The alliance between the Hungarian and American peoples stands on strong foundations, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in Parliament on Tuesday, at the opening of the Tom Lantos Institute.
“The reason we are gathered together is to further strengthen the alliance between the United States of America and Hungary [...] and to celebrate a new rampart of this alliance,” Orban said.
“The strength of our alliance is given by a single word – freedom,” the prime minister said at the official inauguration ceremony of the Tom Lantos Institute, which began in the parliament on Thursday.
The institute will be dedicated to the one-time US Congressman of Hungarian descent who championed Hungarian affairs in Washington.
The ceremony will also be addressed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her predecessor Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi and European Parliament Deputy President Laszlo Tokes.
The event is being attended by several ministers, parliamentary party leaders, MPs, ex-premier Gordon Bajnai and members of the diplomatic corps.
The institute will carry out research into human and civil rights, minorities, historical reconciliation in Central Europe and transatlantic relations.
Orban said the alliance had borne its own messengers and fighters for freedom, who had taken their message to the world, and when the “occupation and dictatorship fell in Hungary.” He said many such messengers had gone to America, and many had gone on the fight for freedom on Hungary’s behalf.
“The Hungarian people is always grateful to those messengers and fighters, one of whom was Tom Lantos,” Orban said, adding that freedom in Hungary today is partly thanks to active American-Hungarian emigrants.
Recalling his personal meetings with Tom Lantos, Orban said they had debated issues of Hungarian domestic policy, and their standpoints had diverged, but one thing they had been both committed to was freedom and serving Hungarians, which bridged all sorts of policy differences between them.
“I wish that the institute should loyally nurture the memory of Tom Lantos and advertise the work and success of the active members of the American-Hungarian emigrants,” Orban said. “In the name of the Hungarian people, I assure my and the Hungarian government’s full support for this work,” the prime minister concluded.
