Boris Kálnoky evaluated Orbán's speech in Tusnádfürdő in the columns of Die Weltwoche.
Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, gives a speech every year at the Tusnádfürdő in Transylvania, which the world follows with rapt attention. In my opinion, this year's speech was the second most important he has ever given.
The most important was his very first political speech in 1989, still as a student leader, when he demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops and the realization of the national visions of the Hungarian freedom struggle against the Habsburgs. This catapulted him from one day to the next on the stage of big politics, also at the international level.
Everyone who saw him understood that this young man would play a big role in Hungary after the regime change.
Viktor Orbán presented himself as a liberal at the time, but he could repeat this speech word for word in his current self-image, as a conservative.
What he said this year was important because he gave a comprehensive analysis of the world situation, outlined the foreseeable developments up to 2050, placed Hungary in all of this, and announced the "grand strategy" with which Hungary will deal with the epochal changes of our time in this new world order. in the midst of it, you must maximize your chances of success - because these changes are also opportunities.
Anyone who studies this speech can see exactly what Hungary's goals are in the coming years. This makes the text important for Hungary, but also internationally:
Viktor Orbán is the only politician in the world who publicly and clearly presents such comprehensive, forward-looking and action-oriented analyzes as few other experts do in difficult-to-understand language.
Moreover, such an Orbán analysis is never a solitary essay, but includes the analytical potential of his entire government, as well as the contributions of American and Western European advisers and experts.
So what did Orbán say?
He admitted that he had underestimated the speed and extent of structural change in the world. The war in Ukraine accelerated all the transformation processes and made visible the brutal truth: what the balance of power looks like in the world and what it means for the future.
The West has said goodbye to the nation-state, he said, unlike the Central and Eastern European countries, which only find politics meaningful within this framework.
Because only the nation-state offers the values that make common action based on social morality possible at all.
The turning away from the nation-state, its culture and values in Western countries is irreversible. However, this road is not possible in the east.
Cover photo: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (back, right) gives a lecture at the 33rd Bálványosi Summer Free University and Student Camp at Tusnádfürdő in Transylvania on July 27, 2024.
Next to him is Zsolt Németh, the Fidesz chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, and László Tõkés, the chairman of the Transylvanian Hungarian National Council (EMNT) (back, right). Source: MTI/Prime Minister's Press Office/Zoltán Fischer
