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In Hungary, the transformation in
1989-90 meant that we had carried out
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a constitutional revolution, and this
constitutional revolution meant that
we created a political institutional
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system that ensures the framework,
ensures that it is further developed.
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This is extremely important
because many things have not been
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created in an institutional system
in such a short period of time.
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In the same economic context,
the actors of a market
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economy must be brought back,
the basic institutional systems that
operate against a market economy
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- not a communist market with a planned
economy or an economic system and
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this must not only be brought back
but also updated in the sense that it
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operates today in the modern world.
So here, not only is it a political
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institutional system, but we laid
down basic laws for economic,
social and institutional systems,
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from politics to the economy,
from social issues to cultural issues,
to education, etc. So here is
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a very specific legislative programme,
which is based on government
initiatives, which has taken place
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in all areas in recent years. Well, right now,
the process in education is over,
so is it in social
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law and so forth. In practice,
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this means that parliamentary
democracy was born in Hungary,
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within the framework of a free
social market economy, with all
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the difficulties and bitterness
that a transformation entails.
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Here, I must first of all
point out that we, like the
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other former Communist countries,
have received an inheritance,
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which was the previous system.
This legacy means that the country
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can be classified as one with disadvantages,
burdens, debt, and it is burdened,
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which makes it difficult
to create a new order,
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a new economic life.
In addition to the inheritance,
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the other is the transformation.
Everywhere in the world,
when a system is transformed,
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when society as a whole is formed,
there has not only
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a change of government,
but everything has to change from the
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foundations to the top, state,
society and thinking have to change,
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and a lot has to change for us to be
talk about transformation here.
People here are disappointed.
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People thought it was possible to transform
the country from one moment to the next.
What is good is considered natural,
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what is bad is unacceptable,
and it is not so that we
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can go to another country and
experience the well-being of it
immediately as a tourist trip.
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There, too, it took decades for
the happier half of Europe to have
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the economic system and standard of
living that they are enjoying today
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and they still have their problems there.
So, in the same way that
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all medications have side effects,
there are side effects of
medications and surgical procedures
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given during transformation.
Third, not only must the country
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bear the burden of transformation,
but also what has happened
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throughout the world.
So the disintegration of Eastern
Europe, the Soviet bloc,
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has given and gave the whole world
great and optimistic political ideas,
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but this is a market failure
in the case of an economic
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system built on a Soviet bloc
and it increases our economic
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difficulties, and if we add
that a global economic downturn,
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a global economic recession is happening
from America to Japan,
Germany and elsewhere,
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then there is no wonder that our
place in the world economy is
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much more difficult to enforce, and
Hungary is one of the luckier ones here
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because with an economic policy turn
we managed to achieve that more than
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50 percent of the Western capital
coming into the entire region has come
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to Hungary in the last few years
and Hungary's exports to the European community
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has taken up more than half of its
share in its total export.
There is also considerable export
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now to the United States.
This does not mean that we want
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neighbouring countries to be left out,
or the former Soviet Union,
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it is a matter of solvency.
We consider it to be an abnormal
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condition that, in foreign trade
Poland, the former Czechoslovakia,
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or the current two countries,
wentbelow 2% in their share
in Hungarian foreign trade.
