Addressing a conference on conservatism in Rome on Tuesday, Orban said national economic success was the only way for conservatives to “survive”.
Orban told a podium discussion at the National Conservatism Conference that if a conservative political leader makes a mistake and economic indicators fall as a result, the leader “is murdered the next morning”.
The conference was organised by the US-based Edmund Burke Foundation together with other conservative intellectual and political groups. It took place on the eve of a Vatican conference to advance the notion of global economic solidarity with the poor.
Tremendously inspired by the brilliant @yhazony today in Rome! Let's continue to make this transatlantic movement of national conservatives stronger, and let's defend sovereignty, democracy, and our shared civilization together! #FVD pic.twitter.com/XZITBA4zSM
— Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet) February 4, 2020
The Hungarian prime minister said the Hungarian economy has been growing at a rate of 4-5 percent in recent years, adding that the unemployment rate had fallen to 3 percent with the public debt also shrinking. Highlighting Hungary’s stability, he noted that it was the only country in Europe not to have held early elections since 1990.
Also, Hungary’s ruling parties were never under pressure to enter into a coalition with other parties, given their outright parliamentary majority.
Another difference, was that 90 percent of the media in western Europe “belongs to the progressive liberals and only 10 percent belongs to the conservatives”. In Hungary this was not so, he said, making him “the lucky one among European conservative politicians” who gets to speak his mind.
Orban criticised liberalism, saying that liberal governments had failed twice within a single decade. The first failure, he said, came in 2008 when they had failed to properly address the economic crisis.
The second was in 2015 “when they failed to protect their citizens and their countries’ borders” during the migration crisis. Orban said liberal democracy, which had served as the basic principle of liberal governments, had “come to an end in this sense”.
He said there was not a single Muslim migrant in Hungary, whereas in western European countries the share of the Muslim population was growing. He said liberals had a positive view of this trend, arguing that “they don’t like Christian society”.
The prime minister asked liberals not to “force such a trend onto central Europe”. He called for liberalism to be replaced by “Christian democracy” an added that the migrant crisis had opened the door to discussions about identity, “about who we are”.
Jewish leaders have meanwhile called for a Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski to resign because he attended the conference with “some of Europe’s most notorious far-right politicians”.
Because Kawczynski spoke at a National Conservativism conference in Rome, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called on the UK Conservative Party to discipline him, Sky News reported.