Prime Minister Viktor Orbán believes that 2017 will be a year of rebellion: rebellion by the middle classes and by nations, overlaid by an intellectual rebellion against political correctness, enforced isolation and stigmatisation.

In an interview with the website 888.hu released on Thursday, the Prime Minister said that in Brussels the most important positions are controlled by “globalist-liberal forces who represent the status quo”, and “in their minds the goal is a United States of Europe, organised and controlled by themselves”.

“Christian, national Europeans of our kind have not been dealt the cards”, Mr. Orbán said. He believes, however, that the world is not heading in the direction which Brussels has been dictating to the nation states. The Government, he said, will not allow Brussels to have a say in energy prices, or to prohibit capping of household utility charges. He stated that in Brussels they are “still putting the cart before the horse”, and are therefore failing to see that those who act against the will of the people are failing, one by one.

Mr. Orbán is therefore convinced that 2017 will be a year of rebellion. In his opinion, in Austria this rebellion has been delayed for the time being, but the rebellions in Italy and the United States could not be crushed. Next year there will also be elections in Germany, the Netherlands and France, he remarked.

The Prime Minister pointed out that, on core issues, two rebellions are taking place at the same time: rebellions of the middle classes and of the nations. In his view, the “Clinton clan” lost the US election due to a rebellion by the middle classes – and Brexit was also about this. At the same time, the latest polls show that something similar is also taking place in France, where those who have been left behind and who are vulnerable are seeking a way out – and this sense of abandonment is now being converted, politically, into votes.

Meanwhile, he continued, the nations are rebelling against the fact that “the believers in a United States of Europe” are now “stealthily eroding” the sovereignty of individual nations on the issue of asylum. All of this is being overlaid with an intellectual rebellion against political correctness, enforced isolation and stigmatisation. “This rebellion began in 2016, but will intensify substantially next year. This is why I say that 2017 will be a year of rebellion”, Mr. Orbán said.

He remarked that it is not the Government which is rebelling, but the people – and the Cabinet is representing the will of the people. “This is our political genome: we are a people of freedom fighters”, the Prime Minister stated, adding that it is natural for people to oppose “any kind of wise guy”. He stated that “If we avoid becoming ossified in the armchairs of governance, we shall find common cause with the people”.

Mr. Orbán also said that he sees Fidesz as “a genuine self-made story”, and, in his view, the US president-elect also embodies “the mentality of a self-made-man”. Speaking of the telephone conversation he had with Donald Trump, the Prime Minister said that it is a rare thing in politics, particularly so in the case of the president of a great power, but he found that there was “a shared way of speaking” with the President-elect, who is “not a politician who overcomplicates matters”. He observed that “Trump and his team do not look like they are about to enrol on any kind of college course”.

The Prime Minister said a time of “more charismatic, more daring” politics is about to begin, and that we are seeing the end of the “sheep pen, plus communal bleating, plus the socialist-liberal world”. He added that “Self-made individuals are coming to the fore, who are successful in themselves, and who do not begin sentences with ‘I know what’s-his-name too’, but with ‘What I did was this’”.

Mr. Orbán described Hungarian relations with the United States as a good relationship and a good level of cooperation with both the American people and American economic stakeholders. Some American politicians, however, are “ferociously” hostile towards Hungary and the whole of Central Europe, because they expect leaders in these parts to respond to all of their conditions as if they were “yes men”.

The Prime Minister continued by saying that the Americans saw George Soros as the conduit for implementation of their “cunning plan of action”, designed to enforce their own interests through NGOs, foundations, civil society organisations and the media. With regard to a prediction by Politico that 2017 will be the year of George Soros, the Prime Minister said that it will not be his year, but it will be about him: about his marginalisation, and marginalisation of the forces he represents.

The Prime Minister was also asked about corruption, and whether power and victory had gone to Fidesz’s head. In reply Mr. Orbán likened success to alcohol, which affects some people more than others. In his opinion every politician should be able to handle it, or else they will have to come to terms with its effects, just as with the effects of alcohol. “There comes the hard process of sobering up, the hangover and the headache – and you could easily find your bags outside the front door”, he said.

He stressed that the fight against corruption will never be removed from the agenda. At the same time, to accuse someone without evidence is libel – which is as much of a crime as corruption itself. The Prime Minister said that ducking and diving, the search for loopholes, trickery, underhand dealing and envy are also all part of the legacy of forty years of dictatorship: in other words, a mentality which declares that if someone is successful, they should be suspected of wrongdoing. We should be glad of each other’s achievements, as this is what takes the country forward, he said.

Mr. Orbán added that with such an attitude Hungary will be stronger and richer in ten years’ time: “A country always becomes what our children are raised to be. If we set a good example, if we teach them not to always look for shortcuts, but to find their own path even if that appears to be harder, the country may once again become great. What message is America sending us? ‘Make Hungary Great Again!’”

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister)