Speaking on public radio, the prime minister said that without Hungary’s regulated utility pricing system, hundreds of thousands of families would have faced severe hardship during January’s extreme cold spell. He noted that households in neighboring countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic currently pay two to three times more for energy.
“There is no exaggeration in saying that one of the stakes of the April parliamentary election is whether utility price cuts remain or not,” PM Orbán said. “If there is a national government, they will remain. If there is not a national government but a Brussels-backed government, they will abolish them entirely — not just the temporary price freeze introduced due to the extreme cold, but the whole system as such.”
The prime minister explained that because energy consumption is billed in many different ways, the government decided to assume 30 percent of all January heating costs to ensure fairness. He said the additional consumption caused by the cold would otherwise have imposed roughly 50 billion forints in extra costs on Hungarian families.
PM Orbán also linked domestic energy policy to broader European debates, saying Brussels is pushing to ban Russian oil and gas imports — a move he said would effectively end Hungary’s utility price reduction system. He argued that maintaining affordable energy required exemptions from U.S. sanctions, guarantees from Russia on supply volumes, and agreements with Turkey on transit security.
Turning to Ukraine, the prime minister said recent EU documents indicate plans to admit Ukraine to the bloc as early as 2027 so it could receive funding from the EU’s next seven-year budget. “This would mean taking money from Central Europeans, including Hungarians,” he said, adding that the plan is documented and already underway.
Prime Minister Orbán said opposition is growing across Europe. “The European people do not want to send such amounts of money to Ukraine, and they do not want Ukraine’s accession either,” he said, calling the process “a difficult but winnable fight,” starting with Hungary’s April election.
He argued that Ukraine cannot strengthen Europe’s security, saying NATO’s eastern borders — not Ukraine — form Europe’s real defensive line. Funds earmarked for Ukraine, he added, should instead be spent on strengthening European armed forces.
Finally, PM Orbán said that the opposition Tisza Party is pursuing an economic “convergence program” designed to extract more money from Hungary for Brussels. “Their economic program serves Brussels’ demands so that more funds can be redirected to financing the war in Ukraine,” he said.
The prime minister concluded that since 2010 Hungary has avoided policies that reduce household incomes, but warned that this could change if a Brussels-aligned government were to take power.