Zsolt Törőcsik: Yesterday the EU heads of state and government held their last meeting of the year, at which they discussed the war in Ukraine and assessed the six-month Hungarian Presidency. This is why we’re talking to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán here at the Public Media Centre in Brussels. Good morning to you and to our listeners.
Good morning.
The first part of the summit was also attended by Ukrainian president Zelenskyy, who this week sent you a rather bluntly-worded message, following your suggestion of a Christmas ceasefire. After yesterday, what are the chances of this ceasefire becoming a reality?
One mustn’t react to any kind of provocation. In times of war, the most important thing is strategic calm. And it must also be understood that sometimes angry things are said by the leader of a country in distress, with foreign troops on its territory who have occupied around 18–20 per cent of that territory, a country that has lost millions of people who have emigrated, a country in which hundreds of thousands of people have died, with injured, wounded, widows and orphans everywhere, the energy infrastructure of which has been devastated, and the future survival of which is impossible to see. In the light of this I think we need to be generous. Now, as far as peace is concerned, I’ve run a final lap at the end of our six-month European Presidency. This is what we started with, in the first round, calling it the peace mission; and now here, at the end, I’ve visited the new US president-elect, I’ve spoken at length with the President of Russia, and I’ve personally negotiated with the President of Türkiye. Türkiye has a key role to play in peace, because so far they’ve been the only successful mediator. So the only area in which it’s been possible to make peace, in which they’ve been able to reach an agreement, is in the import of grain from war-torn areas; and this was arranged by Türkiye and the Turkish president himself, which I think is a great achievement. And I see both sides looking at the Turks as people they’re also willing to work with on peace. So I’ve run one final lap, because we’re working to ensure that, even if there’s no major, comprehensive peace this year, even if the parties aren’t prepared to agree to a longer and more lasting ceasefire, then at least we get as much out of this situation as we can, and at least have a Christmas ceasefire. This isn’t a far-fetched idea, given that even in the bloodiest war, the First World War, the opposing sides were able to agree that at Christmas no one should die on the front line for at least a few days. This is why I’m trying to arrange for a ceasefire for a few days and a large-scale exchange of prisoners on the Orthodox Christmas Day, which doesn’t coincide with our Christmas Day. Something like seven, eight or nine hundred – or maybe a thousand – prisoners of war could be exchanged; and then, in addition to a few thousand people not dying, there wouldn’t be any more widows and orphans at Christmas, and a few hundred men could go home to their families. Since here we’re talking about only two or three days, the strategic objections to a ceasefire – namely that the opposing side will regroup during a ceasefire and this will be to its advantage – are therefore redundant. We’re talking about two or three days. The real question is whether, in the obviously inhumane conditions of a very brutal war, the leaders are already thinking about peace; because sooner or later there will have to be an agreement, and peace will have to be made. And I think that the point of a Christmas ceasefire would be to show that it’s not hopeless to have a short-term peace and ceasefire in Europe. Because if it can be established for a few days, in accordance with European Christian traditions, then it can also be concluded after Christmas, as a result of longer negotiations. So that’s what I’m working on. I’ve managed to get the Russian president to consider it. When I went on the first round of the peace mission there was no receptiveness on either side. Now at least there has been from one side. I think the Ukrainians reacted rather instinctively. If they sit down and think about the proposal, they could easily change their position. I think it would be in their interest to do so.
Yes, you know, Zelenskyy said in his press conference yesterday that he thought it would only make sense to talk about a ceasefire if they knew what was going to happen afterwards. But he also recognised that the key is at least partly in the hands of Donald Trump. But is there an answer to what happens afterwards, and indeed how difficult it will be for the new US President to make peace after his inauguration?
I too hear a lot of speculation about what will happen after the new president is inaugurated. That will happen on 20 January. I’m a cautiously bullish person, so all I see now is that there’s still a month to go before the new president takes office. And I suggest that we pray that in this one month nothing happens to the new US president and that he can take office. And then we’ll see everything else.
The European aspect of this situation is interesting, isn’t it? We see that in European public discourse there’s ever more talk of peace; but at the same time, yesterday several EU leaders said that they’re committed to supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, as they put it. What’s the prevailing view among heads of state and government, and among the leaders in Brussels?
Two important events are taking place in parallel. One is that day by day on the front lines the power dynamic is continuously shifting in favour of the Russians and to the detriment of the Ukrainians. So there’s a realignment in the military situation that’s acknowledged by everyone. Of course there are those who say that in a month’s time the Ukrainians will put a halt to this, and the Ukrainian president himself has said that in a month’s time the situation will be completely different. There are those who believe this, and there are those who see the realities differently. So there’s a significant change on the front line. The other event is that Washington is changing. And Washington, if perhaps not the centre of the world, because that is Rome, is certainly an important command post of European civilisation, and of Western civilisation. So there will be big changes there, great times are in store. I think these changes will be good for the Western world: we’ll have a more normal life than earlier, the Hungarians will gain economically from this, and I think we’ll also be closer to peace. Now we Hungarians see these two new developments as a very clear wake-up call. We think that if such a major change is about to take place, there’s no point in saying that we’ll continue to do the same as before, regardless of these big changes. But apart from us few people in Brussels are thinking like this. Everyone here keeps saying that Europe must do exactly the same as it’s done so far – no matter what happens on the front line, no matter what happens in America. “But”, I say, “what we’ve done so far hasn’t produced results!” They throw up their hands and say, “Well, not so far – but it will!” That’s where we are at the moment. So I feel that there’s an openness to change among the leaders, among the national leaders, I feel that new things are coming, and that we also have to change. Yesterday, too, everyone said that Europe cannot resolve this conflict alone, that the so-called “transatlantic cooperation” – which means cooperation between Europe and the United States – is the most valuable thing that’s come into being since the Second World War, and that without it there’s hardly any way to guarantee Europe’s peace and security. So the European leaders – I mean the national leaders – obviously feel pressure from their own electorates for things to go in the direction of peace, to recognise that this must be brought to an end, and that a lasting, predictable security system must be established which will enable Europe to get back on the road to economic development. It’s difficult for a continent to develop when there’s a brutal war on its borders, sanctions are being imposed, energy prices are skyrocketing, and this is also affecting economic performance. Of course there are some internal problems in the European economy, but it’s no coincidence that those who are further away from the war are developing much faster than we Europeans who are here in the neighbourhood. So ending the war is also a primary European economic interest. I think that national leaders feel this, because people everywhere – just like in Hungary – are fed up with this war, fed up with inflation, fed up with sanctions, and are waiting for their national economies to start out on the road to development again. Now the situation is different in the European institutions, which is Brussels, let’s call it that for the sake of simplicity: in the European Parliament and the European Commission. Here, the opposite happened last week, because the three or four largest parties in the European Parliament concluded a pact in which they set down in writing that they’ll continue to do everything that they’ve done up to now: they’ll support migration, they’ll support this gender gibberish, they’ll support the war; and so they’re not concerned with how the world outside the Brussels bubble is changing, they want to continue moving “forward”. And they have a written agreement to this effect. It includes provisions stating that each Member State will contribute a certain percentage of its gross national product to the common pool, which in the case of Hungary would be 200 billion forints. So I think this shows that today the biggest problems are in Brussels. They’re not in Berlin, not in Paris, not in Rome, not in Budapest, not even in Bucharest: I think that the real problems are here in Brussels.
One more question on the war, because there’s also a financial aspect to this. Yesterday Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe has so far given Ukraine a sum in euros equivalent to 52 trillion forints. Where has this money been taken from? How much of a burden is this placing on the European Union, either now or in the future?
Various calculations exist. When negotiating with the Americans, the figure I got from them was that so far Europe and America have collectively spent 310 billion euros. These are huge figures! After the war, it will be worth accounting how much money we’ve actually given. We’ve given money, weapons and equipment, so it’s difficult to calculate, but the point is that this is a horrendous amount. If this amount had been available for bringing the countries of the Western Balkans up to a European standard of living and development at a stroke within one or two years, for example, this is what we could have done with this money. If we’d wanted to use this money to create development in the countries that produce migrants, for example in the Sahel region, making it worthwhile for potential migrants to stay at home instead of coming over to Europe, well, that’s what we could have done with this money. Europe is weak and in the past decades has neglected its military development, and therefore to guarantee security we need a big, strong European military capability and arms factories and investments; and this money could have done all that if we’d decided so. Or if we’d said, “Let’s give this money to the Europeans, let’s not take it out of the continent, let’s spend it here, let’s put it into the European economy”, then today energy prices would be much lower, European economic growth would be much higher, and the people of Europe would be much better off than they are today. These are huge amounts of money that could have done wonders.
A moment ago you mentioned the pact that the Liberal, Social Democrat and People’s Party groups – or families of parties – have made in Europe. But there are also the Patriots, who on these matters take a position that’s different from the mainstream in Brussels. How has the emergence of the Patriots for Europe been affecting the political fault lines in Brussels – or even in Hungary?
Perhaps there’s one more important detail about this pact. It also states that Ukraine should be admitted to the European Union very quickly, very rapidly; and all the countries with significant agricultural sectors reacted immediately and negatively to this. So, if Ukraine is admitted to the European Union quickly without resolution of the situation of those who live off agriculture, then European farmers will be ruined. Then we’ll also have to cling on to save Hungarian agriculture and Hungarian families living off agriculture. Therefore such a hasty, ill-considered, rapid process cannot be supported under any circumstances. Now, among the Patriots there are many major parties representing states where agriculture is strong. There are the Italians and the French among the Patriots, there are us, the Austrians and the Poles. So these are all nations that are extremely sensitive about the future of agriculture and the millions of families that depend on it. Now the Patriots’ group finds itself in a strange situation. Let’s put it this way: there are global networks in the world; to be more precise, networks that are detached from their place of birth and that seek to exert a major influence on public life, politics and economic events in several countries at once – preferably for them in the most important countries. There are many such networks. One that we know of – and which is linked to us Hungarians, because it causes us suffering and squeezes us, and it’s led by a compatriot of ours – is the Soros network. Now, the Soros network used to have two headquarters. But it’s lost America. Now we’re faced with the fact that this liberal outlook on life and the world and this huge network and world power that the Soros empire embodies is being squeezed out of America, and now only Brussels is in its grip – but it is indeed in its grip. So we Patriots are faced with the fact that Soros has lost Washington, but he still has Brussels in his hands, he’s retreating here. So the key to our future is whether the Patriots here in Brussels, who are opposed to everything that’s happening, who are in opposition to Brussels, can win a majority in Brussels in the foreseeable future, and whether we can take Brussels back from George Soros. That is the question! The Patriots are working on this, and we’re getting stronger every day. This is a big battle. I count myself among the optimists.
Yesterday the EU summit also evaluated the Hungarian EU Presidency, which will end at the end of the year; and at the press conference von der Leyen said that the Presidency had achieved a lot. Do you think that under the Hungarian Presidency Europe has become stronger or weaker?
It still exists. Let’s start with a perhaps less ambitious announcement: Europe still exists. The Hungarian Presidency has solved some problems. It’s solved problems that had remained unsolved for years or decades, and this has been met with unanimous recognition – even from our opponents, let’s say Ursula von der Leyen, who I wouldn’t call a fan of Hungary, or national leaders who have no liking for Hungary at all. But quite apart from this, the huge amount of work that we’ve put into the Hungarian Presidency has been met with such unanimous recognition that it’s been publicly stated. So the President of the Commission, in a manner befitting events, has publicly given the Hungarian Presidency the seal of approval, because there’s unanimous agreement that these are great achievements. I’ll mention a few of them. For ten or thirteen years – perhaps thirteen years – we’ve not been able to get Romania and Bulgaria into the Schengen Area, which means that for ten or thirteen years now we haven’t been able to lift the Hungarian–Romanian border barriers. Well, now we’ve lifted them! These countries will be in the Schengen Area on 1 January, and a new life will begin for them. These countries or these peoples – the Romanians and the Bulgarians – share a common destiny with us. Our relationship with the Romanians is, of course, colourful and controversial, but we’re still together in a community of destiny; and our aim is not to hold each other back, but rather to help each other. At least this is the Hungarian attitude. And now we’ve been able to help. We’ve been in constant consultation with the Romanians, I’ve been in consultation with them, and in the end we can say that the Hungarian Presidency has succeeded in negotiating Romania’s Schengen membership. With the Bulgarians we have a simpler historical situation. We’re glad that we’ve been able to help them too. There have been times when they’ve helped us. So it’s a great achievement. Now in the meantime, the other big achievement is in the Western Balkans – led by Serbia. For two and a half years there’s been no real progress in terms of moving closer to the EU, but now each of the Western Balkan countries has managed to take one, two or three steps towards the European Union, the ice in relations has been broken and there’s movement again. And as far as internal European affairs are concerned, today the biggest problem in European life – apart from the war – is the state of the economy, or the fact that we’re not competitive with the major world players; for example, the Americans are more competitive than we are, the Chinese economy is more competitive than we are, the Indian economy is more competitive than we are, and I could go on. Therefore Europe has to do something to regain its competitiveness, because this won’t happen on its own. Competitiveness isn’t an abstract concept. It means that whatever we produce here in Europe – from cars to nuclear power stations or any other technical device – will have to be sold by us somewhere in the world. And if you’re not competitive, you won’t be able to offer goods at a price which induces your competitors to buy your products instead of theirs, and thus Europe will be driven out of the world market. The consequence is that there will be fewer jobs in Europe and lower wages. So if we want the people of Europe to live better, or at least to be able to protect the standard of living they’ve already achieved, competitiveness must be improved. Now, there have been a thousand thoughts on how to do this, but no consensus. But we’ve managed to produce a document in which all twenty-seven states can agree on the most important issues. This means that we have a work plan, an action plan for restoring competitiveness, which – as a result of our work – has been agreed by all of us, and which is a common starting point, a common basis from which to begin to restore competitiveness. These, broadly speaking, are the Presidency’s biggest achievements. But we held more than a thousand meetings and consultations, the biggest diplomatic event in Hungary’s history took place in Budapest, and it was universally acclaimed. So there are many things I can say. The point is that in politics work always helps. In modern times we’re used to politics being more about talk and communication, and this is what analysts write about. Today, debate on politics is less and less about what’s happening, what the output is, and what the work is. So the Hungarian Presidency has restored a little of the faith everyone had that performance and work still have a role to play in politics – both domestically and internationally.
So in managing to make real progress on issues that had previously been dragging on for years, what was the new approach adopted by the Hungarian Presidency compared to previous ones?
I don’t want to bore the listeners with internal Brussels issues, but perhaps every Hungarian knows that in order to solve a problem, you have to be able to name it. To be able to name it, you have to use words, you have to speak a language that can describe reality. Now, if you read a European document, you’ll see that there are words there, but it’s very difficult to determine what they have to do with reality. So Brussels is a bubble, or a blimp that’s become unmoored from the reality in which we live. They use a language, a legal system and political formulae that make it very difficult to create an impact on reality. If I have to say something about the Hungarian Presidency at a philosophical level, I can say that, thanks to the Hungarian Presidency, European politics has come closer to the real problems.
In Budapest today the Parliament is voting on next year’s budget, and we continue to see that political and economic changes are taking place very quickly – often overnight. In these fast-changing circumstances, what will it take to keep this budget sustainable next year?
We have very little time, so I’d just say that there’s a lot of work to be done on this budget as well. Moreover, this budget is accompanied by a change, because in March the mandate of the Governor of the Central Bank will expire. An epochal economist is leaving the Central Bank. György Matolcsy is an economist whose name is inseparable from the economic policy of the past decade and a half, and to whom – despite all the controversy – we owe a great deal. After all, he rescued hundreds of thousands of families with foreign currency loans from bankruptcy, and he also introduced a number of innovations into Hungarian economic policy. Our Minister of Finance, Mihály Varga, will be the Governor of the Central Bank, and the Ministry of Finance – as the ministry responsible for the budget – will be merged into the Ministry of Economic Development. So a single large economic ministry – perhaps we could say a superministry – will be created under the leadership of Márton Nagy. The latter isn’t a politician, of course, but a career economist or economic specialist. So it will be extremely interesting to see how he manages to make himself understood to the economic players; but we’re talking about a man who isn’t just an economist and a specialist, but someone who likes to get things done. So he’s a man who, when he takes something on, gets it done. And now already, in this new budget, we see the result of his work. After all, we’re proclaiming a new economic policy, a new economic policy that he’s created, a new “Márton Nagy economic policy”. This comes with a plan of action consisting of twenty or so points, which he’s also drawn up. We’ve already announced some of them, and they’ve become widely known: support for small and medium-sized enterprises; the Demján programme; housing subsidies paid by employers to employees up to a value of 150,000 forints per month; the introduction of other forms of housing construction; large-scale construction of student accommodation; and, in addition to student loans, the introduction of new forms of support for young workers. All this is the result of his work. So my hope is that this budget will be a professionally sound and implementable budget. The most important thing is to get a flying start. So the real task for this budget is to put in place – as early as January – the measures that will make families, employers, workers and small and medium-sized enterprises feel that the war is over, that a period of peace is beginning, and that this will be reflected in the new Hungarian economic policy. The harbingers of this are already knocking at the door. A flying start in January: the key to success.
If these measures are launched in January, when and how will families, which have been battered by the crises of recent years, feel the impact?
Márton Nagy has already ushered in a major wage agreement between employers and workers, a three-year wage agreement. By raising the minimum wage we can push up other wages. In Hungary there will be an unprecedented minimum wage increase of more than 40 per cent over three years. This will happen from 1 January – that’s when it will start. So most of the measures will be felt in the lives of families not later in the future, but from 1 January.
I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán questions on topics including the war in Ukraine, the Hungarian EU Presidency and the budget.