Orban: Hungary to be among top 5 EU countries by 2030

Hungary should be among the five best and most competitive countries of the European Union by 2030, a country in which "it is best to live and work", Prime Minister Viktor Orban told a plenary session of the Hungarian Diaspora Council in Budapest on Thursday. In the shorter term, Orban said, the "the culture of patriotism should be promoted and the culture of self-hatred suppressed". He said that by 2022, the country's competitiveness should be "tangibly improved", new "demographic incentives" should be launched and an independent Hungarian army developed. In terms of the military, Hungary "lags behind" other countries in the region, he said, insisting that "a country cannot be strong without an army capable of protecting it".