Opening speech delivered by Mr Viktor Orbán, at Euromoney's 10th Central and Eastern European Forum ("The Next Ten Years")

Dátum: 2005-01-12 13:25:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=32885
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 21:09:33.569846, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

It was a special pleasure for me to accept your invitation and address your conference on the challenges for our re-unified European continent. But to speak about the future takes courage. Sometimes even the next year is unforeseeable enough, let alone the "Next Ten Years' But once this issue raised, I found it logical on your behalf to invite someone from Central Europe to address it.

For it is us, Central Europeans, who have gotten really accustomed to a continuously changing - Past. Our Past was oftentimes re-written either by some greater power or by the actually reigning dictatorship. So being in continuous change, our Past has become rather uncertain - as a result, so has our Present. In our experience, it is only the Future that is solid.

My own country gives a good example to this: in the course of the 20th century, we lived through nine changes of regime, six political systems, four border revisions, three revolutions, two world wars, and survived three invasions of foreign powers. Only in the course of the last 60 years, we lost over one million people to these upheavals. And none of these were predicted.

So now you understand that even though it is a risky venture in general to speak of the Future, addressing the Future may be a special relief for a Central European.

Which is why today, I would like to address the topic of your conference through three major issues:

First, the issue of the Euro-Atlantic world in the next ten years,

Second, Europe itself in general, and Central Europe in particular, in the next ten years,

And third, the consequences of the above. In other words, the steps that I find important for the continent to make to respond to the undergoing and/or upcoming changes. (And all and all what I have to do in twenty minutes)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We all remember the statement about the "New Europe" made by the American diplomacy in the course of 2003-2004. The idea was that the "new states" of Europe tend to have a better understanding of America's direction and efforts than the "old" ones. Let us now put aside the fact that some of these "new states" have a thousand years European state history, and let us focus on the intended meaning of the statement, that is, the depth of understanding American policy in Europe.

It is impossible to outline the future of Central Europe without discussing the future of the EU-US relations.

The world shall continue to be determined by global challenges and concerns in the coming decade as well. It is enough to think of the climatic change, global inequalities, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction. The management of a large part of these challenges shall be dependent on the cohesion and political weight of the Atlantic relationship. This is why I profoundly believe that the EU-US relations, more precisely, the strengthening of the Atlantic Alliance is a universal interest.

World War II and the subsequent era of communism made it evident, that Europe on its own is not capable of defeating her own demons and worst instincts, which sometimes escape from the capture of the ratio, like the bad spirit from the magic bottle, and lead the European nations into war against each other.

With the end of the Cold War, the fall of communism, and break-up of the Soviet Union, the 20th century came to an end. This may have led some Europeans to think that from now on, our continent does not need any help of the United States. They may ask, which external force would threaten Europe now, after the end of the Cold War anyway. Now, our continent is becoming more and more united and wealthy, and it shall never again step on the path of internal war. And if the nations of Europe do not threaten one another, and there is no external threat to the continent, than why would Europe need the US?

As a consequence, some Europeans dream of returning to the time when Europe was ahead of the US - the 19th century, really, and think that our continent should now take the lead as the major global power.

However, the fate of Europe, the historic mission of our continent, is rather different: it's creation, the discovery of the new, and renewal of the old. To accomplish this, the continent needs freedom and security - and not the turning of our continent into a new global superpower. The way for Europe to accomplish its more than two-thousand-year mission is through keeping the friendship of America.

The novelty of our days is that apparently America also needs Europe in keeping her own worst inclination? down. Those that are stronger than others may easily turn defenceless against their own excesses. So, what we need is working together. We need wisdom, friendship, understanding and insight.

My point is that the atlantic relationship needs to be strengthened and revitalised, and the focus of this Atlanticism has to be placed back on NATO, again.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let us now turn to our second major issues:

The next ten years is likely to bring about an increased sense of the weight of the European economy and of the continent for itself.

An over-admiration of American economic successes has often been characteristic of many Europeans. Today however, many say that time has come for Europeans to wake up of this magic, and render Europe's own weight more conscious. In addition, America's future economic growth faces several serious questions and obstacles.

European economy has today the potential to grow into a genuinely equal relationship with the economy of the US. The first step towards achieving this is that Europeans shall have to believe in this and have to want it for this to happen.

The nations creating Europe after world war two, created a community with each other, the role of which was to oppose war and communism, and to create a strong and secure continent. Their hope was that this community shall also make their own nations stronger.

The decade behind us was one of the most successful decades of European history. The Maastricht Treaty was approved, the single European market was created, the enlargement of 1995 as well as the introduction of the Euro were successful, and the Union's biggest enlargement in 2004 was completed.

Yet by far the biggest success I believe was that the re-unified Germany was kept interested in the union of the European nations.

We have to listen to the lessons of History. The Germany created by Bismarck was too small and too big at the same time. It was too small to become the ruler of the continent, but it was too big not to try it. It was also too big when it came to its smaller neighbours, by imposing too heavily on them and thus representing a serious threat to them. It was standing lonely in the middle of Europe, threatened by all sides, and threatening all sides.

This lesson holds today as well: there can be no Europe without Germany. But without a unified Europe, the same insecurity, arising from this "too small, too big" status, can come about in our days.

This is why it is a fact of historic significance that the re-unified Germany continues to manifest its interests through the EU, just like the other nations of the Union. Which leads me to my next point, namely that the success-series of the EU shall continue.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The European Union today pays a lot more attention to, and expands a lot more energy on, launching and managing political processes, than on implementing its economic priorities. So much so that it may sometimes seem that political processes supersede or even drive out, the issues of economic development.

What I have in mind is the long debate on the borders of Europe, or the lengthy discussions on the accession of Turkey, for example. In the midst of these debates, it is no surprise that it was impossible to reach the Lisbon Goals. It is now obvious to all that the big goal of turning Europe into the most competitive region of the world within ten years (from 2001 on), is not within reach. This is a major failure, worth drawing the lessons.

This is the thought that brings us to my point on Central Europe.

As I noted in the beginning, Central Europe was traditionally characterised by producing more History than it was able to consume. This however continued to be true for our part of the continent more or less until the mid 1990s, (it is enough to think of the Southern Slav wars in the early nineties). It is crucial to note that this period ended with the end of the nineties. From the mid 1990, we can see that Central Europe has become a stable, predictable region of the European economy.

The economic dynamics of the continent in the next ten years shall be founded on the accession of Central Europe to the Union. This will be an intense and continuous economic growth process - a true win-win situation for Europe. The development and the closing up of Central European states' economies shall be fastened by the accession, and the EU shall, in turn, benefit from the significant economic dynamism brought by the new member states.

My point is that the economic dynamics of the region of Central Europe can make it possible for the Union to reach the Lisbon goals, on the basis of a new time schedule.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The 15 years just left behind give us an interesting experience concerning the transition into a market economy: namely that transition and consumption are asymmetric. In the most intensive years of the transition, consumption declines, while in the more balanced, less dynamic, periods of the transition, consumption increases.

When talking about the next ten years of the continent, we cannot forget the fact that the peoples of Central Europe are still poor. The average income in Central Europe is but one fourth of that of Western Europe. The financial resources of the average household relative to the GDP, in the Euro-zone reach 200% of the GDP, while only about 50% in Central Europe.

It is evident that the peoples Central Europe are poorer than it could be expected on the basis of their countries economic structure.

Where this leads us is that the central political theme of the next ten years shall have to be the wage, income, and pension raise in Central Europe.

At the same time, we can see serious accumulated investment lags in the public sector infrastructure, in communal services, in education, in public healthcare. It is also obvious that public budget shall not be capable of financing all these investment lags. It is more likely to find more and more the European and domestic business capital financing these necessary investments.

This is why my next point is that in the coming ten years, the growth rate of the newly acceeded Central European countries shall significantly supersede that of the old member states. In the case of the GDP per capita and of the consumption per capita, this may well mean a 2 to 4 times bigger growth in the new member states than in the old ones.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The next ten years shall thus bring about a change in the economic growth structure. The period of growth based on attracting capital through privatisation and cheap as well as well-trained labour, is over.

The so-called tax-race shall on the other hand be sharpened among the old and new member states. Following Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, the other Central European states shall also have to introduce significant tax reduction, for the key instrument of the new member states for increasing their competitiveness shall turn out to be tax reduction.

This is not a wholly new phenomenon. The German government for instance, as well as the governments of the Landers have long been doing their utmost to support that German companies preserve jobs and their industrial capacity in Germany.

My point is that the attractiveness of Central Europe shall grow and shall turn out to be practically irresistible. And it shall not only hold for the major global investors, but increasingly the industrial capacity of the medium enterprises as well. It may well influence a good 20-25% of German industrial capacity. And not only them, for this process shall not be like the development of the "traditional" background of German industry in Central Europe, a sort of a re-establishment of the old Mittel-Europa. This process shall equally influence the industries of France, Holland, Italy, and who knows....

Ladies and Gentlemen,

During my years as prime minister of Hungary, I learnt a few key things. One is that, not underestimating the precious contribution of your institutions to the development of our economy, there is yet another "secret engine" of our economies. And this is: trust and confidence.

One of the most important preconditions of our common European economic future is the trust of the European citizens in the Union. What we can see today is more an ebb in their trust than a tide.

The ratio of European citizens believing that the Union increases the strength of their nation is rather small. And they know all too well that it is the Union that has to serve the people, and not the people serve the Union.

If it does not fulfil this mission, it shall grow into a huge monster unfit for life which in the end shall fall apart under the various political pressures.

What we need is a strong, capable, stable as well as dynamic, Europe.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear friends,

In order for the Union to deserve the trust of the people, some serious and essential steps have to be taken.

This brings me to the third and final issue I decided to address today.

FIRST, we have to preserve the trust in our money.

The strongest instrument of the common European economic future is the European currency, and the trust in the Euro is the strongest economic weapon of Europe. This is why it is not only the interest of the new members but of the Union itself as well for the new members to fulfil the Maastricht criteria and those of joining the Euro zone.

SECOND, the way it is true that the economic dynamics of the Union shall be provided by the dynamism of the region between the Baltics to the Adriatics, it is true that it is the interest of the Union to speed up the genuine reunification of the continent. Indeed, it is our common interest to speed up the creation of a single market in the field of labour, as well as to speed up the application of the principle of equal treatment in all fields. In other words, to shorten the current phase of transition.

THIRD, it is impossible to reach the Lisbon goals and even to maintain the current level of competitiveness on the basis of the GDP-related currently 1.24% contribution to the common budget. One of the key challenges of the Union today is that it is lacking in major common European economic projects. But the implementation of such projects is to a great extent dependent upon a higher level of national financial contribution.

FOURTH, the real "Achilles heel" of Europe is its demographic situation. This is the greatest disadvantage of the Union in the global economic race. This is why the focus has to be shifted towards the strengthening of the families in the Union. Asia is being today threatened by its overpopulation, America has successfully solved the problem of the integration of massive numbers of migrants into its society. Instead, we have to put the strengthening of families in the centre of our activities.

FIFTH, and last, the chances of the European economy are not only made more difficult by the demographic trends, but also by the fact that even the capable work force does not find job. The European economy has to turn towards policies of job creation in order to increase the level of employment on the continent. The Union shall have to become capable of facing the global competition in employment, in work intensity, and in productivity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. President, Mr. Chairman,

I tried to make a serious effort to demonstrate that the re-unification of the continent created a wholly new situation on the continent, it changed the major perspectives of the Next Ten Years - and for the better. The union gained new energies, new dynamism, new spirit, new thrust in work, and tens of millions of people eager to close up with the rest of the continent.

The supposed risks of the re-unification did not materialise. To the contrary, what we can see today is that the enlargement created new chances for the Union in the global competition.

Central Europe is like a vitamin for the continent. Vitamins make us stronger. Vitamin C, in addition, was invented in Hungary. We have all the chances to expect that Central European countries, and among them, my own, Hungary, shall strengthen the Union and shall contribute to the strengthening of the trust of the citizens of Europe in the European institutions.