By Tamás Fricz
I know it’s a taboo, but someone has to write down the word, and for the first time not necessarily as a deterrent: huxit – Hungary’s voluntary, sovereign exit from the EU (like Brexit). Is a Huxit really necessary, especially after the unprecedented and unprecedentedly coordinated series of attacks on Hungary’s Child Protection Act by the EU and the West?
That is not what I am saying. What I mean by this is that in July 2021 it is time to think seriously about a possible exit from an alliance of states that bleeds from a thousand wounds, shows signs of empire and treats the member states of Eastern and Central Europe with spectacular condescension and arrogance. Because we have reached the dividing line: the globalist financial elite and the EU institutions it controls – the Commission, Parliament, the Court of Justice and, to some extent, the European Council – are determined to teach us a lesson. And not only that: to punish us. But more than that: making us impossible if we don’t take the steps they prescribe. And the ultimate instrument, of course, is the withdrawal of money. This is what one of the Vice-Presidents of the Commission, Katarina Barley, said (alongside George Soros and his supporters, of course), namely that breakaway countries such as Hungary and Poland should be starved to death by withdrawing their financial support.
And indeed, half of it is not a joke.
What speaks for and against remaining in the country? I think it is worth examining this from a political, economic, cultural and military point of view. From a political point of view, remaining in the EU is supported by the fact that membership of the EU can give every Hungarian citizen the good feeling of being part of a developed, democratic West based on an alliance of free nations, which we have always wanted and what we have finally achieved after forty years of communism. And belonging to one of the most progressive communities in the world is a special experience that can only be dispensed with after fifteen years for very strong and compelling reasons.
The question is: Is there such a strong and compelling reason at the moment?
My Answer: Yes. It is the fact that the priorities in the coveted alliance of states have changed radically and the globalist-liberal elites want to transform the Union into something completely different from what it has been so far. And that is exactly what is happening now: we have entered a community of free, sovereign countries – at least that’s what we imagine – but the construction of an imperial Europe, a super-federal United States of Europe, subordinate to the nation states, is in full swing before our eyes. Our most important goal and our greatest wish was to become a sovereign and independent nation after the rule of the Soviet Union. This is now being fundamentally called into question. If they want to tell us again what to do and how to do it, then our membership of the EU will be meaningless.
In addition, a year-long series of conferences and debates on the future of the Union has just begun, and it is clear from the outset that mainstream circles are putting the achievement of this objective at the heart of the debate, not to mention the shocking built-in guarantees that the EU institutions that lead the debate will moderate the debate and express opinions, who, from their point of view, are not politically correct, can simply ignore them. It is a disturbing and clear signal that one of the heads of the panel leading the debate is Guy Verhofstadt, a convinced, blind globalist who hates the Orbán government, not to mention the fact that the so-called Spinelli Group (named after an Italian communist politician from Wallachia who wore the black belt) was founded in connection with the debate, with the aim of creating a United States of Europe.
Of course, we should participate in the debate with all our might, but if the result is unacceptable to us, it cannot be in Hungary’s interest to submit again to imperial and globalist ambitions. From an economic point of view, the fact that we have access to specific funds from the contributions of the Member States, which currently amount to EUR 2 500 billion for reconstruction, speaks in favour of remaining. (That’s what they want to take away from us – just that for now.) However, experts have already written and said a hundred times, from Imre Boros to Károly Lóránt and Csaba Lentner to Magdalena Csath, that with its accession Hungary has abandoned mercantilistic economic policy, customs protection and the protection of Hungarian companies; we have opened up the market, and so one by one Western companies, which are much stronger than our own, have won EU tenders and returned the majority of the profits to their own country. Let’s also not forget that after the war, Western European countries received enormous help from the US Marshall Plan to revive their economies. In the 1970s and 1980s, the acceding countries – Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Denmark – were still in a prosperous union, but when we joined in 2004 together with nine other states, Europe was no longer in such good economic shape, and the aid was nowhere near the previous decades.
One of the harshest arguments – apart from the above – is likely that Western companies would turn away from us if we left the EU, and that our trade and economic relations with the EU and member states, especially with the German giant, would erode. And there would come a moment when the big three, Audi, BMW and Mercedes, would close their factories here. That sounds terrible, but is it true? Would our economic situation really become impossible and would we have to take care of ourselves, which is impossible?
I don’t think so. On the one hand, German – and British, Dutch, French, etc. – companies (not to mention those overseas) are profit-oriented, and if they save costs in Hungary, they will not act against their own interests. Isn’t that exactly what Western Europe is doing now by having trade relations with the hated Chinese and Russians (see, for example, Nord Stream 2)? Perhaps, in comparison, Hungary is a proven and familiar place for them, EU membership or not; Western companies know exactly what to expect when they come to us or stay here, and our predictability is a great advantage and a virtue.
On the other hand, of course, the country must be put on a better footing, as we have recognized for several years and are acting accordingly. We can illustrate this briefly through the concept – and practice – of opening up to the East, as the inharic Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has often said. Thirdly, it is obvious to me that we, like Norway and Switzerland and now also the United Kingdom, should start negotiations with the EU and the individual Member States in parallel with the withdrawal. In other words, we should conclude a separate treaty along the lines of those countries for which we are now economically strong enough and no longer a vulnerable country that cannot stand on its own two feet. We are already beyond that. What is wrong with Norway not being a member of the EU? Nothing. In other words, a hypothetical exit should not mean opposition, but a renegotiation of the new relationship with the Union, which is now sovereign. Of course, this is not an easy task, but it is not insurmountable.
From a military point of view, our withdrawal is irrelevant, especially considering that we have been and remain a member of NATO since 1999. We don’t need to set up military centres in towns and villages like in Switzerland, but of course we have to continue to expand our armed forces – and we do.
And finally, and this is perhaps the most important thing, from a cultural, value and ideological point of view, the argument for remaining in the EU would be that we are supposedly held together by Greek and Roman knowledge and Christian morals. But is that still true? The answer is no, unfortunately not anymore. While the West is now consciously – and I stress consciously – breaking with Christian morals and values and instead striving to build a cosmopolitan, faceless world society based on the unrestrained self-exploitation and self-destruction of the individual (see The Great Reset), we Hungarians, Poles and Central Eastern Europeans are sticking to our millennia-old cultural and religious foundations. Our way of life. And that takes precedence over all other considerations.
I will end here, I will not draw any more side-by-side conclusions. I would just like to say that Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz – rightly – left the European People’s Party only after a very slow and long period of reflection and waiting. But: In the end, we left without losing face, and we were not the ones who were kicked out! That’s a big difference. This is the right model. Because if we give in now, we will lose. Everything we fought for would then be lost.
The author is a political scientist and research advisor at the Hungarian Centre for Fundamental Rights
Source: Magyar Nemzet