The Associated Press first reported on Viktor Orbán’s “state of the nation” speech this afternoon. In the article, which reached newspapers all over the world, the emphasis was on the Orbán government’s plan to generously support families who are ready to raise multiple children. Each additional child means more low-interest loans or outright financial gifts.
At the end of this post I will summarize the seven-item “action plan” the government has already approved, but in the main part of today’s article I want to focus on messages that are politically much more significant than the government’s “family program,” especially since, in the short run, even if Hungarian women are ready to produce children to garner financial benefits, the program will not have a significant impact on the current desperate labor shortage or the mass exodus of men and women of child-bearing age from the country.
Despite all the boasting that occupied the first third of the speech, lasting 45 minutes, my overall impression was that this man is deadly afraid. It is difficult not to notice how Orbán avoids any situation where he would have to face even the smallest demonstration against him, but lately he seems to be seriously worried about being the target of an assassination attempt. At least, this is the impression one gets seeing the incredible precautions he takes, rivaling those of Putin or Trump. Today these measures reached pathological heights. Cordons were not enough. The building where the great event took place was barricaded by a double line of buses, in front of which came metal cordons covered with black cloth, which seemed to be at least half a kilometer long. He himself sneaked into the building about an hour before the event.
Well protected / Source: Nyugati Fény
From this speech we also learned that Orbán is not only afraid of the ordinary citizens who might one day revolt against his increasingly dictatorial rule, but surprisingly he also fears the much ridiculed and maligned opposition. In the past, as he himself admitted in the speech, he paid no attention whatsoever to the opposition because he considered them “a mere assembly of pro-immigration politicians who are kept on life support by George Soros and the European bureaucrats.” But the situation is different now because “a coalition of the socialists and the far-right could and did take place in Hungary.”
Orbán called “the common march of the red and the brown shirts … political pornography.” Of course, what actually worries him is the possibility of an electoral collaboration among all the anti-government forces, which would signal the end of Orbán’s brilliant concept of Fidesz as “the center power.” Therefore, in his speech he stood up as the defender of democracy who must protect his country against the Nazis and the communists, who “always considered decent patriots like us enemies.” What’s happening now is “a handshake between the communists, who ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian families, and the Nazis, who annihilated many hundreds of thousands of our Jewish compatriots.” And what is truly shameful, according to Orbán, is that the “international left supports and even sends its leader to Hungary to give its blessing to this political aberrance.” Orbán is referring here to Frans Timmermans, the socialists’ candidate for the presidency of the European Commission.
In addition to his domestic worries, he is also afraid of the outcome of the May EP elections, despite his optimistic predictions. He therefore offered up a frightening picture of a place where, quoting the refrain of the Internationale, “the world will be international tomorrow.” The left wants a world without nations; they want an open society; they are trying to piece together a world government. They are the ones who “want to extinguish our heritage and would spread a foreign culture in our countries.” These horrors are imminent because “a plan is in place to transform Europe into a continent of migrants.”
Hungarians must understand that “Europe is at a historical crossroads.” By allowing migrants to settle, “they create a country of mixed population and the number of Christians will diminish.” Ratcheting up his rhetoric, he continued: “We have to say no to the financiers who consider themselves demi-gods, to the Brussels bureaucrats who represent their interests, and to the pseudo-civilians fattened by their money who want to tell us how to live, how to speak, how to raise our children.” In his opinion, after World War II the European left drew the wrong conclusion from the devastation of the war. They dropped the “national” from national socialism, leaving socialism intact. “Thus, by now the European left has become the vanguard of speculators, world government, migration, and the grave digger of nations, family, and the Christian way of life. The fight is out in the open since George Soros has designated someone called Timmermans to head the pro-immigration forces.” And, he added, “ladies and gentlemen, this is what the EP elections are all about.”
This is perhaps the most brutal attack on the European Union that I have heard from Viktor Orbán. I assume the shrillness is due to his fear that he will not be in a position to “reform” the European Union after the election. He has two aims at the moment. One, to become a leading voice among the far-right forces in Europe and, two, to increase the number of Fidesz EP delegates and thus move the ideological makeup of the European People’s Party further to the right. I believe that the extremely generous financial benefits promised to families must be judged in this light. They are part and parcel of the EP campaign, with the goal of increasing his party’s weight in the European Parliament and carving out a preeminent role for himself and his party in the European Union.
The financial package for families
- Every woman under the age of forty, after marrying for the first time, will receive 10 million forints ($35,500) worth of low-interest loans. After the birth of the first child, repayment can be postponed for three years. After the second, payment can be postponed again, and, finally, if she gives birth to a third child, the whole loan is forgiven.
- Until now low-interest loans could be used only for the purchase of new constructions. From here on, the money can be applied for the purchase of older housing as well.
- As it stands now, a couple with two children gets 22 million ($78,000) worth of loans for an apartment, and those with three children get 35 million forints ($234,300). Until now, the government paid one million forints toward the mortgage if they had three or more children. Now, that amount will be available for those who have at least two children.
- Any woman who has at least four children will not have to pay income tax.
- A new program is being launched that will help large families buy cars. The government will give 2.5 million forints ($8,850) toward the purchase of a car that can seat seven people.
- Grandparents who choose to look after their grandchildren will be allowed the same two-year childcare leave and benefits as the parents would.
- The government claims that, within three years, they will be able to provide 21,000 new places in nursery schools.