BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The European Union should give up the “delusional nightmares” of a United States of Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday in pledging to defend his nation’s Christian values and fight EU migrant settlement quotas.
Orban, a maverick anti-immigration nationalist, won re-election for a third straight four-year term last month and is already the longest-serving premier in Hungary’s post-Communist history.
His populist rhetoric and strong criticism of EU policies have put Orban at odds with older, western members of the bloc but won him a landslide victory at home, as his nationalist line proved popular with voters.
In his first speech in the new parliament, which on Thursday elected him prime minister as a formality, Orban said his new government would build a “Christian democracy”.
He promised to boost growth and competitiveness and reverse a demographic decline. “We will oppose the mandatory migrant settlement quotas... and will fight for the protection of borders,” he said.
“(The EU) must give up the delusional nightmares of a United States of Europe; the EU must return to the grounds of reality. As a first step it must change its thinking about migration.”
Orban also said the era of liberal democracy had ended.
“We have replaced a shipwrecked liberal democracy with a 21st-century Christian democracy, which guarantees people’s freedom, security,” Orban, in power since 2010, told parliament.
“It supports the traditional family model of one man and one woman, keeps anti-Semitism at bay, and gives a chance for growth,” he added.
Orban also outlined broad plans for the next 12 years entailing rapid economic and social progress under a conservative ideology.
Reporting by Krisztina Than and Marton Dunai; Editing by Mark Heinrich
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