Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and honored celebrants. I wish everyone a beautiful Easter and a happy resurrection. Christ our Lord has risen. This good news began our Sunday today. We can leave behind what is bad, frail, and fleeting. Thus the Citadel is also renewed. We have removed what is bad, frail, and filthy, and preserved what is usable, what can be shaped in our own image.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, however surprising it may be, it has never happened before that on this hill named after Bishop Gellért, at its very top, the Hungarians built something for themselves. Others always built here, and mostly against us. The building itself was erected to suppress us. I quote the decision of the time: that from there they could keep rebellious Pest under cannon fire. It was the most hated building in the city. Today it is the bastion of Hungarian freedom. Such is revenge when it is Hungarian and noble.
They say that Gellért Hill is located on the boundary of two tectonic plates, between two worlds, right on the fault line. When the plates move, merciless energies are released. Perhaps the thermal springs of Buda were formed in this way. Ladies and gentlemen, Hungary also lies on the boundary of great civilizational tectonic plates: Orthodoxy, the Muslim world, Western Christianity. On the fault line, something is always happening, mostly something dangerous. The Hungarian may be the world champion of survival for this reason. Empires come and go, but we remain.
Over the centuries, as you will also see at the exhibition, tens of thousands of Hungarians died on the battlefields, but not in vain, because we did not become a German province, nor a Turkish vilayet, nor a Soviet republic. Honored celebrants! According to geologists, Gellért Hill is one million years old. It spent the last 1,100 years with us Hungarians. What happened to the hill over the past millennium is also happening to the nation. We are the hill — Gellért Hill, Hungary.
There stood a Turkish holy site with a mosque. A Habsburg firing position swept across it. Then a temporarily stationed red-starred statue of liberty also loomed here. Honored celebrants, it is worth making the effort to climb to the top. When you reach it, you see that from here you get the best view of the city, the country, the entire Carpathian Basin. When you stand here, you understand that this is a historical lookout and a pilgrimage site of the nation.
That is why it is fitting that we built the exhibition right here, which guides you through the stormy centuries of the Hungarian people. I thank everyone — the designers, engineers, construction workers, and the creators of the exhibition — for their work. I thank all of you that today we can return to the people Budapest's most spectacular site. Ladies and gentlemen, from these heights one can look not only back into the past, but also forward into the future with a good view.
I know it is Easter. A holiday, resurrection, an exhibition, an opening, and fantastic weather. Yet I cannot remain silent before you about what I see looking forward from here. What we see now does not make us happy. Even our breath stops for a moment. Such dark clouds have not approached Hungary in a long time. Moreover, from the east, west, and south all at once. From the east, the Ukrainian war; from the south, the Middle Eastern turmoil; from the west, Brussels' political failure.
You have seen, and I have too. We have seen a financial crisis, a migration crisis, and an energy crisis, but separately, one after another, and we defended against them one by one. Hungary has grown into a black-belt crisis-management country over the past 20 years, but what is now approaching will be difficult even for us to fend off. Soon, an energy crisis and then a financial crisis will strike Europe simultaneously.
Today the world, and Europe first and foremost, is threatened by a devastating energy, oil, and fuel shortage. If there is no energy, the economy stops. If the economy stops, everything is endangered — not only the accustomed order and standard of living of Hungarians, but also our achievements and our carefully devised plans. Today, energy is needed from anywhere, from any direction, from any country, and immediately.
That is why it is a crying sin what the Ukrainians are committing against Hungary and Slovakia by shutting off the Druzhba pipeline. That is why it is a fatal error that Brussels continues its war-mongering, delusional sanctions policy. That is why it is a grave stupidity to demand that Hungary cut itself off from Russian energy. It is reckless stupidity to promise energy transition plans to international energy companies and Brussels bureaucrats without energy from the East. Even simple survival consumes all the resources of Hungarian families.
Ladies and gentlemen, since the outbreak of the Iranian war, natural gas prices have risen by 70% and oil prices by 60% in Europe. Everyone knows that in this situation only one thing matters: that there be energy — from anywhere, just let there be energy. Ladies and gentlemen, from this height it is easy to see that Hungary can have only one goal: to stay out. Stay out of the war and stay out of Brussels' lunatic energy policy.
Four years ago we created a broad national unity against the war. We defended our sovereignty, our independence, and our freedom. This alliance must now be renewed and even broadened. Greater danger, even broader unity — that is what Hungary needs now. The resurrected Citadel, the nation's renewed lookout, observation post, and recaptured highland guard post, should help Hungarians see and understand the clouds gathering on the horizon, and make the common and good decisions necessary to avert the dangers.
Until next Sunday. God bless Hungary. The good God above us all. Hungary above all. Go Hungary! Go Hungarians! [applause]
