PM: Hungarians don’t realize how good the situation is

Interview

Hungarian citizens might not feel it, but it is unprecedented how predictable and reliable the situation is in Hungary, that it has allowed Parliament to pass the 2016 budget this early, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today in his regular fortnightly interview with state-owned Kossuth radio.

“This is a serious  result, also on a European level, and only a few countries are able to do this. We can,” the prime minister said. He referred to next year’s budget as the “budget for tax relief”. According to the PM, the country is “getting another step closer” to full employment, while providing “fair wages for work”. He reiterated that “everybody will be able to take a step forward, so long as they are committed to their work.”

Commenting on the Greece crisis, Orbán said that Hungarians should empathize with the Greeks in their time of crisis and noted that Hungary, too, was on the "brink of the abyss" in 2010.

When faced with the question on who the PM thinks is to "blame" for the current situation in Greece, he compared the countryʼs situation to a family that has fallen on hard times and said the Greeks should probably have done more as should have those who could have assisted them. "Empathy first," he said. "Iʼm really rooting for their success."

If the government, with its super-majority, had not made "some very difficult decisions", Hungary "would be in exactly the same position as Greece", he added.

Reiterating the governmentʼs point of view on the issue of refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, the prime minister said that the idea of the quota system, which was finally abolished by the EU, would have just encouraged illegal immigrants to flock to Europe. He said that it is understandable that Africans would like to live in Europeʼs welfare societies, however instead of "sending them an invitation", we need to send the message that "this continent will never be your home, this is our home".

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