Coronavirus – Orbán: Hungary to maintain work-based economy

Hungary will resist falling into the trap of introducing blanket welfare measures during the novel coronavirus epidemic, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday in an interview.

The government will soon unveil the “biggest economic stimulus plan in the country’s history”, Orbán said. Key elements of the stimulus package are job preservation and job creation, he added.

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He said the government would not give up its fundamental approach of nurturing a work-based economy, and he dismissed the approach of returning to a welfare-based economy, explaining that would require the country to borrow, probably from abroad, and get backed into a place “where the IMF and financial speculators of the like of George Soros are waiting for us”.

“Let’s not give up our goals, let’s not give up what we have achieved, let’s not give up Hungary’s independence, let’s not give up the work-based economy and let’s not give up the chance to live proudly either,” he said.

“We have to fight this crisis without giving up our dreams,” Orbán said.

Regarding the European Union’s criticism of the government’s epidemic response bill which the parliament passed on Monday, Orbán said Brussels “is preoccupied with us instead of the virus”. “We cannot have anything more important to do than saving lives. That requires cooperation and unity,” he said.

“They are sitting in a bubble in Brussels and telling us what to do instead of saving lives,” Orbán said. What’s most important, he said, was “not to rise to the provocation”.

Hungary’s parliament is working at full force and the state of emergency powers granted to the government and the prime minister are about the same as the powers of the French president in peacetime, Orbán said.

He said “a political attack” was under way because “some people would like to rob this country and acquire its resources”. “This network is headed by George Soros and his people … in Brussels from where criticism comes,” he added.

Hungary, he said, has received practical help from member states of the Turkic Council and China, he said.

Orbán called on people to “resist” celebrating Easter with loved ones. “Easter may also be the right time to consider the ways to reorganise our lives until the vaccine for the virus is at hand,” he said.

Source: MTI