Orban defends 'cultural standpoint' in race row
Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, on Thursday defended his weekend comments against creating "peoples of mixed-race", saying they represented a "cultural, civilisational standpoint". "It happens sometimes that I speak in a way that can be misunderstood... the position that I represent is a cultural, civilisational standpoint," Orban told a joint press conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer during a one-day visit to Vienna. Orban sparked a storm of criticism after he warned against mixing with "non-Europeans" in a speech in Romania's Transylvania region, home to a Hungarian community, last Saturday. Nehammer said the issue had been "resolved... amicably and in all clarity", adding his country "strongly condemned... any form of racism or anti-Semitism". The International Auschwitz Committee has urged the European Union – and Nehammer specifically – to distance themselves from "Orban's racist undertones". Austria is the first EU country to host Orban for talks since he won a fourth straight mandate in an April landslide. Besides the race row, the two leaders discussed migration and energy security amid tensions the war in Ukraine. Jewish community representatives voiced alarm after Orban, an ultra-conservative known for his anti-migrant policy and virulent rhetoric, said that "we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race". The 59-year-old also seemed to allude to the Nazi German gas chambers when criticising a Brussels plan to reduce European gas demand by 15 percent following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hungary was the only EU member to oppose the plan, which passed on a majority vote this week. An adviser to Orban, Zsuzsa Hegedus, resigned on Tuesday, slamming his speech as "a pure Nazi text". In response, Orban stressed his government's "policy of zero tolerance when it comes to anti-Semitism and racism", according to a letter made public. "I am proud of the results which Hungary achieved against racism in recent years," Orban told reporters on Wednesday. (AFP)