Europe is in trouble, because it has still not managed to define its new place in the global economy, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban told the 15th Bled Strategic Forum. The politician also underlined that although solidarity is a joint success, we cannot be successful together if we are not successful on our own.

Europe has a hard time understanding that, unlike the United States and China, the continent is not capable of „fundamentally changing the rules of the game”, the Hungarian premier has said.

The reason for this is that Europe still lacks a joint military and the associated scienctific and and innovation hubs that could serve as “the engines of technological advancement”, Viktor Orban said. “Our current situation and the ensuing consequences must be clarified,” he added.

Hungary s political scene is characterised by a „battle for intellectual sovereignty”, Mr Orban said in Bled on Monday, adding that his government was fighting to enforce its Christian Democratic and conservative approach to democracy against liberal views.

„We re fighting so that European institutions and politics can be looked at from more than one point of view and so that we can engage in debates on ideas like family, nation, cultural traditions, religion and migration,” the premier told the 15th annual Bled Strategic Forum. He added that Hungarian democracy „is at least as good as German or Italian democracy” and it complies with European requirements.

Solidarity leads to shared success but European countries cannot be successful together if they are not successful on their own, the Hungarian prime minister said, adding that the economic and political success of individual European nations is not the antithesis of shared European success but rather one of its preconditions and building blocks. Mr Orban said the keys to the European Union s future success were its capacity for a joint military, the accession of Serbia to the bloc and the creation of a competitive economy spearheaded by central Europe.