the last eleven years.

Speaking about the concept of conservatism, Andreas Rödder, who is also a member of the German ruling party, the CDU, and a lecturer at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, said: conservatives start from everyday arguments, profess to refrain from ideologies and extremism, and consider society more important than the state.

According to his experience, public opinion in Germany and Europe is increasingly polarized and the current political culture can be a cause for concern. A left-wing, authoritarian current of identity politics and a right-wing nationalist trend filled with opposition are gaining more and more space in the political discourse, and the middle class between them will become weaker and weaker in Western Europe. That is why a modern, conservative-civilian policy suitable for the challenges of the future is needed , Andreas Rödder opined.

In a book published in Hungarian by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), the author writes that although Germany is doing well in terms of its economy, the German economy is not keeping up with the rapid pace of changes, because the people's parties are finding it difficult to find answers to digitalization and globalization. - said Bence Bauer, director of the Hungarian-German Institute for European Cooperation at MCC, when introducing the volume, adding that the author presents the reader with a picture of a modern conservative policy that can adapt to changes.

Source: Magyar Hírlap
Image: MTI