Zsolt Törőcsik: Yesterday the European Parliament re-elected Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission. Contrary to expectations, the German politician comfortably won a majority of the votes. In a speech before the vote, she also sharply criticised the Hungarian prime minister’s peace mission. I welcome Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the studio. Good morning.
Good morning.
In the Council of Heads of State and Government you’d already opposed another five-year term for President von der Leyen. What do you expect from the President of the Commission in the next five years?
Indeed, Hungary didn’t support her, because the performance of the Commission over the last five years has been feeble. We’ve failed in the green transition, and if this continues we’ll destroy European industry. On the issue of the war, we’re not focusing on peace, but on participation in the war alongside the Ukrainians. We’ve talked a lot about migration, but they keep coming in. So I think that a five-year period should give the people of Europe much more than this. But von der Leyen isn’t our political opponent. It’s important to understand that European politics operates within a specific system, different from the one that we’re used to here at home. You see, von der Leyen is our employee – and yours also. You may not be aware of it, but now I’d like to inform you that von der Leyen is also your employee – true, through me, but that doesn’t change the point. It’s the job of the President of the Commission to implement the directions set by the prime ministers. And since she’s an employee, who’s paid from the European budget, which you pay into and the Member States therefore throw together, it’s safe to say that in this relationship her position is one of dependence. Therefore the real problem isn’t what she did or didn’t do, but that the prime ministers let her do it, or let her stop doing it. So I look for the centre of gravity of European politics in the European Council, the body of prime ministers; and that’s where I think it can be found. And the Commission has to act according to the direction that we set. I didn’t support her because we regularly set directions. On the issue of the war, say, we didn’t set a good direction because we were in the minority; but on the green transition, for example, the prime ministers set a good direction in order to make it far more reasonable. On migration, too, the prime ministers have been less courageous than they should be, but there too we set a clear direction; but compared with the direction we set, the performance has been poor. We need to find a better executive – we’re talking about a kind of secretary-general, so we should have found a better secretary-general. And then there’s another player in European politics: the European Parliament. This is a very strange formation, because although it has rights that are reminiscent of the rights of national parliaments, it isn’t the source of the confidence and support behind the bureaucracy that runs Europe; that comes from the prime ministers. It’s a complicated system, and it takes a few years to get the hang of it. So the bottom line is that von der Leyen has to do what the prime ministers say. And if we want change, some of which we’ve already achieved in the European Parliament, the next step in change is through national elections. These will be held in Austria in September, with governments in many places just existing and teetering, where there will be early elections; and now – in early autumn – there will also be state elections in Germany. So I hope that the composition of the prime ministers will change, and that through that we’ll be able to give better instructions to von der Leyen than we’ve been able to give so far, and that we prime ministers will be better at holding her to account than we have been so far. So, all in all, what I propose is that we shouldn’t regard von der Leyen as a political opponent, because one shouldn’t regard one’s own employee as an opponent – that would be absurd. The people we should regard as political opponents are those prime ministers – especially pro-war and pro-migrant prime ministers – who we believe are taking the wrong position on Europe. And of course we should regard as opponents those party leaders who are working against Hungary in the European Parliament. Here too, a German – Mr. Weber – is at the forefront: a man who’s known to hate Hungary, who’s pro-war and pro-migration; it’s with him that the Hungarian parliamentary delegation in the European Parliament will have to fight its battles. This is roughly what the map looks like. What’s just happened is the conclusion of the European elections, the conclusion of this process. In this regard I can say that from the perspective of the national forces – let’s call them sovereigntists or patriots, so from the point of view of the patriots – we’ve made a great advance. Ours is the third largest parliamentary group. Soon it will make alliances, and it will be in second place – and then we’ll see. So we’ve made progress, but we’ve not yet made a breakthrough. That may come in national elections, as it did in France. But there will be another election, where I think we can make a breakthrough. This is the additional breakthrough that’s expected in America, which could happen in November’s presidential election. I wouldn’t call this a promise, because one should only promise what one can deliver, but I still maintain my prediction, or plan, that by the end of the year we patriots in the Western world – including Europe and the United States – will be in the majority.
Even if we’re talking about yesterday, there are indeed issues of power politics and substance. If we look at the power politics issues first, what message does it send that more or less the same People’s Party/Social Democrat/Liberal alliance is behind von der Leyen that’s been behind her for the last five years – even though you yourself said when you launched the patriotic party alliance that people in twenty out of twenty-seven countries want change?
Yes. This is a problem of European politics. We should be glad that we don’t have such a problem in Hungary. The problem is that European leaders aren’t doing what the people want. People from the liberal side sometimes mock me for the number of times I say this, but it’s no coincidence that I often say that the question is what the Hungarian people want, and that it’s the job of the leaders – elected leaders – to try to implement what the Hungarian people want. In other words, if there’s a complex issue that people don’t understand at first sight, then they should be helped to understand it, to have a position on it, to be able to represent it. Then this should be reflected in government decisions, because, since we’re a democracy, this is how it should be implemented, fulfilled and played out according to these rules. I don’t think it works – or if it does it’s wrong, and can only be successful temporarily – if people think something, want something, elect leaders, and then those leaders forget why people voted for them. Then those on the Right, say, for example Mr. Weber and the European People’s Party, take it upon themselves to form an alliance with the Left – when in fact the people didn’t want him to do this, but to change the policy that he’s been pursuing together with the Left. The key to the situation – whether he’d open up to the Left or form an alliance with the Right – was in his hands, in the hands of the People’s Party. Although people all over Europe want peace instead of war, the Left is pro-war. People want migration to be stopped. The Left is pro-migration. People don’t want their families to be turned into a joke: the family bond that’s important to them – which is organised around a man, a woman and bringing up children – is mocked by all kinds of other forms of coexistence being placed on the same level. Let’s simply call it gender. And the Left is pro-gender. And I could go on. National sovereignty and national pride – these are what people want. The Left has never wanted these things – and in fact it sees them as dangerous. So we’ve received the opportunity – and we’ll continue to have the opportunity, it’s not going away, it’s here with us: the people of Europe want a different Europe and different European politics from that which the Left is offering them. From the Right there’s a clear offer, proposal, programme, vision, idea. At the core of this are the Patriots, the group which we’ve just created, which envisages a Europe of nations – proud, patriotic, family-friendly, anti-migration and pro-peace – and which is working for this. The force standing in the middle, the European People’s Party – which could have chosen to give its considerable strength to the Left or the Right – has now chosen to continue to give its strength to the Left. The consequence of this is that those who have been in the positions they’ve been in so far, because they’ve been steering Europe – in the wrong direction, by the way – have remained in those positions. This is where we are now. This will change, we have to work on it, it’s not finished. European politics is a process, because national elections bring about change again and again – and, as I said, there will be some important elections in Europe.
On the question of substance, von der Leyen has pledged continued support for Ukraine, while setting the goal of increasing European competitiveness over the next five years. What can the Commission do about the latter, when analysts say that it’s precisely the war that’s reduced Europe’s competitiveness?
Competitiveness is important, although in everyday conversation I don’t think that people look at the depth of the word. After all, competitiveness means how we live. So if we’re competitive we live well. If we’re not competitive, we live badly – given that if you’re not competitive, you can’t sell the products you produce in the world. Imagine producing in Hungary an Audi, a Mercedes, a BMW or Richter medicines and then being unable to sell them because the price you’re producing them at is one that’s undercut by your competitors, who take away your customers. This is what competitiveness means. Now in that respect we have a problem. So European competitiveness... What I’m about to say doesn’t come from me, but has the Commission’s stamp on it. It’s a statement in a document, a report on European competitiveness which a former Italian left-wing prime minister called Letta was asked to prepare. It’s called the Letta Report, and it was discussed by the European Council. There will be another report on the same subject in the near future. It will be prepared by Mr. Draghi, another former Italian prime minister, who was President of the European Central Bank. I’ve already discussed this issue with him, and I see that he’s also focusing on the problem of competitiveness. So in Europe we have to produce more cheaply, with better quality and with more modern techniques than we’ve done so far. What I’m talking about is the central theme of the work of the Hungarian Presidency, which means us. Of course there’s the war to be resolved, but what we’ve chosen as our central theme – the area where we want to achieve results – is improving European competitiveness. On 8 November we’ll be holding a Council meeting in Budapest, at which we’ll be discussing this, and there I’ll be presenting a so-called competitiveness pact. I’ve already discussed this with the French, the Italians and the Germans. There are good starting materials, such as the report I’ve just mentioned. So we’ll have a Hungarian proposal on the table that can improve the capabilities and competitiveness of the European economy, which we can adopt on 8 November, and which we hope will open a new chapter and correct the mistakes made so far. Now, how is this related to the war? Unfortunately it is related. Let’s be straight about this. So far Europe has gained nothing from this war – it’s only lost, and the money’s going to Ukraine. It’s very difficult to improve competitiveness when you’re spending a huge amount of money on a war that’s not our war, but a war between two Slavic peoples. We’re shovelling money over to one side, and we’re already at well over a hundred billion. Meanwhile less money is going to farmers, who are striking – for understandable reasons. The electric switchover – support for electric cars – has already had to be withdrawn, because the money’s going to Ukraine. The infrastructure development that’s needed – the development of roads, bridges and railways throughout Europe – isn’t being funded either, because that money’s also going to Ukraine. So it’s obvious that if the war policy continues, the amount of money that can be spent on competitiveness will be less. The European economy would also perform better if we had a peace policy, and if we got rid of the war’s budgetary shackles. This is also true for us Hungarians. For as long as there’s a time of war, there must be a war budget. If we can create peace, then a peace budget will arrive. The simplest way of thinking about this is that if we could have a peace budget for 2025, for example, which in terms of the most important points has already been prepared, it would roughly double the growth of the Hungarian economy this year. That’s how much the question of war or peace matters. This is true not only for moral reasons, to reduce the number of people struck down, killed and maimed – because I’ve dedicated myself to a peace mission out of Christian duty. This is, of course, the most important thing, because nothing is more important than human life. But there’s also the immediate fact that it’s in the interests of the Hungarian people. If there’s peace, here in Hungary at that moment we’ll find ourselves in a different economic situation, and we’ll be able to open up many more opportunities for people. Therefore, when we stand for peace and work for peace, we’re standing for Hungary and working for Hungary.
In this context, it’s interesting that yesterday von der Leyen sharply criticised the peace mission. She said that your trip to Moscow was nothing more than an “appeasement mission”. The position of the main group in the West is that there will be peace when Russia withdraws from Ukraine. And you believe that the parties should negotiate, because there will be no solution on the battlefield. If you sum up the last two, two and a half weeks, if you sum up the peace mission, how much do you see these two positions coming together?
Not at all – because von der Leyen and the European liberals are naive people. So I’m not accusing them of profiteering, and certainly not of stupidity. Of course, there are always those who win from war: when a war starts, the hawks – or the vultures – appear and circle around, and then dollar speculators, war speculators, appear and try to make money out of the war. But I’m not accusing either von der Leyen or the pro-war European leaders of being in the pockets of George Soros-style dollar speculators. There may have been examples of that, but it’s certainly not the determining factor. The determining factor is naivety. So they think that peace can be made by making the belligerents see reason. So they say, “We’ll speak to their souls. We’ll go there and tell them that what’s happening isn’t nice, and it would be better if they committed themselves to peace rather than war.” And what they expect from a peace mission, say, is that the next day there won’t be any shooting. But this is a misconception! There’s also the question of the children’s hospital. The reason we need a peace mission is that if there’s no peace mission, the war will continue to escalate, expand and intensify, and the people living there will suffer increasingly terrible losses. I’ve spoken to both sides. I’m the only one in Europe who’s spoken to both sides, and I’ve written my report informing the prime ministers that the two sides don’t want peace. So let’s not be naive! So it’s not a question of von der Leyen or someone else talking to the Russians, or someone on the other side talking to the Ukrainians, and then they’ll see that peace is better than war. Both sides believe that they can win the war. They think that time’s on their side, and that continuing the war will benefit them. And of course there will be peace talks one day, but the question is who will be at the table and with what strength. And each side hopes that in the period ahead it will gain territory, an advantage, at the expense of the other side and to its own advantage, and that this will improve its position in the peace talks that will take place who knows when. If we don’t make a move it will be one day many years from now. And meanwhile these naive Europeans are thinking that we should tell President Putin to stop bombing whatever city, or tell the Ukrainian president that of course we’ll give him weapons, but not to fire very far into Russia’s territory, because that wouldn’t be right. This isn’t the way to do it. So the reality is strength. War is a question of strength. And if the warring parties don’t want peace, then the question is whether the world’s great power centres are willing to act together for peace. It’s not about speaking to the souls of the warring sides, but telling them that the whole world wants peace, because this war is bad for everyone: mostly for those who are near, but also bad for those who are far away, and this is why the European and world powers expect peace negotiations to begin. I’m not saying that they must be forced, because that’s not the right word; but they must be led, they must be made to understand that the whole world expects – it doesn’t request or beg, but asks for perceptiveness and expects – and will use strength to ensure that there are peace negotiations. There are three such players: the Chinese, the Americans, and us, the European Union. If these three centres of power speak the same language and agree that there must be peace, then we can bring the belligerents to the negotiating table and enact a ceasefire. The Chinese, incidentally, are pro-peace. The Americans are now switching over: we currently have a pro-war president, and if President Trump comes in he’ll be a pro-peace president. That’s two out of three. All that’s needed now is us, the European Union. We’re the closest, because we’re talking about a European conflict. This conflict isn’t in America or China, but in Europe. So if the European Union could see that it shouldn’t support the war, but help the parties to the negotiating table, then that’s three out of three. And if three out of three say that the world expects a ceasefire and peace negotiations, then that’s what will happen. That’s the solution! So we don’t need to talk to the souls of the warring parties, but we need strength, we need serious strength to back peace. This is the difference between naive Europeans – who have been living in this prosperity, peace and whatever for God knows how many decades – and Central Europeans, who haven’t lived in peace, but who have been under occupation, who know the Soviet Union, who know the Russians, who know the Ukrainians. We, who know them well, and who know exactly how war works when the two of them are at war. Therefore I believe that today Central Europe – and thus the Hungarian Presidency – has a specific additional responsibility, in addition to what I believe is also a Christian duty, which we are fulfilling. If God gives you the means to stop something bad and serve something good, then it’s your duty to do so. The Hungarian Presidency is like that, and this is why I’m on a peace mission: I am, and I will continue to be.
You’ve written this in a letter to the leaders of the European Union and to the heads of state and government. What reactions have you received to this? Because, in it, you’ve proposed, for example, the creation of an independent foreign policy, a foreign policy different from that of the United States. But obviously this requires both willingness and, as you’ve said, strength.
And insight. So what I say to all the European leaders – and I was in talks with several of them yesterday, as yesterday there was a meeting of European leaders called the European Political Community, somewhere in England – is this: China is pro-peace; there will be change in America. In America there’s an election in November. Until then, everyone’s on the campaign trail. The Americans aren’t going to do anything, because for the next three months they’re not in that position; but after that there will be a whole new American policy, which will be pro-peace. This is what’s being talked about by presidential candidate Trump, the former and prospective president, the survivor president, the president on trial, the president they wanted to push off the democratic stage – I don’t know how many titles the poor guy has. So he’s quite clear about what he’s going to do. He talks about peace. Why do we want to miss out on this? This will also change the situation for Europeans. So we Europeans have to think ahead. The European football championship has just ended. I always say that when they’re playing football the kids in the yard are in a bunch, because everyone’s running to where the ball is. When the pros play, no one goes to where the ball is, but everyone goes to where the ball will be. And this is also the essence of politics. We need to know where the epicentre of events will be, where the centre will be. And, because of the Chinese and the Americans, we’re well aware of the fact that after November there will be a political era weighted towards peace. And we’re staying out of it, instead of seeing where the ball is and positioning ourselves accordingly. Because we, our continent, as the European Union, could be the world power advocating peace more strongly than anyone. That could be our task! But as our ladies and gentlemen have dug themselves neck-deep into frontline trenches, it’s difficult for them to climb out and promote a negotiated peace policy instead of a trench war policy. This is their problem. This will take time. But the essence of the peace mission is perseverance. It’s not a matter of going out, preaching a couple of sermons, and seeing peace arrive with everyone coming to their senses. It’s a matter of methodical work: it has to be done continuously, systematically, every day. Every day I talk to someone about some possibility, some detail, some new initiatives. And this is what has to be done, throughout this whole six months, until there’s a ceasefire. The operative word is perseverance. And Europe will turn; it’s just very difficult to get out of the trenches that they’re in now and turn the situation around. But one thing’s for sure: it will all turn around – by the day of the US presidential election at the latest. It will just be better if it’s not a panicky, hasty turnaround, but a well-considered process of moving from a pro-war policy to a pro-peace European policy. That would be in everyone’s interest.
You’ve said that the peace mission will continue, and that you’re in continuous discussions on this. Can you tell us what the next step is?
I always inform the public afterwards. This isn’t excessive caution, but well-founded caution. As there are so many opponents of this peace mission, if it’s possible to find out in advance what the next step will be, many people will do everything they can to ensure that it can’t be taken. This is why I always do something first and then talk about it, so I’ll be happy to answer your question later.
It’s interesting that you’ve mentioned the opponents of the peace mission, because there was a very strong reaction, both from the Commission and the European Parliament; and we saw that a few days after your meeting with Donald Trump there was an assassination attempt on him. The motives for that are still unknown, but it happened almost two months to the day after the assassination attempt on Fico. What’s the reason for this animus against pro-peace politics and politicians?
First of all let’s note that the number of attacks, the number of dramatic attacks that grab the world’s attention, is increasing. Secondly, all the attacks are being carried out against anti-war, pro-peace politicians. So the forces of war are in such a state of agitation, tension, incitement and organisation that they’re trying to sweep the pro-peace forces off the stage, or from the centre of political life. Indeed, I spoke to President Trump two days before the assassination attempt, when we talked for more than two hours. The President is in good shape, I can report that he’s ready to fight – and perhaps you could see that from the way he survived the assassination attempt. Thank God that He didn’t let them kill him. This means, I hope, that God has a plan for the President – and in a time of war like this what else could God’s plan be but for someone to bring peace? And he was a president of peace. But I also talked with him about economic issues, because we have a very good relationship with the team behind the US President, who are writing the economic programme and the foreign policy programme for him. We’ve had a very good relationship with them for a long time, and I’d say that we’re involved in the writing of this programme. There are some issues – family policy, stopping migration – on which we have quite a lot of authority. But I also talked to the President about economic issues, for example, and there were some points in his programme that I’d be happy to bring to Hungary next year. There are small things and big things – of course you can’t know exactly what’s small and what’s big in the economy; but it’s very remarkable, for example, that tipping in America won’t be taxed if President Trump wins. Here in Hungary I see no need to tax tipping. So I very much hope that we’ll also get good impulses from President Trump’s economic programme. There, too, the focus is on competitiveness, the focus is on industrial development, the focus is on the idea of “making the economy strong”. I think that not only are we giving them successful recipes that have already been tried and tested at home, but we’ll also be receiving ideas from them, and we’re constantly receiving ideas from them; for example, this proposal of “no tax on tips” is one of them, but there will be more – I’ve found several of them in their programme, and I’ve discussed these in detail with the President. We’re strongly rooting for his success. And after a long time, a very long four years, which hasn’t felt like four years, but almost like forty, there can finally be a pro-Hungarian President of the United States again. It’s about time we had some real luck.
We don’t have much time, but let’s talk about something awful that happened in recent days. This week there’s been extensive media coverage of the incident of physical abuse against a child at an adventure park in Szolnok. What was your reaction to what we’ve seen? It was shocking, the images were shocking. Who should do what to prevent similar incidents from happening again?
This is intolerable, and must come with consequences. Do you have children?
Yes, two.
And what do you arrange for them in the summer?
They’re still little, so we’re trying to manage with the grandparents, but later, yes, summer camp...
I can say that you’ll send them to summer camp. I have five children, now grown up, of course, and I always sent them to camp. There’s no need to overcomplicate things. It’s a simple matter. When I give my child to a camp, I know who’s organising that camp. And whoever I give my child to and whoever organises the camp is responsible for my child: they take care of them, they keep them in order, they make sure they’re safe and sound and that they make good use of their time. And there must be no question of anyone in the camp hurting my child – an adult, because children among children is another story. So that simply must not happen. This is a clear question of responsibility. Whoever runs the camp has a responsibility to the children’s parents. And the Government’s job is to make sure that people who cannot meet that responsibility – and they clearly haven’t met it here – don’t run camps; because we do not want to and cannot entrust our children to people like that. This is something that must be enforced.
I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about the re-election of the President of the European Commission, the peace mission, and the incident of child abuse in an adventure park in Szolnok.