Zsolt Törőcsik: Viktor Orbán’s peace mission continued in the Vatican, where the Hungarian prime minister conferred with Pope Francis on the possibilities for peace. One of the topics on which I’ll be asking questions of our studio guest, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, will be the potential results of Wednesday’s visit. Good morning.
Good morning. The term “conferred” is perhaps inaccurate, because one cannot confer with the Holy Father. The official wording is that he receives the world’s heads of state in audience; this is the exact wording. There’s no equality, which the word “confer” would presuppose. This is different, because the leaders of states meet with the spiritual leader of the Christian world, as I did – what’s more, now in the season of Advent, which adds to the spiritual power and character of such a meeting. Meanwhile here we sit, living in the shadow of war; and I see that at the centre of the thinking of Vatican diplomacy, now including the Holy Father, at the centre of their thinking – at the centre of their thinking about the world – is the question of war and peace. So I went to the best place for confirmation of this.
How strong an ally is the Vatican – or how strong an ally can it be – in the struggle for peace?
There’s an alliance between Hungary and the Vatican that has existed for more than a thousand years; perhaps that’s how I can put it. Hungary has always been able to rely on the Catholic Church, but not always on the Vatican; and we can remember the battles in defence of our homeland when help sometimes came and sometimes not – but certainly always in a spiritual sense. And now too, after a conversation or an audience with the Holy Father, I met with the state leaders, because the Vatican is also a state, it has leaders, and the Holy Father is above them: he has a prime minister and a foreign minister, like all states, and you can negotiate with them. So there was a real discussion, partly on international affairs and partly on bilateral relations between the Vatican and Hungary, in which we received the reassuring confirmation that Hungary can continue to count on the Catholic Church and its headquarters in Rome, not only in matters of peace, but also in all matters in which the Catholic Church can help: caring for the poor, the elderly and the sick, and educating young people. And here we have excellent cooperation which goes back a long time; because after the fall of communism an interstate agreement was concluded between the Vatican and Hungary, which settled the situation of the Catholic Church in Hungary. And at that time we settled the situation of the Protestant churches in a similar way. This is how the situation that we have today came about – a situation in which we can all be grateful to our historic churches, who bear an extremely heavy burden in the collective life of the Hungarian nation.
If we come back to the Russo-Ukrainian war, we can now see a duality. This is because there’s ever more talk about peace, whether from the Ukrainian president, the Kremlin or future American leaders. But meanwhile the West is stepping up arms deliveries to Kyiv/Kiev, and the new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the German foreign minister are talking about the possibility of European troops, peacekeepers, being deployed in Ukraine. What’s the reason for this duality, and what can diplomacy – diplomacy that seeks peace – do about it?
This is a rare situation, because there are two US presidents. And in this war being fought in Ukraine, America is one of the main players. This war wouldn’t exist without America. Without America this war would have ended a long time ago. Without America, without America’s involvement, Ukraine would not be able to resist. Since the Second World War the American presence in European security has been an inescapable fact. So when we think of America, which is our ally, we have to think of them as playing an indispensable role in the European security system. If they were to suddenly pack up and go home across the pond, which is an option that’s always open to them, to drop everything and leave Europe overnight, so to speak, there would immediately be a security vacuum here. Now, of course, we’re talking about war, because that’s what’s so heart-rending. We’re distressed by the many hundreds of thousands of victims, the widows, the orphans, by everything that comes with the war and will come after the war. This is even when those suffering aren’t we Hungarians, but mainly people from the Ukrainian ethnic group – even though the people of Transcarpathia are indeed affected. War in general is terrible, but here at our borders, in a neighbouring country, it is doubly so. It is close by, and the breath of death and destruction reaches us here in Hungary, and descends on the land. We too want to be free of this. But when this war is over in one way or another, it won’t simply be a ceasefire – although that will have to be the start; it will be a settlement of the security situation in Europe. Russia has changed, having become very strong in this war; Ukraine has also changed, having become very weak. It’s turned out that militarily Europe is very weak, and we don’t even have the equipment and ammunition that would be needed for a conflict with the Russians. We don’t have the money to go to war, and so all the signs of European weakness are there. Consequently, after the war we’ll have to think about a wholesale European reorganisation which will guarantee the security of the European countries, and which will also define America’s place in this European security system. This will be a complex and protracted series of negotiations; it’s still ahead of us, and will be a task for the next year or two. For the moment we need to focus not on the peace conference ahead, but on the ceasefire. What you’re saying is that, in the meantime, having two US presidents – one pro-war and one pro-peace – is causing confusion. So everyone knows that President Trump is on his way, and he’ll make attempts to create peace. And, to be frank, here we have an incumbent US President who’s supported by Soros’s people, by international power groups like that of George Soros, who wants to increase the scale of the war and increase support for it. And there are also things happening here that we shouldn’t ignore, because one day they could affect us. Speaking from a position of safety and comfort on the other side of the ocean, the US Secretary of State is saying that it’s time for the Ukrainians to lower the age of conscription. Now it’s 25, I think they started at 27, and now the lower age is 25. And he’s calling for it to be brought down to 18 – in other words, for more young Ukrainians to die. And I have to say that to state this brazenly in the face of the world from over there shows that it was high time for a change in America, because this is beyond the pale. So the Ukrainians, those poor people, are trapped, they’re in a difficult situation. I think they bet on the wrong horse: they chose the wrong strategy sometime around April 2022, when they had the opportunity to conclude a peace agreement or a ceasefire agreement with the Russians. They didn’t do that because of pressure from the Anglo-Saxons, and since then they’ve been dragged down by the vortex of war, from which they’re finding it very difficult to escape. And meanwhile they’re getting such good advice from their friends in America. So the whole situation is absurd. But ultimately at the root of it all is the fact that there are two US presidents. This period will last until 20 January, when one leaves and the other officially comes in. It’s then that I think things will be smoothed out, simplified, made manageable; but until then there will be this overall sense in international affairs of “We’re close to peace, but at the same time in a difficult, dangerous situation.”
In addition to the Russo–Ukrainian war, there’s another issue on which there’s a difference of opinion between Hungary and the European or Western mainstream: migration. Earlier this week the Fidesz executive committee heard a report from their MEPs. How do you see the scale of the conflict between Budapest and Brussels over migration?
The day before yesterday I met not only the Holy Father and not only the Vatican’s diplomatic leaders, but also the Italian prime minister. And our main topic was migration. Of course we talked about war and peace, but also migration. On this, the Italians are on the same page as us. Both the new conservative Italian government and the Hungarian government are firmly and vigorously opposed to all forms of migration, and want to halt Brussels’ policy and change it. But we need to put this migration problem in a wider context, because this week important things have happened in the diplomatic capital of Europe, in Brussels. A coalition government has been formed there, and this will have direct consequences for Hungary. An agreement has been reached between the Liberals, the Socialists and the People’s Party, the community of which Fidesz used to be a member; but then they moved to the left and we stayed put. We parted ways with them, and this is how we founded the Patriots for Europe Group, whose representatives are here in Budapest this weekend. But the fact that the three parties, the three left-wing parties – the People’s Party, the Liberals and the Socialists – have reached an agreement, a written agreement, has created a coalition government in Brussels and a government in Brussels. This is called the Commission. Now we are the opposition to this. So we’re the opposition to Brussels. The government that’s now been formed in Brussels is pro-migration, pro-gender, pro-war, and its economic policy is also bad for Hungary. We therefore have no choice but to work as the opposition to Brussels. This coalition government in Brussels wants to impose its will on us on all issues: on family protection, child protection, migration, the economy and the war. This is why we must resist Brussels, until we can form the majority in Brussels. Because this is what we’re working on, and this is why the Patriots are coming here this weekend: working on replacing the current government coalition, replacing the one in Brussels, and creating a new majority – one that’s against migration, one that protects families and children, one that’s pro-peace and not pro-war, and one that finally brings order to the economy. Because if things continue in this way, this Commission will kill the European economy – particularly with its policy of high energy prices. So we need to build a new majority in Brussels. We’re working on this with the Italian prime minister, because they’re also in the opposition in Brussels. This will take time, but we’re moving forward, and we’re getting stronger. If I add together the two European groups that aren’t part of that coalition, the Patriots and the European Conservatives [ECR], or if I look at them as a whole, they’re already larger than the Socialist group, the second strongest group or alliance in the European Parliament. And I’m sure that, since the current government in Brussels is doomed to fail, the number of MEPs who will join us will increase, and we’ll have a majority in Brussels in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile we see that the political forces on various sides are increasingly antagonistic, at least at the level of words. Manfred Weber, the President of the People’s Party, recently spoke of you not as an opponent but as an enemy; but we’ve also seen images here at home that suggest that the disputes between the political sides are becoming increasingly coarse. What do you think is the reason for this, and what are the implications for the future?
There are two ways of looking at this: from a political viewpoint and from a human viewpoint. Politically, the situation is clear: there’s a government majority in Brussels, and there’s an opposition to it; the Hungarian governing parties of today – Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party – are part of this opposition, and in Brussels they’re working, as usual, to ensure that Hungary has a government that will implement Brussels’ policies. They want to align us Hungarians with the Brussels government, but this is contrary to Hungary’s interests, and we won’t go over to that side. If fine words don’t work, we’ll engage in political struggle. And the effect of this has been that both Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber see Hungary not as a partner, nor even as an opponent, but as an enemy. They’ve made their decision: they want a change of government in Hungary – which is something they achieved in Poland and a few other places. They’ve nominated the party, and in Brussels they’ve slammed their demands down on the table. They’ve told us that there’s a new party, this Tisza Party, and that it has a leader that they want to see in government in Budapest. Now this battle is taking place, and this is the political side of the whole phenomenon. And, of course, it’s always the challenger who chooses the weapon. And the Tisza Party in Hungary has chosen a new, aggressive, style, which I find distasteful, but which may be impressive to others; they’ve chosen a style which isn’t characterised by argument, but by aggression. But politics is a world in which you can do anything you like, but you can’t expect the other side to accept it. There’s a struggle here, and whoever sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. Or, as I’d say here in Advent, all who draw the sword shall perish by the sword. We all know people at work or in the family who have this aggressive style; they’re appalling people who are impossible to reason with, and the only thing you can do is to stop them. Now in politics this seems to be the job of spokespeople. And I see that this week, while we were with the Holy Father and we were negotiating in Rome, our spokesman Tamás Menczer confronted this abhorrent, aggressive politics and its representative, and stopped him in his tracks. He did the right thing. We’ll see where it all develops. The only thing I can say is that what goes around comes around – which is one of the rules of politics. No one’s happy about it. We all want calm, we all want respect, we all want a humane style, we all want cooperation in general. Even if there’s competition in politics, in the end there must be some kind of cooperation that comes out of it, that benefits the country and serves the interests of the people. But the conditions for this aren’t not always given: when Brussels tries to impose its proxies on us, we will, of course, kick back at them. Brussels cannot decide what kind of government we have in Hungary, it cannot impose Brussels policies on us that are bad for us, and expect us to accept this. We shall not accept it: we shall stand up for ourselves and we shall fight for Hungary’s sovereignty and for the interests of the Hungarian people.
There’s often an economic dimension to these debates – for example the debate about EU funds and the withholding of EU funds. But if we look at the facts, we also see that the two countries with the largest economies in the EU currently have no governments. How much room for manoeuvre do these factors and these debates give Hungary to implement, for example, an independent economic policy – which is the goal for next year?
Indeed, the situation is that the French government in Paris failed yesterday or the day before yesterday, and the German government also failed a week or two ago. So the two biggest economies in Europe are now without governments. In France the situation is a little better. To put it more precisely, there’s a caretaker government – and, as everyone knows, it’s not worth making lasting agreements with caretaker governments. But in France the situation is simpler, or better, in that there’s a President of the Republic, elected by the people, and he still holds the highest office. Germany is a more difficult situation. Now, as far as the money’s concerned, I’m always amazed at the way in which Hungarian public debates are characterised by the fact that the participants speak with complete confidence, without knowing what the facts are. This is made clear by the fact that they talk nonsense, and a debate revolves around absurdities which have no basis in fact. This is the case with EU money. So first of all, Hungary has more than 12 billion euros in its account. This money is available to us. We can draw it into the Hungarian economy. And it’s up to us to decide the pace at which we do this. To be more precise, it’s not up to the Government, because it’s not something that needs to be drawn down; but instead there are certain things – projects, investments, developments – that businesses need to do in Hungary, for which they submit the bill to the Hungarian government, this is then sent to Brussels, and they pay us out of this 12.5 billion euros. One needs to think of the 12.5 billion euros as meeting the needs of the Hungarian economy until the end of 2026. We’ll also receive additional money, and the question of whether or not this comes will be a problem for after 2026. My view is that we’ll receive it as a matter of course. We’ll get it because negotiations have begun on the budget for the seven years following 2027, which needs unanimity for its adoption. And what I can say for sure is that the money that we don’t get in 2025–26 will have to be received by us in 2027–28, otherwise there will be no budget for the Union: I won’t agree to one. So one shouldn’t worry about EU money. Of course it’s irritating that they’re creating problems, that they’re testing us, that they’re withholding it; so there’s a lot of this kind of irritation, but in essence there’s no doubt that these funds will arrive in the Hungarian economy. This is our task, the Government’s task and the task of foreign policy, and we’ll take care of it, just as for these the resources available now. Even 12 to 15 per cent of the teachers’ pay rise is essentially made up of funds from Brussels. Of course we have to add the other 85 per cent, but it helps that we can draw 15 per cent of the wages from there into the Hungarian economy and into the Hungarian education system. This happens every month, and this is how it happens. In addition to Hungarian money, the other question is what will happen to the European economy. This is a more difficult question, because the European economy is falling apart. The reason is that in recent years Brussels has been pursuing unsound economic policy. This is mainly because their decisions have led to an increase in energy prices. Families are still just about surviving this, but in the West it’s more difficult than it is in Hungary: we have energy price protection for families, whereas in the West they don’t. The Poles are also trying something similar to the Hungarian system. So we can still protect our families, but we can no longer protect our businesses. The high energy prices that Brussels is imposing are affecting the lives of Hungarian businesses: they’re damaging their competitiveness, reducing their profits, causing difficulties, and restricting their markets. So they’re causing them a lot of trouble. The question is this: When and how can we get Brussels to change its economic policy, so that energy prices finally return to a tolerable level? This is what the Hungarian Presidency has been working on in this semester, and this is why we’ve created the Competitiveness Pact. The Member States agreed what needed to be done, and in the next six months Brussels should implement it. We’ll see if we can force results out of them. This will no longer be Hungary’s task, because our Presidency ends on 1 January, when the Poles will be coming in. But knowing the Poles, seeing their problems and difficulties, they’ll be working along the same lines. So we have to force the Brussels government – which we oppose – to change its economic policy. This will be the great battle of the next six months.
Speaking of the competitiveness of Hungarian businesses, in the past two days two announcements have been made regarding the details of the Sándor Demján Programme. How can this help business competitiveness and ultimately boost the Hungarian economy?
Yesterday I wasn’t only in Rome, but also here in Hungary to meet some of the major players in the German economy. They weren’t happy, as they’re facing huge difficulties. In the past ten years or so this is the first time that I’ve seen something that I last saw sometime in the early 2000s: factories closing down in Germany – and not one or two, but many. So now we need to really appreciate the investments that are being made in Hungary, which the Left in this country often condescendingly refers to as assembly plants. These are factories, car factories. They must be highly valued, because today the Germans who work in such factories in Germany have to worry every day about whether they’ll still have their jobs tomorrow. And we need to create a competitive environment – which we’ve been able to do so far – which prevents factories operating in Hungary from closing down. Let’s imagine that, because of the difficulties in the German economy, Audi in Győr or Mercedes in Kecskemét, for example, were to suddenly close down. So whole regions are sinking into a state of hopelessness. These are extremely valuable factories, production sites and investments, and we have every interest in saving them – regardless of the fact that industry in Germany is clearly in serious trouble. We now have agreements with these companies, which I discussed yesterday. And not only are they not closing these factories, but they’re going to develop them; BMW is also building its factory now, because it sees that Germany’s in trouble, but the Hungarian economic environment is more favourable to them, and they can better safeguard their jobs here. So in my opinion we’ll be fine if Hungary manoeuvres skilfully and maintains its policy of economic neutrality – in other words if in economic terms it not only looks to Brussels but also to Washington, and if it also considers Beijing to be important, if Hungary also considers the Chinese and American markets to be important, not just the European market, and if we find the right balance and an economic policy that’s in line with economic neutrality. Part of this is the Sándor Demján Programme, which I can say is the first programme to support Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises in Hungary. This is despite the fact that earlier we were the first to introduce something similar: I remember I was Prime Minister in the early 2000s, when György Matolcsy and I devised and introduced the Széchenyi Plan. But that was on a much smaller scale than what we’re doing now. One needs to think of Hungary as having about 900,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, employing two-thirds of all workers. So the key issue is that small and medium-sized enterprises must also be in good shape; because it’s one thing to keep the large Western investments and factories alive, but small and medium-sized enterprises must be developed – and the Sándor Demján Programme provides the opportunity to do this. Of course the Government doesn’t have the capacity to develop small and medium-sized enterprises – that’s what the Chamber of Commerce is for, not the Government. The Ministry isn’t an economic development centre: it can make decisions, and in fortunate circumstances it can create good rules and favourable conditions, but running such a programme isn’t a ministerial task. This is why it’s very important that yesterday or the day before we were able to reach an agreement with the board of the newly elected Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to which we’ll run this programme through them. I’d also say that the business community itself will organise this, and we’ll provide the resources and the rules.
We don’t have much time left, but let’s talk about one more issue, because the Romanian parliamentary elections have been held, and the RMDSZ [Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania] has achieved one of the best results in its history. But at the same time, on the other side of the ledger there’s the fact that the extremist parties have become very strong. What opportunities and threats does the next period present to Hungarians in Transylvania?
I think that the success of the RMDSZ in Transylvania will strengthen us Hungarians living here in inner or reduced Hungary, because after all we’re a serious nation. The measure of a nation’s seriousness is its ability to recognise danger. And if it recognises danger, then it can act. And in Romania now a dangerous situation has arisen, as the President of the RMDSZ has said. The Hungarian community is bound together intellectually and politically, a community with a state-building tradition, which is able to recognise this danger. It identifies it and is able to take joint action, to act together to avert the danger. It’s a great thing that there’s a part of the Hungarian nation that has done this without fault. There’s one thing we can do: we’re trying to establish friendly relations with Romania so that more moderate policy for the Hungarians living there will prevail. Therefore I believe that it’s highly significant – and perhaps we don’t see this as clearly today as we will tomorrow – that it was during Hungary’s Presidency that we managed to arrange for Romania to join the Schengen area, and for the Romanian–Hungarian border to disappear. This is particularly important for the people living there, it’s extremely beneficial for economic life, and of course it’s also in the interest of the Romanians. No one in recent times had been able to get this done for Bulgaria and Romania. There was only inertia and stalemate. As far as I can see, we’ve managed to resolve it; the final decision is still ahead of us, but we’ve reached an agreement with everyone, and I think that it’s a great gesture from Hungary towards Romania that the Hungarian Presidency is in a position to push for Romania’s Schengen membership. Whatever president is elected at the weekend, I hope that this will be a good starting point.
I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán questions on topics including the chances for peace, EU discussions and the economic outlook.