Kövér said the only positive effect the migration crisis could have on Europe is that “in the eleventh hour”, the continent’s nation states could strengthen their own national identities along with cooperation between each other.

He said anyone who wants to ask or force Hungarians to abandon their roots, and renounce their identity, traditions and faith “in the name of being European”, either does not know them or despises everything they hold dear.

Kövér said the biggest challenge Europe faces is population decline, which he said would lead to European values disappearing. If current demographic trends continue, after 2050, the majority of the economically active population will be made up of people whose roots lie outside of Europe, he said.

He said the EU will also have a hard time maintaining its political stability founded on representative democracy if it cannot keep its middle class strong. The house speaker said the collapse of the European middle class would also mean the end of political stability, which could throw Europe into anarchy or even bring about the rise of a dictatorship.

Kövér said the average 20% youth unemployment rate was worrying because Europe’s youth will find it harder to enter the middle class, leading to a gap between the younger and older generation. Growing income inequality will also lead to social and political tensions in the long run, he added.

Kövér said those who believe that it is possible to form a strictly European identity free of any national identities constantly fail to elaborate on what would hold that identity together and what it would be composed of.

He said an “artificial European identity” would be “just as dysfunctional” as the Soviet or Yugoslav identities were and would be held together by force, wealth or external or geopolitical interests. Such a system would immediately collapse if the elements holding it together disappear.

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MTI photo: Kovács Tamás