The recipe for the antidote to progressive dominance is "open source and free for the taking", the Hungarian premier said in his keynote speech delivered at CPAC Hungary in Budapest on Thursday. He summarised the basics in 12 points.

Budapest is hosting the first US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC Hungary) ever held in Europe. The two-day conservative political forum on 19-20 May was originally scheduled for the end of March but was postponed to May due to the war situation in Ukraine. With the triad of God, homeland and family chosen as the motto and central theme, the conference welcomed Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban as the keynote speaker.

In his opening, the Hungarian premier extended special greetings to former president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus, describing him as a person who is the most invigorating intellectually in Europe. He then went on to speak about Hungary’s parliamentary elections in early April.

A month ago, we won the fourth election in a row and were able to form our fifth Christian-Conservative government, so the current situation is special: There are achievements behind our words,

Viktor Orban underlined, adding that Hungary has come a long way since the 1980s when Hungarians read illegally distributed samizdats to find out what was happening overseas and now the country was hosting the most important political gathering of the Republican Party. „Earlier, we looked at the United States with great envy,” he noted.

He thought that the best way he could contribute to the event was to speak of how the Communists and Liberals had been defeated on multiple occasions and how Hungary had become a bulwark of conservative and Christian values.

The ultimate condition for victory is for us to become the best,

the Hungarian prime minister highlighted and drew parallels between Hungary and the United States.

„The most important problem in American politics is progressive liberals sitting in key positions in key areas of life, and this has also been the case in Hungary before,” he pointed out. „The complete machinery of the state apparatus worked to set the power of the communists in stone, and we grew up with that,” he said, adding that Hungarians rose up against it. „We wanted to regain our freedom,” Viktor Orban said.

„We held out and won, and we thought we got what we had been hoping for, but we were wrong,” the Hungarian prime minister said, adding that the Liberals sided with the Communists at the first opportunity.

In the Hungarian premier’s view, what happened to President Trump is exactly the same as what took place in Hungary in 2002. „We governed with excellence, but the swamp of the Hungarian Left dragged us down,” Viktor Orban explained, adding that the Socialists ruling from 2002 to 2010 wasted the money of Hungarian people and the economy went into recession.

Progressive governance spoke for itself: economic bankruptcy and street violence,

he underlined.

However, after the election defeat in 2002, we did not want to settle for our minority position, and announced the launch of Reconquista.

„After eight years invested in fighting and building brick by brick, we returned in 2010. The recipe is ready. The lab coat is off. Hungary has received the fourth dose and I can state: the patient has completely recovered,” the Hungarian premier said, adding that the formula, consisting of 12 points, is open source and free for the taking.

„We have to play according to our own rules” is the first point in Viktor Orban’s opinion.

„We must not accept a path offered by others,” he said, adding that „whoever plays according to the opponent’s rules is set to lose”.

The second point of his recipe is that national conservatism mus be implemented in domestic policy. And from this follows the third point, keeping national interests at the centre of foreign policy.

“The fourth point is that we must have [our] media because we can only show the insanity of the progressive Left if we have the media to help us,” Mr Orban said.

Speaking about the fifth point, he stressed the need to expose the true intentions of the opponents. To this end, taboos must be broken.

Not the taboos of today, but those of tomorrow,

Mr Orban stressed, citing as an example the Hungarian referendum on LGBTQ propaganda targeting children. The sensitisation of children was rejected by the majority of Hungarians, the PM said.

Point number six is the economy. PM Orban said that only economic policies that benefit even those who did not vote for you should be pursued. “People want to get ahead in life. If a right-wing government cannot deliver that, it is doomed to fail,” the PM said.

“Our seventh point is that you must not get dragged to an extreme,” PM Orban said, adding while extremist views resurface time and time again on the Right, as well as on the Left, if we look closely, we will find that people don’t really want anything to do with them. The Hungarian PM also explained that

“But my friends, what is the difference between far-right denial of science and the LGBTQ movement’s denial of biology? The answer is simple: There is no difference.”

Mr Orban’s eighth point was the importance of reading every day. According to the premier, books are the best way to convey and understand complex issues.

„Have faith,”

was how he introduced the ninth point, explaining that if someone does not believe in the Final Judgment, they think they can do whatever is within their power.

That’s why we should encourage young conservative students to foster their faith,

Mr Orban emphasized.

Point number ten: establish good contacts and make friends. According to the prime minister, “our opponents, the progressive liberals and neo-Marxists, are endlessly united. They have each other’s backs.” Conservatives, on the other hand, are capable of squabbling with each other over the smallest issue.

“If you want to succeed in politics, never look at how you disagree with another person, but look for where you have common ground,”

he underlined.

Getting to the eleventh point, Mr Orban said that it is vital to build communities.

There is no conservative political success without well-functioning communities. The fewer the communities and the lonelier the people, the more voters turn to the Liberals,

the PM said.

Concluding with the final point, Prime Minister Orban said that building political institutions is conducive to success.

“While politicians come and go, institutions stay with us for generations. It is they, the institutions, that can intellectually renew politics,

he pointed out.

Mr Orban then went on to talk about how the whole world is undergoing enormous changes, and the destructive ideologies are now coming from the West.

We never imagined that the return of communists could come not only from the East, but also from the West. Now it is the case that progressives are threatening the whole of Western civilisation,

Mr Orban highlighted.

The premier stated that 2024 will be a crucial year, with presidential and congressional elections in the United States and European Parliament elections in Europe. “These two locations mark the two fronts in the struggle for Western civilisation,” he said. “Today we have neither of them, but we need both,” the Hungarian PM said. “We have two years to prepare,” Mr Orban said, adding that the Hungarian lesson is that there is no magic bullet,

„It’s just work. Let’s go and do it!”

PM Orban concluded his speech.