Retvari: Family is basic value that must be preserved ‘at all cost’

Bence Retvari told the event organised by the Maria Kopp Institute for Demography and Families (KINCS), the Hungarian Women’s Union, and the Saint Stephen Institute, that the government was introducing new family support measures even during times of economic crises, pandemic, war, sanctions and soaring energy prices.

“In the first twenty years of the post-communist transformation, governments always started with families when they wanted to cut back on spending due to a crisis, but in 2010 this changed radically,” he added.

Retvari said in Brussels they “want to redefine” the notion of family. The task of the state’s is “not to overrule people’s way of thinking through legal regulations but to accept that the notion of family by far preceded the development of the state, law or any form of public law,” he added.

It was a false stereotype, he said, that the appearance of women in politics was a left-wing achievement originating in the workers’ movement. The first female politician in Hungary was a Christian Democrat named Margit Slachta, while the first female president of Hungary is Katalin Novak, a Christian politician, he added.