PM Orbán at Bled Strate­gic Forum: Europe is in trouble

Europe is now in trou­ble, said Prime Min­is­ter Orbán, because we still have not iden­ti­fied our new posi­tion in the glob­al econ­o­my. To resolve the sit­u­a­tion, the prime min­is­ter pro­pos­es to set up a com­mon, Euro­pean mil­i­tary defense capac­i­ty, com­plete the EU’s secu­ri­ty com­plex with Ser­bia and make our econ­o­my more com­pet­i­tive under the lead­er­ship of what he calls the “Cen­tral Euro­pean loco­mo­tive.”BLED STRATEGIC FORUM

Address­ing the 15^th Bled Strate­gic Forum in Slove­nia ear­li­er today, Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán laid out his vision for the future of Europe after Brex­it and the COVID-19 cri­sis. Tak­ing the floor along­side Ser­bian Pres­i­dent Vučić and prime min­is­ters from Bul­gar­ia, Croa­t­ia, Czechia, Italy, Poland and Slove­nia, the Hun­gar­i­an PM said that Europe is in trou­ble because we still have not iden­ti­fied our new posi­tion in the glob­al economy.

“We are not game-chang­ers any­more; the game-chang­ers are Chi­na and the Unit­ed States,” PM Orbán said, adding that Europe will not be at the fore­front of advances in tech­nol­o­gy as long as we don’t have a sci­en­tif­ic cen­ter ded­i­cat­ed to mil­i­tary research.

Before lay­ing out his three-point plan for a more suc­cess­ful Europe, Prime Min­is­ter Orbán said that if we want to iden­ti­fy the prob­lems that ren­der us unable to find prop­er answers, then we should begin by look­ing in Brus­sels, not in the cap­i­tals of the mem­ber states. “The prob­lem is not the mem­ber states; the prob­lem is that we don’t have strong com­mon poli­cies,” the prime min­is­ter said.

First of all, we need to estab­lish a com­mon mil­i­tary defense capac­i­ty, the PM said, to serve as the back­bone for tech­no­log­i­cal research. At the same time, we must com­plete the “Euro­pean secu­ri­ty com­plex” with Ser­bia, and, ulti­mate­ly, we must cre­ate a more com­pet­i­tive Euro­pean econ­o­my with a “Cen­tral Euro­pean locomotive.”

Respond­ing to mod­er­a­tor Nik Gowing’s state­ments about the notion of sol­i­dar­i­ty being at odds with pro­mot­ing nation­al suc­cess, Prime Min­is­ter Orbán said that,by definition,“solidarity means com­mon suc­cess, to have suc­cess together.”

“You can­not be suc­cess­ful togeth­er if you are not suc­cess­ful one by one, on your own,” PM Orbán said, adding that “the pre­con­di­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty is to be suc­cess­ful on your own and then you can be suc­cess­ful together.”

Pho­to cred­it: MTI/Benkő Vivien Cher

Source: abouthun​gary​.hu