Zsolt Törőcsik: Over the past week there have been some incidents which have inflamed Hungarian public opinion. Participants in a demonstration attacked Father Pál, an 82-year-old Franciscan priest, for ringing the bells of his church. The criminal case involving the former director of the Szőlő Street reformatory was used by public figures and politicians to attack members of the Government based on rumours and without evidence. These will be among the topics I’ll be asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about. Good morning.
Good morning. Greetings to your listeners.
On Wednesday the Minister of Justice released a report on the Szőlő Street case, which refutes the allegations and reveals that those making allegations against government officials had no evidence whatsoever when they made those allegations. Despite that, several people are continuing to insinuate this. What could be the reason for this? How do you see this case?
There really is a fake news scandal on the agenda that’s connected to Szőlő Street. The poor residents of Szőlő Street – I don’t envy them! There’s a prison on Szőlő Street. Officially it’s called a reformatory, but in reality it’s a prison for juveniles, a prison for young male offenders. What happened in this institution was that its director ran a prostitution ring. This has nothing to do with the institution itself, with the boys who are under guard and detained there. But within a complicated system that’s now being uncovered, a system that probably involves foreign dimensions, a false story began to be fabricated. According to this a paedophile crime had been committed there, with links reaching all the way to the Government. This is an extremely serious matter because, as we know, paedophilia is the most serious crime known to our culture. Paedophiles belong in prison; there’s no death penalty, and we can’t hang, draw and quarter them, which would probably be the optimal solution, but they belong in prison. However, given that this is a serious crime, those who accuse another person of committing a paedophile crime without any substance or facts are also committing a serious crime themselves. This is serious even if, say, it happens to a private individual. But it’s doubly serious if it involves someone in a position of public responsibility, say a minister, a police officer, a soldier or public servant – someone who not only enjoys public trust, but also performs their work under the burden of public responsibility. It is a triple crime if someone does this – accuses someone of paedophilia without any evidence – in order to ruin their job, discredit the police, undermine the administration, bring down a minister, or, God forbid, bring down the Government. In this case, therefore, gossip is not a forgivable sin. In Hungarian culture, you see, we have a tendency to gather in coffee houses, and it’s often said that Hungary is a “coffee house country” – which goes hand in hand with gossip. Gossip isn’t a problem, but accusations of criminal activity – especially the most serious crimes – are not. In this case, every member of the Government is innocent, the honour of every single minister is beyond doubt, and they cannot be associated with such crimes; if anyone tries to do so, they must face the consequences. There will be serious legal consequences.
Now, this week several pro-government politicians have said that there will be serious legal consequences, and many commentators have said that this is a threat from the Government.
Legal consequences are an ancient concept in Roman law, so there’s a legal system that everyone’s familiar with. In this case the perpetrators – who include opposition politicians – knew exactly what they were doing when they committed these acts. They knew that if they accused another person of committing a paedophile crime without any facts or evidence to back up their accusations, they would face punishment. They knew this in advance. So when they did this, they knew the expected legal consequences. They will get what they knew of in advance, and what they could expect.
From a societal perspective, what lessons can be learned from this campaign that they fabricated – and in general from the increasingly aggressive political climate that we see?
People talk about this a lot, but I’m not a fan of overcomplicating things. We need to behave properly – which would also help a lot in politics. There’s no need to harm others or be aggressive when we’re overcome by emotion, because that’s how it is, we’re all human; so before we say anything we should count to ten, we shouldn’t attack the other person’s honour, and it shouldn’t give us pleasure to punch someone in the gut. So we should behave normally. It’s not that complicated. And politics – in which, of course, there are heated debates – is for those who can handle difficult human situations, such as their own anger, even in heated debates.
But why have these debates intensified, and why are politicians engaging in them with increasing aggression?
There are many reasons for this. I think there are some very far-reaching reasons here. Generally such situations arise when there are problems within a culture – when leaders and people feel that they’re not in control of the situation, and something bad is happening and slipping out of their control. Today the European world, the Western European world, is in such a situation. The entire Western European economy is struggling. Then there’s the whole migration issue, which has turned everything upside down. Terrorist acts: these didn’t exist in Europe. Street gang crime: this didn’t exist in Europe. Europe, like Hungary today, used to be an island of peace and security. Soon only Central Europe – and Hungary in particular – can be considered an island of peace and security. So things are turning upside down, the life that surrounds us is deteriorating, changing against our will, and this is increasing aggression overall. And this is reflected in politics – because politics is, after all, a struggle for the right to govern a given country. So there’s a lot at stake. The higher the stakes, the more decisive the environment that surrounds us. Given that this is the current political climate, politicians have a responsibility to prevent this febrile, aggressive, violent atmosphere – which stems from the general state of affairs on our continent – from entering, from knocking on the door, from creeping into public discourse. I therefore advise everyone to think ten times before saying anything. And I think the Government should take the lead in making it clear that Hungary wants to remain a peaceful and safe country. So what was previously considered forgivable or not to be taken too seriously must now be taken very seriously. Examples of this include acts of terrorism. Take Antifa, for example. It’s a terrorist organisation, a network of left-wing terrorists. They’ve committed crimes in Hungary. We’ve been taking it seriously in the sense that we’ve caught those who committed crimes, arrested them, brought them to trial, and they’ll all get what they deserve – apart from those who have fled to the European Parliament, where they’re protected by immunity regulations. Because there are some of them who’ve done just that. But I think we need to go further – in this situation that won’t be enough. We must say that Antifa and its affiliated organisations are terrorist organisations. And even if they haven’t yet committed a crime, we must take action against them before they do. The Government made its decision at its meeting on Wednesday: it declared Antifa to be a terrorist organisation. We’ll draw up a national list of terrorist organisations that Hungary considers as such, and we’ll enact the toughest measures against them. Therefore the Government must take the lead in ensuring that actions and declared violent illegal intentions don’t go unpunished, without legal consequences.
There’s debate in Hungarian public life not only on political issues but also on economic issues – such as whether there’s an alternative to Russian sources of energy. Many experts say there are, but that the Government isn’t doing enough to make them available. In what way do you see Russian gas and oil being replaced in Hungary, and at what price?
In my opinion, there’s no meaningful debate on this issue. There’s only one reasonable position on this matter, starting with the fact that Hungary has no coastline. Consequently we cannot transport goods by water, we cannot transport gas or oil by ship. So how can we transport them? Through gas and oil pipelines! Pipelines have two ends: one where diesel, oil and gas is loaded, and the other where it arrives. At present no one can point to a pipeline that would enable us to supply Hungary – except for those built during the communist era, and those developed by Hungary in the south over the past ten years. I’ve also discussed this with the US president. I told him that the IMF isn’t particularly friendly towards Hungary; it isn’t our enemy either, but I wouldn’t call it our friend. A month ago it published a report on the state of the Hungarian economy, which we naturally dispute in terms of which assessments correspond to reality and which don’t. But there’s one point in it that we don’t dispute: the IMF examined Hungary’s energy situation and said – I also told the US president that I’d like him to look into this – that if Hungary were cut off from oil and natural gas, from Russian oil and natural gas, Hungary’s economic performance would fall by 4 per cent within one minute. That would be a catastrophe! It would mean the collapse of the Hungarian economy. So there’s also an official assessment – not prepared by us – of what would happen if we suspended purchases of Russian gas and oil, as is being demanded by some half-witted politicians in Brussels who aren’t interested in reality, but only in their own obsessions. An immediate 4 per cent drop in GDP! Hundreds of thousands of families would be ruined in an instant. There would be energy shortages, and what energy there was would cost many times more, with Hungarian families paying hundreds of thousands of forints more. But there’s no need to argue about this too much. I think these are the facts. Hungary mustn’t behave as if we can be pushed around from outside, as if others can tell us what to do. It’s clear what’s in Hungary’s interest, and we’ll act accordingly. Nice and easy does it. We’ll listen to everyone, respond calmly to everyone, and then do what’s in the interests of the Hungarian people.
Did the US president accept these arguments, by the way? Because he said earlier this week that he’d talk to you about Hungary not buying more Russian oil.
I talked to him about it, but America is a big country and Hungary is smaller. But we’re similar in one respect: both are sovereign countries. There’s no need for either of us to accept the other’s arguments. America has its arguments and interests, and so does Hungary. We have one job: to clearly express and represent these. And if we’re on good terms, let’s say we’re friends, then we listen to each other, and then everyone does what they want.
Another economic debate has intensified in recent weeks, concerning the tax system. Starting next Wednesday, mothers with three children will be exempt from personal income tax. But left-wing, liberal economists have criticised this, as well as the tax exemption for mothers with two children, saying that it’s an unjustified and expensive measure. Why was it important for the Government to go ahead with this?
Expensive and justified – that’s the Government’s position. It’s true that a real tax revolution is taking place in Hungary in three or four steps, and it’s also true that this will leave around 4 trillion forints with families. So the Government will be 4 trillion forints poorer, but families will be 4 trillion forints richer, or better off. And I think that’s good: the more money that stays with families, the better. There’s always been debate between the opposition and the Government on tax issues. If I approach it philosophically, the opposition consists of parties – and Tisza is the same as DK was in this respect, so it’s considered a left-wing party – that think that the world is more just if they take money from people and companies and then distribute it. I’ve learned that this leads to economic collapse, and in the end, everyone loses out. Our philosophy is that certain public services must be provided, but as much money as possible should be left with families and companies, because they know much better what they need than someone in a central office who wants to tell them what to do and who transfers money to them. This is why we’re always the government of tax cuts, while our opponents – the Left, including Tisza – always want tax increases. In the opposition camp they also gather people who have always represented this view as economists. Among them is someone whom I dismissed, or who left me sometime in 2011, and is now Tisza’s leading economic expert. He’s a talented person, but he’s a banker and thinks like a banker. He’s on the payroll of a foreign bank and is paid from abroad, and he’s always opposed unorthodox economic policies – the core of which has been financial support for families. This means that we’re now moving forward, doubling the tax credit for families with children. And as a result of a multi-step process, one million Hungarian mothers who have given birth to at least two children – regardless of whether their children are now minors or adults – won’t pay personal income tax for the rest of their lives. This will provide families, and mothers in particular, with a sense of security that I believe is greatly needed. Families need this, and we can make it happen. So there’s financial backing for this idea. Similarly, the opposition has always criticised the amount of money spent on culture and sport. We must also recognise that it’s important to live well, but we should also live in a finer style. It’s difficult to live in a finer style. A certain aspect of this has nothing to do with the Government, because we simply have no say in interpersonal relationships – how people get along with their spouses, children or parents. If there’s a problem there, it’s more a matter for the churches than for the Government. But the Government has a duty to ensure that we don’t just exist, living like machines or work units, but also to give us the opportunity to live well, if we have the money. Culture and sport bring beauty into people’s lives. What’s more, sport is very important now, because we live in such a crazy world, and today clear performance expectations, discipline, teamwork and humility are most evident in sport, in the locker room. So if we want to help parents raise their children to be decent people, we must also support sport. This is why I was shocked to hear that officials are considering abolishing the sport tax credit, for example. This doesn’t affect elite athletes, but hundreds of thousands of children. I don’t think we should be doing things like that. So the Government has a complex approach: culture, sports, family support, mothers, jobs and family support all at once. So we don’t put Little Johnny as an individual at the centre of life, but we see families and try to organise the economy around families.
Incidentally, in a speech the aforementioned economic expert, András Kármán, also said that he’d cut back on business subsidies, arguing that the state spends too much on them. But what would happen if it spent less?
There’s no doubt that the Hungarian state supports investment. I’ve just been to Békéscsaba, where, for example, a 280-billion-forint investment is being made as part of a very modern Far Eastern investment by a company from Singapore. This will create 2,500 jobs directly and thousands more through related businesses. The Government provided more than 40 billion forints, if I remember correctly, to ensure that this investment came to Hungary and not elsewhere. If we’d followed the logic of my former state secretary Dr. Kármán, we wouldn’t have given this support to the Singaporean company, and as a result 2,500 jobs wouldn’t have been created in Békéscsaba. Once we’ve finished this interview, I’ll be going to Debrecen, where we’ll be handing over the BMW factory. If the Government hadn’t supported that investment, BMW wouldn’t have come to Hungary, but would have gone to another country, and the beneficial effects would have been felt elsewhere, not in Hungary. I understand these ivory-tower statements by economists about what’s good and what’s bad on paper, in textbooks and in general, but these people have never left their banks and their bank manager’s chairs in their rotten lives. They have no idea about the lives of people who can only feed their families if they have a job locally. That has to be created. There would be no need to do this if jobs created themselves, but Hungary is fighting for these jobs against tough competition. Anyone who says we shouldn’t support businesses and investments is in fact depriving Hungarians of their livelihoods. I told Dr. Kármán this when he was my deputy secretary of state: he shouldn’t say things like that, because it’s against the interests of Hungarians. That’s why we went our separate ways, why he became a Tisza-ite, and we stayed here. So the fact is that this is necessary, and it will continue to be necessary in the near future. We can talk about this when we’ve become a rich country in which businesses are swimming in money and can make enough investments without state support to provide jobs for all Hungarians. But how far are we from that?
We’ll talk about developments in the Great Plain shortly, but Péter Magyar denies that he plans tax increases and has presented a tax reduction programme. Meanwhile the Government is launching a national consultation on the subject. It will cover flat-rate taxation and family tax allowances. But who wouldn’t want to pay less tax? Or, conversely, who would want to pay more tax?
The situation is as follows. We must be careful, because there are many lies in politics, so I’d urge everyone to be cautious. The majority of Tisza voters – I’m not talking about the party leader here – want tax increases, they want progressive taxation. So instead of the current flat-rate tax, they want a progressive tax system. They even voted on it. So there’s nothing more to talk about, these are facts. Everyone across the country could see the footage of them voting, with 80–90 per cent saying that progressive taxation is good. Well, that’s what they think, that’s what they were taught, maybe that’s their conviction – I can’t say. But I can say for sure that there are people in Hungary – not a few, but fortunately a minority – who want a multi-rate tax system instead of the current flat-rate income tax system. They also said, as everyone could see, that they wouldn’t admit this openly before the election. I saw the video of this with my own eyes. They won’t reveal their plans before the election, because then they’d lose the election. Now in my opinion the even worse news is that they also want to transform the family support system. So they’d also interfere in the family support system in addition to replacing the current low level of personal income tax with a higher one, in which, incidentally – and I’ve collected this data – nurses would pay 23,000 forints more per month, teachers 30,000 forints more, doctors 264,000 forints more, and health visitors 30,000 forints more. This would mean that they’d earn less money. And there’s something else here that’s not entirely clear, because they’re also talking about a wealth tax. I have to file a declaration of assets every year. That’s fine. Leaders should make a declaration of assets. But why should you? If they want to introduce a wealth tax, then everyone will have to prepare a declaration of assets, because otherwise how will the state check people’s wealth? Then they’ll have to set up a wealth register. They’ll check it. They’ll come knocking. There will be asset inspections. Thousands of citizens in Buda will have to pay very high taxes on their real estate, and there will be serious disputes about how much it’s worth and how it will work. But this has already happened in Hungary. I suggest that the tax system should be simple, taxes should be low, and we shouldn’t bother people, visit their homes, demand tax returns from them, check up on them, pester them about where they go on vacation, or what kind of car they drive. We should let them work, let them earn a living, let the tax system be simple, demand that they pay low, simple taxes, and then let them live as they wish.
Since we’re on the subject of the Tisza Party, this week the European Parliament’s committee didn’t suspend Péter Magyar’s immunity. You’ve referred to this as corruption, but [leader of the Democratic Coalition] Klára Dobrev has said that the committee shouldn’t do so, because the judiciary in Hungary isn’t independent. What do you think is the real reason?
Well, for Brussels this is a jackpot. Brussels has made demands on Hungary that I’m not fulfilling – Hungary isn’t fulfilling them, and nor is the Government. In fact, ultimately I’m standing before them personally, as if before Pontius Pilate, and I’m not fulfilling certain things. I’m not letting in migrants. I’m not willing to abolish the bank tax and the tax on multinationals – they’ll have to pay. I’m not willing to abolish the reductions in household energy bills. They’re demanding that we change family support, send the money saved to Ukraine, and join the war. I say “no” to all of these things. And I cannot be blackmailed. They cannot tell the Hungarian prime minister to change his position. And for them that’s a problem. They need a leader they can blackmail. For Brussels a blackmailable Hungarian politician is the jackpot. Well, he’ll let the migrants in. Well, he’ll take Hungary into the war. Well, he’ll side with Ukraine. Well, he’ll give reductions and household energy bills a slap in the face. Brussels needs a leader here in Hungary who can be controlled from Brussels with a joystick. In plain language this is called blackmail. Now there is such a person. Péter Magyar can be blackmailed. He’s not being prosecuted in Hungary for theft because the Brusselites are protecting him with immunity. They want to put him in the Prime Minister’s office and then blackmail him into making decisions that are life-threatening for Hungary. That’s not possible today. We have a national government, and as long as we’re here, it won’t be possible – nor will it be possible in the future.
You’ve mentioned that you’re going to Debrecen for the handover of the BMW factory, and you’ve already visited the Great Plain more than once this week. In recent months and years the trend has been of channelling large amounts of investment into the Northern and Southern Great Plain. What’s the reason for this, what’s the strategy behind it?
How did we grow up? We grew up – we’re talking about the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s – with life drumming into our heads that Hungary consisted of two parts: there’s Western Hungary, and on the other side of the Danube there’s Eastern Hungary. This part, Pannonia, is developed, while the other half – let’s say Hunnia – is underdeveloped. That’s how we grew up. When Fidesz entered politics and it became possible to get rid of the communists, we said that this bad communist legacy had to be eliminated. Why should Hungarians living in the eastern part of the country have a worse life than those living in the western part? There are obviously historical reasons for this, but a government exists in order to change things. And through hard work we’ve changed this in ten to fifteen years. So if you look at investments, jobs and salaries today, the equalisation hasn’t happened yet, but everyone can see that Eastern Hungary is on the right track, and the people who live there can see this too. A large part of this world in Eastern Hungary is located in the Great Plain. It’s more difficult to close the development gap in the Great Plain than it is in traditional industrial regions, such as Northern Hungary. So the Great Plain is essentially based on agriculture, but today it can’t prosper from that alone, so industry is also needed. And that’s where we have a harder job. There was also a lack of roads there. Without roads there’s no investment, no transport, no shipping. And modern technology had to be brought in. A fantastic example of this is the BMW factory that’s being handed over today. This isn’t just a car factory. That’s no small thing in itself, but it’s where we’ll see cars manufactured with the most modern technology – and since these are electric cars, all kinds of battery investments and new technology are also connected to this. This is the direction the world is moving in. We’ve been able to bring this to Eastern Hungary. This opens up enormous opportunities for development. So we have a Great Plain programme, which is specifically about establishing this type of state-of-the-art, world-class industry. We did this recently in Békéscsaba, now this is happening in Debrecen – and similar things are also happening in Nyíregyháza. We’ve built roads, created industrial parks, supported investments, and laid the foundations for industrial culture: vocational training and schools. I believe that in terms of living standards and income, in a few years’ time there will be no difference between Eastern and Western Hungary.
I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about subjects including the fake news scandal related to Szőlő Street, energy, tax, and economic issues.