Former President urges 'changes in all fields'

Former Hungarian President László Sólyom called for an end to the battlefield behavior among the political right and left in Hungary, speaking at a conference organized by the foundation of the small opposition party LMP this past Sunday.

Cited by the Hungarian news agency MTI, Sólyom condemned the warlike demeanor in the confrontation between the right and the left as well as the focus on victory over the opponent. He said it was just as senseless to speak about a dictatorship in Hungary today as it was to deliver assessments of the mistakes of the two decades before 2010.

Systematic thinking that focuses on sustainability is needed, instead of details taken out of context, he said.

Sólyom said the euphoria experienced at the beginning of the 1990s when Hungary returned to Europe was not just superficial: “Everybody tried to behave”. He added that the place Hungary occupies among the member states of the community mainly depends on us, Hungarians.

As regards the widespread international criticism of the fourth amendment to the new (one-and-a-half-year-old) Constitution, Sólyom said that the European reception of it was about the relationship between the values of the European Union and Hungary.

Economist Péter Róna, who spent decades as a bank industry leader in the United States, also exhorted Hungarians to bring an end to the hate between left and right that is dividing the country.