Orbán: Vaccinations set to start in late December

The vaccine will be administered to them at the Budapest South Pest Hospital and county hospitals, Orbán said.

He asked health-care workers to get the vaccine in as large numbers as possible, adding, however, that “this is in no way a general desire at the moment”.

Orbán emphasised that he wanted vaccination against the virus to remain voluntary. The government does not want to force anyone to get the vaccine, he said, but asked health-care workers to protect themselves.

As regards mass vaccinations, he said that once a vaccine is available in larger quantities, those who have pre-registered for it would get priority.

Concerning the holiday season, Orbán said: “We’ll be having a small Christmas this year,” encouraging people to cancel visits to their relatives in the interest of protecting each other’s health. “Perhaps there’ll be a chance for the usual large family celebrations at Easter,” he added.

The government will decide on special Covid-related regulations for Christmas Eve at Monday’s cabinet meeting, he said. Orbán said he would welcome if experts allowed a softening of the country’s restrictions for that one evening. This, he said, could include rules like not counting children under 14 in the 10-person limit on family gatherings.

Orbán said that though Hungary’s Covid numbers were not deteriorating, “this isn’t much consolation”.

“I don’t have any liberating good news to share,” he said.

Hungary did a good job preparing for the current wave of the epidemic in the summer, Orbán said, noting that the government had launched a National Consultation public survey on response measures, procured the necessary protective equipment and prepared the health-care sector for the treatment of patients. “Our biggest opponent now is fatigue among doctors and nurses,” he said.

He added that Hungary would keep border controls and restrictions on entry in place, calling on the public not to plan any ski trips.

The prime minister also said he would announce new measures to tackle the economic fallout of the epidemic to be introduced on Jan. 1 on Saturday morning.

On another subject, Orbán said that Hungary’s interests should be protected “with increased emphasis against George Soros and his network”.

“Soros, the most corrupt man in the world, has attacked Hungary several times but what he has just done, with assistance from Hungary’s left wing, goes too far for the country to pocket with a shrug,” the prime minister said.

Soros is working in Brussels “to harm Hungarians wherever he can”, Orbán insisted. “It is not right that we are just sitting here, fending off these attacks and pretending as if it were a matter of course,” he added. Orbán also said it had required “great feats” for him to prevent Soros from “causing Hungary damage to the tune of many billions of euros”.

Orbán went on to say that the European Parliament “seeks to take over leadership of the European Union”. He argued that “MEPs think that the EU is Brussels alone” while prime ministers of the bloc consider Brussels a “place for negotiations rather than [the EU’s] centre” and “the EU is where the national capitals are”.

“Behind the EP there is a network and that’s where Soros and his people come into the picture; they have built strong positions in the EP through NGOs, research institutes, background institutions and via influencing the media,” Orbán said. “They are trying to snatch decisions over Europe from heads of state and government.”

The EP sought to tie financial issues to politics and “it was feared that the EP’s stubbornness would destroy the budget and the recovery package,” Orbán said, but added that the Hungarian and Polish governments “had succeeded” with “Slovenia making its voice heard” and the Czech president also voicing support for the Hungarian-Polish stance. The outcome of the EU summit was a “success” and the agreement reached will provide a “nuclear proof” financial background to planning for the next few years, Orbán said.

He added, however, that “a lot of debates” could still be expected on other issues including migration, and insisted that “in western parts of the continent they still wish to see a Europe built on migration, and provide housing, wages, and subsidies to 34 million immigrants … a mad scheme”.

Touching upon the gender issue Orbán said that “a regular Hungarian does not even know what it is” and insisted that “these are problems of a peripheral existence leaving 99 percent of the people unaffected”. “Hungary is a normal country where it is evident that fathers are men and mothers are women and they get married to have offspring,” he said. He went on to say that “you cannot regulate the life of 100 people on the basis of one exception, as they seek to do in Western Europe; we need to take the 99 as the basis”.

“The goal is not for the majority to take over the ideology of the minority; the majority should preserve its own identity and tolerate the position of the minority,” Orbán said.