Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made a speech at the ITU Telecom World 2015 Conference on 12 October 2015.
Mr. Secretary-General, Madam Managing Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,
If you don’t mind I will speak Hungarian. My job has duties, you know. Welcome to Hungary, which will be a worthy host for this major conference. It is a great pleasure for me that here in Budapest we can host one of these extraordinary meetings to talk about the future of information and communications technology; about the prospects for a sector in which we Hungarians not only produced outstanding results in the past, but in which nowadays, too, we are playing on our home ground. Perhaps I do not need to introduce our world-renowned scientists, but I will just mention their names: the founders of non-Euclidean geometry, Farkas and János Bolyai; Pál (Paul) Erdős; János (John von) Neumann; and János (John G.) Kemény. They are the Hungarians who have contributed to the current advanced state of infocommunications. I would also make particular mention of Tivadar Puskás, one of the fathers of modern infocommunications, the inventor responsible for Hungary being one of the founders of the predecessor of the UN’s International Telegraph Union. Tivadar Puskás invented and created the so-called “Telephone Herald”. As a result, human communication entered a new era, and a new economic sector was born.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You can see that Central Europe has already played a key role in telecommunications, and we believe that we now stand a good chance of being in the forefront once more. Hungary can be at least as proud of the role it plays in the infocommunications sector today as of the role it has played in the past. We rarely talk about this; we tend to talk more about culture, sports, and the country’s unrivalled agricultural assets. We rarely mention that we can be proud of the fact that the digital economy in Hungary is growing faster than anywhere in the European Union. This sector now accounts for some 21–22 per cent of our national product. This means that the share of the digital economy in Hungary is higher than the average for the European Union. Hungary is a country of ten million people; this sector provides jobs for 400,000, which is 15 per cent of the country’s active work force. This figure puts us in third position in the European Union, after Ireland and Finland. More than 8 per cent of our total exports are from this sector, and it accounts for an impressive 10 per cent of research and development expenditure.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You can see that this sector is already capable of remarkable performance here, in Central Europe. When we speak about Central Europe, we are speaking about a region which is widely predicted to be the European Union’s engine of the growth over the next ten to fifteen years. All the signs therefore point to an increased role for Central Europe in the digital economy, and so I congratulate you on your choice of venue.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You are aware that some elemental changes in the world have begun – judging by this cultural performance, if nothing else. Everything is changing: not only on the surface, but also deep down. The economy is changing in its very foundations, and the situation and importance of the various regions are likewise in a constant state of transformation. We should not only speak about transformation in IT, business or politics, but about a complete paradigm change affecting our very lives. The 21st century’s industrial revolution is taking place in the digital economy, and it is taking shape right here, before our eyes. As with earlier industrial revolutions, the current one is changing the face of the world around us. I am convinced that attendees from around the world have gathered here at this conference because of their shared sense of responsibility for this change. This is perhaps why you have chosen the phrase “Better sooner” as your slogan. Please take time to consider that, following a serious global economic crisis, we have been given a chance to improve the quality of our lives, to enhance our competitiveness, and to create the foundations for sustainable growth. All this can be achieved through the digital economy, and it is simply our choice as to whether or not we take advantage of this chance.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The rapid change in the modern world also presents democratic political systems with challenges – whether they emerge in the form of modern-day mass migration or the digital development of the world economy. It is difficult to harmonise the demands for rapid change with the principles of democratic decision-making. Everyone would like these changes to be rapid, to be profound, and to improve the quality of our lives. But how can we achieve all this democratically? How can we achieve this whilst at the same time ensuring that people do not feel that they have lost control of the development in the world? The most likely way can only be by listening to them.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A system of consultations – which we refer to as national consultations – has become part of our democratic culture in Hungary in recent years. On even the most difficult of issues we consult the people to learn what kind of development they would welcome. We listen to them before adopting important decisions concerning the country’s strategic interests.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have just completed the Hungarian national consultation on the subject of the Internet. We expected the people to give us clear answers regarding the course of development, and to tell us how they see the exploration of the opportunities inherent in the digital economy. Others, too, may perhaps learn from the answers which we have received. It is the nationwide democratic will of the Hungarian people that the Internet should be accessible and available to all. Accessible and affordable. This is why we have launched the Digital Hungary Programme, through which broadband internet will be available to every Hungarian household by 2018. The consultation’s second most important assertion is that the Internet and digital media should play a much greater role in Hungarian education than they do at present. We have thus begun to rewrite our curricula. The Hungarian people’s third proposal is that enforcement of rules and measures to protect children should be made stricter, as what someone in a public role can tolerate and accept as routine could for a child amount to harassment. We all know well enough what we should do if we see someone threatening our children in the street or playground, but we are likely to be at a loss when it comes to protecting them from threats on social media in the virtual world. The fourth conclusion we have drawn from this consultation with the Hungarian people is that we should prioritise businesses’ digital development.
Dear Guests,
In this department there is room for improvement. At present, we need thousands of new small and medium-sized enterprises with export potential, and we need around ten thousand new young IT engineers in Hungary. It is not easy to deal with this shortage. Since 2010 we have assisted the IT developments of more than 1,100 businesses with grants worth 16 billion forints. We shall increase this sum eight-fold over the next few years, and shall allocate 130 billion forints to the development of infocommunications. This means that over the next five years we shall support some eight thousand businesses active in the field.
And finally, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Hungarian people also made it clear that multinational companies should accept their share of both the costs of developing the digital economy and of the tax burden. Let us admit that this is an unpleasant question, and that it gives rise to a lot of misunderstanding. In Hungary it is said that those who were given much are expected to give much, and we also say that the horse which pulls the hardest is the one which will be harnessed to the cart. In order to achieve this, however, we need the overseas companies which also profit from our digital economy to contribute to the sector’s growth. We sincerely believe that this is in the interest of an economy in which everyone has both equal opportunities and equal obligations.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is one more area in which Europe still has much to do, and in which Hungary also has much to do. The citizens of Europe and the Hungarian people have every right to expect us to achieve results in rolling out electronic administration as widely possible.
We have launched major programmes in Hungary in order to digitise the widest possible range of state services by 2020.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Secretary-General,
With this ITU conference and exhibition, Hungary may once again demonstrate its support for the digital transition. We believe that our Digital Hungary Programme will be a true European success story, and that much can be learnt from it – not only by Hungarians, but by all the world’s countries which are interested.
Thank you for coming to Hungary. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be your hosts here, in Budapest. I wish you a good conference and the maximum benefit from your time here in Hungary.