András Hont: This is the “Öt” YouTube channel. I’m András Hont. Before we start today’s show, I’d like to ask you to subscribe to our channel, follow our Facebook page and read the excellent content on ot.hu. And I have to start with a story, because what happened when we were trying to put this channel together, and we tried to organise Gábor Gavra’s show alongside videos by people from our own team. We put together quite a strong lineup, both from opposition and government parties. As part of the latter we planned to invite Balázs Orbán, who had been causing a storm with his recent statements. One of our enthusiastic colleagues thought that Orbán meant Orbán, so they’d send the invitation to the Prime Minister’s Office. In the meantime the interview with Balázs Orbán went ahead, but to our great surprise we received a reply from the press office of the Prime Minister’s Office, saying that the Prime Minister would be happy to come. No one was more surprised than us. To what do we owe this visit? My guest is Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. We’ve known each other for a very long time, but the title of Prime Minister certainly demands that now we address each other formally.
But that’s why we’re here together now – having known each other for so long. An invitation came, and I thought I’d come. ay, I like to go wherever there’s the chance of having a sensible conversation.
Can we take this to mean that you also pay other independent YouTube channels the same honour? Partizán, ones like that?
I’m happy to go anywhere where one can have a sensible conversation.
I can’t promise you that what’s in prospect now will be a sensible conversation.
In the end...
In the end we’ll find out. So let’s cut to the chase – and talk about something if only for its topicality, and because I don’t think you’ve said anything about it yet. Two days ago Antal Rogán was taken off the US sanctions list. How was he placed on it? In your opinion, what was the reason for that, and why has he been removed?
The reason he was put on it is that in America for several years there was a Democrat, let’s say left-liberal, government, which made a number of demands of Hungary – but we didn’t implement any of them. And when they lost the election, in revenge they gave us a kicking. This is how the Minister got on the list.
And how did he get off it?
Because everyone in America knew that he was on the list because the Democrats wanted to give us a kicking. The Republicans came in and said that it wasn’t fair.
There are rumours that there will be a price to pay for this, for Antal Rogán being taken off the sanctions list. I don’t know what the price might be, but we see this sort of thing every day.
I’m not paying, that’s for sure.
Good! I’d like to ask you if you have any ideas about this. I understand that this is about Biden’s revenge; yet it wasn’t István Nagy, the Minister for Agriculture, or Bence Tuzson, the Minister for Justice, who was included on the list, but Antal Rogán.
Yes, because there’s no doubt that he’s a key minister. You know, there are two kinds of ministers in a government. There are the specialist ministers, let’s say, who have a portfolio, and you mentioned a couple. There’s the Minister of Agriculture, or Minister Navracsics, who’s responsible for public administration and regional development, and there’s the Minister of Economy. And then there are specifically what we could call the “strong men”, the functional ministers, who actually help the Prime Minister to exercise power. Two of these are currently ministers, and the third is Balázs Orbán, who’s in a “centaur” position that’s difficult to understand in terms of Hungarian public law, and who’s the Government’s director of policy. So there’s Minister Antal Rogán and Minister Gergely Gulyás. Minister Gergely Gulyás is responsible for coordination within the Government. So he doesn’t have a portfolio, but he runs the system for the exercise of power within the Government. And Minister Rogán helps me to have everything at my disposal that’s linked to the exercise of power, inside and outside governmental circles. I’ve now reassigned several areas from them to elsewhere. The reason for this is that, according to unsound government practice, when ministers in charge of portfolios can’t solve certain issues, we push those issues up to the functional ministers. And so after an election they usually start as purely political ministers – say, Ministers Gulyás and Rogán; but then they’re saddled with, say, digitalisation, to give an example, or the supervision of the Várkapitányság [Heritage Management Agency]. But they’ve been given so many of these things that recently they’ve had to be relieved of them; now it’s more clearly visible how political the nature of their work is, so we’ve taken the portfolios from them and they’re doing purely political, power-management, power-guidance work. So this is how someone would have been able to know that if you want to attack the person in the Government closest to me, you have two options: you have to attack either Minister Gulyás or Minister Rogán.
I see. If we’re talking about power, and about government, from the outside one can see that in government there are power struggles. These are a question of when responsibilities are taken away from which minister and given to which other minister. Isn’t there anything like this?
I think that the way a government operates is determined by the personality of the Prime Minister. With me there’s no disorder. Many kinds of mistakes can happen, but one thing that cannot happen is for there to be a mess, disorder, confusion, internal warfare or infighting; I won’t accept that, because you can’t work that way. It’s no coincidence that, if you look back at all the governments I’ve led, we’ve probably had the lowest turnover of personnel compared with other governments. I make an agreement with someone for four years: we clarify the conditions, how to work, how to behave, how to cooperate, what’s acceptable, and what isn’t. And then, as I’ve hired serious people, we usually keep it that way. This doesn’t permit infighting, which in Fidesz is out of the question. There are also a number of organisational reinforcements that strengthen the Prime Minister’s ability to deal with such a situation or to prevent it from arising in the first place. These are decisions on people, and there’s the support I have coming from the parliamentary groups. So a system has been built up to guarantee that the agreements made with me must be adhered to by all. And since the agreements I’ve made rule out infighting, no such thing happens.
Okay, I don’t know how happy Navracsics will be if he’s suddenly listed among the ministers who aren’t important or consequential.
That’s not what I wanted to say. I didn’t mention the “super minister” for the economy, Márton Nagy. It’s not about who is consequential, it’s about what his function is. So all ministers are important. A minister is appointed because an important area needs to be overseen by a serious person. So whoever is in government is important. But it’s one thing to lead a sector, showing you roughly, like this [makes a vertical hand gesture]; and it’s quite another to maintain the power structure within government, that requires this type of work [makes a horizontal hand gesture]. And the ones closest to me are... Let’s say, every morning I start my day by sitting down at 7:30 with Ministers Rogán and Gulyás and we start the day: one hour every day. So those are the two who are closest to me, who work with me the most. So – going back to the initial question – for me it was clear that if our American friends wanted to kick us or punch us, they’d choose one of those two. They made a logical choice, by the way...
Let’s move on... But just on the subject of Navracsics, by the way, Fidesz has me to thank for him: his membership certificate has my signature on it, because he joined the organisation in Budapest’s District VII in the 1990s...
“Navra” has had an exciting career, because I don’t know if there’s ever been an example – I don’t think so – in the history of Hungarian governments of someone starting as a minister, then going to the European Union as a commissioner, then coming back and becoming a minister again. So he’s a very valuable and highly respected member of this government. He has a body of knowledge that none of us others have, because no one else has ever been a Commissioner in the European Union.
Okay, let’s stay with America. There was a turning point in January when President Trump was inaugurated. What are your views on that presidential inauguration, on the Trump inauguration, and on what America’s doing in the world right now – both economically and in terms of wars? This is a nice, big, weighty question, so I’ll just sit back and…
But I’ll answer this briefly, if I may. He’s doing what he promised. So the shocked surprise that I see in Western Europe right now is itself a critique of democracy. The surprise in the Western political world today is because a president has come along, what’s more in the United States, who’s doing exactly what he promised, delivering on it. And therefore you could know in advance what was going to happen. I’ve known him for a long time and I knew exactly what he said he’d try to do, and that he probably would do it. So we weren’t taken by surprise, and all the thunder and lightning that we’re seeing now doesn’t surprise us.
When was the last time you were at Mar-a-Lago?
I think it was in December.
And before that?
July.
But Vance wasn’t the vice-presidential candidate then.
No, he wasn’t.
Does the identity of the VP mean anything to Hungary?
It means a lot. American vice presidents tend to later become presidents. It happens quite often. The chances of this happening are particularly high when you have a vice president under a president who won’t be able to run again. And according to the US Constitution as it stands now, President Trump cannot run again. And in such cases, the chances of vice presidents running – and then usually winning – are extremely high. So I think of the Vice President as the defining figure in American politics over the longer term. I’m not looking forward to this as four years of Republican government or Trumpian government, but as the first four years of the twelve years that lie ahead, which in the whole world will be defined by this kind of thinking – let’s call it patriotic, Republican American thinking.
And do you plan to spend these twelve years leading Hungary, hand in hand with American leaders?
I think I’ll see all of it. The position I’ll be watching it from will be decided by the Hungarian voters.
The Hungarian voters will decide. To add to the surprise created by the new Republican administration, a very striking element is the issue of tariffs. Now how much impact will this have on Europe? Because it changes from week to week – or at least as a simple newspaper reader it’s not the easiest thing to follow. But if there are tariffs against the EU, the German car industry will be affected, and the Hungarian economy will be affected. Is there anything in the Trump–Orban relationship that could compensate for this? Will it be good for us, who aren’t in the Mar-a-Lago circle, that you’re on good terms with the US president?
I hope so. Now as far as the tariff war is concerned, it’s something that we know the beginning of, and I think we know the end. What happens in the meantime isn’t important. So we know exactly, because before he was elected the US president announced that he wants to renegotiate tariffs with all the countries with which he has a trade deficit, that he wants to improve, to enhance, the position of the United States. He also wants to repatriate – partly through tariffs – the investments that Americans are now making abroad, and he wants to create conditions that will encourage non-Americans to invest in America. I note that this is very similar to what we’re doing here in Hungary, only the scale is different. So now he’s renegotiating the tariff rules with every country with which he has a deficit, so that he can improve on them – improve on the current position. That will be the end result. And a protectionist US tariff policy system is emerging, which isn’t global, but rather patriotic, and which negotiates with each country on the basis of different rates – and even different rates for each product. Indeed, what I don’t clearly understand from the outcome of the tariff war – and this is the only big question mark for me – is whether the Americans will go beyond sectoral tariffs, or even beyond product chain tariffs, to the point of setting tariffs at company level. So they’d not only say that a product is taxed at one unit, but also the company that makes that product and has the same name is taxed at 0.5 per cent. It’s not clear whether they’ll go that far, and a lot of things could affect that. In any case, as far as we’re concerned, we’re negotiating with the Americans on economic issues that are to their advantage. Tariffs will be a disadvantage, but we’re negotiating other economic agreements and issues that will offset them.
When might this produce results?
In six months.
And if, let’s say, there are companies in Europe which are greatly disadvantaged, that are hit hard by taxes, let’s say, and that knock on Hungary’s door, on Budapest’s door, on the door of the Carmelite Monastery, asking to use the close relationship you have with the US government?
There have been examples of that.
Hmm... Okay! In Europe, there have been strong reactions to some of Trump’s statements – not only on economic issues, but also on his position on Ukraine. What do you have to say about that?
The West has lost this war, and this is a huge burden for the whole Western world. Losing a war is a matter of great weight. The fact that it’s a proxy war is no longer questioned among clear thinkers.
Oh yes it is!
They’re not clear thinkers. The situation is that everyone can see it. There’s been little need to think about what kind of war this is ever since the Americans themselves published a study saying that without strike coordination directives from the Americans it’s essentially impossible for the Ukrainian army to fire certain weapons. It’s a proxy war, after all, and behind the Ukrainians is the Western world, which is losing this war, and has lost it. And the Americans are in an easier position, in that the US president never wanted this war. He always said we shouldn’t go into it. The Democratic administration went in, they lost, the Republican president came back and is making peace and pulling America out of this war. So not only has he personally not lost, but he’s saved America from a very serious defeat. So he’s coming out of this. But it’s still a defeat anyway – just not a defeat for the United States of America, but for the Biden administration. In Western Europe the situation is more difficult because here there’s been no such change. Here there’s continuity, and here the European leaders dare not admit that they’ve lost this war, that they’ve dragged Europe into a war that they’ve ultimately lost.
But you may even feel some satisfaction at the current gatherings of European leaders, since you have – in recent times at least – raised the idea of a joint army, or you’ve been pushing for it.
I was the first in the European Union to say that we need a joint army. This is also my long-standing position of principle: not to have a European army instead of NATO, but within NATO or alongside it. We certainly want our own European military force. I’ve always thought this was the right thing to do. But we’ve also launched Hungarian rearmament. So we’ve not only talked about it, but in 2016–17 we launched our rearmament programme. And this happened because I saw the Minsk Agreement. We remember that when the Russians occupied Crimea it triggered a conflict which was concluded with the Minsk Agreement – an agreement between four parties: the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Germans and the French. And already in 2014–15 – or rather around 2016 – I saw that the Germans and the French couldn’t enforce that agreement. So Europe was weak, and that would create problems. The Minsk Agreement wasn’t implemented, and there were two guarantors who couldn’t guarantee what they undertook to do, and sooner or later there would be trouble. I didn’t know exactly what kind of trouble, but these situations tend to cause trouble. And so in 2016 and 2017 we launched a fairly major modernisation of military capability, a military industry programme, which now in 2024–25 the others in the European Union are following. So rearmament, mutual European defence, an independent European army: these are issues that are linked to us Hungarians.
I understand – it’s just that Hungary seems to be left out of the current negotiations on setting up some kind of defence force.
No, no, that’s not the case. There are two kinds of discussions. There’s the “coalition of the willing”. That’s what we’re being left out of. Even if they invited us, we wouldn’t go anyway, because what the blazes would we be doing in a place where they’re talking about how they want to continue the war alongside Ukraine? It’s a kind of meeting. There’s a different discussion – a completely different discussion – about what we want to do about joint European defence. Not only are we invited there, but we’re one of the driving forces.
Right. So Ukraine, let’s take it from there. At the moment the Ukraine issue is also a hot topic in domestic politics, and there are votes and opinions being expressed on the subject. What exactly is the purpose and meaning of the so-called referendum on Ukraine that the Government has initiated?
European Union leaders have announced that they want Ukraine to join the European Union by 2030 at the latest. This must be prevented; and if the Hungarians want to prevent this from happening, which incidentally I’d recommend, they can do so now, but not later. So we’re giving ourselves, all Hungarian citizens – including you, including me, including all of us – a chance to decide this issue.
But then why did Péter Szijjártó say in 2022 that we’d support Ukraine’s candidate status being confirmed soon as possible?
Because back then it would have prevented a war. But now it can’t. Back then there was a country called Ukraine, which was sovereign. Today the situation is that they want to admit a country that isn’t sovereign. We don’t know where the eastern border of the country is – so we don’t know how large its territory is – and we don’t know how large its population is. It can’t sustain itself, and together with the Americans we’re sustaining not only its army, but also the functioning of its system of government. And meanwhile this Ukraine is demanding that we, the European Union, commit ourselves to maintaining a Ukrainian army of one million people for many decades to come, using European money. So 2022 and now are two different situations. Back then the decisive criterion was peace, and now the decisive criterion for enlargement to include Ukrainian isn’t peace, but continuation of the war. So the Foreign Minister was right to take that position.
I see. I don’t see many people in Hungary who’d argue with that.
Sorry, there was a party vote on it. The Tisza Party voted on it. So there’s a party, and a serious party at that, which has a serious support base, 58 per cent of whose followers – if I remember correctly – said that Ukraine should be admitted to the European Union. The stakes couldn’t be more serious.
Couldn’t the boil be lanced by voting in favour of the DK [Democratic Coalition] referendum initiative before Parliament that calls for a true referendum?
At the moment, the Constitution doesn’t allow such a referendum, and we’d have to amend the Constitution to do that. Therefore, the solution we’re adopting is better: quick, simple and clear.
Wouldn’t a constitutional amendment of this kind fit in alongside “a person is either a man or a woman”?
The fact is that the Hungarian constitution prevents us from deciding on international treaties by referendum. That would be a dangerous door to open, so I suggest that we don’t open it, but ask the people and give them the chance to decide this issue. We’ve created the conditions for this.
Let’s return to the EU for a moment, and the Tisza Party, as you’ve mentioned. I won’t avoid this: there’s been a great deal of noise about what Ms. Kinga Kollár said recently. I don’t want to ask you to give your particular judgement on that, because you’re doing so anyway.
Without being asked, indeed.
That’s right. However, András Schiffer, who I think is quite fair to you, by the way, claims that the statements made by Fidesz in 2006 weren’t too far removed from the statements made by Kinga Kollár in the European Parliament.
We’re talking about 2006.
Yes.
It was then, if you can recall those halcyon bygone days...
I can.
...that the Gyurcsány government won the election by falsifying the budget before the election. The 2006 budget was a falsified budget. If those memories are still alive, it was the basis for the later Őszöd speech: “hundreds of tricks”. And it was aided and abetted by the European Union, because the Spanish European Commissioner responsible for budgetary matters issued a kosher seal of approval or a letter of safe passage, in which he wrote that the budget was very good, there was nothing wrong with it, and so on. Then in the six months running up to the elections the European Union helped the post-communist government of the time to falsify the budget. This led to the later public disgrace of the Őszöd speech. And now we’re sitting here with Fidesz having won multiple two-thirds majorities, and so history has served justice – and in fact that’s what everything that happened in 2006 was about. We’re not talking about that now. What we’re talking about now is European leaders advising Ukraine to continue the war in exchange for European Union membership – which I believe would have tragic consequences for Hungary, and which we want to prevent.
I think it’s a question of attitude as to who reads what into the words said in 2006, but it’s less a question of attitude with the present ones. Well, speaking of Fidesz...
About the current ones. Can I talk a little more on this?
Go ahead.
What usually makes a big noise in politics is something that’s unprecedented. What turbocharged the Őszöd speech, too, was the fact that nothing like that had happened before. People might have thought that a politician sometimes lies, people wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out that a politician sometimes lies; but when a politician says that they lied morning, noon and evening, or however it’s said…
That’s how he said it.
Day and night. “We fooled everyone with hundreds of tricks and that’s how we came to power.” Then you’re shocked. Now here, too, we might have suspected that there are MEPs who aren’t far removed from the idea of working against their own country in the European institutions – in the European Parliament, for example. But when you hear with your own ears and see someone saying that they’ve managed to prevent the renovation of fifty hospitals, that they’ve managed to prevent the Government from improving the quality of public services, that this is why Hungary is in economic difficulties, and they’re happy about it… In fact, they’re not only happy about it, but they’re working for it to be like that, because that’s how they’ll win… Then, just like with the Őszöd speech, you say: “Stop, stop!” And indeed, in that sense a new era has now begun, because this has never happened before.
You can’t thank Ferenc Gyurcsány enough for the Őszöd speech. I wonder if this speech will have a similar effect.
It’s difficult. It’s difficult to take stock of the overall situation, whether it’s good or bad. Because the Hungarian Left may have buried itself with this speech for a long period of time, or perhaps for several periods, but such things aren’t good for a country. What’s good for a country is for as few bad things as possible to happen in its politics, and as many good things as possible to happen. On the whole, the failures of our opponents may be good for us in the short term, but if they’re, let’s say, failures harming the country and the nation, then they devalue government in general and political life as a whole. So I think that overall it’s bad.
Prime Minister for fifteen years. After the Gyurcsány–Bajnai administrations, I think you’re familiar with all the investigations that were conducted at that time. Do you know how the speech was finally made public?
No.
How is that possible?
Let’s say that I didn’t make it public, and we didn’t make it public.
But, after all, the services are active.
But we were in opposition at the time.
True, but then you inherited the post left vacant by Gyurcsány and Bajnai.
Yes, but I don’t look back. You see, looking back is in part for retired older gentlemen and ladies. It’s the same with revenge: you always have unresolved issues, but for those you have to turn back. So digging and revenge is backward-looking. And if you look backwards, you can’t deal with what’s in front of you, which is what’s really your job. So you’ve got to strike a good balance between revenge, looking at old issues, and focusing on new issues. And, if possible, I prefer to look forward.
Nevertheless, I’d like to ask that we look a little...
Sorry, what’s more, it was a party event. It’s just occurred to me that it was at a party event.
Of the parliamentary group...
Yes. So it was – how shall I put it? – an internal matter, not for the Hungarian parliament, and...
No, it wasn’t in Parliament. It was in Őszöd. Nevertheless, I’d suggest that we look back a little, since you’ve mentioned the two-thirds majorities. You’ve been Prime Minister for fifteen years. Do you think that there’s an Orbán system? It’s a political science cliché, and there are books with that title: the Orbán regime, the Orbán system. Nota bene, not only from opposition analysts or, for example, analysts who are not particularly sympathetic towards you; but an essay of that kind was also written by my former teacher and your former senior adviser, Gyula Tellér.
And what an excellent essay it was, proving that there is a system. The question is what to call it. So I don’t think there’s anything controversial about the fact that since 2010 there’s been a new system. What we call it is another question. I think it’s too much to link it to one person’s name. That may indeed be a real honour, but I don’t think it’s accurate, because what happened before 2010 can’t be linked to one person’s name. The way I see the modern history that I’ve lived through or engaged in is that in Hungary from 1990 to 2010 there was a post-communist system. And since 2010 we’ve had a national system that differs in systemic features and depth from what existed before 2010 – and differs in many important respects from what exists in Western Europe. And it’s becoming ever less different, of course, from what there is in America, because that’s becoming ever more similar to what we have here.
Right. So?
So there’s a system. There’s a system, please.
There’s a system.
In fact, they called it a rule, that’s what they tend to say. It sounds like a negative word, but no, a rule is a system of power, it’s definitely that.
Do you feel that too much depends on you? On the personal decisions that you make in your head, on the one hour every day – as the start to your day – that you spend with Gergely Gulyás and Antal Rogán?
Let’s try to understand the question first: what depends on the Prime Minister. So, in one sense nothing depends on me: if I get hit by a tram one morning, or when I leave, after a few mournful tears the whole machinery that runs the country – let’s call it the system of government – would work the same way as it does with me. I can say that for sure. So it’s a government machine in which every part – every human part – is replaceable, including the head. It certainly wouldn’t be exactly the same government system as it is now, but it wouldn’t change in essence. And we’ve also enacted a very serious generational change; so after the generation of the founders, including, say, the former President of the Republic, the current Speaker of the House and myself, we’ve involved the next generation – not just in Fidesz, but in the work of the Government. So we have a generation between the ages of 40 and 50, young in politics, trained to a first-class level, extremely capable, and with considerable experience in government. We’ve lost two of the women who were part of this, by the way, so now there are mostly men, but it’s part of the same process. So I’ve always thought about the leadership of Fidesz or the unity of the country’s national forces in such a way that their future and fate can never depend on one person, on the one who’s leading. So it needs a strong structure behind it, the right succession, a clear division of roles, and strong people. They’re carrying this system. So in this sense there’s a system, and in this sense nothing depends on me. Now, this is completely contrary to what people perceive: nothing is dependent on me, but they perceive that almost everything is dependent on me. And the reason for this, and there’s some truth in this, is that in Hungary it’s not the ministers who have a prime minister, but the Prime Minister who has a government. Our entire constitutional system – once it has placed the President of the state in a position that preserves democracy and creates state unity or national unity – directs the actual decisions of power to the Government. And this in turn greatly strengthens the Prime Minister within the Government. This has been the case since 1990. We took this from the German system. so we have a bullet-proof democratic system in which there are no hiatuses, no interregnums, where there are no crises of government or anything like that. This is guaranteed by our constitutional system. Few people know that we’re the only country in the whole European Union that, since 1990, has never had early elections. Here every parliament and every government has served its full term. So the whole system is based on stability, and stability is created around the Prime Minister. To that extent a lot depends on the Prime Minister.
But to what extent is it a question of stability that there are people about whom we knew nothing earlier, except that they’re close to you, and that they’ve performed well in recent times – not in state administration, but in the acquisition of wealth: Lőrinc Mészáros, István Tiborcz, you name them. Isn’t it through your distinguished role that in recent years these people have enjoyed the best business and economic careers?
No, I don’t think these are the people who have had the greatest careers in recent years; many others have, but their prominence is the result of political attacks. I apologise for being so insistent, but I’m unassailable: I don’t deal with business, I never have, I have what I have, everyone knows that and recognises that. I live the way I live, and I can’t be attacked on such matters, so what should I do? I recall the period between 1998 and 2002. Back then one needed to associate the Prime Minister with other people who could be attacked. During the 2002 elections, Lajos Simicska and my father were attacked; and now Lőrinc Mészáros and my son-in-law. So this is inevitable, and I see it as a necessary consequence of democracy and the existence of the Opposition. If they can’t attack the Prime Minister, they must attack those around him.
But Prime Minister, we’ve heard words from you, not from others, that we can latch onto. In connection with Judit Varga and her ex-husband, Fidesz politicians have made statements that the current President of the Tisza Party, Peter Magyar, owes his success to his wife. This was the statement made by Máté Kocsis right after the scandals broke last year. And most recently János Lázár made a rather clear reference to the fact that insider trading could have happened because Magyar had access to information in relation to Judit Varga.
We can’t rule that out.
Okay, but is that only a problem if someone leaves the system?
No. We’re talking about whether a minister can arrange for their spouse, who incidentally has all the formal qualifications, to get a good government job. I say that they can.
Right, okay. I wasn’t the one asking – my wife was.
Okay, but then I’d say to her that indeed, if I have a minister, who was in this case a lady, and she has a husband who has the necessary exams, papers, qualifications, and he wants to get a job, the minister can help him with that. That’s something that’s very difficult to prevent in even the most democratic and transparent of political systems. And I think that may have been the case here.
Your body, the Government Control Office, saw it differently, in terms of his capability of doing the job.
I just wanted to say that when we appoint someone to any position in the Hungarian state, for example to a managerial position, there are very clear prerequisites in terms of qualifications and legality. If you don’t meet them, you’re out of the running. If you do, you’re in the running to be selected. It’s another question whether or not the choice is a good one, whether or not a talented person has been selected, whether they’re suitable or unsuitable.
But there’s a Government Control Office report, I know because I wrote about it, which said that there were at least 52 counts of overpricing, and nothing happened until some kind of family or other dispute started. After the Government Control Office report, someone could have been at the head of the Student Loan Centre for months – and by the way, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to dwell on this specific person. But it’s just that some light was shone on something that we hadn’t been able to see from the outside, and from the inside… So is this some kind of method?
Indeed – although I’m reluctant to comment on ongoing cases, there are indeed legal investigations into this.
Then let’s look at another area where there may be legal investigations: György Matolcsy, and the people around György Matolcsy. Perhaps we won’t talk about them now on account of the fact that if you can’t attack György Matolcsy, then you can attack people close to him.
But György Matolcsy can be attacked, as far as I can see.
He can now. So don’t you feel that when the son of the former governor of the Central Bank György Matolcsy starts complaining in a press outlet, that people are rightly upset about it? When, for example, [the investigative news portal] Átlátszó takes photos of Porsches lined up in his garage, aren’t people right to be upset?
That’s also legitimate, but I think it’s less important. The previous one is more important, and people are rightly and understandably upset by some things.
But you’re the ones who elected him as Governor of the Central Bank.
But if I understand you correctly, now you’re talking about the son of the Governor of the Central Bank.
Yes, and do you think that there’s no causal link between the role of the Governor of the Central Bank and the enrichment of his son?
We don’t know at the moment. What do we know at this moment? What we know at this moment is, first of all, that everyone’s subject to the same legislation. We know that. So no one can get away with it, and that’s why from time to time even a central bank is subject to thorough investigations – which the State Audit Office [SAO] has carried out. It has come to conclusions. These conclusions are defended by the State Audit Office and refuted by the former governor of the Central Bank. This is the debate that’s underway. We’re interested in the soonest possible swift and thorough investigation into who is right. What’s going on with one of the former governor of the Central Bank’s sons is a completely different matter. That’s another story.
But this is still about the fact that a huge amount of wealth may have been removed from the control of the Hungarian state.
Yes, but this is claimed by one actor and denied by the other. This is why we need a thorough and transparent investigation.
Okay. When might this investigation end?
I think that’s up to the State Audit Office in the first place, because it’s the one that’s launched the investigation.
So let’s put it a little to one side.
But I think the sooner the better. So if you’re asking me what I’d like to see, I’d like to see it end as soon as possible. It would be better if the whole thing was over as soon as possible, because it’s an impediment to government work, in the sense that one’s having to deal with a matter that no legislation designates as being the responsibility of the Government. So the Government can’t take responsibility for the Central Bank. I’d be happy to do so, by the way. You know that I’m not one to shy away from such things, so if I was entrusted with the task of supervising the Governor of the Central Bank, I’d be happy to do so. But at the moment it’s not permitted by the rules of the European Union, the regulations of the European Central Bank, and a civilisational tradition that forbids it. But if I’d been able to control it, the things that are alleged to have happened wouldn’t have happened there.
Why are they coming out now? Why is the SAO investigating and dealing with this now?
Am I able to answer that question, or is it for the President of the SAO?
Well, I think you can too.
No, the State Audit Office is another realm or separate principality within the political system: it’s an organ of Parliament. It even prepares its own budget. I have no say in the functioning of the State Audit Office. Nor do I want to have any.
Okay. But then perhaps you can give an answer to the question of why certain topics come up after fifteen years. Why hasn’t fifteen years been long enough to show that you don’t like Pride, or that you want to take a stronger stand on drugs?
We’re not talking about economic issues, but about politics.
We’re talking about governance and matters that come within the purview of the parliamentary majority or the Government.
Because in economic matters it is not acceptable for anything to come up ten or fifteen years later. That can happen with political matters, because they’re different. There’s Pride, for example, which you’ve mentioned. We have the strength now. The Hungarian government’s options were limited when the US government and the whole of the European Union said that this is the way it should be, and the US ambassador was at the head of the march. But now the US ambassador is no longer marching at the head of Pride, and so our options have expanded. The question was whether or not we felt that our options had expanded enough to act. And I felt that they’d expanded enough, and we’re taking action.
If it depends on the American ambassador and America, where’s the sovereignty?
Undoubtedly it depends on external power relations. When the United States of America and the European Union squeeze the Hungarian government on a matter that has no direct governmental significance, albeit an important matter like Pride, we have to think carefully about whether or not to engage in conflict. And I didn’t want to take on a conflict in this case, because I saw the fight as unwinnable. Now it’s winnable.
Drugs? I don’t think that was up to the American embassy.
Sorry, no, drugs weren’t allowed earlier. We created a very strict drugs policy fifteen years ago. So drugs are still very strictly regulated today. The only thing that’s happened is that there have been developments over the last year or two – something happening now, not fifteen years ago. Very cheap synthetic drugs are flooding the regions of Hungary. And we’ve had to find a specific response to that. Up to now this wasn’t the case, so the drugs situation in Hungary before a couple of years ago was quite different from what it’s been in the last two years. Brutal things have been happening here, and we’ve had to react.
But we’re not talking about a constitutional ban on synthetic drugs, we’re talking about drugs in general. I think that we can also draw conclusions from the last fifteen years that perhaps this kind of strictness wasn’t justified everywhere, and that perhaps, for example, the Hungarian police’s capacities shouldn’t necessarily be used to monitor young people who are smoking weed. After all, part of the world is moving towards soft drugs.
In any case, now there’s a problem. We see that Hungary has been seriously infected. These are drugs, narcotics. And we must take action against them. And as far as Western trends are concerned, there are certain drugs that they call “soft”. I don’t want to open that debate, but I don’t think there’s such a thing. Over there certain types of drugs are allowed, but I think that those countries will be ruined. They’re destroying their young people, their younger generation, and they’ll pay a very heavy price for that. Drugs must be banned, and that’s always been my position, regardless of Western fashions. All that’s happened now is that the legislation was more in support of the system of rehabilitation and re-education, which said that it was forbidden to take drugs, but, for example, if someone was nabbed and they agreed to rehabilitation, then punishment was replaced by rehabilitation. This system worked, because there was no dramatic increase in drug consumption in Hungary, and up until then it was manageable: we prosecuted the dealers, and although users were also breaking the law, we gave them the chance of a reprieve. Now, however, the situation has become very serious – especially, I repeat, with very cheaply available drugs, the dramatic effects of which I see across provincial Hungary. And so the previous legislation is no longer any good, and it can’t contain the situation. New rules are needed, and much stricter ones.
[Opposition politician] Gábor Vona has been sounding the alarm about herbals for a long time.
He’s clearly right.
The citizenship law. Why is this coming up now? I mean the suspension of Hungarian citizenship for dual citizens.
Do you think that the United States would have swallowed it if we’d tried to pass a law that allowed for a dual US–Hungarian citizen to have his citizenship suspended and be expelled from Hungary?
I don’t know, but...
They wouldn’t have swallowed it.
I’ll ask back: why did you think of a Hungarian–American citizen? Why not Hungarian–Ugandan or Chilean?
Somehow it came out here, under the lights – perhaps not by accident. But the point is that today, if that happened, America wouldn’t make a sound.
Is there any information that you may soon name a specific person? Is there any information in the meantime? Because, you know, the legislation mentions a competent minister, not the Prime Minister. I assume that you have some oversight of the work of your own ministers.
Well, there are serious things here: drugs, Ukraine’s membership of the EU. And we’ll use the full force of the law to take action against anyone who goes against Hungary’s fundamental interests and threatens Hungary’s national security – anyone, for example, who tries to gain influence with money sent here from USAID in America. So it may be that in the future we’ll discuss this issue not in the abstract, but in concrete terms.
The citizenship status of George Soros. Could there be a change there?
He falls into the category of someone who has citizenship in a country other than Hungary.
Okay, I accept that, I’ll parse it, and everyone can decipher it as they wish. Let’s go back a little bit to the question of state cooperation and relatives. Some things strike me as very strange. You’ve said that in your system people can arrange jobs for their relatives if those relatives have the right qualifications, and so on.
In other words, if they comply with the law. In that case, yes. If they break the law, then in our system they can’t...
Looking at the whole thing from the other direction: when Péter Magyar’s jobs in state-owned, state-related companies were terminated in January last year, and his ex-wife was the leader of your European Parliament list, your party’s EP list, didn’t you take account of the consequences?
What do you mean?
Of what the ex-husband, Péter Magyar, would do then?
What’s that got to do with me?
After all, the leader of your party’s list could be the subject of a scandal. In such cases, there’s a tendency to protect the list leader.
So if you’re thinking of the Justice Minister, who resigned, but was our list leader, they got divorced.
Were you surprised by what happened in February, March and April last year?
That we saw the entry into politics...
Yes, yes, yes.
...of the husband of my former minister of justice. I don’t think I was surprised. I was surprised by the way it happened. So I didn’t think that in Hungary it would be possible to survive a situation in which someone had bugged a conversation with his wife. That’s why I sometimes call the gentleman in question a bug and the operation a bug.
Then we can say that in the speech on 15 March you were alluding to...
I wasn’t alluding to it – I said it. But everyone knows that.
You used the plural: “bugs”.
Because there they also bug one another. I see it as a team sport for them. But everyone on the Right knew what we were talking about, because that’s the nickname of the President of the Tisza Party. So in itself the fact that he bugged his wife was, I thought, unacceptable to the majority of voters in Hungary. To then use that recording to launch a political career would be, I thought, futile – something that couldn’t happen in this country. But the Prime Minister can’t know everything.
But it’s not just about audio recordings. I started counting up all the big events in Pest, events across the country, all the glitz that money was spent on right in the first few months. And it didn’t cost peanuts.
This is another question. So in my mind these are two separate things. So to my mind, politics and how to build a party and how to start a party and how to strengthen a party and how to build a party are things that we’ve done. So they’re not unknown things, and I know what the iron laws are. But it’s something else for someone to enter the political arena with a story. And that story is so repugnant to me that I thought that in this country no one could get anywhere with it – but apparently they can. As for the other question, it is a very simple legal question. In Hungary there are precise rules on how a party can be financed, where it can accept funding from, and how it has to be accounted for. The State Audit Office not only audits the Central Bank, but also the parties. So there’s a set of rules. What I see and what you see is that money’s pouring in. We also know where it’s coming from, because they’re not hiding it: the left-wing oligarchs have appeared in this sphere, openly declaring their names – and now one of them has said that he’s given 100 million forints.
A paltry sum compared to what was spent in the first half of last year, and...
Yes, a hundred is a small amount, but several hundred isn’t so small.
You see, the Sovereignty Protection Office, for example, is making Átlátszo dance to its tune and jump through hoops, while at the same time we’re witnessing a completely unknown political project. And we can see that there’s a big international tech empire, indeed several of them. And in Romania there’s even been a court ruling which proves that, depending on the direction of the political winds, someone can be excluded from the political battle because they enjoy a certain advantage on certain platforms.
I think so too. You’re saying that this is a sovereignty protection problem, and I think it is, because what’s called in modern parlance the whole project – the whole programme or this whole phenomenon itself – is something that’s funded and sustained from abroad. The left-wing oligarchs have appeared, and there’s the European Union. Yesterday, or the day before yesterday, figures came out showing a staggering amount of money – our money, by the way – from the European Union budget, amounting to many tens of billions of euros, which has been distributed to political organisations in the Member States. So I have no doubt that the Tisza Party isn’t a Hungarian party, but a Brussels party. So it’s run from Brussels, and that’s where its masters are. They do what they’re told from there. So in the coming period this will be a very big challenge for the defence of sovereignty, because there’s a party that – if it’s given the opportunity to do so – is committed to openly and blatantly going beyond the demands of left-wing oligarchs and in Hungarian politics implementing the will of its Brussels masters. So this election will be about it not being given the opportunity. This is what’s at stake in the political struggle.
Do you think that, following the Romanian example, it’s conceivable that the Tisza Party could be excluded from the Hungarian elections?
In Hungary there are some laws that must be respected. So this isn’t Romania, where we invent laws after the fact and then… So there are laws, and everyone must abide by them.
So?
So they must be obeyed by everyone.
And if the Tisza Party doesn’t comply, is it possible that the Tisza Party won’t be able to stand?
But that won’t be a matter for the Government, because the judiciary will sort that out. So in Hungary the Government can’t deprive anyone of the possibility of running in an election, and I won’t hear of anything like that.
You don’t expect the Tisza Party not to stand in the elections. So, asked in a more reasonable way, you’re expecting it to stand.
Well, I’m counting on everyone standing in the election who complies with the law and who wants to stand. The fact that the Tisza Party is still just a Brussels party doesn’t change the fact that, if they have any brains, they’ll do things legally, in a way that doesn’t violate Hungarian law.
Do you consider it a serious rival?
I consider everyone to be a serious challenger, and the Tisza Party is a serious challenger.
Do you consider the Tisza Party to be a more serious rival than the opposition coalition in the last election cycle?
That was in a different category.
Do you consider it a different category? It ended very badly for them in 2022.
But in September 2021 Péter Márki-Zay was ahead of me in the polls by 5 per cent.
But you don’t believe that. I’ve just seen this – you smiled at it about as much as Kinga Kollár did when speaking at the [European Parliament] committee meeting.
Oh, no, no, my point is that in the autumn of 2021 the coalition was ahead of us – both in terms of the party and the candidate for Prime Minister. So let’s not disparage them. The fact that later we beat them soundly – because we did beat them soundly – shouldn’t be allowed to deceive us: they were a very serious force. They had problems, but they were a very serious force. They had backing from abroad, they also received a lot of money, they had the full backing of left-wing oligarchs, they had huge media backing, and they were strong on social media. So they were a very serious challenge. Excuse me for self-praise here, but for us to win was a great achievement.
Right. And they were also supported by Hungarian voters who wanted to vote for the Opposition.
They had a successful primary election campaign that they fully implemented, they organised the whole thing. So I wouldn’t disparage them, or our own victory back then.
To what extent is this cycle different from previous ones? Between 2014 and 2022 there was a continuous increase in real wages, and support for Fidesz as a party tracked this increase in real wages almost unwaveringly. In the current cycle, what’s the economic outlook in the final twelve months before the next election?
There is real wage growth now, but our support isn’t following it upwards. So it’s interesting to observe whether or not party sympathies and party support move together with certain economic developments. I have to say that we’re seeing something now that we haven’t seen before. There’s been a real increase in wages, with only one year in which there wasn’t a real wage increase – but even then the real wage decrease was within 1 per cent. Nevertheless, this hasn’t shifted the numbers for party support in our favour. So this means that there are economic phenomena that are even stronger than real wage growth. And I think that one of these has been inflation. So I think that it’s not so much real wage growth that’s the determinant here, but inflation – because people quite simply feel that in the shops they’re being made to pay unfairly high prices. This is the real challenge economically. Now that the economic environment is going to be more favourable, I can tell you that, to the best of my knowledge and my understanding, we’ll see an economic growth rate of over 3 per cent – maybe close to 4 per cent – by the end of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. This can be reasonably expected. There will be full employment. Real wage growth this year will be somewhere between 6 and 8 per cent. There will also be substantial wage increases early next year. The armed services bonus is due right now, but we’re planning to offer more in other sectors as well. Today, before I came here, there was a budget debate in the Government, and we put together next year’s budget; so I can see that there are sectors where there will be major wage expenditure or wage increases, pay increases. So I think the economic conditions for winning a parliamentary election are there in the performance of the Hungarian economy. There’s no need to boost them artificially. I’d quietly say that we’re not usually credited with this, but the opposite is widely communicated: in every election year we’ve reduced the budget deficit, while it’s widely claimed that we’ve let it loose. That’s not true: the reality is – you can check it – that in every election year the budget deficit has been smaller than it was in the previous year.
There have been years when the budget deficit rule was somewhat relaxed. It’s true that this has been the case worldwide. And you’ve mentioned inflation – you sometimes talk about “wartime inflation”. I don’t want to argue about that now, but I just want to say...
I’m happy to talk about it.
...I think COVID has at least as much to do with it, as well as the economic troubles, the COVID period itself.
But what happened with COVID was that COVID hit, there was an 8–9 per cent economic downturn, and we came back after a year and a half. So in economic terms I think that the Hungarian economy – led by the Hungarian government – responded well to the COVID crisis, because we were among the group of countries whose economic performance recovered the fastest to pre-COVID levels. The key issue is the war. If COVID hadn’t been followed by the war, today we’d be talking about completely different issues.
Okay, but I’ll stick with COVID, if only because it’s a fixation of mine. And also because what happened with the COVID measures around the world relates to the same technocratic dystopia that you...
I agree with that.
...and various thinkers on the Right – and even on the radical Left – tend to raise.
I agree with that, but it’s different from its impact on the economy. The economic impact was remedied quite quickly and we moved out of it; but the war brought back the difficulties all over the world, all over Europe, including us. That COVID had other very serious social consequences isn’t in doubt – I think it did, and we’re still living with them to this day.
But then why doesn’t the Government produce a white paper on this? In some – but not all – Western countries, where the measures were stricter than in Hungary and the dissatisfaction has been resultantly higher, they’ve tried to record, point by point, in what ways the very early predictions were wrong. What predictions were mistaken? What happened when people’s businesses were unfairly and wrongfully taken from them, and so on?
That kind of thing didn’t happen much in Hungary..
Nevertheless, let’s say...
What are you thinking of?
...compulsory vaccination.
Okay, but I don’t think we’ve taken away people’s businesses. Businesses had difficulties, because when you couldn’t go out on the street, the service industry was crippled, of course. But there, as well, we tried to give compensation. We also had trouble in the world of the performing arts, but there we tried to encourage smaller events. So I feel that we offered something to every single major group that was in distress. Compulsory vaccination, whether it was right or not, is something else. I still think it was right.
Opinions are divided. Let’s go back to the election then. My feelings on the opposition coalition, the last opposition push and the current...
Sorry, just to be precise, even compulsory vaccination wasn’t compulsory in general; it was compulsory for state employees.
And not for everyone within that. Of course, obviously, of course...
Yes, but for those who were working in the health service, for soldiers, for police officers. So I think it was the right thing to do.
And some people lost their jobs because of it.
Yes, but I think it was the right thing to do, but not to do it for everyone. So just to make sure that the wrong impression doesn’t stick in people’s minds, we didn’t make it compulsory for all citizens in Hungary to get vaccinated.
That wasn’t done anywhere. Austria tried it, and...
I lost a couple of friends: they didn’t get vaccinated, and they died.
And we also know of the opposite. And we know of – how shall I put it? – vaccine orders made by SMS that to this day still cannot be investigated.
So if with your question now you’re wondering about whether there were abuses in Brussels related to vaccines, then I can tell you that there’s an ongoing legal case. The President of the European Commission is under suspicion, she may even be charged, and the Belgian law enforcement authorities in Brussels are investigating the matter.
Yes, I was referring to that, and I was also referring to the fact that the whole situation is one in which I think an organisation on the Right might still have something to say, but let’s leave that to Mi Hazánk [Our Homeland Movement] ...
Yes, so there are many places to look. But the fact is that in this country at the moment there’s only one important issue, one outstandingly important issue. There are important issues, but the one outstanding issue is the war in Ukraine, and that country’s EU membership. This is the issue which will decide the fate of the Hungarians. Now, I’m happy to talk about anything, about COVID and all those other interesting matters, but today they’re not the important things. Today what’s important is whether we succeed in preventing Ukraine from being admitted to the European Union in exchange for fighting the war. If we succeed, then we’ll at least have saved the Hungarians’ development prospects for another decade. Of course, that can’t be guaranteed, but at least the possibility will be preserved; because if it doesn’t happen, if the Ukrainians are admitted and the war continues, then it will burn through our next ten to fifteen years.
And if Ukraine isn’t admitted to the European Union, will we have arrived in the Promised Land?
Well, if not the Promised Land, then prosperity.
We’ll see. Earlier I wanted to say that I sense a difference between the efforts of the previous opposition and the current one. In Hungarian society, in a part of Hungarian society, the emotional temperature has risen very sharply. I see this every day in the form of various nasty comments, mostly posted on social media.
And is this something new?
In this form...
Terrible things happened and terrible things were said in the 2022 election, remember what happened there.
Terrible things were said back in 1990.
But 2022 was very strong. There’s been a lot of… I think maybe the technological change that brought in these gadgets, online. There were some very nasty things in 2022.
I think that in this field the role of technological change is undeniable. But don’t you feel responsible for that kind of public mood? You don’t feel...
We’re all in the same boat. So if anyone were to say that they have no responsibility, I don’t think they’d be telling the truth. But we’ve done more than anyone else to ensure that things won’t be like this.
For example?
We try to speak moderately, calmly and reasonably.
And sometimes your opponents are targeted on posters.
Yes, but on the whole we’re a restrained, calm, civic, national, Christian democratic political force.
Do you think this will be the deciding factor in next year’s elections? That someone will be able to show calm strength, and that by contrast there will be a lot of ranting?
I can’t say whether that will be the deciding factor, but it certainly could play a role. I haven’t yet thought about what the next election will be decided on, because it’s a year away and we’re a governing party. So I can tell you what the Government has to deliver this year, and that’s what I’m interested in. It has to be done by January. Then in January we can turn to the campaign.
In relation to governance, I’ll have to look backwards again, because you like to talk about successes – and who doesn’t like to talk about successes?
I haven’t had much of a chance today, because I’d have liked to talk about a lot of successes; but that’s not really why we’re here is it?
If you had to say what’s been a clear failure in recent years, in the last decade and a half, what would you say?
I won’t say anything at all. There’s been nothing that could be called an absolute failure. Absolute failure is when you see a major problem, a challenge, an obstacle, and you don’t attack it and solve it. We’re not those kinds of guys, and this isn’t that kind of government. So when we see a problem, a difficulty, a negative occurrence, we don’t turn away and we don’t make excuses: we tackle it.
The rising level of Tisza last year didn’t start with this, not with a tour of the country and talk of corruption, but with a very, very specific case, which at the time didn’t even involve people belonging to the Tisza Party. This was the presidential pardon scandal. And the people who spoke at the time didn’t even specifically mention the scandal itself, but the situation of children in state care. Do you think it’s okay, for example, or that there could have been no other way of doing it… 1,200 forints to feed a child in care?
I think the care of children in state care is in order; it could be better, but it’s okay, it’s acceptable. So the Hungarian state can say that, yes, the children entrusted to us are being treated fairly, they’re in the right place, in the right conditions, and they’re being looked after by people who are properly trained. In the situation that developed at that time, one thing that needed to be enacted was better screening for integrity and blamelessness in relation to paedophilia or such inclinations in children’s institutions, by means of more vigorous inspection. But otherwise, the state is fulfilling its obligations towards the children entrusted to it.
This specific case itself shook Fidesz, and you devoted a significant part of your annual state of the nation speech last year to it. But don’t you feel that there’s been silence on it for months?
Well, when the President of the Republic has to resign it’s a shock to the life of a community. What would shock us if not that?! But that case is closed. The reason it’s not mentioned is because it’s clear what happened and how it happened. The person who made the mistake took responsibility for it and resigned. So now should we try to turn back the clock or something like that?
No, not necessarily you, but considering the fact that Hungarian political life – not just the governing party, but Hungarian political life as a whole – was shaken by that affair there should have been...
Yes, but at the same time, the people were handed the bitter pill, or it was handed to us. Because what happened was that the President of the Republic said: “I made a mistake. I pardoned a man who shouldn’t have been pardoned.” She also said why she pardoned him, because she thought he was innocent. She was wrong about that, and she made a misjudgement. She bore the consequences, and she resigned. So I think that in Hungary there are very few examples of someone in such a high position so openly and frankly admitting that they’ve made a serious mistake, then resigning – taking their hat and leaving. So I think that as soon as the trouble arrived, the solution was very close at hand.
Aren’t you worried that more skeletons like this could tumble out of the cupboard in the next year?
Now, look here!
Whether it’s a clemency case or the Governor of the Central Bank.
One can’t live like that. So you’re asking me if I’m afraid. One can’t live like that, because then you’d be living your whole life terrified that something might happen, that something might already have happened for which you’d get chased down. You can’t live like that, and you certainly can’t work like that. We have to do our work with integrity, we have to live our lives with integrity, we have to fulfil our commitments, we have to deliver on what we’ve set out for the year in question and promised to the people, and then judgement will come: the people will decide how and what we do next. We’ll have fifteen or sixteen – or even twenty years – of government behind us, everyone can give their opinion on that, can judge it, can see where the country has got to in those twenty years, and can decide.
How much longer do you plan to continue for?
You can see that I’m in my prime.
I see. I’ve only one remaining debt to settle. I don’t know how uncomfortable you are. It hasn’t been my job to make you feel comfortable, but neither is the opposite true.
But are you sure that’s a good idea? That’s what I was trying to say at the beginning: I’ll go anywhere and talk to anyone I can in a sensible way. But having a conversation to make the other person uncomfortable isn’t a sensible approach. So I just wanted to say that the minimum, I think, that I rightly assumed about you was that I’d come here and we could have a sensible conversation, and not have you as a surrogate for some opposition politician, spending the whole time shooting arrows at me. So I thank you for the opportunity to be here.
I’m not saying it’s my job to make you uncomfortable, but it’s not my job to do the opposite either. However, there’s someone who a year and two months ago promised me that he’d agree to give me an interview the following Monday, and although to this day our door remains open, he still hasn’t paid us that courtesy. So it’s easier to get hold of the Prime Minister than the leader of the opposition party. Thank you very much for being here. I’ve been speaking to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Subscribe to our channel, follow our Facebook page, and of course read the content on ot.hu.