European Elites and Democracy in Crisis

The economic crisis in Europe lead to a crisis of its elites, which lead to a democracy crisis, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán explained in his speech at the 27th Bálványos Free Summer University and Youth Camp in Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő), Transylvania. He recalled that - despite their parties being different, conservative, social democratic or liberal - Europe's leading mainstream politicians come from the same circles, the same schools and everyone take it for granted that their competition ensures Europe's growing welfare. But the economic crisis leads to the rise of new political players, radicals and populists, from Donald Trump in the USA to the AfD in Germany. "Big masses of people obviously want the opposite of what the traditional elites are doing", he added.

According to the PM one of the biggest threats in Europe is that the EU is harming the sovereignty of its member states, so all policies which centralise competences, should be stopped. He called it a way of idealising the EU instead of practical thinking. According to Mr Orbán a joint European answer is good in some issues, but harmful in others - he recalled the EU's failure to handle migration and border control. The Prime Minister also emphasised that the EU still thinks it's a global player but actually it's at best a regional player. He added that the EU fails to play a decisive role in Ukraine or in Syria, the Middle East, so it's not the EU who influences the situation at its neighbouring area, but mostly the United States and Russia.

At the EU summit in Bratislava members of the current elite will insist that they are doing everything well, so it's the Central Eastern European states which have to represent the opinion that Europe needs fundamental changes.

Viktor Orbán said that he didn't expect he'll ever say that, but he thinks that Donald Trump may be the better option for Europe as future president of the United States. The PM agrees with the Republican nominee regarding the need to stop the Western "democracy export" and several questions regarding security.