Hungarian farmers over the last decades have managed with great difficulty to obtain capital, tools and machinery, and by and large, this is now becoming normal in Hungarian agricultural society. However, right as Hungarian farmers should be thriving, prices have collapsed across Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the beginning of his nationwide EU election tour.
“Prices have not collapsed on their own, but were brought down by a misguided European decision to allow Ukrainian grain into the European Union. The government did look into this a few weeks ago, and we have taken some decisions to try to help you, but the problem cannot be solved in Budapest alone,” said Orbán.
The Hungarian prime minister stated that the problem must also be resolved in Brussels because European markets can only be protected from Brussels, not from Budapest. That is why it makes a difference who Hungary sends to Brussels following the EU parliament elections in June, he stressed.
“We need to elect new leaders in Brussels. The new leaders are now elected partly by the prime ministers of the member states and partly by MEPs. It is a joint decision. Therefore, it does not matter who the MEPs are because they will elect leaders who are like themselves. So it is important for us to send people to the European Parliament who are right-wing, who have a national sentiment, who are committed to the agricultural world and to farmers,” Orbán said.
Hungary can send 21 MEPs to the European Parliament, and current polls show that the ruling conservative Fidesz remains in the lead, with another four or five parties also likely to gain representation.
