Máté Gerhardt: My guest today is Viktor Orbán. He shook hands with Zelenskyy a year ago, but now the Ukrainian president is openly threatening Hungary. Does Brussels have a Plan B if Ukraine loses the war? We’ll also look at why Trump is disappointed with Putin, and how at home Péter Magyar’s party is showing signs of disintegration. Now I’ll ask the Prime Minister what’s behind all this. Prime Minister, welcome to the studio, and thank you for accepting my invitation.
Good day to you.
Let’s start with Ukraine. Of course you met President Zelenskyy in Kiev/Kyiv a year ago, but in the meantime the tone and the attitude hasn’t shifted towards peace. What is apparent, however, is that this hostile tone and this hostile attitude is increasing in strength. We see secret service operations coming from Ukraine. In an interview, President Zelenskyy has openly threatened Hungary, and the Hungarian ambassador was summoned. What do you think is behind this? What do you think is driving the Ukrainian president?
It’s important to remember that when we talk about the war we’re not only talking about the problems of the Ukrainian president, because the Ukrainian–Russian war is at the root of all the problems in Europe. So what we’re seeing today in Europe – stagnation, inflation, rising food prices, high energy prices – all come from the war. It’s worth saying this up front, because a year ago I didn’t go to Kiev/Kyiv to interfere in someone else’s business, in the Russo–Ukrainian war, but I went there to deal with a matter in which Hungarians are suffering, are victims. As the newly-inaugurated President of the European Union, on a six-month mandate, this gave me the right to immediately go to Kiev/Kyiv – and then to Moscow, and then to Beijing, and then to the future US President – and to try to bring about some kind of peace initiative, or at least the chance of a ceasefire. I started in Kiev/Kyiv, and there was a refusal. So we sat down together, we talked at length, and I told the President how I saw the situation, how we Hungarians saw the situation. We didn’t think that time was on their side, that the passing of time would only make Ukraine’s position worse, the Russians were winning on the battlefield, and Ukraine couldn’t win this war. On the American side, a new president would be coming in soon. He’d cheer for the Democrats, but President Trump would come back, he’d withdraw from the war, and the Europeans would be left on their own. They’d be exhausted and they’d be standing there alone, overseeing a terrible front line, a terrible battlefield situation. And that could be prevented: ceasefire, and peace. I was happy to help with that, but he said “no” – flat out.
On what grounds? Why did he refuse?
He said that time was on his side. But the truth is that a new political or personality type has emerged within him. This was the first time I encountered this, by the way. How should I describe it? He’s an influencer-politician, or an actor-politician, or a comedian. Well, he’s a comedian. So he’s someone who’s found himself in a situation in which his background didn’t open up his current career, didn’t train him, didn’t prepare him. So his background didn’t help him to do what he went on to do later – especially in the middle of a war. And yet he decided to take it on, and basically he’s performing a presidential role. When I tried to talk to him about the deeper background conditions, I could see that it wasn’t working: I was really standing – or sitting – face to face with a comedian.
If this comedian insists on this war and was counting on the support of America or the support of the European Union, what does he expect now? After all, President Trump, if not backing out, is no longer giving so much money or weapons. The European Union is exhausted. What do you think he can hope for?
The Germans – if I want to give a simple answer. The Americans have indeed said that if the two belligerents – the Russians and the Ukrainians – don’t cooperate with the Americans in making peace, then sooner or later the Americans will leave them to their own devices. This is what’s happening. The Ukrainians’ only chance is to keep the Europeans in. This comes at a very high price, and I saw the consequences of this at the last NATO summit. This is a transatlantic rift. So I’ve never seen a situation where, on such an important strategic issue, countries on either side of the Atlantic – America there, Europe here – are on strategically different tracks. America is on the path of peace, and we’re on the path of war. I see a Euro–American divide on this issue, which means that we’ll be left to our own devices and we Europeans will have to deal on our own with all the negative consequences of war: the financial, economic and public security consequences. The Germans believe that if we have to deal with this, then the best form of defence is attack: to help the Ukrainians. And they’ve made it clear that they want to win this war. So the Russo–Ukrainian war is a war that the Europeans want to win in Ukraine under German leadership.
Yes, but what’s interesting is that President Trump came in with high hopes for peace talks: he said that he’d bring peace within 24 hours. But recently he spoke to Putin and said, “I didn’t make any progress with him, I’m very disappointed with my meeting with President Putin.” Why do you think that there’s been no breakthrough? Why is it that in this war the deadlock hasn’t been broken?
What’s needed is for everyone to agree that the way forward is the path of ceasefire and peace. But the Europeans, as I’ve said, want to continue the war. The Ukrainians also think that if the Europeans are funding them, it’s still worth continuing the war. And the Russians see that if there’s no agreement, they’d rather go ahead – after all the sacrifices they’ve made so far in their military actions. So things are on divergent paths. Everyone has a greater interest in war, and less interest in peace. It’s not my job to give advice to the big boys, because Hungary is Hungary – although as a member of the European Union we could perhaps be even sharper and more strident in our tone. But I’m cautious about that. I’m certain – and I say this more as an old fox who’s seen a lot in diplomacy, and more than any other European in office today – that there will be a ceasefire and peace only if there’s a personal meeting between the Russian and US presidents. So the telephone won’t help. If there’s a negotiation, if they can sit down directly, then we can get to a ceasefire very quickly. Until there’s a face-to-face meeting it will be as bitter as it is now – for very many months.
To what extent do you think that European leaders’ attitudes towards the war have changed? President Macron is known for his very anti-Putin rhetoric, his very anti-Putin tone; but, after three years, he’s just called the Russian president. Could there be a shift there? Or, say, does he imagine that if the Germans want to send missiles, drones and all kinds of other military equipment to the Ukrainians, that he’ll also provide weapons and money together with the Germans?
If you want to draw a map of who’s who in this geopolitical situation, I can tell you that the pro-peace people are the Turks, Americans, Hungarians and Slovaks. In Europe there are no more than two. We’re together with the Slovaks, two out of the 27 Europeans on the pro-peace side, with all the others – the other 25 – on the pro-war side: either they openly say so, or they support it quietly, they tolerate it ; but they definitely won’t leave this pro-war coalition. In Europe today there’s a pro-war coalition, and they dictate policy in Europe – both in economic policy and in military policy. This is a very big problem, because it’s bad for Europe.
If this rhetoric is implemented and Ukraine continues the war, what can we expect? After all, it seems that the Russians can attack ever more territory with their grinding tactic, and inflict ever greater losses on the Ukrainians. I’d say this is the main question: What can the Ukrainian president continue to rely on? So the fact that he’s being given weapons and money isn’t in itself making up for the losses in human lives.
It’s very difficult to say anything about a war of self-defence in a country where hundreds or thousands of people are dying every day. So I think Ukraine has the right to decide its own future and to determine its own destiny: if peace, then peace; if war, then war. One thing it cannot ask us to do is to help it in a failed strategy. And I think that continuing the war – which they have the right to do – is something that’s bad for Europe and could have terrible consequences for Hungary. He wants to force Ukraine into the European Union; and if we take in a country at war, let’s say Ukraine, we’ll be taking in the war itself, and within a single day the whole of Europe will be at war. Therefore we must stop the Ukrainians’ attempts to get into the European Union. This is what I’ve been doing. Most recently I stopped this process in Brussels on the basis of the mandate given by [the consultative referendum] Voks2025. This will be continued, but now we’ve reached a point at which this process has been halted by the Hungarian vote, or the Hungarian veto.
Do you think that this veto can be bypassed by Brussels?
Legally that’s not possible, as there’s a clear legal situation in which it’s impossible to circumvent the Hungarian veto, and therefore it’s only possible to move forward in the negotiating process together. But in Brussels there are so many open violations and there’s a culture, an atmosphere, and such a destruction of the rule of law that it’s not impossible to imagine that we could somehow be bypassed – temporarily. Because even in its worst, most militant, von-der-Leyenesque condition it’s impossible: the European Union cannot afford that, whatever the Ukrainian–Brussels axis is operating – because what’s being put into operation is a plan for the final decision on Ukraine’s membership of the European Union to be taken by the Member States without unanimity. That’s unthinkable! Now the process is actually at a standstill, and it hasn’t been able to progress. What needs to be negotiated are called clusters, and they can’t progress, because to progress you need unanimity. We will, of course, protest, take court action and fight for our rights; but at the very end of the process, when it comes to deciding on membership, it certainly won’t be possible to leave out the Hungarians.
Yes, but until then, how will Brussels deal, for example, with the destruction that’s taking place in Ukraine? Obviously without downplaying the aggression, how do their consciences deal with it? I’d be interested to know how they deal with the fact that they’re sacrificing Europe’s economy for the sake of the war. For what? Why?
There will be a bitter moment when European leaders – apart from us and the Slovaks – will have to admit that they’ve been pursuing a flawed strategy and have been defeated. So I think that the European Union has already lost this war. Although it’s retreating, Ukraine is holding itself together, it’s holding itself together on the front line – but I think that Ukraine has also lost this war. This war cannot be won on the front line. This war can be ended with diplomacy, and further losses can be reduced or eliminated. And there will be a moment, a sad and bitter one, when the leaders of European countries – many of which haven’t lost a war for a hundred years or a hundred and fifty years – will have to say that they’ve led Europe into a dead end with a bad decision and they’ve lost this war. At some point that moment will come, and it will have very serious consequences for European politics.
But it’s already having serious consequences for the European economy.
Now solely for the economy, but later also for politics. So standing up in any parliament in Europe and saying that so much money has been spent supporting a belligerent country, only to lose this war in the end, will have seismic political consequences in European politics. But we’re not there yet, we’re still only seeing the economic consequences. But we’ve already burned through hundreds of billions of euros in Ukraine, and they want to spend even more – without any rational, describable, militarily and politically logical path to victory. So this is money that’s gone up in smoke. But no one has an answer to this, and I’m trying to get them to attempt an answer, but not about how to defeat a nuclear power on the front line. Because what we’re talking about is that they’re claiming that they’re going to beat Russia in a war in Ukraine. Russia is a nuclear superpower. How’s that going to happen? But nobody’s answering that question. I don’t think a nuclear superpower can lose a war. From the beginning it was quite simply obvious that no such thing would happen, because it will resort to ultimate measures. So I think that we shouldn’t have gone down this path; and now we should slow down as soon as possible, stop, thank the generals for their work, get the diplomats and the foreign ministers back to the table and start negotiating peace.
Now, after the comedian in Kiev/Kyiv, let’s head for home waters. Here at home we’ve had some very busy days and weeks. After a court hearing Judit Varga was caught in a corridor by the left-wing press. The former justice minister spoke very frankly about the past period, about [her former husband] Péter Magyar, and – very frankly, very bluntly, of course – about the kind of character that Péter Magyar really is. And then the next day the leader of the Tisza Party’s parliamentary group in Budapest resigned. Doesn’t it seem that Tisza has begun to disintegrate, or that there are growing cracks in the opposition party?
As far as the former minister of justice is concerned, I can say that of course I don’t want to comment at all on her private life – I won’t say anything about anyone’s private life, it wouldn’t be right, and I’d get a scolding from my mother. But, having worked with the former minister of justice, I can say that I saw add close quarters what was happening, and she wanted to resign several times – maybe three times – in her last year and a half, simply because she couldn’t stand the abusive relationship she was in. I kept trying to encourage her, hoping and hoping; but she couldn’t sort things out, and then eventually the presidential pardon affair broke, sweeping her away, her too. Well, perhaps that’s enough about the personal side of it. As for the party matter, there are two things that might be interesting. I’m not in Tisza, so I’m talking about another party, and this isn’t necessarily the best guarantee of a display of good manners. But in any case, I can tell you that to me this is nothing new. So I think they’re trying to achieve something on the basis of instructions – money and instructions – from abroad. This is because the opposition’s masters are usually in Brussels – they used to be in Washington, but they were smoked out by President Trump’s people, and so now almost all of them are in Brussels. So that’s where the leaders of the opposition parties get their money and instructions from – and this is true not only for Tisza, but also for DK [the Democratic Coalition], I think. But it’s always been like this. So I’d say that what usually happens is an attempt to corral opposition voters – voters who don’t sympathise with the Government – into one electoral community, into one camp. That’s what happened in the elections three years ago – except that then they didn’t create a new party but, if you remember, gathered together all the opposition voters in a primary election and declared themselves the winners a few months before the general election. Everything happened exactly as it’s happening now. And I think the end will be exactly the same as it was then – because I think we’ll win this in a fair fight, by a large margin. But that’s for the future. The other interesting thing, however, is that the world hasn’t stopped – especially not technology. In fact, not only has a new opposition party been created to sweep together the opposition voters, but in the meantime the pattern of party organisation has changed – not just at home, but all over the world. So the [Péter] Magyar challenge isn’t a classical party as we imagine it, as we’re used to, or as we ourselves formed our party: it’s a digital political movement, in the digital space, with all the associated virtues and uncertainties. In that space you can’t be sure whether or not what’s happening is real, whether it’s fake or real, whether these are real people or fake profiles. What’s happening there? That’s why I think it’s always worth paying attention to news stories about how digital movements like this evolve, grow, reach their peak and then start to decline. These are new things in Hungary – they’re new to me, I’m still watching, but I can see that there’s a life cycle. Right now it seems to be going downhill.
Yes, because we’ve seen a video of the leader of the Tisza Party’s parliamentary group in Budapest, who we were talking about, trying to read out a reply or an address from her mobile phone. It was obvious that Péter Magyar had dictated the reply to her, but she was mixing up the messages. How can an opposition party operate in such a stage-managed way, in a stage-managed way in the digital space?
Yes, but here’s the question you’ve asked: imagine that one day there’s no one there, just a mobile phone with a loudspeaker...
Will it write the messages?
Yes – chatbots and whatever, there’s everything already. So there’s such a cavalcade, a cavalcade on the technological side of politics, that it takes a sharp person to be able to navigate it and understand the future. One thing I do know is that politics is also something human. So it’s not possible for a place in politics to be won by just any kind of character. So you can’t build a party on sin, you can’t build a party on betrayal of faith, you can’t build a community on treason – or if you can it will only be temporary, because then it will all fall apart. So I believe that whatever technological cavalcade we see, what will ultimately be decisive is the human factor. And this is why I think we’ll win – because we have hundreds and thousands of leaders at local, middle and higher levels who people know, whose work has been experienced, who are real people, and whose strengths and weaknesses are known. I think this very strong position we occupy in real life, and if we run the campaign well, we can build on it and achieve another victory similar in scale to that in 2022.
But has it ever happened that you’ve also directed any Fidesz politician or Fidesz leader in such a stage-managed way?
Just imagine János Lázár being sent such a text message. Well, well...
It would be a surprising sight, but perhaps the minister would still say that he’d consider it.
Or I could have sent one to Judit Varga, or try to send smart advice to Gergő Gulyás. That doesn’t work with us. Or Laci Kövér – imagine me sending an SMS to House Speaker Kövér...
Yes, that would end up with a fine being imposed...
“Dear László, don’t say this, but that.” What?! So I’ll say it again: politics is made up of characters, and when it comes to characters, past history matters. And, of course, we’ve been in step with this country since we were founded in 1988. Everyone’s a known quantity: everyone has a development, a career, achievements, weaknesses and strengths. It can all be known. In my opinion this is unbeatable. So what we have, the historically accumulated virtues, skills, knowledge, experience – and of course weaknesses – cannot be beaten by any new formation: it’s unbeatable. Not forever, but it will take many years of work to become competitive with it. And let’s put aside the question of whether or not we’re good: it’s not because we’re so good, but because we’ve put in a lot of work and have a lot of experience. And look around you: there’s war halfway around the world. There are economic difficulties, when you don’t know what’s going to happen – it’s a lottery. So I think what counts is the skills that only experience can bring. This is what I’m building on, and this is our message, our standpoint, our position when we talk to Hungarians – I mean, to the electorate – about the direction the country should take.
Speaking of the human factor or the human side of politics, a very interesting story has come to light about the former Chief of the General Staff – about his state-funded liposuction treatment at the Defence Forces Hospital, with a masked social security number, and all at public expense. Why would a soldier do such a thing? What kind of example is he setting? After all, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi has become a pillar of the Tisza Party.
We’re talking about a candidate for Minister of Defence. So we are talking about a candidate for Minister of Defence who glorifies Ukraine, who in my opinion takes his instructions from abroad on when to take a position on certain military issues – and whose past life is what you’ve just told us. In the military – and also a little in politics, but perhaps more than just a little – leadership by example, if I can use such military jargon, is inevitable. So one tells young people to come and join the Hungarian army, that this is where serious people are, where there are tough guys who serve their country and who are also cool at the same time. And then you say that you’ll be led by this general, the one who gets his fat sucked out... So I don’t think that will work – it’s just impossible! Plus, there’s another part of it. I don’t think many people are interested in this, because we’re talking about a governance issue, but the army’s commander-in-chief isn’t the Prime Minister. This makes it difficult, between you and me. In many countries where there are presidential systems, the commander-in-chief of the army has a clear political leadership role, because he or she is a politician. For example, in the United States, the commander-in-chief of the army is Donald Trump. In Türkiye, it’s President Erdoğan. And I could go on. Not so here. So the Government’s relationship with the army is a complicated one. This is because although we administer it through the Minister of Defence, the military, straight-line, subordinate–superior relationship that’s the essence of the army cannot prevail: somehow it bends at the end, and the Prime Minister isn’t at the top end of the chain of command. Therefore choosing, appointing the Chief of Staff and coordination are complicated matters, and there are accidents like the one we see now.
Now we also have to talk about the biggest challenge of this summer: the drought situation. The need to help farmers, the need to resolve this situation, is obvious. Yet it’s strange that in Brussels they wanted to stop farmers being able to receive irrigation water free of charge, and the Tisza Party voted in line with them. Why? So why is there this political manoeuvring against their own nation? What’s driving them?
First, let’s understand Brussels. So in Brussels they’re bureaucrats. Those people sitting there aren’t patriots. Perhaps it’s difficult for you to imagine someone sitting somewhere and not thinking about their country when they’re making decisions, but about something else. Bureaucrats don’t think about their country, they think about something else: some theory, some principle, some ideal that they represent. And Brussels is an imperial centre, where it’s common knowledge and the consensus that it’s good for the economy if as few national measures as possible distort the functioning of the market. So if the question is whether or not water should be free, then everyone should pay – because the market and the textbooks say that this is the right thing to do.
And so only the market approach prevails?
Yes, I think that for the bureaucrats in Brussels it does. Another question is whether Brussels bureaucrats can attract or draw national politicians into a dependent relationship – as in the case of DK or Tisza. They’re told what to do. So I’m not blaming Tisza, saying that it wants to act against the farmers; it doesn’t want to harm farmers, but it has a master, it receives orders, and it acts according to them. “Is that bad for Hungarians? Well…” That’s the difference between a national party and a Brussels party.
Yes, but it’s clear that an order arrives, and there they don’t really question it. Or they say one thing here in Budapest and another in Brussels. This double-dealing political game isn’t sustainable for long, because after a while an order will come along that can override everything.
Well, I’d say that not only for DK and Tisza: I’ve seen other non-Hungarian parties in Europe, which I simply call “Jawohl parties”. There’s an order from Brussels: “Jawohl!” That’s all: no arguing and no talking back. It’s remarkable that in European life today, in European politics, there are three big issues. There’s migration, war, and gender: Pride, all that, and family. And on these three issues, only one country has dared to ask its own citizens for their opinions. In Hungary there’s been a referendum on the war, on family protection and on migration. No other country has done this, not on one of the three or all three together, and not even individually. So in Brussels today there’s a system of domination in the relations between national governments subordinate to Brussels, in which the people of Europe are quite simply excluded from deciding on the most important issues. I think that if there were a referendum on migration, the position would be much the same as it was in Hungary – on gender as well, and soon also on the war. So if the people of Europe could decide, there would be no war, there would be family protection and there would be no migration. This is why it’s important whether a country has a national government or a Brussels government. At the end of every story...
But do you think this is what it can be boiled down to?
Yes. And this isn’t an ignorant position: it’s the ultimate conclusion that follows from the natural order of things.
This has been Patrióta Extra. Thank you for watching. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and keep watching us. Thank you, and see you again!