Speaking on Kossuth Rádió’s morning program “Vasárnapi Újság,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that every Hungarian should convince at least another person to get vaccinated, as only one in every five hundred vaccinated people gets infected. “We can get everyone vaccinated, we have eight million vaccines in storage,” PM Orbán said. According to the prime minister, if we manage to increase the level of protection against the virus, then the severity of the fourth wave will be incomparable to the earlier ones.
In the interview this morning, Prime Minister Orbán said that while “many regimes have tried to transform the August 20 celebrations,” today, thirty years after the fall of the communists, the holiday “is in the right place.” According to the PM, this year’s firework display demonstrated that it is possible to turn the celebration into an “uplifting artistic performance.”
“There are more people working today than before the pandemic,” PM Orbán said about the results of the government’s economic reboot program, adding that if the economic growth this year reaches 5.5 percent, then families with kids will get back the personal income tax paid in 2021, pensioners will receive pension premiums, and those under the age of 25 will not have to pay income taxes. “The government has launched cheap loan schemes for small- and medium-sized enterprises that grant them financial support even despite the interest rate hikes,” PM Orbán said.
Commenting on the situation in Afghanistan, the prime minister said that “democracy export” has failed, the United States’ endeavor to force its way of life on the Afghans was unsuccessful. “When they announced the withdrawal, US intelligence thought that the Afghan government will last at least a year, but it failed after three days,” PM Orbán said.
According to Prime Minister Orbán, a strong wave of migration can now be expected, therefore it is essential that we support Turkey and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula so that they will be able to prevent migrants from entering the European Union. It is not only the Afghans who cooperated with NATO that want to escape the country, the PM underlined, but also those who no longer feel safe in the country.
Closing with what he sees as topics where debates will potentially arise in the coming months with Brussels, Prime Minister Orbán listed migration, gender policy and the questions around the new environmental tax.