‘Democracy, as a concept, is inherently subject to interpretation and enforcement from within. This underscores the imperative: political disputes find resolution within domestic arenas and nowhere else, and unwavering loyalty is owed solely to one’s political adversaries, without allegiance to any foreign entity.’
The Transatlantic Patriot Summit took place on 27 April, co-hosted by the Danube Institute and a number of international conservative youth organizations. The distinguished speakers covered a wide array of topics, including the left’s control over mainstream media in many countries, mass migration, and the upcoming elections in Europe and the United States.
‘My young friends, our responsibility is immense. We are the last generation that could rely solely on our parents to differentiate between right and wrong. Yet, we are also fully immersed in the technological advancements of the 21st century. We have an opportunity to globalize conservatism.’
‘One of the problems with the Anglosphere is that we have these occasional bouts of hysteria. It’s a sort of psychosexual, cultural, religious frenzy,’ American writer James C. Bennett highlighted in an interview with Hungarian Conservative.
The Hungarian and Turkic people (or rather, peoples) are connected in many cultural and even genetic ways. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus called the Hungarian conquerors ‘Turks’, and the sons of the House of Árpád (Turul gens in medieval Hungarian sources) were later called ‘Princes of Turkey’ by the Byzantines. In the origin myth of the Hungarian royal dynasty, the ‘Turul bird’ is also of Turkish origin, as the symbol of the Sky and of the supreme God of Turkish myths, where it appears as toġrïl or toğrul.
‘We need to win in each and every country because as conservatives that’s what we believe in, sovereign nation states,’ PiS MEP Radosław Fogiel nailed down in an interview with Hungarian Conservative.
During a roundtable discussion organized by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) on Thursday in Budapest, experts dissected Hungary’s role and opportunities within the EU. They agreed that one of the key topics during Hungary’s EU presidency should be the integration of the Western Balkans. They also discussed the war in Ukraine, the Eastern opening, and the bureaucracy in Brussels, among other topics.
During the interview, the Prime Minister remarked that Europe is playing with fire, teetering on the brink between peace and war. He criticized European leaders for two years of indecision regarding strategy and sanctions, drifting not from war towards peace but from peace towards war. He expressed deep concern for the future of Europe, stating it is extremely dangerous.
Viktor Orbán has a very long record in public life, from his early days as a strong anti-communist freedom fighter, through to his first stint in government, and now to this long and successful tenure as a prime minister. He’s been able to articulate a brand of conservatism that is both economically sensible and culturally conservative and traditionalist.
‘Hopefully, under a second Trump administration, we’re going to see a new high in Hungarian–American relations that we haven’t seen since Kossuth visited America back in the 1850s,’ Republican Congressional Aide Johnny Szani pointed out in an interview with Hungarian Conservative.
‘Our continent is effectively under siege—we can see that if we are willing to move away from the narratives that interpret migration solely as a ‘refugee issue’ and acknowledge that mass migration can also be a tool for terrorism and destabilization. The number of irregular migrants arriving in the Canary Islands more than tripled in January this year compared to the previous year. Germany is overwhelmed. Reception capacity was already exceeded in 2023, when 330,000 asylum applications were submitted in just a year, mostly from Muslim countries.’
‘When you move abroad, either of necessity or at your own initiative, the inevitable clash between the host and home cultures raises questions about the future of your mother tongue, culture of origin, and national identity. In a foreign language environment, the use of the mother tongue is not obvious, nor is the development and preservation of the original identity.’
‘Hungarians should heed Ireland’s example. Societal rot has existed for decades on the Emerald Isle, but only in recent years have its Catholic and Christian-democratic foundations palpably crumbled. Hungarian society becomes complacent over its cultural values at its own peril.’
According to former United States ambassador to Budapest David Cornstein, Donald Trump is the only person in the world who can bring an end to the Russo–Ukrainian war. Cornstein also praised Viktor Orbán and the achievements of the Hungarian government.
‘The approach advocated for by Tamás Sulyok is not the reverse of the European Court of Justice’s primacy over national constitutional courts. Contrary to the view of some misguided alarmists, Sulyok did not argue for the unquestionable primacy of the Hungarian interpretation of national constitutions over the European. In fact, in Tamás Sulyok’s view, the relations between the two does not have to be hierarchical at all, with one having the ultimate interpretative power with regards to the constitutions of the EU member states.’
Refugee groups started trickling in after the catastrophic defeat of the Austro–Hungarian empire in the First World War and the dismembering of the historical Hungarian Kingdom, resulting in the loss of many ethnically Hungarian territories for Hungary. The destruction of the war and the discriminative policies of the new states prompted many Hungarians to seek a better life beyond the sea. Latin America soon became an important emigration target, as the United States started to severely restrict immigration from Eastern Europe in the 1920s.
‘Conservative policy approaches in Germany and Hungary have different prerequisites. However, the majority of voters in both countries share similar ideas, with a societal centre ground that leans to the right.’
Denisa Bott-Varga has been an active member of the 110-year-old Hungarian American Athletic Club in New Brunswick and leader of the local Csűrdöngölő Folk Dance Ensemble since the early 2000s, when she arrived to the US from Slovakia. In 2023, she received an Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic for her work in Hungarian diaspora culture and folk dance. In the interview she talks about her passion for folk dance and her efforts to build and preserve the Hungarian community in New Brunswick.
All three distinguished speakers warned of the perils of mass illegal migration into Europe, and stressed nations’ right to self-determination as well on Day 1 of CPAC Hungary 2024.
Donald Trump emphasized that as President, he ‘proudly worked together’ with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to defend the values and interests of both the Hungarian and the American nation.
At the conference organized by the Center for Fundamental Rights, the Prime Minister stated that the world order built on progressive–liberal hegemony has failed because it brought wars, chaos, unrest, collapsing economies, and turmoil to the world.
A new world order, European security, shifting geopolitics and the nuances of energy security were discussed by renowned experts at a conference at the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest.
‘Elite structures tend to consolidate a prevailing view whether that be the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the ‘trahison des clercs’ of Brussels. There seems to be no leadership in Europe; a reflection of the growing bureau government of Brussels. Europe, the crucible of nation states since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), is in crisis. It is the days of Weimar all over again. A resurgent right, a distrust of the organs of democracy. When representative democracy is exposed as leaderless and corruption, there is an inevitable pushback.’
The former Head of Child safety lost her job at the tech giant for taking part in a sit-in protest against Google doing business with the Israeli government. However, a subsequent search into her social media history uncovered that she has also had very strange opinions on sexual assault.
While one might envision the European right as a cohesive entity, significant differences exist between the two prominent EP political groups, ECR and ID, particularly on crucial issues such as the war in Ukraine. As the summer EP elections draw nearer, the pressing question revolves around whether and how the conservative forces across the continent can be unified in the new parliament.
After years of negotiations and legal battles, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill passed on the floor of Parliament, with 240 members voting ‘content’ and 211 voting ‘not content’. Welcoming the passing of the bill, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that planes with migrants on board will be ready to take off and fly to Rwanda in East Africa in 10–12 weeks.
Conservatism is different in every nation, and so is approach to energy solutions. In this interview, Arvid Hallén, the founder of the only Swedish conservative think tank, Oikos, addresses these topics and also provides some background on Sweden’s NATO accession.
‘First, cannabis was licensed for medical use, then legalization became more widespread. It is the typical slippery slope. In fact, there are doors that, once opened, cannot be closed. Society-shaping (disruptive) philanthropists like George Soros, who have been at the forefront of making drug use easier for decades, know this all too well.’
The minister underscored that strengthening ties with the United Arab Emirates, a significant economic and military power in the Gulf region, can complement Hungary’s defence development programme, whether it involves defence-oriented research, innovation, or the manufacturing of military equipment.
‘The apocalyptic notion of overpopulation, which is taught in grade schools, instilled in centers of higher education, and pushed by NGOs, has even drawn together conservative politicians with their left colleagues, though for different motives. The latter sustain the pretext of saving the environment at all cost, even at the cost of human beings themselves. The former, instead, argue on the vitality of offsetting the growing fertility among immigrants with that of their decreasing indigenous population.’
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.