Mother, This Not the Horse I Wanted: EU is Not the Same One Hungary Joined 20 Years Ago
On the 20th anniversary of Hungary's accession to the EU, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that today's European Union is not the same as the one Hungary joined in 2004, Telex reports.
The head of the Hungarian government noted that he himself campaigned for EU membership in 2004 and still believes that it is better to be in the EU than outside it. But, according to Orban, the EU was not the same as it is today when Hungary became a member.
"The first thing to say when assessing the last twenty years is: gentlemen, this is not what we agreed on. Mum, that's not the horse I wanted," Orban said, using an old saying that is mostly used by people in rural Hungary.
"I mean, there was no talk at the time that millions of migrants would be allowed into the EU and those who didn't want them, like us Hungarians, would be forced to accept them," Orbán said.
"It was not about the fact that if someone says that a family consists of a man, a woman and a child, they will be ridiculed in the European liberal media. Or if a country writes in its constitution that the mother is a woman and the father is a man, as in Hungary, it will face retaliation. This is not what Europe used to look like!" the Hungarian prime minister added.
He added that Hungary became a member of the EU because Europe meant peace and prosperity, but "now we are in an economic crisis" and "European leaders will drag the continent into war instead of peace".
The pro-Russian Prime Minister Orban blamed the Russian-Ukrainian war for Hungary's economic difficulties.
"This is the reason why production was lower and inflation was higher," Orban said, adding that "Hungary's economy would have doubled if there had been no war."
Earlier, Viktor Orban compared Hungary's EU membership to the Soviet occupation.
In turn, the European Parliament condemned the deliberate, continuous and systematic efforts of the pro-Russian Hungarian government to undermine the fundamental values of the European Union and threatened to take legal action.