by Jonathon Van Maren, The European Conservative
In 2018, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán laid out his vision for “Christian democracy” at a summer university conference. Unlike Western Europe, where globalism is the prevailing de facto ideology, Orbán advocated a different path for Central Europe with five fundamental tenets:
1) Defend its Christian culture, and reserve the right to reject multiculturalist ideology.
2) Defend the traditional family model, being entitled to assert that every child has the right to a mother and a father.
3) Defend nationally strategic economic sectors and markets.
4) Defend its borders, and reserve the right to reject immigration.
5) Insist on the principle of one nation, one vote on the most important issues, which right must not be denied in the European Union.
Orbán’s vision has been much criticized, but little understood. The European elite, he stated, has exchanged the foundation of its Christian heritage for a borderless “open society” in which everything is in flux, and nothing is solid: “there are no borders, European people can be readily replaced with immigrants, the family has been transformed into an optional, fluid form of cohabitation.” Orbán’s pro-natal, socially conservative agenda, which has repeatedly placed his government in the crosshairs of the European elites, puts Hungary on a different path.
Indeed, Hungary’s 2011 constitution makes this explicit, stating that the nation “shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman established by voluntary decision, and the family as the basis of the survival of the nation.” Further, it states that “Family ties shall be based on marriage or the relationship between parents and children,” and emphasizes that “Hungary shall support the commitment to have children,” and that: “Human dignity shall be inviolable. Every human being shall have the right to life and human dignity; the life of the foetus shall be protected from the moment of conception.”
A raft of pro-marriage and pro-child policies has buttressed these constitutional commitments. The marriage rate doubled between 2010 and 2021; divorces per marriage have halved during the same period. While abortion is still legal up until 12 weeks in Hungary—the government recognizes that a ban, while constitutionally viable, does not yet have sufficient public support—the abortion rate has also halved since 2003, and the teen abortion rate has fallen since 2016. As Laurie Rose at the Institute for Family Studies noted with more than a little surprise: “In sum, Hungary’s pro-marriage culture seems robust enough to survive given the increased age at marriage and the decline in divorce.”