Global crisis to entail new epoch, says PM Orban

Baile Tusnad, Romania, July 23 (MTI) - The economic crisis in the western world will eventually lead to a new epoch, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a summer university event for Hungarians in Baile Tusnad, central Romania, on Saturday.

Orban argued that "the old world will collapse" when the foreign debt of countries can no longer be managed. "States thought to be strong earlier will weaken and countries seen as weak will turn out to be strong," he added.

A collapse is unavoidable, because there is no recipe to turn unmanageably high debts into manageable ones, he insisted. "We have only one recipe, and that is devaluation of the national currency, and inflation," Orban said.

Western countries have taken a path of unsustainable growth - a growth of consumption rather than that of production - and productive labour has lost its reputation, said the prime minister.

Foreign debts cannot be repaid without central means, and it is but the state that has the capability to help the unemployed back to work; the state, therefore, will be given a completely new role in the future, Orban said. State intervention is needed to restructure the economy, and build labour-based economies to replace the welfare states of Europe, he added.

A successful state can only be built if there is a strong nation behind, a "community with a strong confidence, which the state serves with its own work; the strength of the state is rooted in the nation," Orban said.

Orban referred to Hungary s elections last year, when his Fidesz party won a landslide victory in parliament, and said that Hungarian voters had given the signal for starting a new epoch ahead of all other countries in Europe.

Starting a new phase will help Hungary in its efforts to build closer ties with ethnic Hungarian communities in neighbouring countries, as well as contribute to the integration of Central Europe, which he said would gain crucial economic importance in the future.