Steven N.“Viktor Orbán made racist statements in Tusványos,” read the chyron on Romanian television news channel Digi 24 about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech at the Tusványos summer gathering in Băile Tușnad, Romania, where the Prime Minister made the statement that “we in the Carpathian Basin are not mixed race,” reports Transtelex.
“We (Hungarians) are not a mixed race… and we don’t want to become a mixed race,” Orbán said on Saturday. He added that countries where Europeans and non-Europeans mix “are no longer nations.”
Orbán has been making similar statements for years, but these comments were clearly formulated in extreme terms, Digi 24 told Romanian viewers. The news station also informed them that it was in Tusványos in 2014 when Viktor Orbán first said that he wanted to construct an “illiberal democracy” in Hungary.
Transtelex‘s summary notes that Romanian political parties and various political actors in the country have protested against the content of the speech delivered at Tusványos, the informal name for the “Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp” held every year in the Transylvanian region of Romania.
In addition to the social democrats and liberals, Romanian MEP Alin Mituță reacted angrily to Orbán’s comments. “Speaking about racial or ethnic ‘purity,’ especially in such a mixed region as Central and Eastern Europe, is purely delusional and dangerous. And so is Mr. Orbán,” the European representative wrote on Twitter.
Romania’s foreign minister was also outraged by the Hungarian Prime Minister’s speech, saying that such talk about “races” was unacceptable. [Magyar Hang]
