Former Prime Minister Viktor Orb�n’s address at the special dinner of the EPP-ED group’s European Ideas Network
Oxford, August 31 2002

Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is a privilege and pleasure to address your prestigious assembly today. Since we are after the main course, but still before the coffee, let me turn immediately to the issue that brought us here. The future and the tasks of the centre-right in Europe. As the ancient Asian proverb goes, if you want to catch a tiger, first you have to imagine catching it. The rest is pure formality.

Ladies and Gentlemen!
I would like to touch upon 3 issues in my speech: the situation of peoples� parties, the relation between re-unification and renewal of Europe and our vision of the Europe we want.

We Hungarians like to think that the landscape before us continues behind us. People, not just in Hungary, but in Central Europe as well tend to think along these lines about Europe. We can never forget the history behind us, when looking at the geopolitical landscape we are currently part of, as well as the one we are working toward.

At this moment in the history of Europe, there are some rather important issues at stake. The key one is the enlargement of the EU, which, in fact, is the reunification of Europe. So far, the centre-right in Western Europe and the centre-right in Central Europe have mainly had shared values. From now on, we increasingly share interests as well. Therefore, our challenges are your challenges, too.
When speaking of the reunification of the continent, as a representative of an EU candidate country in August 2002, thirteen years after the fall of the Wall, one cannot avoid the question: how come that despite all the economic successes, despite all the political and institutional developments, nowadays practically the same socialist parties rule in Central Europe as did before 1990.
The phenomenon is regional: I come from Hungary, but I could come from Poland, from the Czech Republic, or from Romania, and my situation as a centre-right politician would be exactly the same. What is it that makes the theory of Dahrendorf so scaringly true in Europe? He said that for a profound institutional transformation, you need six months, for a profound economic transformation, you need six years, but for a profound change in the society you need sixty years.
The question is not only ours anymore from Central Europe. The causes and the potential consequences of the lingering past in the enlargement countries have an implication for the rest of the continent as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

During forty-some years of communism, we did learn some of the fundamentals of politics. We did learn, for instance, that all political systems in the world can be put in one of two basic categories:

Either they base the functioning of a society, as Soviet type socialism did, on the dark side of the human character, on selfishness, greed, violence, and the culture of entitlement,
or they seek to support and motivate the noble inclinations we all have, such as responsibility, generosity, work, family, honesty.

This is why it is a special privilege to be here today : I believe that we are all united by our vision and action toward a society founded on the better side of our human nature. The centre right parties have worked for a truly value-based Europe ever since the beginning of the European integration. These parties have worked for the reunification of Europe ever since the end of the Cold War. And we, the sister parties in Central Europe, believed in the same concepts throughout the generations, a Europe based on three pillars: work, family and nation. But while trying to bring these values back to the regular way of life in our countries, we underwent some surprising experiences.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our experience in Central Europe over the past twelve years have been that the centre right may occasionally come to government and then go, but power continues to remain in the hands of the pre-1990 nomenclatura.
There are understandable historical reasons for it. The centre right had to witness the demolition and deconstruction of all of its institutions, organisations, and organs in the 40 years of communism, the only exception is our churches. During those decades, the left built up and solidified its own infrastructure in all fields from the political through the economic down to the smallest grass-root units.
An interesting example is the media in Central Europe. In the old democracies of Europe, the values of the centre right, like the values of the left, find their way of expression irrespective of the current government. Even though, as surveys prove it, an overwhelming majority of media professionals manifest leftist beliefs in their voting habits (in the US, for instance, 90 % of journalists voted for Clinton as opposed to 10 % for Bush).
In the new democracies, however, certain values are simply – and I would say, based on my personal experiences, easily – excluded from, marginalised or ridiculed, in the public discourse.
The same thing happened in the field of civic life, or grass-root organisations. This is what explains what is going on even twelve years after the fall of communism. We need to understand the causes, but very importantly, we need to understand the consequences, because they touch not simply Central Europe, but also the future of centre right in Europe.
For we have observed that the methods the left applies in Central Europe against the centre right reappear in various countries of the EU as well. So much so that we sometimes at home feel like being “the training field” of the political instruments of the left.
The most ominous example was the case of Austria.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Let me call a few aspects in mind from our “training field experience”. In Central Europe it is the left that defines public discourse, so much so, that even our centre right values are determined by them. They define who the centre right can be friends with, and which parties of the right are politically acceptable and which are unacceptable.
This is a deja vu for us: in 1947, the communists also started the deconstruction of the right by labelling certain political forces unacceptable, even fascist, and they ended up slicing the entire centre right into death like a salami. Especially at grand dinners like this one, we should be aware that not every person who walks along with a big knife is a cook.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

The question the EPP faces with the reunification of the continent is whether reunification should, shall or can go with the renewal of the continent.

In the light of the above, I cannot but conclude that the EPP has a historic responsibility for the future of Europe in this particular juncture of history. Without an active involvement of the European centre right, the centre right cannot consolidate our common values in the former communist countries. Politics in parliament is important. But it cannot replace a democratic, civic culture, a democratic grass-root infrastructure. If we do not want to wait for sixty years for the society to step out of the heritage of communism, the centre right of Europe has to take a more active role in the transformation of Central Europe as well.
We can conclude from the analysis of the past twelve years that the problems of the centre right are essentially the same in your countries and in the enlargement countries. But while your countries have already developed effective mechanisms of self-defence, our peoples� parties are still prone to such attacks on our common values.
If the EPP does not take a role more active, this power of the former nomenclatura can solidify for a long time. In this case the reunification would threaten to bring a cultural division to the continent rather than a renewal. And it is going to be excessively difficult to raise a continent of such division in the international arena.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

In a political community like the EPP, which was the initiator of the integration of the continent and which has consistently demonstrated responsibility throughout the common history of Europe, it is needless to say that our nations in Central Europe have never "left" the western world. We were torn out.
Life for us looked like the perspective of the two snails in the old joke, wandering on one side of the road. One of them says: let us cross the road, it�s so much greener over there. The other replies: It�s impossible. You have to be born there.
Despite falling on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, not only did we maintain our European identity, but we also developed our vision of the Europe we want to have.
First of all, a reunified Europe.
A Europe that has stopped thinking in terms of the Cold War, and one which takes its decisions itself, without trying to ensure some kind of stability and well being for its citizens within a framework that has been imposed upon it.

Above all, a Europe based on values.
For us, Central Europeans, Europe is not simply a geographical term. It is a community of values, such as freedom, family, nation, work, and law and order. In our understanding it is through work that the responsibility towards the family is manifested, and a nation’s strength is derived from the unity of the family, and nations give Europe its strength.
But when talking about our families, we cannot put aside a disease that threatens our societies. This is a disease common to the majority of European nations, and one that we Central Europeans already have in common with you. It is the decrease of population in most of our countries. A civilisation producing good economic results and high quality of living standard but incapable of reproducing itself biologically, can only be successful in the short run. Constant low birth-rate will undermine its achievements and values. This is already a common problem for most of us, one that we have soon to start dealing with.

Our Europe has to be a Europe of national identities.
Europe can never be and has never been a melting pot. The old continent has always been characterised by cultural diversity. Each nation on the continent experiences its European identity, and I would say, through adhering to its own identity.
For us, Hungarians, for instance, Europe is not some kind of a new world which we shall finally enter at some point. We like being Hungarians, and we have lived throughout our history knowing that we are European because we are Hungarian. We envisage a future in which we shall once again be citizens of Europe as Hungarians.

And finally, a Europe of communities.
The united Europe of the future should also be a Europe of communities (of nations, ethnic groups, values, religions and languages). Europe, after all, is indeed a community of communities. Europe gets a key value from the diversity of its national, ethnic, religious and other communities. The power of these communities increases the strength and richness of Europe.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
I would like to close my remarks by sharing with you my belief that the future is not something we enter, but something that we create.


As we Hungarians say, guests - even dinner guests - are always a pleasure. If not when they come, then when they leave.

Thank you for your attention.