The inoculation protocols were drafted weeks ago, designating 13,000 venues for voluntary vaccinations and outlining which groups, such as frontline workers and the vulnerable, should have priority, he said.

Orbán said lives were being saved in hospitals while schools were saving jobs, since if children cannot go to school, their parents cannot to go to work.

Orbán said the government will decide in the next 8-10 days on the rules to be followed during Christmas and the New Year.

The prime minister noted that an increasing number of people are in hospital and he warned citizens to be vigilant, and he appealed to Hungarians not to book skiing holidays abroad.

Meanwhile, he said central Europe had huge potential thanks to its flourishing collaboration and countries in the region were defending their national sovereignty.

“We’re able to protect our own countries from immigration,” he said. Western Europe, he said, was already composed of “immigrant countries”.

Central Europe, too, is protecting Christian traditions and way of life, while the West “is already multicultural,” he said.

Orbán declared that central Europe was in the midst of a renaissance, and the next ten years would witness the cooperation of the central European states.

Commenting on Project Syndicate’s decision not to publish the prime minister’s reply to Soros’s recent article on the left-wing website, Orbán said their refusal was a sign of the state of freedom of opinion on the left.

“There’s always space for their own voice; people who argue with them are silenced.”

 

MTI Photo: Tamás Kovács