We all know very well that in matters of external and of internal affairs there may be situations of disagreement, but history teaches us that we should never go so far as to see each other as enemies.
The Hungarian central bank and especially my friend, Governor György Matolcsy, are to be commended for the brilliant idea of establishing the Lamfalussy prize and the Lamfalussy lecture: I gladly accepted this prize in honour of Baron Alexandre Lamfalussy, who perfectly exemplifies the model of the great liberal, open minded Hungarian that journalist and author Paul Lendvai impressively described in his brilliant book “The Hungarians”.