Hungary PM Orbán responds to US Ambassador's critique

Although the Ambassador raised several issues in her public speech on Wednesday, Orbán chose to respond only to criticism concerning the refugee question. America has a clearly different stance on mass immigration than Hungary does, Orbán pointed out, recalling a comment made by the US Ambassador to the United States at a recent UN General Assembly conference in New York.

What has been said makes it clear that "it would not be contrary to US interests if millions, or even tens of millions of people suddenly arrived in Europe," Orbán said.

"I wonder if someone wanted to get inside [US territory] witout a visa, would they make it alive? I think not." Whilst the US is building fences, border guards are given an order to fire - even if Hungary did just half of what the US is doing, "they would skin us alive."

In the second part of the interview, Orbán discussed the latest employment and retail statistics. The Prime Minister refused to engage in a dispute of how the statistical data should be interpreted; instead, he stressed:
"There is no dispute of the facts, everyone agrees that things are going in the right direction, in the direction they should be going. Everyone admits that Hungarian reforms are working," as employment is on the rise, the Job Protection Action Plan is working, as is the public works employment scheme.

Thanks to these functional systems, "the number of people working is higher than ever since the transition" from Communism to a market economy; the number is as high as 4.3 million right now, Orbán said. He added that he would prefer not to "rest on our laurels", Hungary must discover new avenues of expanding employment in order to boost the number of jobs by at least another 0.5 million by the end of the decade. He reminded of the 2010 election campaign pledge of his government to create 1 million new jobs over the next 10 years, claiming great progress has already been made.

The participation rate can be further expanded "by amending the taxation of SMEs and simplifying tax office procedures," Orbán said, without disclosing specific plans.

Responding to opposition criticism regarding the farmland sales by the State of Hungary (the opposition described the move as "handouts to cronies"), Orbán stated that these critiques were "pure lies and slander."

He added: "The law in Hungary is clear, one person can have no more than 300 hectares." The ongoing farmland sales are carried out in an open bidding system, and only those can participate who are farmers themselves and live within a distance of 20 kilometers.

"We consider the question of Hungarian land as a sovereign issue," Orbán declared.

Further: "Staying safe means land is owned by farmers. Foreigners must be prevented from buying land, which is quite tricky to accomplish given the EU legislative environment."

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