“We cannot beg for security,” he said. At the same time, it would not be wise for Hungary to veto the EUTurkey pact, he added. But no kind of agreement should come about whereby hundreds of thousands of migrants are transported to Europe, involving the forced distribution of those migrants among EU member states, he insisted.

“There was such an idea, and a brake must be put on this idea—and I think it has been taken off the agenda but new attempts to reintroduce are constantly being made,” the prime minister said. Speaking about the registration of a European citizens’ initiative to trigger Article 7 against Hungary, Orbán said this was “revenge” and concerned Hungary’s handling of the “mass migration”.

“There are leaders, business circles, human rights activists, who are angry with the Hungarians for confronting their ideologies and proving that it really is possible to protect this continent in a democratic way and taking into account the will of European people,” he said, adding that Hungary would defend itself from this act of revenge which had been organised by foundations and activists supported by Hungarian-born financier George Soros and European bureaucrats in Brussels, as well as leftliberal European leaders who think that “nations are bad”. Hungary’s view is that “without nations there is no Europe”.

The prime minister argued that a gap is emerging between European people and the will of leaders, and this posed a problem for democracy. “You cannot go against the people,” he said. Instead of the liberal era, there should be a democratic one in Europe, he added.

Meanwhile, he said Hungary must weigh the impact on domestic companies of free trade agreements the United States has signed with trading partners in Asia before forming an opinion on the TTIP pact. Commenting on the US-EU talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Orbán said free trade agreements the US had reached with Asian countries in the meantime would “impact the international competitiveness of Hungarian companies”.

“We must assess whether these agreements present an advantage or a disadvantage to Hungary because this could influence our position on TTIP,” he added.

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MTI photo: Koszticsák Szilárd