PM: ‘A lady is coming to Hungary’
In response to questions about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told state-owned Kossuth radio this morning in his regular fortnightly interview that “a lady is coming to Hungary [on February 2] therefore we are not insisting on any topics” in an attempt to circumvent the radio station’s query on the topics the two leaders would discuss, Hungarian online daily index.hu reported today.
The Prime Minister rejected the presupposition that the two countries would share “problematic issues”, but there are “many problematic issues in Europe”. The Prime Minister also said that there are no “disputable points” between the two countries, however, regarding potential “disputable points”, Hungary is ready to accept Germany’s standpoint.
In connection with Russian sanctions, he said that “Hungary has never criticized the sanctions, I only say that they oppose Hungary’s interests".
On the matter of immigration in Hungary, the Prime Minister reiterated his earlier stance, saying that “there is no sensible reason why Hungary should welcome the masses of people arriving from other nations with different cultural values”. Orbán believes that following the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, the current destination countries for immigrants will make their immigration policies stricter, as such, immigrants would get “stuck” in Hungary.
The Prime Minister said that Hungarians who work and live abroad are not immigrants to those countries. “We cannot migrate back and forth, we live in Europe”, he said.
In connection with the bank levy, Orbán said it was introduced as a "crisis measure" and noted that the government had made a "commitment", rather than a "promise", to reduce the levy to a level "not unheard of in Europe" once the country's economy has improved, Hungarian news agency MTI reported. He said the issue could be revisited, "in a reasonable manner", now that the Hungarian economy is performing well, adding that the levy could be reduced "in several steps, in a gradual, planned and predictable manner".
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