Hungary stands ready to build, together with its neighbours, including Romania, a new central Europe, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Temesvár (Timisoara), in western Romania, on Saturday, marking the 30th anniversary of the Romanian revolution that started in the city.
The aim is to turn central Europe into one of the most successful and most competitive regions in the world, Orbán told a gala evening in regional business centre CRAFT.
In such a future central Europe, cities would be connected by motorways and high-speed trains, the prime minister said. Everyone in the region would have a job and it would again be home to those who had left it to go work abroad, he said, adding that the point of concern would be deciding “what to do with guest workers coming from western Europe.”
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“If we cooperate, it will be possible, and this is what will be the new European reality,” Orbán said.
Hungary wants to become a European country where it is a privilege to live and work; a country that strives to use future technologies in mass production and seeks to create the cleanest natural environment, he said.
Besides all this, Hungary wants to remain one of the safest countries in the world, Orbán said, adding that it also wants to see Hungarian workers be as valued as those who “had not been exploited by and fallen prey to communism”.
It is a lot easier for Hungary to achieve these goals in partnership with its neighbours than on its own, he said.
Orbán said he saw a good chance for Romanians and Hungarians to have common goals.
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Commemorating the events of 30 years ago, he said 1989 had even shown that it was possible for Romanians and Hungarians to come together for the cause of freedom.
He said that it had always been clear to the peoples of central Europe that they would never be gifted freedom.
“Had we decided to wait for the western powers to help us, we would still be living under Soviet occupation, would be a member of the Warsaw Pact and would have a communist party congress in place to decide about our future,” Orbán said.
“But we wanted to live free and we have heroes who gave their blood for that cause,” he said.
Referring to László Tőkés, a Hungarian reformed pastor of Temesvár who played a key role in the revolution leading to the fall of the Ceausescu regime, Orban said that “we are here today to pay tribute to pastor Tőkés too.”
The Hungarian prime minister commended Tőkés for “taking the courage as a young pastor to turn against the regime”.
“Had he not chosen to do so, we would have had to wait for quite a long time for a spark to come to blow up the entire regime,” he said.
“Glory to László Tőkés,” Orbán said, concluding his speech.
Photo by Vivien Cher Benko/PM’s Press Office
Meanwhile, commemorating the anniversary at another event, Hungarian Parliamentary Speaker László Kövér opened an exhibition in Szentes, in southern Hungary, saying that László Tőkés and the people of Temesvár had written their names in history forever.
Featured photo by Vivien Cher Benko/PM’s Press Office