Tamás Király: Tamás Király is at the microphone and our guest today is Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary. Hello, Prime Minister, and thank you very much for being here with us.
Hello, thank you for inviting me.
We’ll start our programme in a moment. Before that, I’d like to ask you to subscribe to Ultrahang, if you haven’t already done so, because we’re about to have our 225,000th subscriber. Prime Minister, have you subscribed to Ultrahang?
I haven’t.
Do you ever watch YouTube?
Very rarely – on the whole, no.
Do you still have your push-button Nokia phone?
I have a nice Nokia, and I use it to make phone calls. I’m of that generation that thinks a phone is for making calls. I have an iPad at home, and sometimes secretly...
Yes?
Yes – sometimes I turn it on. But it’s a very dangerous thing, and I try to keep it under control, within limits. I watch games on it sometimes, and sometimes I get caught up in politics on it – I look at it late at night when I get home, wondering things have happened that I don’t know about.
And do you read on your iPad or watch it?
Then I read, but it’s very dangerous because before you notice you’ve been on it for an hour – and then you shut it down quickly.
I was thinking that you’re the Prime Minister and you’re a historical figure, and they write and say a lot of things about you. But then you’re a person. And you go home and you read what they’ve written about you.
But you shouldn’t do that.
No?
It’s permissible to a very small extent. You can read about yourself if you’ve said something on an important matter, and the matter has risen above you to be more important than you are. You can read that, because to discuss the matter you need to encounter yourself. But you should avoid it if possible.
Because, you know, the exciting thing is that you think something, you say something, and then the media tries to guess what the Prime Minister was thinking. And the analysts analyse what the Prime Minister might have been thinking and who he was sending a message to. And when you’re confronted with such things, how do you experience it as a human being?
I sometimes think that it would have been better if I’d been asked, then I’d have told them what I was thinking. And they wouldn’t have had to guess, because a lot of nonsense comes out of that.
It’s just that it’s been very difficult to ask the Prime Minister questions, and now I find that you’ve been on several podcasts in the last two weeks alone. What’s changed, or what’s the reason for...?
It’s not difficult to ask me things. Firstly, there are a couple of conditions for such a conversation to take place. The first is that there’s a chance for a meaningful conversation. So I’m not going to sit down in a studio for a slanging match in which we take pot shots at each other, or I don’t know, take jabs at each other. So if it’s possible to talk intelligently about important things, I’m at anyone’s disposal. And the other thing is that I don’t give interviews to hired guns: I won’t talk to people if I know that they’re being paid from abroad. I prefer to talk to the person I’m sitting opposite, like you, rather than the money man sitting behind someone. I don’t want to talk to them.
By the way, I also get money from abroad, because Google pays Ultrahang, YouTube distributes advertising revenue...
That’s performance-related pay.
Yes, absolutely, they pay you per view.
There’s performance-related pay and then there’s a salary. What you get isn’t a salary. Some of your counterparts are on a payroll.
But are stupid questions only asked by mercenaries?
No, no, there are smart mercenaries – and they’re the most dangerous. At least if the problem was only simple stupidity, then everyone could see what we’re talking about; but there are cunning, capable, adept and clever ones, and they’re the dangerous ones.
Do you know the word “meme”?
Of course. I have five children.
You know that sometimes politicians become memes. How afraid are you of becoming a meme?
I’ve never worried about it, because I know what a meme is. Sometimes my children show me one, but I don’t look for memes on an electronic gadget.
Let me ask you a more personal question. Something that’s now become a meme is related to when you were in Brussels and you were asked a question. You tried to answer it very quickly, and then speculation started as to what had happened to the Prime Minister. I’ll try to quote you verbatim: “dadadadada”. It was something like that. So what exactly happened there?
I struggle with my vocal cords. Sometimes it happens. I try to keep it to myself, as it’s no one else’s business. But I think they get worn out and so sometimes they get tight and I have to wait a little to get going. It’s hard to hide it when there are a lot of people and a lot of publicity.
You’ve been in politics for decades, and you’ve done a lot of politics, and you’ve influenced and shifted it many times. How does it feel to be a product of the digital world? Because when you’re a product, it’s no longer necessarily you who are in control, but, for example, the communications people who tell you that this might look good on TikTok, and that on Facebook, or in a podcast. Doesn’t this bother you, as if it’s a different environment or a different world?
Not so much, because I keep that under control. It’s very rare that on my own platforms something appears about me that runs counter to what I’d like. I can keep things under control there somehow. Then there’s that part of the world that I don’t know: there must be technical terms that I don’t know. So there are these Orbánoids or whatever, living lives independently of me. I’m surprised to hear that someone has seen me somewhere I’ve never been, heard something I’ve never said or had anything to do with. And when I follow up, it turns out that it’s some fake profile or whatever. That bothers me more, but I can’t measure the impact of it. So I don’t know how much damage it actually does, and consequently it doesn’t bother me.
Bearing in mind the fact that Ultrahang is primarily a foreign policy channel, I’d like to ask you first about foreign policy issues, and the Russo–Ukrainian war that’s been in progress for more than three years now. Basically, when you made statements previously, it was always, “Let’s wait until Trump is President, and then the war will end very quickly.” But it’s as if we’re seeing something different. How do you see the current situation in terms of the war between Russia and Ukraine?
We should be happy that President Trump has entered office in America. He hasn’t really been able to bring peace, and he’s been in office since January, and that’s bad. But if, say, Biden had stayed on or had been replaced by Mrs. Harris, I think we’d be in a world war – and not being in a world war is a good thing. So I think we have a reason to thank the American people and the American president. He’s a man of many things, but one thing is beyond doubt: he’s a man of peace. Maybe because he’s a Christian, maybe because he’s a businessman, it’s difficult to say exactly; but in his heart he really thinks that war is a bad thing, a pointless, bad thing, and that matters should be settled peacefully. Of course he’s thinking of what will benefit America, but perhaps that’s secondary: I maintain that in his soul, by nature, he’s a man of peace – and he’s the only one who has a chance of contributing to peace between Russia and Ukraine.
By the way, Donald Trump has talked about the fact that he’s helping Ukraine now. Because after he was on the phone with Vladimir Putin, he went home and his wife, Melania, said to him, “Yes, but Putin’s bombed another Ukrainian city.” Obviously, there are these personal factors and, as you say, deep down Trump wants to strengthen peace. How much of what you can do as a politician is for internal reasons, and what’s in the interest of the surroundings and the country?
What things combine to arrive at a decision is a difficult question, because in any decision neither the person nor the larger issue can have a value of zero. So there’s some kind of mixture. Politics is, after all, a world of reason, a world of common sense, a world of thinking things through, a world of calculating consequences, a world of responsibility, and a world of results. So the majority of decisions must be rational. At the same time, there are some rational things, dilemmas, where what helps you make a decision isn’t really reason, but the heart – and that’s where you yourself come in, where who you are as a person counts. For example, the US president favours peace and not war. In a moment of rational calculation, when he can choose between this and that, there’s a good chance that because of his personality he’ll choose peace. So the personality and the subjectivity of the decision-maker do matter, and there’s no denying that this is a key constituent; but decisions are still fundamentally based on interests, calculations, and the careful weighing of factors.
Here in this programme I sometimes bring in more spiritual things. For example, the angel of war has been unleashed, and everyone has very good intentions, everyone behaves logically according to their own interests, and the end is still chaos – and we see people dying. Even though in what they say everyone wants to put an end to this conflict, what happens is that we seem to be going further and further into escalation.
Yes, but I think someone’s lying. So it’s not that there isn’t peace but everyone wants peace. There’s a situation in which everyone says “peace”, but some people don’t want peace, and so there’s war. I think this is the situation we’re in now. Whatever they say, the Europeans and the Ukrainians obviously want the war to continue.
Why?
Perhaps it’s worth going into that. I think the President of the United States really wants peace. We know the least about what the Russians want. What we do know for sure is that they want to achieve the territorial borders that have been defined, and they want to prevent Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO or a NATO military depot, even if it means waging war: that’s something they’ll prevent, through war if necessary. I think this is how we can define the Russian position. So I think that there are those who want peace, there are those who have goals to achieve, even if it means waging war, and those who want war.
I don’t see where there can be any compromise on that. Because the goals are completely different. After a while someone would need to say that this has failed or that has failed; and it seems as if no one wants to say that.
If we want to dedicate the whole programme to this, we can go into a deep analysis of the Ukrainian–Russian war; but if not, I’d rather make an overall comment. So my view is that there will be no end to the war until the Russian and US presidents sit down and come to a Russian–American agreement, in which the Russo–Ukrainian war is an important item but not the only one, being accompanied by a number of other items: energy prices, access to Russian markets, economic sanctions, Russia’s access to US markets, technology, and arms limitations. There won’t be peace before this larger package, this larger agreement, is reached through personal negotiations between the Russian and US presidents. This is my opinion, based on analysis and also on intuition.
And can’t you help with that, for example? You know, they say that Hungary’s a small country, but it has relations with the US president and the Russian president – and as far as the outside world can see, they’re not so bad.
In terms of the position that I have to take, my position is easy, because I’m a Christian, and so peace is always better than war. With me that’s a law, and peace is what we must strive for. So that’s my personal moral conviction. And if I look at the interest of the country I’m leading, it’s in the same direction. The interest of Hungary is peace. So there’s no doubt in my mind that Hungary must remain on the side of peace. This gives rise to two tasks. The first is to not allow ourselves to be dragged into war. The European Union wants nothing more than to drag us into it, and Zelenskyy wants to drag us into it. Hungary is a dangerous example: it shows Europe that you can take a stand against war, you can take a stand for peace, and if you’re strong enough, you can stay out of the war. You don’t send men, you don’t send weapons, you don’t send anything. It’s possible. Hungary is the antithesis of everything that Europe is doing today, which is talking about peace, but actually with the interest of maintaining war. The other thing to do, which follows from this, is to work in the direction and the interest of peace wherever you can. And, when they honour us by asking for our opinion, and that of the Hungarian people, I regularly use all my contacts with both the Russian president and the American president to try to give arguments and points of view for peace.
What was the reason for Hungary taking this position from the outset: staying out of the war, and being a little more critical of the Ukrainians than, say, the Western European countries? Was it because you knew from the outset that Ukraine couldn’t win this war? Why were you so consistent from the very beginning? There are those who say that it was because Hungary is a kind of vassal of Russia, and that’s what you had to say.
Well, crude opinions can’t be banished from intelligent discussions. Some people say that, but it’s a low-level or sub-standard approach, in no way conducive to intelligent discussion. I too have thought a lot about why – in the first few days – I became so firmly convinced that Hungary must remain on the side of peace, and I’ve found some reasons for this. The first is the national interest. So it was obvious that no good could come of Hungary arming 800,000 or a million men in our neighbour Ukraine, creating an army far greater in weight and strength than Hungary’s, when God knows what it would be used for and by whom in the coming decade. That in itself is dangerous. Secondly, I’ve tried to think through what it would take for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians – for the Ukrainians to win the war on the front line. And I saw that none of the conditions for that existed: they’re outnumbered; even if the West pours money into them, they’ll always have less money; their armaments industry is decades behind that of the Russians; and ultimately the most important argument is that the Russians are a nuclear superpower – and no one anywhere has ever defeated a nuclear superpower. Now how would the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on the front line? So I saw the plan, based on the Ukrainians defeating the Russians on the front line, thus destabilising and transforming Russia – because there were such plans – and I thought it was crazy. That was the first reason. The second reason is that if we consider the historical era in which we live, it’s not the era of the Russo–Ukrainian war, but of the problem of coexistence between Christian and Muslim – or Islamic – civilisations.
Is that a bigger problem?
Yes, I think it’s of a different dimension, a higher dimension, and it’s a more important problem. To be clear, I said this: What sense is there in Christian, white Europeans killing each other in the hundreds of thousands on the Russian–Ukrainian border, on the front line, while on the other side of the continent we’re letting in millions of people from other cultures – alien to our culture, from other cultures – belonging to the Islamic world? Why is this good for Europe? Someone give me an answer to this! Isn’t this abnormal behaviour? The answer: yes, it’s abnormal. Political leaders are misjudging this historical moment. The power dynamics of the Russo–Ukrainian war and its conclusion may be more important now, but this is not the historical moment that will determine the lives of our children and grandchildren. It doesn’t revolve around that question, but around the question that’s occupied the Mediterranean world for two thousand years – I’m sorry, that’s an exaggeration, for one thousand four hundred years: the question of whether the civilisation that’s grown out of the Mediterranean – the civilisation that’s grown southwards and northwards from there – will develop in a Christian direction or an Islamic direction. And this question has been dormant for a long time, but now it’s been opened up, this question is open; processes are under way, and these processes will decide what kind of world our children and grandchildren live in. So we must put this first. This is the Hungarian approach.
However, it seems that some of the leaders of the European Union are talking about the need to arm the European Union, for example, and to be prepared – because Russia won’t stop at Ukraine, but could really attack a NATO member country or another European country. I’m very curious to know whether you see any danger – and also, do you think that those who say this are really worried? So could the Polish position or the Baltic position be different, and from that point of view could this be a realistic threat?
I don’t think so. I think they’re not telling the truth – although I say that with a caveat, which maybe I’ll come back to later. Excuse me if I’m talking in too roundabout a way, because it’s not that difficult to answer the question of whether or not the Russians will stop. You just have to respect the facts and you’ll get the answer. So at the moment Russia has about 140 million people. The European Union is 400 million, if I count the British 460 million – and I’m not even counting the States in this. So on one side you have 140 million people, and on the other side you have 460 million people – or 440 million or so. Second, I look at the money. The amount of money that Russia can mobilise in the war is a fraction of what we Westerners – even without America – can mobilise. I look at the military budgets. I look at what Russia’s military budget is, I assume that it might not be entirely accurate, so I adjust it upward a little. Then I look at the European budget, and I add it up. And our Western European budget, excluding America, is much bigger than the Russian budget. How are they going to beat us? So I don’t see any sensible reasoning at all as to why Russia would attempt to initiate a war against Western Europe that it couldn’t win, but only lose. But then why do the Baltic states and the Poles say what they say? Is it true, as I’ve said, that they’re not telling the truth? It is, I think, in the sense that there’s a fear in their minds that they don’t reveal. Because if they were to reveal that fear, then suddenly their position would become reasonable. Their fear is that, if the Russians attacked them NATO wouldn’t defend them – despite their membership of NATO. That’s their fear. And so you can see why they want to beat the Russians and get them to come to an agreement; because if you don’t believe that your allies will stand by you, even though you’re a NATO member, then of course their thinking is logical. This is my opinion.
Incidentally, is it a realistic fear that NATO won’t defend, or even isn’t willing or able to defend its individual member states?
What’s the problem? What’s wrong with this? In answer to your question I should immediately say that this is nonsense, because there’s an agreement, there’s a treaty: this whole North Atlantic military alliance is a treaty, everyone has signed it, and if one of us is attacked, the others see that as if they were attacked and must defend against it. There are clauses for that. What on earth’s wrong with this? It hasn’t been tested yet. So it’s true that there are such agreements, but they’ve never been tested. There are historical memories, however – especially up there in the Baltic states. They had agreements, not with NATO, because NATO didn’t exist at that time, but they had agreements with Western countries before the Second World War that they’d be protected. And when the Germans – and then almost immediately the Russians – attacked them, they weren’t protected. So we shouldn’t underestimate the historical experience that operates in the minds of the Baltic peoples, which can be summed up in the idea that “They’ll betray us”, or “They’ll abandon us”. And from that point of view, the fact that they’re arguing for war isn’t incomprehensible.
But it just shows the weakness of NATO.
What I’m saying is that the solution to this problem isn’t on the front line, where people are dying by the hundreds and thousands every day in a hopeless war – and where Europe is losing, or has already lost that war. Pushing this war isn’t the answer to their dilemma. The answer to their dilemma is strengthening NATO.
In the meantime Donald Trump has just given a 50-day ultimatum for peace; and if there’s no peace, he may even impose secondary tariffs on countries that do business with Russia in relation to raw materials. Hungary is also involved in this. What if that happens?
Then there’s a problem. So it follows that this must be avoided. What can be done to reach an agreement between the Russians and the Americans within 50 days must be done. I have no hope for a Russian–Ukrainian agreement; I have every hope for a Russian–American agreement.
But are these negotiations taking place? It seemed as if Trump’s clear ultimatum was that peace must be achieved within 50 days, but it also seems that the Russian and American delegations are having quite cordial talks about the Middle East and about business issues, rather than about the war between Russia and Ukraine. And the question is whether Russian imperial pride will allow the American empire to dictate what should happen.
But there’s too much speculation here. There’s one thing we can do: come back to it on Day 49.
Well, I wonder what you’ll say then. By the way, how has your position on Russia changed in recent decades? Obviously, when Hungary was transitioning from communism, the phrase “Russkies go home” was perfectly understandable; but even after that you were very critical of Russia on many occasions. Yet it seems as if that changed after your government came to power. How has this whole story unfolded?
My thinking about Russia has never changed. Russia is a historical entity, so we’re not talking about politics – that’s another matter. In relations with Russia, there are tactical changes and possibilities for movement, and a lot of things. But as far as what we think about Russia is concerned, my opinion hasn’t changed much, but perhaps my knowledge has deepened – or I can hope so, a little immodestly. So back in the days of the free universities, in the 1980s, I learned about Russia from Miklós Szabó, if anyone remembers his name – a quite outstanding historian and member of the SZDSZ. I learned about Russia from him, and I learned about what Russia is and what its essence is from László Kéri – although now he’s obviously reluctant to remember that fact. I became familiar with the debate about whether communism was an ideology that Russians served, or whether the Russian national interest could best be served through communism. So these were the kind of debates we had in Hungary in the 1970s – or rather the 1980s – in order to understand Russia by stripping away the ideological layers. So it’s about what Russia is: a militaristic nation, that has one-sixth of the world’s area – or I don’t know how huge a territory, God knows how big; that it controls 140 million people; and how much difficulty that causes, and how much the appetite of those outside Russia is whetted by the thought of taking over these territories. We knew all this from books, lectures and discussions from our university days. So nothing has changed in that respect, as it’s a historical formation. Nowadays policy on Russia is different. If you ask me when a change in strategy towards Russia occurred in Hungarian politics or in my thinking, I can tell you. Because I thought that Hungary should join NATO quickly, because Russia was weak, and if it became stronger, it wouldn’t let that happen. So NATO and the Western alliance system could only move eastwards up until the moment when the Russians felt they were strong enough to stop it.
As we’re now seeing with Ukraine.
This is why I’ve always pushed for Hungary’s membership of NATO, for example. But I didn’t even rule out Ukraine’s membership of NATO. I think it was in 2008, when there was a NATO summit in Bucharest and this was on the table. The Americans supported it, if I remember correctly, and the Germans had a dubious role there, and in the end they said “no”. And then I said that that was the end of it. So in 2008 Russia was still weak enough for it to be possible to risk offering NATO membership to Ukraine – and, for that matter, to Georgia. But the Western world wasn’t able to do that. And since it wasn’t able to do so, and since then the Russians have been getting stronger and stronger, it became clear to me that this was over: Russia wouldn’t allow, wouldn’t be in a position to allow NATO to move closer to its borders. History has proven this, because a few months later a war broke out with the Georgians, when it wasn’t clear who attacked whom.
But, by the way, back then you were still talking very strongly about Russian aggression...
Of course!
...and you very strongly condemned, for example, what Georgia...
Because it made sense. Then the Russians proved that they wouldn’t let the Western world get close to them, that they’d stop it at all costs. Well, we’re talking about aggression now, aren’t we? So what’s happening in international law is Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. So international law doesn’t leave much room for interpretation, and the situation is quite clear. The question isn’t this, but why the Russians have undertaken to commit a clear violation of international law, and how their interpretation can be that this isn’t a violation of international law, but something else. Understanding this is important. But this doesn’t change the fact that under international law Ukraine is a country that Russia has attacked. Even if we understand why they did it, it doesn’t excuse them. There isn’t even a legal explanation, but we understand that it’s a matter of the Russians saying that – international law or no international law – they won’t tolerate Western weapons within a certain distance, they won’t accept a NATO member country neighbouring them, and so on. The Ukrainians understandably say that whether they join any military alliance is a decision that they as Ukrainians will make, because they’re a sovereign country. And the Russians say “That’s not the case, my Dear Friend. You may decide, but it’s in Russia’s security interests not to allow NATO to come close to us. Therefore, even though you have sovereign rights, we’ll prevent you from joining NATO – if necessary, by carving security zones out of your body, out of Ukraine itself.” This is the ultimate cause, the root cause of the war.
And you met Putin in Saint Petersburg in 2009 for such a contact meeting…
Once it became clear to me in 2008 that NATO’s expansion from the West was over, that Russia was still standing, that Putin had reasserted Russia, and that Russia was a long-term force to be reckoned with because of its ability to prevent NATO expansion. I saw Putin at close quarters in 1999–2000, when I was Prime Minister, when he’d started to squeeze foreign investors who had got their hands on Russia’s strategic assets. Thereby, incidentally, he incurred the implacable hatred of some Americans, Soros and so on; because Putin and his circle took back a considerable part of their national resources.
Did you borrow anything from Putin, with regard to Hungary?
Not from Putin, I borrowed from Hungarian history, from Ferenc Deák – but that’s another conversation. So the Russians started this, it was doubtful whether they’d have the strength to see it through, but the NATO summit in 2008 proved that they did have the strength: that they could prevent the Ukrainians or the Georgians from becoming members of NATO. And from then on Russia had to be reckoned with as a strong, permanent, long-term – and even constantly growing – global political factor. That was the reality, I thought, the starting point for the Hungarian government. Thinking that we’d win in 2010, I went to Saint Petersburg in 2009 – and I went to Beijing on another trip, by the way, although we’re not talking about that now, but it was before the elections.
You met with Xi Jinping...
Yes, though he was still vice president at the time. I clarified Hungary’s relations with Russia and China, and made proposals on how we Hungarians could imagine cooperation and coexistence with Russia and China after 2010. I concluded agreements, which I’ve been implementing since 2010.
You know, the Prime Minister is sometimes accused of political U-turns, and people ask how a liberal politician can become a Christian Democrat, etc. Is this because of the changing world? Now here on this issue it also seems that...
Before we get too abstract – and your question will take us in that direction – let’s first look at a specific case. So in 2009, when I sat down with the Russian president in Saint Petersburg to clarify that if we won in 2010, how we’d shape Russian–Hungarian relations, we agreed – and this was my proposal – that we should put aside historical disputes: let historians and academics debate that, but let’s not make everyday Russian–Hungarian cooperation more difficult.
But that wouldn’t mean that we’d forgive ’56, or....
“Put aside” doesn’t mean “I accept your position”: it means put aside. Everyone will think what they want, but whatever we think shouldn’t play a role in our everyday, rational, political, economic cooperation. So I clarified these things with them, and in this sense we’d no longer think about ’56 or World War II and so on; but when we’d talk and make policy we’d push those issues to the back of our minds, because we had an agreement with the Russians that neither they nor we would talk about them in a way that would be a burden on our cooperation. And since then the Russian president kept to this and we kept to it; and therefore we opened the path to economic rationality, and we built up rational Russian–Hungarian economic cooperation right up to the war and the period of sanctions. This was good for the Russians, but more importantly it was very good for us – not only in the energy sector, but also in other areas. Well, that’s how it turned out. Now, if we return to your question about how the world has changed, and what’s happened to liberalism and the great European ideological systems, I’ll give you a simple – even simplistic – answer to your question: there was a great change around 1990. If we were to jump back a hundred years from 1990, we’d see a Europe in which two schools of thought were arguing about how to govern well and make countries free and happy. One position called itself liberal, the other conservative. This was the basic structure of European politics until Hitler came along. There was the emergence of totalitarian regimes – and even before Hitler, of the Russians – which denied the principles of democracy: for example the communist regime in Lenin’s Russia and later Hitler’s Germany. These became a major factor in Europe, and the intellectual structure of European political debate suddenly changed, because conservatives and liberals – as forces believing in democracy – joined forces against these new intellectual trends of totalitarianism.
But if you’d lived in that era, would you have been more of a liberal?
I can’t say now, because I wasn’t alive then, but I can say for sure that even then I’d have acted in the national interest, and I’d have put Hungary’s national interest first – far ahead of any other ideological issue, of liberalism or conservatism. Because the most important thing is the salvation of the homeland, if I can put it that way. So then that alliance was formed, and it dominated European intellectual life for a hundred years or so: liberals and conservatives in alliance, with totalitarian regimes on the other side. But that ended in 1990, because the totalitarian regimes disappeared. First Hitler’s regime disappeared, then the Soviets disappeared.
This is why in Hungary there were communists and anti-communists.
That’s right! But that structure disappeared, it suddenly became apparent it was over. And then the liberals were much quicker than the conservatives, more agile in a way – as is usually the case: they realised that it was over, and therefore they had to be creative and set the stage for the political struggle for the next twenty or thirty years. At the time they wrote very important books on this subject – I won’t quote them here, but the point is that they realised that once more the battle would be between liberals and conservatives. The order that existed in Europe before World War I and the totalitarian world is being restored. And the structure of the political debate for the next fifty years – or who knows how many decades – will again be that on the one hand there will be liberals, who meanwhile have branded themselves progressive liberals, and on the other hand there will be conservatives, Christians, nationalists. You can call them something else, but that’s the essence of it. And they set the stage for the political struggle. And by the time the conservatives woke up, they were already in trouble. I’ll give you an example. The best masterstroke the liberals ever pulled was to figure out in 1990 that all democracy can only be liberal, which is...
Because it promotes the market and the...
...it’s complete nonsense! Come on...
The basis is that freedoms enable the flow of capital and everything to be…
Yes, they’ve built up a theory, but the gist of it is that anyone who isn’t liberal, or doesn’t accept the essential elements of a liberal worldview, but is, say, a staunch conservative or Christian, is outside the pale of democracy. So they set this stage, and European politics languished in this linguistic prison for a long time until – and I’m trying to remain modest – with significant Hungarian involvement we freed European politics from this framework. And through the work of the Hungarian government, through the example of Fidesz, through the formation of the Patriots for Europe, we demonstrated that a Christian, conservative, nationally-based, democratic politics is possible. Liberals still deny this to this day, by the way.
Yes, they say that the Prime Minister is building an autocracy.
But that’s because they set the stage in 1990, and after 2010 we rearranged the entire European political stage. I’m not saying that we’ve rearranged the whole thing and now it’s the way we want it, but our approach has had a tangible impact: our approach to the whole stage, to how life and intellectual debates are organised.
I’d like to return to the question of the European Union for a moment. We’ve just had this recent news about the next EU budget and what it’s going to be like. Up until now, farmers – among others – would have received money, and now the European Union would rather spend it on defence, innovation and competitiveness development. Hungarian farmers, for example, are angry about this. From time to time people in our comments section ask how long it’s worth staying in the European Union. At such times you say that we don’t want to leave the European Union, but that Hungary and patriotic thinking seeks to reform and occupy Brussels. How do you see this now?
If I want to answer your question directly, I can tell you that there’s no clearly defined theoretical point beyond which it’s no longer worth being there. One thing I can promise the Hungarian electorate is that if I think it’s no longer worth it, I’ll tell them.
But can there be such a point?
Of course. But if there is, it’s not on the radar for the time being, so I don’t see such a point at the moment. But theoretically or intellectually...
In the comments more and more people are talking about Huxit and whatever, and asking why we’re still in it.
Yes, in an intellectual sense that point exists, and the question is valid, but in a calm, restrained debate today I can say to everyone that it’s still much more worthwhile for Hungary to be inside the European Union and to fight for internal changes than to leave it. However, since you’ve mentioned the budget, I’d like to highlight a larger context, because this budget is about Ukraine. So it’s called the European Union budget, but no, it’s actually a Ukrainian budget – because it’s based on the idea that Ukraine is part of the European Union. And therefore we have to imagine the European Union as stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Russian–Ukrainian border – the exact line of which we do not know, and which is therefore one of the reasons for the difficulties. And this budget includes Ukraine – in fact the inclusion of Ukraine is the most important thing in this budget. It’s not simply a pro-Ukraine budget, but a Ukraine budget. According to my reading of it now, between 20 and 25 per cent of all the money in this budget will automatically go to Ukraine.
Is the problem then, that the Ukrainians are getting it, and for arms?
There are two problems. The first is that 20–25 per cent of the money is going to Ukraine, and the second is that 10–11 per cent of the money is going to repay interest on loans that were taken out earlier. This means that however big the number written on the cover page, about 30–32 per cent of this budget is actually non-existent money – it’s already been distributed from there. So it’s been reduced by that much. Even though the budget looks bigger, the money that’s in it is much less than earlier. And there’s a problem with it related to Hungary: the blackmailing tools have been left in. So it seems as if it’s your money, but that’s just hypothetical, because they’ve left mechanisms and sanction systems in the budget which mean that they can take this money away from you at any time. And if you don’t support Ukraine’s membership, or if you don’t let in migrants, or if you push back on the issue of gender, then you’ll be blackmailed from Brussels, and ultimately you’ll be blackmailed financially. The budget gives them the opportunity to do this, so this is why there’s no chance in hell that I’ll vote for it as long as I’m Prime Minister; because that would mean Hungary putting its head in the guillotine.
So the Commission proposes these things, and then the leaders of the countries come along and say, “No chance”. Is that how it works? How is it possible to veto it, to change it and to come up with a good budget?
Yes. There’s an order to this. So the Commission has published what it thinks, and now a long period of negotiation with the 27 Member States will start to see who will accept what and who won’t. And then at the end they’ll aggregate the responses and they’ll see where the reconcilable differences are and where the irreconcilable differences are. The reconcilable ones will be reconciled, and for the irreconcilable ones they’ll look for new foundations, and then they’ll reshape the budget. This is where we come in and say: “Well, what you call ‘conditionality’ needs to be completely taken out as a matter of urgency, because otherwise there will be no budget.” So we won’t allow blackmailing tools to be left in the budget. But this is a long process. Hypothetically, theoretically and philosophically, it can’t be ruled out that this long process of negotiation will result in a budget that’s good for Hungary. I see the likelihood of that as being extremely small. But it can’t be ruled out. Instead, this budget paints a picture of a Union that’s falling apart.
And, of course, this is where, as a citizen, I ask – because I’m interested in the practicalities – if anything will be left of the prosperity that used to be the European Union. In 2004 I was 14 years old, and they said how good it would be. I grew up in Szombathely, and they said we’d have an Austrian standard of living. I was really looking forward to it. And that’s not quite what we got – but we’ll talk about the Hungarian aspects of that later. But is this still the same EU that it used to be? And is there any way out in terms of prosperity? Because the situation isn’t very rosy right now – and here we’re not just talking about Hungary, but about every European country.
This European Union isn’t the European Union that Hungary joined. It’s since become a different European Union...
A remnant of the Coal and Steel Community...
We joined in 2004, and the European Union of 2004 wasn’t the same as the one we’re in now. There was no talk of migration. There was no talk of having to let migrants in and Brussels forcing Member States to do so. Or of the Commission having a say in child-rearing and education, which are national competences – so in 2004 it had no authority on gender issues. Or that it would seek to force a country that opposes war into a war, using moral, legal, and other means to persuade it to join the warring parties and support a war. That didn’t even come up! The British left the European Union because by 2016 the Union had become something completely different compared to 2004 when Hungary joined. It had turned into a political union; so we joined an economic union, and now we’re in a political union. This is why the British left. So this Union isn’t the same Union: this is my first point. My second point is that there’s no chance of prosperity. So there will be no pan-European prosperity. It’s disappearing right now – evaporating, rusting away, coming to an end. Individual countries may succeed in creating prosperity for their citizens as members of the EU. Hungary is among the candidates, and we may succeed. But many countries won’t succeed.
Then perhaps I’ll turn to Hungarian issues – but I’d also place the Hungarian issue in a slightly more international context. Once, at an event organised by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, you said the following: “Around 2030 there will be all kinds of major realignments in the world, which I do not have time to talk about now, but a lot of things will happen – from America to the European Union. Around that time, around 2030, nations will all be tested, and subjected to a major stress test much greater than this pandemic.” That was still during COVID.
What were you thinking of?
Many things.
Because since then, with everything from conspiracy theories onwards, people have been trying...
It’s happening, isn’t it? So if we were to reread this calmly now – which I don’t recommend because it’s an unpolished and complicated text – well, this is what’s happening! First of all, there’s this transatlantic divide: Europe’s moving in a progressive liberal direction, while the Americans have gone in a national conservative direction. And this is reflected in geopolitics, in world politics, because Europe is pro-war, and the Americans are pro-peace. So there’s already a divide within the transatlantic community. And I don’t see this divide narrowing – instead I see it widening, with far-reaching consequences.
Allow me to add a parenthetical question. We see that, say, China and Russia have stable, predictable leadership because there are no elections, or they’re run differently. In America, there are elections every four years, and a Trump world, let’s say, is completely different from a Biden world. How much more unstable does this make the situation?
It makes it very unstable, but of course no one can predict the future. I’d venture to say that conservative governance won’t end with President Trump, because he has a highly respected vice president. And if the Republicans govern well and get the hang of power and governance – and why wouldn’t they, why wouldn’t they govern well? – then in America their next presidential candidate could win. That may or may not be the current vice president, but there’s already a sure candidate and is of high quality – and then he wouldn’t have four years, but eight. So even if there’s never the same stability as in non-democratic countries, I don’t think it’s inconceivable that in America we could be looking forward to a twelve-year conservative, nationalist period. In the Hungarian strategy I’m essentially counting on this. But let’s go back to your question: transatlantic division in security policy and military policy. In trade policy! I also thought that up to 2030 there would be no major disputes between Europe and America, and that a common economic policy based on the same ideological or intellectual approach to trade would remain in place. But that’s not what’s happening. The tariff war signals the opposite. America has developed its own economic policy, which is also directed against Europe. This will have very serious consequences in the 2030s. I’ve mentioned two things, and now I’ll mention a third. Despite most of its territory belonging to Asia, Russia has always had the spiritual ambition for its heart and soul to belong to Europe.
Putin himself says this, referring to the Christian world.
Because of Christianity, yes. Following from this, a modus vivendi should have been found between Europe, the Western Christian world, and Russia. But this didn’t happen, and now it turns out that with this war we Westerners have brought about strategic cooperation between the Russians and the Chinese. It’s also turned out that if we look at the structure of the Chinese economy and the Russian economy, they’re not competitors, but are complementing each other very well.
There’s just been an economic forum in Shanghai, where they talked about this.
This process is taking place. So what I want to say is that by 2030 the world will look very different from when I said those few sentences. We’re facing great challenges, because change is always a challenge, and in these years we must manoeuvre coolly and calmly, using all our experience.
But could a situation arise in which, as a result of bad political decisions, Europe effectively becomes an open-air museum? A backward...
That’s the situation today. So as a result of bad political decisions Europe could sink even deeper. But there’s an even more worrying possibility: as a result of bad Hungarian political decisions, Hungary could lose thirty to forty years of its future.
Now I’d like to turn to Hungarian economic issues. I once heard you say that what’s needed for a successful election is an economic upswing, with something on offer and a strong background. And now an economic upswing...
Where did you hear that from me?
You said it somewhere.
Yes, it’s right. That’s what I think.
So, I read about these three factors for success in an interview, and that’s how it sounded. And looking at the economy now, we can see that it’s bleeding from a thousand wounds, due to external forces. But in January, you were talking about a “flying start”. Compared to that, in our family, for example, my wife has five siblings: there’s a guy who works in construction, and he’s complaining; there’s one who works in HR, who’s also very worried; there’s one who works in haulage, who says that this year is a train wreck, so really bad; another works for an insurance company where work has been cut back, they work in the market, and there are problems everywhere. Is this what you meant by a flying start?
I was thinking about the flying start that we hope to see in the second half of the year. As I often say, the runway is long, and we’re talking about an entire country; so with at least ten million of us on board, it will take some time for the plane to take off. But I thought it would be easier. So when I talked at the beginning of the year about what economic prospects to expect, I thought that in the first half of the year there would be peace – or at least a ceasefire – in the Russo–Ukrainian war. I thought Trump’s actions would force both the Ukrainians and the Europeans to back down: the Ukrainians would accept that there was no point in continuing the war and would agree to a ceasefire with the Russians; while the Europeans would accept that without America it wasn’t possible to win the Ukrainian cause, so the war would have to stop. And if that happened, the sky would begin to clear over a currently foggy, murky, sluggish, boggy, gloomy, war-weary Europe, and economies would start to recover. This hasn’t happened because the Europeans have convinced the Ukrainians that, if necessary, they should even oppose the American president. And they’ve given the Ukrainians a guarantee that they can wage war and we’ll cover all their costs – the budget we’ve seen now shows that they intend to do this for many years to come. And we’ll make European taxpayers pay for this war – and they’ve shaken hands with the Ukrainians on this. This is why the war is continuing. So today the environment, mood and opportunities of the European economy and the Hungarian economy are fundamentally determined by the fact that the war is continuing. Therefore, in order for our flying start to be successful, our only interest as Hungarians must be in a ceasefire and peace – otherwise the plane won’t be able to take off.
So does this mean that the economic environment will remain difficult until there’s a ceasefire and peace?
What should be done in such a situation? This is a very important question: If you see a situation like this, how do you react to it as Prime Minister? You could say, “Look, there’s no peace, only war, these idiots are so stupid, they’re continuing the war, look at it, it’s terrible, they’re burning money, it’s a tragedy, let’s get out of here somehow.” That’s one way to go about it. But that’s not my government.
But then anyone else could do it, if external...
I find that whole way of thinking to be pitiful. So I said, “Let’s see what can be done, despite it all.” Anyway, I think that the key phrase in Hungarian politics, from a perspective of a thousand years, is “despite it all”. So let’s see what can be done anyway. And I’m doing that, or we’re doing that, because under the slogan “despite it all” we started not to improve macroeconomic indicators, but to launch very specific, targeted programmes. So, for example, if you have a small business owner in your family, I suggest you go online immediately and look up the Sándor Demján Programme, because there we’re offering four or five opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. So regardless of the fact that we’re living in times of war and sanctions, they have opportunities there. Get involved, get started, the field is yours.
But, Prime Minister, how do these few million forints help small businesses to, say, survive and operate in the long term? I, for example, am considered a small business owner, and there are a lot of struggles involved.
Of course.
Lots of taxes, burdens, and so on...
Sorry, but if someone’s a businessperson, they should be a fighter. Those who aren’t fighters shouldn’t be businesspeople, but employees; because the world of business demands a certain personality. This is why we respect businesspeople. Everyone...
But it’s precisely from the small and medium-sized business sector that I’m hearing great dissatisfaction right now – from people who used to be Fidesz supporters, but who now seem to be more critical.
This is why I say that we’ve announced the Sándor Demján Programme for them – despite the fact that the situation isn’t easy, we still announced it. For example, what I’d suggest, I don’t dare give you advice now, but there’s a programme where if you invest one forint, you get another one from the Government. Where else can you get such an offer?
Many small businesses don’t have a single forint. Of course we’re looking at it proportionally, but they’re in such a difficult situation that...
If you don’t have even a forint, then don’t develop. But if you do have a forint, and I’m sure there are many who do, we’ll give you another one so that you can develop. This is for them. But there are many other opportunities in the Sándor Demján Programme. These might not solve all the problems of small businesses, but I just want to say that we’re thinking of them and trying to create opportunities for them to stay afloat and develop – even if the economic environment is unfavourable for businesses throughout Europe. This is clearly evident in the investment data from all European countries. Or, for example, there are young people, who are always the ones who suffer in such difficult times because they have nothing to start with. So now we’re offering them a 3 per cent fixed-rate first-time home purchase opportunity, starting on 1 September. We encourage them to go ahead, look into it, find out who’s covered by the programme, and give it a try.
So let me lobby for young people here!
So what I wanted to say is that the route I’ve chosen is that even if the macroeconomic figures aren’t good, we’ll launch targeted programmes and we’ll work throughout the year. We won’t sit idly by, saying that there’s nothing we can do because the international stars are unfavourable; instead we’ll say “Yes, there are three, four, five, six opportunities, we’ve worked them out, give them a try.”
Then let me lobby on behalf of young people, because there is “Csok Plus” [Family Home Creation Allowance Plus], and now this home creation loan, and if someone really doesn’t have any money, but let’s say they want to buy a property worth 100 million forints, which is not a very large amount in Budapest, then currently the value limit for Csok Plus is 80 million forints for the purchase of a first home. Couldn’t that be raised to 100 million forints?
My colleagues are working on this...
Will they solve it? That would be good.
State Secretary Miklós Panyi’s team is working on this. What are we trying to say here? We want to tell young people that, of course, rented accommodation isn’t bad, but it’s much better to use the rent or rental fee to pay off a cheap loan for your own home. Then that money isn’t gone, but you’ve put it into your own pocket, and in the end you’ll have a home. Fixed interest rates, affordable, predictable, manageable. So I send messages and offers like this to young people. Because of course they look on the internet and watch the TV and see negative news everywhere, but they should see that there are one or two opportunities and try to seize them. We shouldn’t just sit and wait for better times to come, but try to seize the two, three, four, or five opportunities that the Government is opening up.
From the outside, I feel a bit like there’s the state, there’s Fidesz, there’s the state apparatus, and there are businesspeople – successful capitalists and oligarchs – surrounding them; and then there are us, the people. And there’s this huge gap between the two groups. Whenever you’re asked about Lőrinc Mészáros or others, you usually say that we need a national capitalist class so that the big multinationals don’t take their money out of Hungary. But is this how you imagined the national capitalist class?
I didn’t have a specific idea about it, because that’s not my job; the national capitalist class will create itself. The Government’s job is not to hinder the creation of the capital necessary for investments that are needed for a country’s economy. And if I understand this world of big capital correctly, roughly half of these people came by their capital before 2010, and half of them did so after 2010. So I don’t see much for me to do here. The opportunities are open.
There’s the point of view that your childhood friend and your family members – in other words, many people in your circle – became wealthy through government contracts after you became Prime Minister. And when you try to brush these questions aside, people always say that you’re trying to dodge responsibility. And the fact remains that people close to you have become spectacularly wealthy, while those who don’t know you may not have had the chance to get into such a position.
But that’s not true. So I’m not brushing it off – I’m saying it’s nonsense. It’s not true. So this is propaganda, well-known left-wing propaganda, and it’s not true. I was talking to someone the other day, and I looked through all my primary and secondary school classmates, and I didn’t see a single billionaire there. What nonsense is this?!
Okay, but there are some who have become billionaires, right?
I’ll say it again, I looked at my classmates and didn’t find a single one.
But is Lőrinc Mészáros, for example, a coincidence?
Obviously, it’s not a coincidence in the sense that serious, large capital assets have been created in Hungary over the past thirty years, of course.
But then, for example, with a clear conscience...
But the fact that it’s someone from Felcsút is a coincidence.
But how can you say with a clear conscience that you never said that Lőrinc Mészáros, István Tiborcz, or others should receive government contracts...
I most emphatically say the opposite. I expect three things from every business magnate and big capitalist group. My only dealings with them are that I expect these three things: no matter how much money you have, you must obey all the laws; you must always pay your taxes; and if you have money, give jobs to other people. These are my three expectations. Otherwise I don’t deal with the rich, because I don’t have anything to do with them, but with the poor and the middle class.
[Government minister] János Lázár has now told [the Hungarian weekly] Demokrata that if these people don’t start living normally – in other words, if they don’t stop flaunting their luxury lifestyles – then cooperation with them cannot be maintained. Do you agree with János Lázár’s statement?
You’d have to ask János exactly what he meant...
Well, I’ll ask him.
In general, I can say that we cannot cooperate with those who don’t comply with the three things I’ve mentioned: the laws must be obeyed; taxes must be paid; and people must be given jobs, so that others can also benefit from economic opportunities and earn a living, have jobs and security.
I ask this because many people really like Fidesz and even these long-term plans. But when they see businesspeople close to you, or when they encounter a different attitude, I see that this is why many people turn away from Fidesz.
Yes, but I don’t think it’s encounters with entrepreneurs linked to us that are the problem, but rather encounters with Hungarian capital owners in general. Let me repeat: I think about half of today’s Hungarian owners of capital come from the Left, and the other half from the Right. In this sense, there’s nothing specific that can be linked to us. Every government maintains relations with major owners of capital, because they provide jobs for people and they invest. One should never enter into business relations with big capital. It’s fine to talk about economic policy and taxation, but never about specific business matters. Politicians should not deal with business matters: they should deal with economic policy and economic development, but they should stay away from specific, profit-oriented business matters, because those will sweep them away.
Hatvanpuszta is your vacation home, hacienda or whatever, where we know there are no zebras – which you’ve managed to clarify.
Is that a real question? Do you really not know the answer?
Seriously. So, everyone says that, say, it’s in your family members’ names, but in reality, you...
My father’s...
...you’re going to move there.
I don’t wish for my father’s death. Just to be clear, first of all: he’s 85 years old, in good health, working, and it’s his.
And so you’re not planning on Hatvanpuszta...
I have my own house in Felcsút, which is about six kilometres from Hatvanpuszta. That’s where I have my own house, where I live.
So Hatvanpuszta isn’t yours, so nothing...
It belongs to my father. It’s a farm that my father built. It used to be an old state farm, and when I was a child I worked there when I wasn’t at school. It fell into disrepair, my father bought it and turned it into a farm, and it belongs to him. It was put up for auction – I don’t know, at some kind of auction.
Well, it’s something outrageously luxurious...
Yes, yes – but we’re talking about a farm.
...and which is actually yours, but in your father’s name, and you’ll inherit it, and...
Yes, yes.
...and then you can move in, and it will be very nice, and very luxurious. That’s what’s being said.
But I’m 62 years old. I have my own house in Buda, where I live with my wife, and I have a house in the country. What else do I need?
Anyway, I see that you’re not really interested in luxury things like clothes, and so you wear jeans, etc. You’re in a role, and if you weren’t Prime Minister, you wouldn’t suddenly start wearing Gucci and Boss or whatever.
Everyone is who they are. There may be people who change themselves in order to become Prime Minister, or who think that the role of Prime Minister comes with certain expectations, but that’s not me. I took on this job in 1988 when Fidesz was founded. I took it on again in 1990 when I became a Member of Parliament. This made it clear that I wouldn’t be a businessman, and so for me money and profit aren’t the most important things. Of course I have to make a living, because I have a family, but I’m not driven by how I can make as much money as possible. Instead I have a job that focuses on service, because I became a Member of Parliament. I decided this for the third time when we won the election in 1998. I’m in this world, and in the world I’m in, this is pretty much how people look. This is normal behaviour. Where I come from, in Felcsút, with the family background that I have, the life that I live is normal. There are people who come from wealthier families, there are people who come from even poorer families, and obviously their lives are different. Mine is the way it is because it’s mine.
Do you buy your own clothes, or how do you choose your different outfits?
I don’t have outfits, I have clothes.
It’s not like you have to wear this shirt with that?
;
My wife keeps a close eye on me, but she does so mainly from the perspective of, “Well, don’t wear that.”
Really? Does that happen?
Of course! Because she does my laundry and irons my clothes, of course, and she gets me ready for work in the morning. So if I don’t look the way I should, I can’t leave the kitchen or the house. And of course there are work clothes: that’s another story; there are people whose job it is to say that if there’s an international meeting or a speech to be given, then it’s a suit and tie.
Do you decide what colour tie to wear?
That’s true, but it’s basically work clothes. So let’s not mix that up, I come here in...
...in that outfit or those clothes...
...the clothes you wear when you go somewhere. When you’re at work, it’s not a question of who you are. So when today I go back to work, and the leader of the United Arab Emirates comes here, and I negotiate with him, sit down and negotiate and everything, with protocol and flags, then I’d like to be in jeans – but that’s impossible, because I have to be in work clothes.
And then you have to change clothes every day.
That’s how it will be today, of course.
And then maybe there will be a maxi-Dubai or mini-Dubai somewhere else?
That will be decided by private investors – because if I understand correctly, you’re talking about an investment by the Arab Emirates.
Yes, I’m asking...
Yes, but that was a private investment, and the state’s only involvement was that if the investor invested a certain amount, we’d guarantee transport links and everything else needed for normal human life. But now it belongs to the capital city, because the capital took over that project.
My final question is that we see opinion polls from the Right and from the Left – or the opposition. There’s one way in which both – at least the realistic ones – are similar: they show that in the Fidesz camp there are still many hidden reserves, supporters who can be mobilised. Many people, however, are now really expecting a victory for the Tisza Party and Péter Magyar. Having watched these opinion polls for decades, do you see a chance for Fidesz to win? Because right now, for the first time it feels a little bit like this isn’t so obvious.
The question is the opposite: Does anyone else have a chance of winning? That’s the real question – because Fidesz is one of the most successful – and probably the best organised and largest – political community in Europe. So we go into every election thinking that we’re the favourites. The question is whether anyone else has a chance of winning. When wouldn’t Fidesz have a chance? Let’s put the question that way instead. It wouldn’t if it didn’t deliver on its promises. So before every election – including in 2022 – I’ve had to stand up and tell people what we were committing to for the next four years. And now, four years later, I have to stand up again and report on what we’ve achieved.
Are you satisfied with that, by the way?
We’re above 90 per cent. I promised that even if Brussels ran amok and Trump didn’t win in America, but the Democrats remained in power, which fortunately didn’t happen, we wouldn’t allow Hungary to be dragged into war. And we kept Hungary out of the war. And here’s this budget we’ve talked about, and we’ll also keep out of the shadow of that. Secondly, I promised that we wouldn’t be ruined – in the way that most Western European countries have been ruined – by migration. We won’t let migrants in, and Hungary will remain a migrant-free country. There’s a migration pact that they want to force on us, but we’ve rejected it.
This is why we have to pay.
We also have to pay.
Is that still a better investment, by the way?
Go to the suburbs of Paris, take a look around, and then answer that question. I don’t have to answer it. See the reality of everyday life when a country that once saw much better days becomes a migrant country. Go there, take a look, and then in my opinion there’s no question who you’ll vote for. But I don’t want to give you any hints, because that’s your business. We’ve done the same thing on the gender issue: we promised that we’d protect our children and not allow parents to be deprived of their right to decide how to raise their children. We also promised that we’d open up opportunities for young people. A major home creation programme is just getting underway. We’ve promised pensioners that we’ll protect the purchasing power of their pensions, and even increase it. We’ve done that. At the beginning of the 2026 campaign I’ll stand before the Hungarian people with confident calm, with modest but confident calm, to say that we’ve done what we promised four years ago. And we’re ready to continue, to continue these things and to do great new things. So why should I assume that we’re not the favourites in this election? Why shouldn’t we be? It’s natural for the opposition to always have 35, 38 or 40 per cent, because we live in a democracy. Note this down: last time, in 2022, we had 52 per cent and the opposition had 38 per cent. Let’s talk about this again in six months.
My last question. You’re 62 years old now, which makes you a young politician compared to Donald Trump and his ilk. Given the various economic changes, do you think you could become an opposition politician again, or wouldn’t you do that?
I will be. There’s no question that I’ll be an opposition politician again, because now that human life expectancy is increasing – I’m 62 now, my father is 85 – I have a good chance of living another twenty-odd years. And since I’ve decided not to go into business or academia, I’ll remain in politics and public life, which is my profession. So I’ll remain a Member of Parliament in the coming period, as long as the people elect me and my party is willing to nominate me...
So you’re not planning to retire.
I imagine my future as a Member of Parliament, like Péter Boross, who’s approaching 100. There will come a moment when it becomes clear that either people don’t support me enough, or I feel that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for the work, or it turns out that there are new challenges that I can no longer respond to adequately. And then I’ll have to take a step back. I’ll still be a representative, people will listen to me – I do have experience, after all. So I imagine that I’ll remain in the world of civic politics until the end of my life.
Aren’t you burnt out yet? Because you’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve calculated that if Fidesz wins again, then you’ll be Prime Minister longer than half my life.
How wonderful!
But aren’t you burnt out?
There’s no danger of that. What is burnout? Is burnout perhaps losing intellectual excitement for your work?
Yes.
But the content of my work is constantly changing. So if I had to carve chair legs every day I’d burn out. But there’s been a war in progress for three years. This new budget that Brussels has brought in will destroy us unless we defend Hungary against it, and that’s something new. And new things are constantly coming up. So, neither in an intellectual sense nor in the world of real political decisions do I experience any monotony or boredom – which are prerequisites for burnout. The issue isn’t burnout, but strength. So, how long will it last, how long will the passion remain alive? Because, you see, it’s not just a matter of problems and the emergence of questions that need to be answered, but it’s a matter of the passion to find the answers to those questions. And for now I still have this passion for solving these crossword puzzles, if I may put it that way.
By the way, there are footballers who pull off certain feints instinctively – the kind that make you go “Wow!” – and then there are those who have learned to do that. Do you do this instinctively? Because people say that Viktor Orbán wasn’t right, but he will be right, and a lot of things have really worked out. So do you feel that you’ve learned it and know it?
You know, people shouldn’t talk about themselves. If a politician focuses too much on himself, it will cause problems.
The press will do that for you.
But not just that – it’s in any sense. So if you suddenly realise that you’re spending too much time in front of the mirror in the morning, you should quickly get away from there, because there will be trouble. And if you start watching videos of yourself, that’s trouble. So there has to be an alarm bell that goes off, because if you focus too much on yourself, you start to see the world, people, and the cause you’re supposed to be serving through yourself: you won’t be serving the cause, but the cause will become your instrument. So from early morning onwards you have to pay attention to yourself. Self-control is one of the most important political qualities, because otherwise you’ll get carried away by power, so to speak – and that must be avoided. Don’t focus too much on yourself. What was the question again?
Do you do it instinctively or did you learn it?
People generally prefer those who are naturally talented. So I’d like to belong to that group too. [András] Törőcsik didn’t learn what he performed – it just came naturally to him. And the truth is that I didn’t learn this at school either. I was lucky with my schools, because now I see that they prepared me for what I’m doing now, but I didn’t do anything to prepare myself for what I’m doing now. So when I think back to “Auntie” Teri Ritz, who taught me to read and write in elementary school in Alcsútdoboz, I’ll be grateful to her as long as I live; because the way she raised me, there were qualities there that pointed me in this direction. Once, for example, on a class trip, she had me recite [Sándor Petőfi’s patriotic poem] “Talpra magyar” on the steps of the National Museum. I was six or seven years old, and Auntie Teri Ritz knew something, because since then, a few times...
And did that moment touch you, by the way?
When?
Reciting “Talpra magyar” in front of the National Museum.
When I was seven years old?
Yes.
Of course, that’s why they put me there. Well, anyway, that’s a little story. Then I was lucky with my high school teachers – not only because they were good, but because I learned from Géza Rimele how to be a decent person, even in the most difficult times. Then I was lucky at university, because a young generation of academics arrived who wanted to teach in a completely different way to the old ones. I’ve mentioned Kéri’s name, but there was also Tamás Fellegi and István Stumpf.
Ferenc Miszlivetz.
Ferenc Miszlivetz, and, of course, György Kiss. All excellent people. So, in fact, I never studied politics, but my teachers were people like that, and I was able to be a student of people like that, from whom I learned things that I now find useful in politics. So in that sense I’m not a trained politician, but fortunately, everything I learned is useful in politics.
Prime Minister, thank you very much for being here with us.
Thank you too!
That was our interview with Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary. We’d like to thank our listeners for their attention, and as a farewell, we ask everyone who hasn’t yet done so to subscribe to our channel – including the Prime Minister, if he hasn’t done so. Please also like this video, so that it reaches everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. Have a nice day, everyone. See you again and talk to you soon!