European politics “has collapsed”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his address at the Bálványos Summer University in Baile Tusnad, Romania, on Saturday, arguing that Europe had relinquished the protection of its own interests.

“Europe is currently following the politics of the US Democratic Party unconditionally, even at the cost of self-destruction,” Orbán said, adding that sanctions imposed on Russia were hurting European interests, raising energy prices and making the European economy uncompetitive.

Orbán said the European system of powers had so far been based on a “Paris-Berlin axis”, but this no longer existed, or had at least “become irrelevant and evadable” compared with the “new power centre” comprising London, Warsaw, Kyiv and the Baltic and Scandinavian states.

He said the idea of replacing the Paris-Berlin axis was not a new one but rather “an old Polish plan” that involved Poland becoming the continent’s main American base. This, he added, required “calling the Americans in there, between the Germans and the Russians”. But this, he added, could only be made a reality owing to the current war.

“This is an old plan: weaken Russia and surpass Germany,” Orbán said, insisting that Poland was pursuing the “most deceitful politics” in Europe, arguing that “they’re obliviously doing business with the Russians while morally lecturing us for doing the same thing”.

Orbán: Asia to be centre of the world in new global system

In the next decades Asia will be at the centre of the global system, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his address at the Balvanyos Summer University in Baile Tusnad, Romania, on Saturday.

“Europe can then decide whether it wants to be an open-air museum or a part of global competition,” he said, adding that changes were now afoot that had not been seen in the past 500 years.

Leading powers had come from the West over the past 150 years while change was now coming from Asia, he declared.

Orbán said former US president Donald Trump was seeking an American response to this state of affairs, and this represented America’s “last chance” to remain as a world leader.

The prime minister said that Europe had two options: to become an open-air museum in a “subordinated role to the US” or to follow French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to achieve strategic autonomy and “enter the competition for changing the global system”.

Orbán insisted that it was feasible to recover Europe’s ability to attract capital and implement big infrastructure developments, “especially in central Europe”.

“We need a European military alliance with strong European military industry,” he said, adding that Europe must also be self-sufficient in terms of energy, for which nuclear power was indispensable. All this, he added, must be concluded after a post-war agreement with Russia is forged.

Read also: