This agreement should include as key elements the direction vocational training should take, labour policy, the tax system as well as education, he said. While there are always internal debates about the economy, it is a new turn that external players are now commending the state of the Hungarian economy and recommending it for investment, he said.

This means that Hungary’s economic opportunities will widen and improve and it is in light of this change that the economy minister must evaluate the situation and make recommendations for the future.

The aim is to create an economic system based on work and a central element of this is full employment. Hungary’s jobless rate is lower than 5% and soon the problem to tackle will be labour shortage, Orbán said.

Over the past six years in office, the government has already created about 660,000-670,000 of the promised one million jobs in ten years, he insisted. Hungary needs a similar consensus on economic policy as it has on migration, Orbán said, adding that to achieve this talks are necessary.

The government and economic players are aware of the problems, identifying the challenges and seeking solutions together, he said. The government will then create legislation stemming from these shared ideas, he added. On the topic of migration, Orbán expressed hope that yesterday’s meeting of EU interior ministers would help clarify where the EU stands with its migration policy, but noted that the mandatory migrant quota scheme had not been taken off the agenda.

The European Commission’s proposal on migration still includes the concept of mandatory migrant redistribution, but hopefully the EC will realise that this policy goes against the decision made by EU prime ministers before the European Court of Justice rules on it, Orbán said.

Hungary has challenged the migrant quota scheme in the ECJ. Given that the interior ministers could not reach a compromise on the quota scheme, it will be up to the European Council to debate the matter next week, he said. Responding to recent criticism of Hungary by Sweden, Orbán said Hungary rejects “the suggestion that Sweden gives us money”.

“Hungary contributes to tariff-free trade. We allowed the entry of Swedish capital, so it is audacious to say that they give us money,” the prime minister said. In reference to Eastern Europe, Sweden’s Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said on Thursday at the meeting of interior ministers in Luxembourg that the payouts these countries get from the EU budget were “at stake”.

Commenting on the anniversary of Hungary’s anti-Soviet revolution, he said 1956 was about freedom which can be threatened in many ways. For instance that “strangers appear on the territory of a country without any form of control, whose ideas about life are very different from ours” and they transform “our society against our wish”. It is difficult to speak about 1956 and freedom without the context of current events, he added.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.