Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has announced tax breaks and subsidies to encourage families to have more children. He also vowed to defend “Christian” nations against immigration, which he claims is leading to the “virus of terrorism”.
This was part of Orbán’s European elections campaign, which he launched on February 10. Orbán said May’s elections for the European Parliament were a “historic crossroads”.
As reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), he framed the vote as a choice between the “new internationalism” of pro-migration Brussels bureaucrats under the sway of “money men” such as liberal US billionaire George Soros and sovereign nation states defending tradition and Christianity.
And he warned against voting for pro-immigration parties. He said those who “decide for immigration and migrants for whatever reason in reality are creating mixed-race nations”.
He added: “Historic traditions in immigrant countries come to an end… in such countries Christian-Muslim worlds are created with continually shrinking Christian proportions.”
In a separate report, the Guardian noted that anti-Orban protesters gathered in Budapest for the latest in a series of rallies against the government which began in December after parliament passed a “slave law” allowing employers to demand more overtime from workers. The law is seen as another result of the demographic problems in the country, as a labour shortage means jobs cannot be filled. The political opposition to Orbán is divided, however, and the protest momentum appears to have diminished.
