Government office chief: Keeping independence most important for Hungary

Budapest (MTI) – The most important question for Hungary in the next ten years is to what extent it will be able to maintain its independence, government office chief Janos Lazar said in an interview published by daily Nepszava on Thursday.

“This is the essence of (ruling) Fidesz’s politics and everything else should be viewed with this in mind,” Lazar said.

“We want more Hungary and less Brussels,” he said.

Lazar added that Hungary does not want to deepen integration.

“From our point of view, the EU is primarily a community of economic values and interests and not of politics. And now they want to force political interests upon us,” he said.

The EU’s basic treaty includes the principles for political cooperation but there is not even a word about migrants, Lazar said. “That was not mentioned in 2004” when Hungary joined, he said.

Hungary is in a peculiar situation because “if we need more labour or people paying taxes, then we can call the Hungarians from Transcarpathia and Vojvodina to return home. We do not need to take the social and cultural risks of taking in large groups of migrants. With our compatriots abroad, there are no linguistic and cultural differences, they are the same as us,” he added.

Commenting on the EU migrant quotas, he said “once that door is opened, it will be impossible to close it”. An increasing number of migrants would raise social tensions because “our society will say no to migrants transferred from Germany to Hungary.

“There are enough people who need help here and if we support someone it should be them”, Lazar said.

He also talked about the importance of training politicians, saying that “professionals are needed in the government and in our political family”.

“We must find our way back to young people and give them some room, we must invite the new generation to work on our side, talented people from the countryside who consider the nation important”, Lazar said.

“I have the opportunity to work next to the most experienced politician of Hungary and maybe of central Europe and I am learning from that every day. Perhaps I can say without sounding arrogant that only a few people really know about the operation of the Hungarian state or how to govern a country of ten million people. By 2018, I will perhaps become one of them”, Lazar said.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters