Hungary’s Orban Warns Of LGBT, Migration Takeover and Condemns EU’s War Strategy
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (Worthy News) – Unfazed by protests, Hungary’s rightwing prime minister has defended his government’s stance on LGBT rights and migration while warning that Europe cannot solve the war in Ukraine.
Speaking in Romania over the weekend, Viktor Orbán told a crowd that Hungary demands that activists and others “accept that in our country the father is a man, the mother a woman.”
And, “We want them to leave our children alone and make [U.S. financier] George Soros accept this as well,” added Orbán, who accuses Soros of sponsoring LGBT causes.
He said the issues of demographics, migration, and gender were a “historic battle between the right and left,” arguing that these would be the issues that shape the future.
Orbán spoke at the 31st “Summer University” event in Băile Tușnad, Romania’s smallest town in the eastern Transylvania region, home to many ethnic Hungarians.
His comments came while thousands participated in a sometimes tense Budapest Pride March to demand more rights for the LGBT community in Hungary.
COUNTER PROTESTS
They faced counter-protests, including at the famed Margaret Bridge in Budapest, the capital, where demonstrators unveiled a “Stop LGBTQ, Paedophilia.”
Others shouted abuse at protestors who marched after a “child protection” law was adopted last year banning information about homosexuality and gender issues to minors in schools and media.
Back in Romania, Orbán made clear that while his government seeks tolerance towards gays, it does support traditional families. In controversial remarks, he also spoke out against “a mixed race” Europe “flooded” by Muslim migrants. He said his nation should prepare for an “influx of Christians from the West.”
His government claims to have experience with refugees as more than 800,000 Ukrainians fleeing the ongoing Russian invasion already crossed into Hungary.
Orbán said the European Union needs a new strategy on the war in Ukraine as sanctions against Moscow and sending weapons to Ukraine have not worked.
“A new strategy is needed which should focus on peace talks and drafting a good peace proposal…instead of winning the war,” Orbán explained in a speech in Romania.
HUNGARIANS KILLED
He said at least 86 Hungarians in Ukraine have died in the war so far without elaborating.
Orbán, who has a tense relationship with current U.S. President Joe Biden, stressed that the war would not have erupted “If Donald Trump were the U.S. president and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.”
The prime minister said peace would depend on negotiations between Russia and the U.S.
He claimed that Europe “played its hand” in trying to influence events in Ukraine in 2014 when the Minsk peace accords were brokered “without the U.S.,” and they were not enforced.
“So, the Russians don’t want to talk to us anymore but to those who can get Ukraine to comply with the agreement,” he stressed.
Orbán has said that Hungary is unwilling to support EU embargoes or limitations on Russian natural gas imports as that would amount to “a nuclear bomb” on its economy, which is about 85 percent reliant on Russian gas imports.
RECORD INFLATION
Yet, faced with record inflation and budget shortfalls, he will have to make compromises with the EU, critics warn.
Brussels so far refused to transfer billions in euros in aid, citing rule of law and corruption concerns.
Orban, 59, has been challenged by protesters after his government suddenly changed the simplified tax law for nearly half a million entrepreneurs.
Additionally, it ended subsidized energy prices for households that use “above average” natural gas or electricity supplies.
The opposition Socialists noticed that after 12 years in power, “Orbán’s only vision for the country” was: “We are waiting for 2030. Not because Hungary will catch up with the West by then, but … because the West will fall apart in exactly eight years”.
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