Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, Ildikó Orosz, the II. President of Ferenc Rákóczi Subcarpathian Hungarian College, Jr. Zoltán Lomnici, the spokesperson of CÖF–CÖKA, and the Regőczi Foundation received the Intellectual Patriot Award of the Civil Solidarity Forum–Civil Solidarity Public Foundation (CÖF–CÖKA) on Thursday in Budapest.
On behalf of the Regőczi Foundation, Anita Herczegh, president of the foundation's board of trustees and wife of the former president János Áder, accepted the award.
Every year, the CÖF–CÖKA awards the recognition to persons and organizations who perform outstanding work in the interest of protecting and enforcing our national interests.
László Csizmadia, the founder of the CÖF and the chairman of the CÖKA board of trustees, announced at the press conference before the award ceremony: the CÖF-CÖKA calls on the United States and the European Council to immediately invite the representatives of Ukraine and Russia to a meeting in order to end the war in Ukraine and create peace.
At the same time, it is recommended that, based on the principle of popular sovereignty, the opinion of the population of the European Union be sought on whether they want peace or war, László Csizmadia added.
At the press conference, the volume "We unite" was presented, which presents the activities of CÖF-CÖKA since its foundation in 2009 with about 100 photographs on 244 pages, with the participation of 15 authors.
Attila Miklós Németh, the editor of the book, talked about how the organization of society was made difficult in the period following the regime change, because political parties were not formed along the lines of values, but rather people looked for values in the parties.
At the same time, the establishment of the CÖF-CÖKA, i.e. "civility", provides an opportunity to create value and, based on this, to build a value system for the members of society, he said.
Hungary now has to stand by the peace efforts in the same way as it stood by the fence, vaccination and the protection of jobs, they were attacked for those too, but in the end it turned out that we were right
- said Péter Szijjártó on Thursday in Budapest, after receiving the Civil Solidarity Forum (CÖF) - Civil Solidarity Non-profit Foundation (CÖKA) Spiritual Defender award .
In his acceptance speech, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade first described the biggest challenges, referring to the war in Ukraine, the siege of the southern border, the European economy rushing towards recession, and the unprecedented energy supply crisis.
"And from Brussels, there is practically no type of political blackmail that has not been resorted to against our country"
he declared. According to him, the situation is difficult in the crossfire of global crises, the international
in the midst of pressure, however, it is far from hopeless, the results so far give reason for confidence.
As he said, Hungarian crisis management could never be integrated into the mainstream, but it was always successful. "We were always attacked, but we came out of each crisis stronger," he underlined. The head of the ministry cited as an example that 2021 and 2022 were the dark years of the world economy, but in comparison, the government was able to agree on the country's two biggest investments ever. "All of this assures us that we have good hope that Hungary will be able to avoid the European economic recession," he said.
He also pointed out that, in the meantime, it was possible to preserve the security of the energy supply and protect the sovereignty of our country by stopping illegal immigrants.
Péter Szijjártó believed that, in the current situation, the government could not have a more important task than to work even harder for the diplomatic settlement of the war in Ukraine. "Whoever gives up efforts for peace will end up on the wrong side of history," he emphasized. "We must now stand by peace in the same way as we stood by the fence, by vaccination, by protecting Hungarian jobs. They attacked us for those too, but in the end it always turned out that we were right," he added.
In this regard, the minister warned that we must prepare for "serious attacks" in the next period as well, but nevertheless we must stand up for the truth. "Brussels and the international liberal propaganda machine will not be selective in their means," he stated. Finally, he pointed out that the successes so far are largely due to the fact that Hungary is in an exceptional position in Europe, there is no such social support behind any government anywhere.
In our opening photo: Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, after receiving the Civil Solidarity Forum (CÖF) - Civil Solidarity Non-profit Foundation (CÖKA) Intellectual Patriot award in the Novotel Budapest Congress Center Bartók hall. Next to him László Csizmadia, chairman of the CÖF-CÖKA board of trustees (b) and Tamás Fricz, CÖF-CÖKA curator
