Speech by Dr. Tamás Sulyok, President of Hungary, on the 35th anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic
Honourable President Steinmeier!
Dear Commemorators!
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Today, it is hard to imagine that it is an extraordinary and courageous act for a group of people to sit down together for a good traditional bacon grilling.
Moreover, it is even harder for us to understand today that such an event could be a powerful expression of freedom.
Yet what happened here thirty-five years ago broke down walls and opened up borders. It brought people, families and nations together. It has torn apart worn-out, disingenuous ideologies and systems.
Dear Mr. President! Ladies and Gentlemen!
We are delighted to welcome the President of Germany at a special time for Hungarians. After all, these few days at the end of August have been of crucial importance for a thousand years. It is a time of celebration that speaks of our Christian faith and our values, our long-standing European identity and our national identity. Tomorrow, we celebrate our holy king, the founder of our state, who rooted us in Europe and made Hungary a part of Western culture definitively.
I consider today's commemoration to be an integral part of this festive stream.
What have a Christian holiday, the Pan-European Picnic and the foundation of the Hungarian state to do with each other? The answer is simple: Europe. To be more precise: European unity. Because if we look at Europe in more than just a geographical sense, we see a free community of sovereign nations with the same cultural roots, organised around the same values. It was unity that the Hungarians and their European friends pledged their commitment to thirty-five years ago at this place.
We charted a course towards each other. We broke through the wall that had separated us for decades. We declared the unity of Europe. In addition, that unity includes our Judaeo-Christian spiritual foundation as much as our individual and communal freedoms.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Thirty-five years ago, Hungarians shaped the destiny of Europe once again. Speaking with the voice of freedom, we had our say in history. We forged a path into Europe - where in fact we have belonged for a thousand years.
Then everything accelerated. We shook off decades of communist oppression and became an independent, sovereign part of the continent once again. Germany was united. The role of the Hungarian people in this is undeniable, and we are proud of it.
The courageous stand that has always been characteristic of Hungarians was also needed to finally get the events of history moving in the right direction. To change the destinies of people and families, to bring peoples closer together, to allow nations to experience their natural unity again.
This is how European unity and national sovereignty are linked. Thirty-five years after the Pan-European Picnic, twenty years after Hungary's accession to the European Union, it is still important to keep these aspects in mind.
Today, Hungary, holding the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, - and indeed all Hungarians - can look back with pride and satisfaction on the event of thirty-five years ago, but also on the journey we have made since then.
The citizens of Sopron deserve our special thanks for keeping alive, promoting and cherishing the memory of this key event of the Hungarian and European past for three and a half decades. Similarly, the former citizens of Debrecen and the community of MDF, the Hungarian Democratic Forum, deserve our thanks for bringing this ground-breaking event from 35 years ago in Hungarian history to life and initiating the search for a common and liveable Europe. Thanks are also due to the management and members of the Pan-European Picnic '89 Foundation for their tireless work.
Dear Mr. President! Ladies and Gentlemen.
We are commemorating an important part of European history and, within it, of the Hungarian-German common past.
We bow our heads to all those who have been victims of the Iron Curtain and the partition; and we look with pride upon those who broke through the barriers that had been placed between us.
By breaking down the wall between us, we have since created an ever-closer economic and political bond between Germany and Hungary.
We are close allies and worthy partners. I hope that we can continue to commit ourselves to each other in the decades to come in a spirit of mutual understanding and respect, as Hungarians and Germans did in the historic summer of 1989.
We Europeans are not the same. We never were. However, there is no doubt that we belong together, and indeed, there is no alternative. This is what brave and free European citizens, Hungarians, Germans, Austrians and others stood up for at the Pan-European Picnic. We did not want to see dividing lines between us.
As the call for the event then pointed out - and I quote: "History has proved over the centuries that the only way to achieve universal peace is to deepen the friendship of peoples, to break down the barbed wire and psychological trenches built by political manoeuvres.”
My wish for all of us across Europe is that we adhere to the spirit of the Pan-European Picnic. Let us not allow either physical or spiritual barbed wire to be erected between us again.
Thank you for your kind attention!
(Sopron, 19 August 2024)