State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: As the Prime Minister has indicated, there will of course be questions. I’d like to say in advance that we have to finish at 12:30 p.m. because of the next engagement. As usual, I’d like to ask MTVA to ask the first question.
Judit Csere (MTVA): Thank you. There’s already been mention of the national consultation. I’d like to ask the Prime Minister what he thinks of the figure of 1.252 million people – if I’ve remembered correctly – who filled in this questionnaire, which was more professional than ever before. You’ve also mentioned that most of the questions were related to the economy. Are there any results yet? What can you tell us about it? Thank you.
What I can tell you is that of all the consultations so far, this one had the third highest number of respondents. It’s interesting that the number of responses was also this high when earlier we asked about pensions and the economic issues related to them. This makes it absolutely clear that – without denying the importance of other issues – the Hungarian public is still most interested, above all else, in economic issues. I think it’s right that this is the case, and it’s good feedback for the Government. There’s always a debate about whether or not the questions are phrased in a targeted way. The questions are without doubt worded to express the intention of the questioner, and what they want to know. What we want to know is whether people want this or that, done in this way or another. Of course you can ask questions in other ways, you can ask them in completely different ways; but whoever wants to ask them in other ways can ask them in other ways. We know what questions we want answers to. Sometimes they may seem trivial, but they’re not. In politics you’re often surprised to find that you think there’s complete agreement on something, and then it turns out that there isn’t. I’m sure that today there will be questions for which I can come back and make reference to this. So we see it as successful. In any case, my work, our work, the work of the Government, is made easier – it’s simplified and strengthened – by the outcome of the national consultation. In the meantime, course corrections are sometimes made in one direction or another. Minister Gulyás says that the increase in the minimum wage for next year isn’t 24 per cent, but 24,000 forints. In my opinion, the minimum wage will increase by 40 per cent over three years – at least that’s what the agreement says. I think it’s 29 per cent in the first year, so that’s how much will be achieved in the first year. And then it will go up and reach 40 per cent of the total: it will reach 40 per cent, which will be 24,000 forints. So the consultation is a practice that we want to continue, and when there’s a need for it, we’ll repeat it. I think that for the time being the course is obvious, the questions have been well formulated, and the answers are clear: Hungary must remain on the path of economic neutrality; after the war a new economic policy must be launched; and it’s right that the measures I’ve just spoken about should be included in it.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Thank you. Financial Times.
Márton Dunai (Financial Times): I’ve prepared questions on three themes. I hope I won’t test your patience unduly. All three of them focus on the Balkans. Prime Minister, you’ve just been to Bulgaria and Romania. One question is this: what was the purpose of the visit to Bulgaria? One of the most important Hungarian interests there is energy. Related to gas transit, what was it that you wanted to convince the Bulgarians of? And what can you tell us about what’s been going on in Bulgaria for a very long time: that one of the potential buyers of Lukoil – the oil refining and distribution company there, which will probably be put up for sale – could be MOL? Shall I ask the other questions now?
If you would be so kind.
Márton Dunai (Financial Times): OK. You’ve also been to Romania, where energy is also an important issue. MVM has an agreement there to take over E.ON’s retail energy unit, but the Romanian government has talked about vetoing this, and the secret services have talked about a Russian link within MVM. My question is this: What’s the Hungarian objective here, and can it be thwarted by possible opposition from the Romanian government? Also, is there a secondary question in connection with this? Is the MVM acquisition somehow linked to the construction of a large power plant in Hunyad/Hunedoara? A company called Mass Group Holding is building a huge gas-powered station there, almost as big as Paks [Nuclear Power Plant], and MVM would somehow be cooperating with it. The third question also relates to Romania, where there have been very serious problems in connection with the presidential elections. The services and the political elite there are talking about Russian influence exerted to change the outcome of the elections. What will Hungary do to prevent something like that from happening here? We still have time before the 2026 elections, but we have to be prepared, because there have been reports that Russian hackers have found it quite easy to operate on Hungarian government servers. Thank you very much.
Energy supplies to Hungary via the Ukrainian territories will become more difficult. A reasonable description of the situation is that nothing’s going to come from there – or at least it’s better to assume that nothing’s going to come from there. But if something comes after all, then... As I recall, 80–85 per cent of Hungarian households are somehow part of the gas system, which is mainly due to the developments that started in the 1990s. Therefore we could say that Hungary is gas-based, and so this isn’t simply an industrial issue. For many countries gas is an industrial issue: it’s used to generate electricity or to run the chemical industry. Of course that’s also important for us, but essentially we have pipes going directly into households. Therefore gas supply is also a question of energy security for households; and if that’s lost, the gas coming through Ukrainian territory is lost, then we need to solve what was going to replace it. The way things stand now is that once again I have to praise the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Some years ago he said that if we were going to have Nabucco – older people may remember that this was going to be a large new pipeline bypassing Ukraine and bringing gas up from the south, but it wasn’t built because of political obstructions from the West in recent decades – then let’s do it by connecting the existing gas pipelines, by building compressor stations and by basically linking them together to create a new gas corridor. This has been done. If this hadn’t happened, the Hungarian economy would be in a lot of trouble. Thanks to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, it happened. This is why today we have a southern corridor. Hungary consumes about 9 billion cubic metres of gas a year, give or take between half a billion and 1 billion cubic metres – these are the orders of magnitude we have to calculate in. Through this southern corridor we import 7.5 billion. Seven and a half billion! We have production, our own, of 1.5 billion. And as I recall we also import 1.75 billion cubic metres of gas from Romania, and this is why Romania is important to us. So, in other words, if Ukraine is ruled out, we still have this – with the help of Bulgaria and Romania, in cooperation with them. We have the routes and the sources, so that there will be no problem for Hungarian households and the Hungarian economy. But you might recall that a year ago there was an attempt in Bulgaria to pass a law that would have made it impossible for this corridor to operate. I don’t know whether you remember that. And then we had to negotiate with our political friends to persuade them by all means possible – but mainly by the weight of our arguments – to urgently withdraw the legislative proposal, because that would destroy us. And we succeeded in doing that. And now that there’s a new government being formed, our job is to get the President and the members of the new government to agree that there will be no such thing, and that the supply route is secure. I received these guarantees yesterday. So I can safely say that it won’t happen again. The Bulgarians will remain our friends and they will help us get the gas that we need – and of course they will also benefit from providing this help. What you’re saying is openly known. So they know – I mean in Bulgaria – that this is a private transaction, and so the Bulgarian state has nothing to do with it. Lukoil isn’t a Bulgarian company: it’s a private Russian company, that wants to sell one of its refineries. It has issued an open tender for this, other countries are involved, and one of the companies bidding is MOL – one of the participating companies is MOL. Indeed, it’s one of seven that have submitted bids – and, as far as I know, it’s the only EU company among the seven bidders. The decision will be made by the Bulgarians. So the news is true. As far as the Romanian questions are concerned, MVM has indeed bought out one of the companies belonging to E. ON. This is a complicated process, there are unclear details, and the Romanian prime minister has also raised this issue. The Romanian prime minister has made a request, partly to reassure the public; because a Hungarian purchase of this kind in Romania requires that the public there be reassured. This wouldn’t be needed if the roles were reversed: here there’s no need to show anything to anyone, because if a deal can stand on its own two feet, then it will be allowed. But over there the situation isn’t like it is here. So to make everything transparent and to reassure everyone, he’s asked that we set up a working group: he’ll delegate a manager to it and I’ll delegate a manager to it, they’ll discuss all the details nicely and calmly, and then they’ll present them. What was your second question on Romania? That they’re building a big power plant. I don’t know anything about that. So I have no information about that. And the third one, if I’ve understood correctly, was about the election. I think that Romania has acquired a lot of valuable knowledge. They know something that we don’t. Something has happened there that hasn’t happened here, and I told the Prime Minister that we’re treating it as such. So I’ve asked him to give us all the information: all the knowledge needed – not just on foreign intervention, that’s one thing, and we have specific understanding of that, we have knowledge about that; but mostly about the technology, how it’s done, and how it’s done in this virtual space, on TikTok, I don’t know, on all these platforms – what you all call platforms, but what old people call screens. But that doesn’t matter – the important thing is how this is done: all this influence, this irregularity, this hacking of fair competition. How does it happen? And where are the points at which it can be prevented in time, where it can be intercepted? And the Prime Minister has said that as soon as all the investigations in Romania have been completed, they’ll pass on all the information to Hungary, so that we can prepare ourselves and avoid being in the same boat as them after the next Hungarian election.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Thank you. Next ATV.
György Unyatyinszki (ATV): Good morning. I’ve also prepared several questions. I’ll try to organise them in a package so as not to take up anyone’s time, including that of my colleagues. First of all, at the meeting in Kötcse, the Prime Minister spoke about the need to take up the gauntlet, the need to engage in political debates, to engage in policy debates. Also part of the policy debates are problems in the country that you’ve spoken about in Parliament, for example: the situation of the railways, the country’s inability to renovate its main railway stations in the near future; or the need to increase resources for the social sector and for health care. So there are plenty of issues and there’s plenty of room for debate. The question that arises is whether in the near future you’ll be willing to debate with Péter Magyar, as your main challenger. And in connection with this, is the somewhat ad hominem exchange in front of a children’s home in Pécs that was engaged in by Tamás Menczer, Fidesz’s communications director, the type of debate that’s now a policy debate? How much a part of Fidesz and a part of the Government is the style of debate that Tamás Menczer represented there? You’ve spoken about the fact that in these debates Fidesz must use different weapons. And then I have two more questions about the state of the economy and the European Union.
I’m listening, ask away.
György Unyatyinszki (ATV): Fine. You’ve said that there’s 12 billion euros in the European Union account which has been allocated to Hungary. In terms of the Cohesion Fund, the Recovery Fund and so on, this isn’t actually the total amount. So those funds are still suspended. And at the end of the year the Hungarian government could lose 1 billion euros from the Cohesion Fund, so roughly 400 billion euros. What does the Hungarian government intend to do to ensure that this amount isn’t lost at the end of the year, what are its options? In order for this to be achieved, of course, there would have to be fulfilment of conditions in terms of the rule of law. I’m in a rather difficult position, because time is short, and perhaps I’d also like to ask about competitiveness: when the Orbán government entered office in 2010, Hungary was ranked 42nd in the IMD competitiveness ranking, which is the most authoritative international competitiveness ranking. And now it’s in 54th place, with regional competitors typically ranking higher on the list, and Hungary lagging behind. On what basis can the Hungarian government expect the European Union to improve competitiveness, while we ourselves aren’t leading the way? Thank you.
Competitiveness isn’t an end in itself, not something to be pursued for its own sake, but it’s something that has a point. The point of competitiveness is for everyone to have a job. I can report that everyone in Hungary has a job. Hungary’s battle is mostly about the need to enlist more workers, due to the large industrial investments that are opening up. So in Hungary today there’s work for anyone who wants to work. The point of competitiveness is to enable wages to be increased, to pay people more and more. We’ve just reached an agreement on this, and the minimum wage agreement will push wages up. In the international press there are reports that there’s a wage explosion in Hungary, while I’d call it a wage burst. But I hope that there will be even more growth than that – although, as I’ve said, there’s no doubt that a 40 per cent increase in the minimum wage over three years is unprecedented. The point of competitiveness is that Hungary shouldn’t be excluded from modern technologies. If you look at the investment that’s going on in Hungary, a lot of it is in the most modern technology sectors: electromobility, vehicle manufacturing, the IT sector. So, from the position I look at it, I think that the Hungarian economy is fully competitive. But of course we have problems, and in this I see that the Achilles’ heel of Hungarian economic competitiveness is related to energy. This is why the last three years have been so difficult, because when the war broke out the energy market in Europe was disrupted. Before the war Hungary spent 7 billion euros a year on the import of energy. We’ll need to import energy at the same rate until the new Paks power plant extension comes on stream. So we used to pay 7 billion euros; and as soon as the war and the sanctions came, we started paying 17 billion euros. So 10 billion euros – 4 trillion forints – has disappeared from the Hungarian economy. This has undermined the Hungarian economy’s competitiveness. For older people, in communist times this was called “deteriorating terms of trade”. Now this has been a blow to competitiveness, it’s had an impact. So now Hungary must strive – and this is one of the most important elements in our industrial policy strategy – to ensure that it has access to energy as cheaply as possible. And since we have no natural resources, the nuclear solution is obvious, solar energy is obvious, and this has given rise to the industrial policy of electromobility. So it’s not just a question of employing academic reasoning to choose which industry in the world we want to develop, but of looking at our capabilities and choosing the industrial sector in which we have the best chance of doing well. So I don’t see any problems with our competitiveness. And it’s certainly true that competitiveness is by definition a dynamic concept: there’s no such thing as being competitive now and staying competitive; we must always work to be competitive, and there are many important ways and means of doing so. We have a new “chief minister” for the economy, who understands this; if anyone understands it, he understands it. One of the reasons I chose him for this job is precisely his views and thinking on competitiveness. There was no question about this, but I’ll just note that we’ve asked a non-politician to do this, to take up this position. So from the chief minister for the economy we’re not looking for communication skills; we’re looking for results. Therefore I’ve chosen a man who will do what he’s set out to do or decided to do: a doer, or however it’s said in the modern world, a man who does what he undertakes to do. Sometimes he’ll do things brusquely if necessary, but done they will be, to use a linguistic formula reminiscent of older military times. So I’m confident that there will be no problems there. So much for competitiveness. As far as politics is concerned, no doubt there will always be new political phenomena: ours is the most innovative profession in the world. Now a political strategy has appeared in public life which is called – for lack of a better expression – “aggressive bluster”. But it wasn’t Tamás Menczer who introduced it; he accepted an invitation, but he didn’t send out the invitations. So I don’t think we bear any responsibility for that. What we have a role in is how this situation is handled. This has its own methodology. But I’d remind ourselves – and especially the Government itself – that the Government’s job isn’t to deal with the Opposition. That should be left to the parties. The Government’s job is to deal with the country, the problems, the challenges and the people. So I don’t want the emergence of new political styles and tactics in politics to distract the Hungarian government from its core business, from its task and duty. This is why I don’t participate in this kind of debate. Now, what kind of debate there will be, who the challenger will be, and what the whole election will be like is something we’ll discuss when we get there. But I’d like to make a firm statement: I will never debate with people whose masters are in Brussels; because I will debate with their masters. And for many years now my view of Hungarian domestic politics is that the fate allotted to me is that the Hungarian opposition is led by Brussels’ agents. This has been the case for more than ten years now – certainly since 2010, ever since Hungary announced that it has its own way of doing things, and has engaged in disputes with Brussels. And in every election ever since then I’ve seen that Brussels has done everything it can to bring about a change of government in Hungary. They don’t deny this. So before anyone says that this is impolite or a conspiracy theory, they’re telling me this: I go there and they say it to my face. I was in the European Parliament, and they told me, “You’re out, and a new one will come in.” This is also what they’d told the Poles; so this isn’t some kind of guessing game. The situation is clear: Brussels wants a change of government in Hungary, and it has its people that it wants to do this with. I won’t debate with them, but I’ll debate with their masters in Brussels – whom I even want to defeat. I must defeat them not here, but in Brussels – and I’m working on this. On the question of EU funds, first of all, Hungary isn’t losing any funds. Someone loses their handkerchief, but not their funds; there’s no such thing as that. So we have our money in Brussels, what’s ours is our money; they want to take it, and we shall defend it. They’re constantly trying to take the Hungarians’ money, using various means and justifications. We must fight, and we must defend it. I’ve already defended 12.5 billion euros, we have it in our account, and there’s more I still need to defend. I’ll defend more and more every time I get the opportunity. Therefore Hungary will have access to all the funds that belong to it, that it’s entitled to – and on that I shall not yield.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Index please.
Gyula Szabó (index.hu): Our first question is that last year the Prime Minister said that 2024 would be the year of economic growth. Who’s responsible for the fact that this year hasn’t been like that?
The good question is who’s responsible for making sure that it will happen next year. We’re doing well if we never make a bigger mistake than the year of great economic growth being 2025 rather than 2024. I’ve never liked politicians who deflect responsibility. Of course, there’s always war, inflation, rising energy prices and external actors; but the important thing is whether we have a clear objective. If we’ve made our goals public, then they must be achieved. If one hasn’t been able to meet one’s growth targets in 2024, then meet them in 2025. This is what will happen now.
Gyula Szabó (index.hu): In relation to the election, which do you think is more important: to create a feeling of recovery among the population, or to achieve real recovery in the economy?
I don’t know if the two exist independently of each other. I think it’s difficult to create a sense of economic activity without an upturn, just as it’s quite difficult to create a sense of being well-fed when you’re starving. So I wouldn’t try to achieve such a feat, and for me reality always comes ahead of communication about reality. I’m aware that there are other tendencies in Hungarian politics that don’t care about facts, that don’t want to establish facts, and that prefer words to deeds. I don’t know whether the future will be one in which one can make political capital just by talking – I don’t know that either. I belong to the old school: I talk about what we’re doing, what we will do, and what we have done. So we place action first, and talking about it second. That’s my answer to you. First there’s the upturn, and then we talk about the feeling of there being an upturn. First let’s create the upturn, let’s really have economic development, then let’s talk about it. I think we’re now gradually getting to the point where we’ll have something to talk about.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Bloomberg next, please. In the middle.
András Gergely (Bloomberg): Partly for clarification on an earlier question, you said that we can largely discount the possibility of gas supplies through Ukraine. Aren’t negotiations with Russia expected on that – even by the end of the year? That’s my first question. My second question is this: If before the election there’s a need to stimulate the economy – say, because of weakness in the Western European economy – beyond the measures already announced, will there be any room for this in the budget? If there’s And my final question is this: Recently you’ve mentioned – in preparation for the election – that if necessary you’re prepared to use tough tactics against the Tisza Party. What exactly do you mean by this? Could this include changing the electoral rules next year? Thank you.
Beyond the legal constraints, there are also civilisational constraints which demand that one doesn’t encroach on elections – even though in a well-functioning country one is allowed to amend electoral legislation. I believe that so far Hungary has adhered to this civilisational norm, and I don’t advise anyone to tinker with electoral rules before the elections on the basis of the current power dynamic. Moreover, somehow a moral equilibrium has also been restored. So what I’ve seen so far is that if someone had thought such a thing, and if they’d done what they’d thought about, then judging from the results they’d obviously have ended up worse off than if they hadn’t done it. So my experience is that the temptation would always arise to do “a little more here, a little more there”. But over the last thirty or more years my experience has been that those who have stayed calm and collected and have avoided tinkering with the electoral system for at least a year before the election have always come out well. It would be better to avoid doing such a thing during a two-year period before an election, but that’s not always possible. This is the situation we’re in now. There are laws that require constituencies to be formed in proportion to population sizes. These are laws. So the question is not what the majority in Parliament wants, but what the proportions must be. There have also been proposals to go beyond the necessary changes required by law; but in the end these proposals were eliminated at various stages of the debate, and the only changes made were those required by law – such as the number of residents in each constituency, the permitted population deviations from one constituency to another, and so on. This is the long answer. The short answer is that we’re not preparing for such a change. Does the Government need to introduce stimulus measures? I’m never an advocate of any form of stimulus that involves financial risk. So, let’s say, it brought the risk that the budget deficit would surge, or that the previously planned course for equilibrium would be undermined. So there are many ways to stimulate, but not without creating risks for financial stability. I know that you’ve never written about this favourably, but I’ll just mention that we’ve won the last three or four elections, – perhaps all of them – with a budget deficit in the year of the election that was smaller than that in the year before the election. Even if it’s not recognised here, I consider it a very impressive technical achievement – one of the civic government’s most impressive technical achievements – that in an election year the budget hasn’t run aground, but the deficit has been cut. I could name several Western European countries where the opposite has happened. So I don’t think that fiscal discipline is something that should be threatened. Obviously this is backed up by experience. On many occasions Hungary has suffered from fiscal imbalances, and the price to be paid for that is very high. Therefore Hungary must always avoid the kind of political and economic adventures that are associated with a breakdown in financial stability. I think that this idea is also embodied and expressed, for example, in the person of the new Central Bank Governor. Forgive me, but there was a first question that I’ve forgotten.
[András Gergely of Bloomberg asks a question, but he’s not speaking into the microphone.]
Yes, yes. So the fact is that one shouldn’t give up anything, because if one only gets power through one pipeline system, then one’s always vulnerable. So we’re not happy that we’ve replaced the Ukrainian route with another one. Of course it would have been a big problem if we’d failed, but that’s no reason to be happy. A reason to be happy would be to always have energy available through three or four different channels at a reasonable price. This is why we’re not giving up on our plans for the Ukrainian territories either: we also want energy from there, we want energy to be supplied via the Ukrainian territories, we’re negotiating with the Russians and the Ukrainians, and we’ll continue to negotiate in the future. Now we’re trying the not very imaginative trick of suggesting that, by the time the gas enters Ukrainian territory, it’s no longer Russian gas, but already the property of the buyer; thus what passes through Ukrainian territory is no longer the Russians’ gas, but the Hungarians’ gas. But whether or not the Ukrainians accept this and whether or not the Russians agree to it is a matter for negotiation, and we won’t give it up on this of our own free will.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: AP, Bálint.
Bálint Dömötör (AP): Good morning. I’m from AP and I have a few questions. First, I’d like to ask you about Poland. Hungary has granted political asylum to a Polish former deputy justice minister, saying that his right to a fair trial had been violated. What signs have you seen that Romanowski was subjected to such unfair treatment? And what other individuals from the PiS party are expected to apply for political asylum in Hungary? My second question is that, according to media reports, US president-elect Donald Trump is asking NATO member countries to increase their share of defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Have you spoken to him about this proposal, would you support it, and would Hungary have enough money in its budget to almost double its defence spending?
I’m just looking... I’m looking for the answer to the first question, but I can’t find it. I don’t want to raise the issue to prime ministerial level. Our aim is to keep our conflicts with Poland at a manageable level, so I won’t say anything about what I think of the rule of law situation in Poland. I can tell you something about the decision. There’s a procedure for this, and this procedure must be followed. There are thoroughly developed stages, checkpoints. We’ve ordered a study to be carried out which fully explores the situation in Poland. It’s a massive, thorough study that takes stock of what’s happening there now. The minister who has the right to decide on asylum has seen these reports and has made his decision on the basis of them. Our decision isn’t unknown, it’s an internationally known legal institution, and I’m not telling you a big secret when I say that I don’t think it will be the last one. As far as the increase in the NATO budget is concerned, I’m not saying that we’re going to drive ourselves into the ground, that would be an exaggeration; but we’re already very concerned about the fact that we have to raise the amount of money spent on defence to above 2 per cent of gross domestic product. This also shows that we’re a peaceful people, with an interest in disarmament. So what we want is not to have to spend even 2 per cent of GDP on armaments, but to have international conditions and agreements that would allow us to bring this down. But the world is going in the opposite direction, and the 2 per cent has been treated by everybody in the past as a kind of badge of loyalty to the alliance. So we’ve really been sweating blood, but we’ve squeezed this 2 per cent out of ourselves. We’ve talked here about the economy, about how many other areas there are in which money is needed. Now, if the 2 per cent has to be raised, it will be a bullet to the lungs of Hungary’s economy. So if we’re put under such pressure, if we’re subjected to such pressure, I can only imagine a gradual increase, because otherwise it will floor us. So a 3 or 4 per cent increase in GDP would mean that we wouldn’t simply have to allocate more to one chapter, but we’d have to restructure everything, we’d have to take the money from somewhere else. So then it has to be reorganised, and for Hungary this would be a semi-militarised economy. That’s something I’d like to avoid. I haven’t spoken to the President about this issue – which is understandable, taking account of our size. But it will come up at NATO summits, and we’ll discuss the issue then. I’ll be in the camp of those who are cautiously bullish: if we have to increase, let’s increase, but let’s do so in a transparent, clear, gradual and manageable way.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Thank you. Origo.
András Kovács (origo.hu): Hello. Thank you very much. I have three brief questions for the Prime Minister. The first question is this: In the light of yesterday’s terrorist attack, and with the last Sunday of Advent still ahead of us, will security be increased at Advent fairs and Christmas markets in Hungary? My second question concerns the fact that in your interview with Patrióta you said that this year we’ll spend 4.5 per cent of GDP on debt servicing, and next year the figure will be 3.5 per cent. In concrete terms, how many billions of forints is this 1 per cent extra that will be released next year, and in what areas will it be spent? And finally, former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has been elected as the new leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists. In the current situation, what do you think is the maximum level of cooperation between the Patriots for Europe and the Conservatives, and do you see any chance of the involvement of other parties and groups on the Right? Thank you very much.
As for the funds from the reduction in the debt servicing ratio, we’ll use them to reduce our debt and to reduce the budget deficit. This year we’ve planned a budget deficit of 4.5 per cent – and we’ve done this several times, because we’ve had to redraw the plan several times during the year. But we’re here now, we’re doing our best to keep to it, and next year we have to keep the deficit below 3.7 per cent – or below 4 per cent in any event. This isn’t because anyone from outside expects it – that’s totally secondary. There are all sorts of benchmarks from the EU, but if I look at the budget deficit figures of other countries, we’re not a country with a problem; but we have to reduce the budget deficit because it’s in the interests of the Hungarian economy. So managing with a budget deficit above 3 per cent is very difficult. It keeps you on a constant debt trajectory, you’ll stay on a continuous debt trajectory. And although this will sound funny, the goal that we set ourselves must be no less than to eventually create a situation in which we aren’t going to others for money, but others are coming to us for money. This is the most comfortable income stream: I have money, others borrow it, I earn interest on it, and I collect it. We’d also like to be in that situation, but right now we’re on the other side of the trade: we’re going there, we’re asking for money and we’re paying the interest. So I think that Hungary’s strategic goal – and it’s true that it’s not a short-term goal, but must be a strategic goal for Hungary – is to continuously reduce its budget deficit, to reduce its public debt and, sooner or later, to move to the position of being a creditor. Money is a serious matter. I learnt from Angela Merkel that every forint, every mark, every euro that you spend has to be earned sooner or later by someone. So someone will have to work for it. And this is the essence of financial discipline. We’re looking at security, and the problem is that – unfortunately this is also true of terrorist acts – one fool spawns a hundred. So at times like this one has to be alert. Every Christmas in recent years the Hungarian law enforcement services have performed well, and I hope they will do so again. Turning to the change of leadership in our sister party, the Italian prime minister has been the leader of the European Conservatives group, and now she’s being replaced by a Pole, the former Polish prime minister – with whom I’ve formed a close, deep, deeply friendly cooperation going back decades. I’ve been in talks with him since then, and although the Patriots and the European Conservatives have different party groups, and it’s no accident that we’re in two different groups, despite their differences the two groups agree on the most important issues. So in the coming period there will be more joint initiatives by the two party groups, and it’s no secret that in the longer term we intend to have, as they say in our profession, structured – that’s to say, well-organised – institutional cooperation between the two groups. In European politics there are various possibilities for achieving this. We’re striving to do this. When it happens, that will be the moment when we break out the champagne and overtake the Socialists in the European Parliament. So if the third and fourth groups in Europe can build a lasting cooperation, we’ll overtake the Socialists and we’ll be the second largest in the European Parliament. And then, once we’ve grown and our gravitational pull has strengthened, this will create a magnetic field around us, we’ll also attract parties from the European People’s Party, and we’ll be the largest group. This is the plan.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Thank you. Euronews, in the middle.
Zoltán Siposhegyi (Euronews): Thank you very much. First of all, I’d like to ask you about the expulsion of guest workers, because news has just emerged that from 1 January all guest workers from outside Europe will be sent home, and that they won’t have their residence and work permits extended by one year. Earlier you mentioned that the only major obstacle to the development of the economy is a lack of labour. So why does this measure need to be enacted so quickly? Why haven’t not consulted with the larger companies? What’s the reason for this decision in the first place, and won’t these people be sorely missed in the labour market? And I have one more question. Under János Lázár’s leadership, the Information Office monitored the staff of OLAF, the European Union’s anti-fraud office, who were investigating your son-in-law István Tiborcz. You knew about this. Do you think that this is an appropriate procedure in a European democracy? And there’s also talk about this information having somehow disappeared from the Information Office, with Direkt36 quoting sources who have said that you expressly authorised this. Thank you very much.
I’ll start with the last one. These are all rumours, and I don’t concern myself with them. In Hungary there are quite strict rules on what tools can be used, and when and how to use them. There’s a national security system, according to which the ministers and service heads within it must proceed. I’m not aware of this line having been crossed at any time in Hungary under a civic government, a national government. The second question – or the first – isn’t a rumour: it’s a falsehood; there’s been no such decision. We’ve created a law for the guest worker system, which I think is the result of excellent, extensive, serious codification work, and which I think represents an authoritative standard. To slightly depreciate all that work, to downplay our own contribution, we actually copied – mutatis mutandis – the Qatari guest worker system, placing it in a European context. Many years ago the Emir of Qatar drew my attention to the fact that they’re in the same boat as us: migration must be rejected but guest workers are needed, and the two must be very clearly separated. He also said that his country has the best guest worker legislation in the world. Then I looked at it, and he was right! And of course, since we’re not where they are, there are differences, after all this is an EU legal environment, we reshaped it; but that’s where the essence of our regulations comes from. I’ve been asked about this law several times in Parliament, there I made a clear promise, and now I’m implementing it. Perhaps the members of [the opposition party] Our Homeland, who have the guest worker issue on their agenda, have said that guest workers won’t go home. To this I replied that now we have this code, and we’ve given every country that wants to deal with Hungary in relation to guest workers a transitional period in which to create its own laws on readmission. And for those countries that don’t draw up and sign such an agreement with Hungary, by 1 January it’ll be over, finished, finito, and we won’t accept guest workers from them. I’ve made a commitment – not only to Our Homeland, not only to the Members of Parliament, but to the country as a whole – that we’ll have a guest worker system whereby they can stay for a limited period of time, and they’ll have to leave the country when that period ends. And the system we’ll introduce will also allow for their return, and the enforcement of their return. The precondition for this is an agreement. There is a basis for what you’re talking about, but the details aren’t what you’ve said. The Government has actually taken a decision and has now laid down this rule. And it’s said that it won’t be possible to bring guest workers into Hungary from a country where there’s no readmission agreement or where the state hasn’t set up an institution to guarantee us that they’ll be readmitted. And immediately ten countries – or perhaps even more – have fallen off the list. So the situation is that from 1 January it won’t be possible to bring guest workers into Hungary from a number of countries. This is what we’ve agreed, and this is what we’ve been saying from the very beginning. There’s nothing surprising about this, and those who are involved in organising for guest workers shouldn’t be surprised either, because we made this clear when we adopted this law. Now, how many guest workers are there in Hungary? How many can there be? There’s also a law which says that every year the Minister for National Economy must give the figure for the number of job vacancies in Hungary. He’ll be able to say how many of the vacancies he wants filled by guest workers, but he won’t be able to go beyond that. Last year the figure was 65,000, I think; and I’ve just agreed with the Minister that his plan is to set it at 35,000 this year. This is because he thinks that, partly because of the enlargement of the Schengen Area, and partly because of the large industrial projects that have been launched in Eastern Hungary, that there are between three and five hundred thousand people in Hungary who can still be integrated into the Hungarian labour market. At the moment these people are living in internal enclaves. Of course training will be needed in order to be able to integrate them, but he thinks that we can still fill most of the vacancies in Hungary today with Hungarian workers. This is why he’s given the Government advance notice of what he’ll decide; but I think that he’ll make the final decision in January or February, when these numbers can be clearly seen. I’d like to say – without any emotion, or with as little emotion as possible – that Hungary belongs to the Hungarians. So I don’t want to see my country become a country of guest workers, just as I don’t want to see it become a country of migrants. And this is why we won’t let migrants in, and only let in as many guest workers as we need. This is not only because Hungary belongs to the Hungarians. This is not only because I don’t want to be like the citizens of some other countries, who paid no attention, and then after ten years notice that when they travel on the metro they’re surrounded by people of unknown origin, and who, when they arrive home, see that the people living there are different from those who lived there earlier, and who ask this question: Who allowed this to happen? It just happened, because that’s what life is like in Western Europe today. I don’t want Hungarians to find themselves in this situation, and I don’t want to find myself in it. And as far as guest workers are concerned, I have another consideration. This will certainly cause a debate, but I’ve seen bad examples of it in the West. There will be a very big problem if in a country the idea becomes accepted that there are inferior jobs that we no longer want to do because we already live better than that and they’re beneath us, and we seek to fill these jobs with foreigners, and we get hooked on this idea. Because this idea actually devalues work. I think that the job of the street cleaner is one of the most important. It may be arduous, it may be badly paid and require few qualifications; but if the street is cleaned properly, that’s a serious achievement. If a surgery or a school is cleaned, the cleaner has done a very serious job. So where they want to bring in guest workers in the traditional way, I’m generally against it if there’s a single Hungarian who’s willing to do the job. And what we have to say to Hungarians, including unskilled Hungarians, is that you’re important, your work is part of the country’s performance, and things won’t work without you. So there’s no such thing as an inferior job; there’s a job done badly and a job done well. So the honour of work must be defended here at the bottom, not up there among the “white-coated” IT professionals: not there, but here. And I think it will be a big problem if we switch to the logic of foreigners coming here to do the work we don’t like, even when we have people to do it. So what I propose is what I call a work-based economy and a work-based society. This is criticised because for some mysterious reason there are those who place it in opposition to science and knowledge – but let’s put that aside for the moment. The attitude towards work in a country must not change, because if it does, that will have a destructive effect in the long term. We must therefore be careful with this guest worker issue. It would be very easy to solve all the Hungarian economy’s labour problems by inviting in a large number of guest workers. But I don’t recommend that. Let’s squeeze everything we can out of ourselves. Let’s find the last Hungarian, persuade that person to work, and pay him or her for it. Let’s acknowledge that person’s work. And when we’re really through with all that, well, let someone come along who’s not one of us.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: ARD. Edit. In the middle.
Edit Inotai (ARD): Thank you very much. I have three short questions. In February there will be elections in Germany. How is your relationship with Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader who’s expected to be the next chancellor? Do you see any chance for a significant improvement in Hungarian–German political relations under such a government, or would you rather have Fidesz’s natural ally, the AfD? And then one more question on the Western Balkans. Hungary has provided North Macedonia with a loan at an interest rate of 3.25 per cent. This is a very preferential rate in the international arena, especially considering that Hungary has received a loan from China at 5 per cent, for example. What’s the national strategic intention behind this, and how is it worth it for Hungarian taxpayers? And then one more question, on the relationship with Poland. What do you expect now in relation to Poland, and how much could relations deteriorate or improve? You mentioned that this Polish deputy justice minister, who’s now been granted political asylum in Hungary, will perhaps not be the last one. Who could be the next one? Perhaps the former CEO or chairman of Orlen, who’s also in Hungary?
He’s an MEP at the moment, if we’re thinking of the same gentleman – although you never know which gentleman is in a lady’s head, at least in my experience. Consequently, we won’t have to deal with that. But the general point is that I think it’s true that we have to face the fact that there will be more cases like this – or at least there could be. Therefore we also have to speak very carefully here, because Poland and Hungary have common interests – especially in Brussels – which neither of us will be able to assert separately, but only together. These are what I call interstate relations; and interstate relations must be rescued from the world of party relations. Our party relations with the Polish governing party are in a terrible state, and I’m working to ensure that this doesn’t spread. This will be a difficult process and one that will require empathy, but I have the will. As far as the loans to the Balkans are concerned, you mentioned only one loan, but there are several. What’s Hungary’s interest in this? It’s in Hungary’s interest to have political stability in the region to the south of us. If, let’s say during the migration crisis, in 2015–16, Macedonia hadn’t had a strong government, a manly, strong government, it would have been almost impossible to stem the entire migration tide. So it’s in our economic and security interest – I’ve just been talking about pipelines – to have stable countries to the south of us. I’m also trying to convince the European Union that this should be the most important viewpoint – which is why I’ve never supported the attitude that Brussels has in relation to the Western Balkans. For two and a half years before our Presidency, nothing happened on the issue of enlargement – I mean on the legal issue; and the financial support that we’d promised wasn’t sent. So we’ve done all sorts of things, but the European Union doesn’t realise that one of its Member States – Hungary – has a vital interest in the stability of this region. And if the EU doesn’t do what needs to be done, someone else will have to do it. This stability costs money. We can’t now give money as a gift, because we’re not yet rich enough to do so. We can provide credit, and we provide loans on preferential terms that won’t bankrupt the borrowers. These are poor countries, so sometimes our budget has to pay the interest rate differential, it has to make up for it, and this costs money; but this is the price of our security. This is why we’ve provided such a loan to Macedonia. But we’ve also provided one to Bosnia, and we’re also negotiating with the Albanians. I think there’s more in this regard, and the Minister for Economic Affairs will have more accurate knowledge of it. But Hungary must undertake – within its means, of course – to try to help out the countries of the Balkans region; not with huge sums, but with significant sums. For example, the Germans have withdrawn from Republika Srpska, a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and for political reasons they’ve withdrawn from investments there. And we have to go in there. Now of course it’s good if an investment pays for itself, but this consideration is secondary to a country withdrawing from the development of another country, and the development there stalling. So someone has to step in, and if the EU isn’t prepared to do something about it, then we have to do something about it with the means we have. We translate this into English as “responsible neighbourhood”; because Macedonia and Republika Srpska may not be neighbours of Hungary, but they’re one step away from our door. So is Albania – and migration has brought them even closer to us. We have a responsibility in this region, and there are financial consequences that we have to bear. Now, the most difficult subject you’ve asked about is the German issue. I’ve met Mr. Merz once, under circumstances that I won’t go into here. We exchanged about three sentences, which in the current, fashionable Hungarian political slang is described as “We will have a talk.” So on that occasion we agreed to talk. I don’t want to multiply the problems of the future German chancellor, because I think there are challenges there that would be more than a match for not only a country the size of Hungary, but for a country three times the size of Hungary. So there are two issues. One is the trade war with China, which is the consequence of bad European policy in relation to Germany. The Germans wanted to prevent tariffs on Chinese products. I’ve never seen anything like this: the Germans wanted to block something in Brussels, they got four or five countries together, but that was all – and they couldn’t get a blocking minority together. I’ve never seen anything like this in Brussels in my life – and on a matter that’s one of life or death for German industry: the issue of vehicle tariffs. This is what happened. Hungary was with Germany on this issue, and this is how I know what I’m talking about now. We couldn’t even bring together a blocking minority with the Germans. So there’s something wrong there in the machinery in Brussels. So they’ve got this trade war problem with China, which Brussels is imposing on them. And they’ve got an even bigger problem, which is that the whole German economic strategy, which was based on cheap energy, which used to come from Russia, is now at an end. They’re paying three or four times more than the American companies that are competing with them. That contest is unwinnable! So the new chancellor will have to face challenges on a scale compared to which we Hungarians are a very manageable little issue. So, of course, when the new German chancellor – whatever that person’s name is – has worked through the big strategic issues and gets to the dossier marked “Hungary”, I’ll be at the Chancellor’s disposal; but I know that we won’t be first on the list.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Mandiner next, please.
Dániel Kacsoh (Mandiner): What’s the current situation related to the border defence fine that you’ve mentioned? This fine is clocking up one million euros a day. Earlier it was said that Hungary isn’t paying this fine. Are there any alternative ways of avoiding this? Or, if necessary, will migrants be bussed to Brussels to demonstrate Hungary’s position? What can be done in the current situation? My next question is whether the peace mission will continue in this way, or whether Donald Trump will now take over the baton, so to speak. And one more question: one of the headline topics this year has been the exchange rate of the forint. Has the Hungarian government’s position on the introduction of the euro changed, and when might this be realistic? Thank you very much.
I can hardly wait for someone to take the baton from my hand; Hungary must have a realistic self-image, which means that its importance and weight shouldn’t be either overestimated or underestimated. That we believe that we’re the most important country in the world is beyond question, and that we’re the best country is beyond doubt. And I could also defend the position that the world’s never seen a nation that’s greater than ours. And I’m quite sure that we’ve contributed more to the world than we’ve received from it, and there are certainly many things in the world that wouldn’t have been possible without the Hungarians: from the Rubik’s Cube, to the ballpoint pen, to the hydrogen bomb – to name a few Hungarian “products”. So we have our national self-esteem, we know who we are, and we know that we’re irreplaceable and indispensable. But we also need to acknowledge how much influence we have on world affairs. And with this peace mission, Hungary has been punching far above its weight. We had moral reasons for this and nothing else; but I’m eager for someone to take the baton from our hands, and I see that happening now. So the US president is coming, and then he’ll lead the way. And then we’ll be ready to help, to cooperate, but the cause of peace and peace missions won’t be linked to Hungary. For moral reasons such a link might perhaps have rightly given rise to some good feeling or self-respect, but that’s not the correct order of things. The correct order of things is what will happen soon. At all events, we’ve always been on the side of peace, we’re helping, the cause of peace has always been our priority and, as I’ve told you, I can see Hungary winning peace much more easily than any war. So we must stay on this course, but I’m glad that Hungary is finally playing a smaller, less significant role in this. The next question was migration. I asked the Minister to ensure that the buses engines are constantly kept warm, because at any moment a situation could arise in Brussels to which we can respond in only one way: we load them on, we issue them one-way tickets; they can go by train or, if necessary, we can take them by bus – according to all legal requirements, of course. We haven’t given up on that at all, and we’ll use that tool if we have to. We’re not doing all this just to provoke Brussels, but to give clear signals that we shall defend ourselves. I’ll say this again: after every single terrorist act, for a few days everyone feels that this is the right policy. They look at these images that we see and say, “Well, my children go to Christmas markets, don’t they? They go with my wife, and then they call and say they’ve been killed, because someone…” Obviously, when terrorist acts occur everyone sees the real risks and the real seriousness of migration. And, as we move away from terrorist acts in time, I don’t want to see a diminution in people’s minds of the weight, the consequences and the responsibility accorded to migration. I want to keep this alive in Hungary. The migration pressure on the Hungarian border may at times be less and at other times greater, but the historic scale of the threat we live under is huge and constant. In surveys and national consultations the importance of migration and security may well be overtaken by the economy, but it never will in my mind, because it’s the most important thing. Therefore we must always have the means to ward off Brussels’ efforts. Because if this Magdeburg incident wasn’t part of this Brussels political environment, but was an isolated event, we Hungarians would say that we deeply sympathise with the German people, and that we’re together with them in their feelings and prayers. We could say this is a Germany affair, and we’ll look to them to solve that problem. Well, it’s not a German affair, because Brussels wants to turn Hungary into Magdeburg. It wants to impose it on the Hungarians, and the German government isn’t protecting us in this. Mr. Weber is at the forefront of this in Brussels, and they want to impose a migration regulation on Hungary, the risks of which are glaring. We’ll never want that. We shall defend ourselves, we shall have the means, sometimes provocative, sometimes more conventional legal means; but we’ll always defend ourselves, because this mustn’t be allowed. And in our conviction that’s the end of it. I can even accept that we’re not right. But I won’t allow Hungary to be denied the right to think in this way. It should judge its security risk and act accordingly, and no one from Brussels can force us to change this. Of course, we won’t pay, and of course they’ll take our money, so we’ll sue them and take it back. This is the essence of the battle plan. We’ve hired a prestigious major law firm through whom we’re suing Brussels, and we want to take back the money that they’re taking from us. Excuse me, were there any more questions? The forint. I don’t recommend looking in that direction for a way out. The right question when looking for a way out is how to make the forint more stable as a currency. You can see that the forint is a currency that’s very sensitive to changes in the world, and that’s never good. Within a certain range, movements in the value of currencies are part of the modern world economy; but the fluctuations we’re seeing are unnatural. This is why it’s not easy to be a central bank governor or a finance minister in Hungary today. Preserving the value of the forint is the responsibility of the Central Bank under the Central Bank Act, but to my mind joining the eurozone isn’t one of the possible means for stabilisation. Joining the eurozone would undoubtedly bring stability, but it would stifle growth and deprive us of the possibility for development. I think in terms of this duality, which is why I propose that Hungary should retain the possibility of faster development. But for this we need a national currency, and we shouldn’t stabilise that national currency through the eurozone. There are other instruments, they should be used.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: 24.hu, please.
József Spirk (24.hu): Thank you. Related to the topic of peace missions, earlier President Trump – and you’ve said this several times – has committed himself to something that’s now very widely quoted: that he can bring peace to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. My question is whether at the moment this is seen as a metaphor, and what timeframe is being considered. That’s one of my questions. In relation to the Tisza Party, how do you see the power dynamics at the moment? Following this, my next topic is on government offices. The building of the Ministry of Finance here in this neighbourhood has recently been opened and completed, but meanwhile the Ministry of Finance has been abolished. Was it rational to spend around 700 billion forints on government office buildings, when recently it was said that the state no longer has much money to spend on renovating railway stations? Thank you.
Twenty-four hours. The last time I met the President-elect of the United States in his private residence ten days ago I had a very strange, but also very intellectually stimulating conversation with him, because we talked for about an hour and a half without negotiating anything. Until the President-elect takes office, he cannot engage in negotiations – even within the Hungarian–American system of relations, that is, his relations with Hungary. This may sound strange, and in Hungary the rules aren’t laid down with such deadly precision, but in the US they are. So we touched on a lot of issues, but we were only able to have a conversation rather than a negotiation. And it was perhaps the Minister who told me that in the past there have been cases when someone was unable to take up an office – not a presidential one, but at a lower level – because they’d been in negotiations during this transition period. I’m only telling you this because perhaps it’s not justified to hold the US president to account for not having made peace in 24 hours; because he can’t even negotiate with me, we can only talk at a certain level of detachment, let alone negotiate life and death, war and peace with, say, the Russian president. So I don’t think that’s realistic. What is realistic is what will happen within 24 hours of him taking office. I think that’s realistic, and I’m looking forward to finding out myself. It’s quite difficult to answer a question about exactly what the power dynamics are in Hungarian politics – especially here, in the light of developments in Romania. I always start from the facts. The fact is that there was a European Parliament election, we got 45 per cent of the vote, and the party that came second got 30 per cent. If the question is whether this will be enough for the 2026 election, the question I’d ask is where I can sign the guarantee for that. This is what I think about the power dynamics. The Ministry of Finance building. I think even opposition journalists can agree with me that it’s a fantastic building, and compare it with what was there before, which in the Commie days – if I may put it so kindly – was called “modest”, I think. Modesty in the Buda Castle: that was the official architectural logic, to be modest. I suggest that you take out the photographs of the “modest” Finance Ministry, and then look at the current one. Then you’ll see what an outrage was committed against Hungary. This is generally true of the whole area of the Buda Castle district. There are more important things than Castle Hill, but it’s still unique in the history of Europe for there to be a place – symbolically a summit, the top of a hill – where the supreme powers of state have been exercised continuously for eight hundred years, on sites which architecturally have developed organically. And for eighty years we left them to lie in ruins. And now, when we start to rebuild them, like the Finance Ministry building… I’m sorry to talk at length about this, I just want to share here, that I’m a committed – maybe from your point of view nationalist – and fierce patriot; so I don’t need any encouragement to think well of my own country and its achievements. But when I see it – say, when I go to the Ministry of Finance and I stand in front of it – I realise that by rendering it “modest” and leaving it like that robbed us of a sense of greatness. You stand in front of that building, and what a great thing it is! And I’m not talking about the size, but the way it looks, the idea that’s embodied there, the whole aesthetic. And the whole Castle District was like that. Compared to that, for eighty years we were stumbling around in the ruins. Such a small country, with its head down, the ruins, the ruins of greatness, when they’re here. So I know that Castle Hill cannot be rebuilt all at once, that it will take many years, we have to go step by step, and there are more important things – of course there are. But still, I think it’s also a question of self-respect for the Hungarians, that this couldn’t be left as it was, and for me too the Finance Ministry building is shocking proof of this. So much for aesthetics. But what about the Finance Ministry? Indeed, earlier it was decided that Hungarian economic policy would be created while moving all the institutions dealing with it – most of them, but not all, now in leased buildings – to one place, somewhere near the City Park. I think this is right. The fact that in the meantime we’ve decided to renovate the building that was intended for the Finance Ministry doesn’t make it pointless. I don’t need to tell you why it didn’t happen, but we not only decided to restore the Ministry of Finance building in the Castle District, but also the Interior Ministry, one block away. This hasn’t happened yet, precisely because we have more important things to do than that, and there wasn’t enough money, to put it simply. Therefore when we move the Interior Ministry back, it will be shifted over by one block: it won’t move back into the old Interior Ministry building, but the old Finance Ministry building, which I think I’ll be handing over sometime in early February. That’s where the Interior Ministry is going. The question is, what will happen to the former Interior Ministry building? The Government will look into that, because I don’t see any point in the Ministry of Defence being down there on Balaton Street, which is part of the city’s commercial district, and not in a historic building. We want to move government institutions out of the commercial district, where we’re renting a lot of places, but not this one. And the Ministry of Defence is looking into whether it can move into the former Interior Ministry building. Now, if we leave aside these details and look at the big picture, I can say that every year we pay out some 60 billion forints on renting property – with all the consequences that entails. It’s unhealthy for the Hungarian state to be so strongly represented as a tenant in the Hungarian real estate market. Now, I’m not sure all real estate investors think this way, but I do. So I think it’s right for all state institutions to be in predictably managed state-owned buildings for the long term, to be set up in them and working there. The business district is for business, the hotel district is for hotels, politics is politics, and each should be in its place. This is what’s happening. I also think that this is far less important than the issue of hospitals, the issue of educational institutions, the issue of pay rises for the judiciary, the issue of the functioning of the courts; these are all more important, and they must be dealt with. This is why we’re not going to solve this in one or two years: it’s a long process, and the Minister is overseeing the whole thing. The Minister says that this will be completed in 2027. Let us be confident. So, in my view, this is the sensible thing to do, regardless of the fact that it’s not difficult to create a mood against it; and if you don’t look at it from the right perspective it can even irritate you, because there are more important things – and you’re right about that too. But this cannot be neglected either, and from the proposal at the Cabinet meeting I could clearly see that this is a sensible solution in financial terms.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: RTL, please.
Barna Kéri (RTL): Hello. Prime Minister, in this regard you’ve mentioned the role of the Central Bank, but does the Government have any responsibility for the fact that the euro is now at 415 forints? Yesterday Parliament adopted the 2025 budget, which I think is based on an expectation of 397.5 forints. How will the maths work out in 2025, when and by how much will the euro exchange rate dip below 400? I could also ask, what’s your advice on when to buy euros for a holiday in 2025? When will the exchange rate be right? Péter Magyar. There are different opinion polls, but in any case, they put the Tisza Party above, below, next to, or at least close to Fidesz. My question is this: What do you think Péter Magyar is doing right, enabling the Tisza Party to climb to such a level in a relatively short period of time? Or are you responsible for this, have you done something wrong? Péter Magyar is asking you to publish the assets declarations of your family members over the past five years. Obviously I’m asking whether you’ll do so and I don’t want to anticipate your answer, but if you won’t I wonder why not. Péter Magyar is now visiting children’s homes, or at least trying to visit children’s homes, with varying degrees of success. I’d like to ask you about the child protection system. Today in Hungary, a child’s daily meal in child protection institutions costs around 1,500 forints. Do you think this amount of money can provide a child with a healthy, nutritious meal for a day? And then very briefly: war.
Zoltán Kovács State Secretary: You’ve asked four questions. Thank you very much, the Prime Minister will answer them, and then we’ll continue.
Among other things, slow down so I can write it down. War?
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: No, I think we should answer the questions.
So if you know who to ask about when to buy euros, let me know – I’d like to buy at the right moment. I’m certainly not the person to tell you that. And in this respect I think the Central Bank Governor is somewhat bound by secrecy, because that knowledge is somewhere in the Central Bank. In answer to the question of when and how the forint exchange rate will develop, this is a power that we shouldn’t – and I don’t propose to – take away from them. As to what contributes to the exchange rate of a national currency, I think one could listen to most – or many – university lectures on this. I’m not a qualified lecturer, but I do know that there’s speculation, there’s the performance of the Government, there’s the general financial situation, there’s stability, and the budget deficit always has an impact on the forint; and of course there’s the condition and development of other currencies. What I see – and what in my meeting with the Minister for National Economy I most of all asked him to prepare for – is a change in the dollar exchange rate and its impact on the Hungarian currency. When the dollar strengthens, the forint automatically weakens – not only the forint, but all the currencies in the region. And big things are going to happen here – not only in relation to the war and social policy, but the new US administration will do fantastic things in economic policy. This is just from what I can see, it’s obvious just from the publicly announced plans. It’s sure that it’s going to change the exchange rate of the US currency compared to all the other currencies, all the other currencies in the world. We have to be prepared for that. But in the movement of the forint today I think that ad hoc factors play a much bigger role than the actual state of the Hungarian economy. While the Hungarian economy stays the same, that cannot cause to move 10–15 forints. I don’t think that the basic structure of the Hungarian economy can change from Monday to Thursday. So from this point of view, I feel that the Government is fine, and the Government is keeping the economy in order – I mean the budget, the public debt, the fundamentals of the economy are fine. And it’s always in the space above those fundamentals that the Central Bank has to fight its battle to stabilise the forint exchange rate. My assets have been public since 1990, and there’s a law on what to do in relation to my family members and how to make that information public. I’ve always complied, my life is an open book, I’m always at the disposal of everyone. You asked me about the Tisza Party, to which I’ve already answered that it’s not my job to deal with the Opposition – I have other things to do. I’ll respond to your question about what the Government has done wrong by asking what the Opposition has done wrong. The governing party will govern, well or badly, thank you very much. What happens on the opposition side isn’t the business of the governing parties, but of the opposition parties. What they do, why and how they do it, that’s their world, their question, their knowledge, and this government should keep its distance from that. Maybe there was one more thing. Sorry?
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Provision of meals, children’s meals.
We need to give enough money to children’s homes to ensure that children in Hungary receive safe, healthy, high-quality meals. Enough money must be given, and that money must be made available. If it’s not enough now, then whoever is responsible will obviously ask for more. The Government isn’t economising at the expense of children. We’ve never been like that. We have epoch-making economic policymakers, and the minimum I expect of them is to extract the resources from the economy that are needed for social care, health care and education. Now that György Matolcsy is leaving, I can safely say that an epoch-making economic policymaker is leaving the Central Bank. He’s always solved this, Minister Mihály Varga. If you look at the budget figures, you can see the performance, it’s in order, and I’m confident that this will continue under Márton Nagy. There’s always money for what we really need money for. Railway stations, especially the huge railway stations, are certainly beyond our means – not the part that deals with rail services, because rail services remain in public hands, but what’s beyond that: managing those huge station spaces, the cafes, the shops, and their renovation. This is where we should involve private capital, and I agree with the “Lázár proposal”. What the state is obliged to do is to keep the railway and the railway part of a station running – that’s our job. But someone else can make money out of what’s beyond that, while we can’t; so let them do it, invest in it and renovate it. And let us, the Government, get a little from that. I think this proposal that the Minister for Transport has put forward is a good one, and I support it.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: We’re running out of time. Blikk please, in the middle.
Barnabás Balázs (Blikk): Thank you. According to the declaration of assets you filed this year, you have 10 million forints in savings, while it’s well known that your close circle is full of billionaires: for example your son-in-law, your father, your childhood friend. Doesn’t this difference in wealth bother you – that after thirty years as a leading politician and eighteen years in government there’s such a big difference in your wealth? Don’t you consider this situation to be unjust? My second question is that this year’s tribulations for Fidesz began with the presidential pardon scandal, for which many people blame Zoltán Balog. Prime Minister, have you forgiven Zoltán Balog? And my third question, Prime Minister, is that, if reports are to be believed, in the June election for Mayor of Budapest you voted for Dávid Vitézy, who has since been quite fiercely attacked by Fidesz. Do you regret having given him your vote? Thank you very much.
So, as far as Fidesz’s tribulations are concerned, I’d like to see them continue in 2026. We get 45 per cent, and the second-placed party gets 30 per cent. What a fantastic tribulation! I’d like to record this as the essence of our political performance in 2024. I haven’t spoken publicly about the debate that’s broken out within our church on the pardon issue, because I think that our church will take care of that. All I can say politically is that no political decision-maker can shift the responsibility for his or her decision onto advisers. We’d be a fine sight if I were to answer your question by saying, “Yes, I made a scandalously bad decision, but, you know, that’s what someone advised me.” That would be absurd! So the decision is made by the politician, and the responsibility is the politician’s. And the adviser assumes the psychological responsibility for whether or not he or she has given the right advice. But this is no longer our business, and it’s certainly not worth making a church issue out of it. And I’m glad to see that our church has with great difficulty – thank God, especially since the Church and the state are separate – discussed and settled this matter within its own circles, without any state intervention. And perhaps now the mood there has calmed down. Do the differences in wealth bother me? They don’t bother me. This is what I decided in 1990, and I knew it would be pretty much like this. When in Hungary it became clear that a bourgeois Western world – let’s say a capitalist economic order – was coming, you could tell that someone was going to go into business, someone was going to go into science, and someone else was going to go into politics. As I looked at the opposition world around me in 1990 – a lot of MDF people, SZDSZ people, all kinds of people – I saw these careers unfolding, and I knew what I was getting into. I was never attracted to the world of business, but I was attracted to the world of science. For me it was a difficult decision to go from being academically oriented – to answer you here – to doing this work. But it’s no use crying over spilt milk, things are what they are, and I’ve wandered far from the glories of academia. But the point is that when someone makes a decision, they should know what it will bring. So the reason I always reject all these questions about personal business matters – or rather always answer them in the same way – is because I believe that business matters aren’t something that the Prime Minister should be dealing with. So when you decide that you’re going to deal with public affairs, that you’re going into politics, then you have to look at the world in terms of public affairs and the public interest. When you go into business, you have to look at the world in terms of how to make a profit. This is another perspective. You can’t mix them up. Of course the business world, the academic world and the political world are intertwined, but they mustn’t be mixed – that would be wrong: they must be kept separate. This is why – regardless of what anyone in my family or elsewhere does, how much they earn and how they live – I don’t give anyone advice on how others should lead their lives. That’s not my job, they’re adult people who are citizens of Hungary. Although I consider moderation to be a virtue, I don’t give advice: they should live their lives and I should live mine, and I know what comes from this. And I can safely say that in the party at the moment my star isn’t badly placed; so whatever the future of the Government, I feel that I can slip into the list of MPs and end my life – my active life – as an MP, serving the public interest as a result of a decision taken in 1990, with all the related consequences. I have a wife, five children and six grandchildren – what more could I want? I have a decent job, and I get paid for it. I’m fine, thank you.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Péter Breuer, one last question, and thank you very much. We’re out of time.
Péter Breuer (BreuerPress, Heti TV): Thank you – it’s a tradition for me to be the last one. Thank you for the opportunity. Prime Minister, the most important theme returned today, and thank God it did: I’m a 72-year-old old man who’s lived through war, and I carry this in my genes, so it’s very important. You started this peace mission, you were in Istanbul a few days ago, and I suppose you were also thinking of the people – a hundred of them – who are still in cellars as hostages, after 425 days, on the other side of the world. When you say that we should “dare to be small”, it’s clear as day that this is false modesty, because you know not only the Russian president, not only the American president-elect, but also Netanyahu and the Turkish president, so you could perhaps pick up where you intended to leave off, as in this the American president-elect won’t be enough on his own. The Turks have now gained ground, and the Turkish president takes you seriously. This is the first question.
Yes, I’m at your disposal.
Péter Breuer (BreuerPress, Heti TV): The spokesman has said that there won’t be a second question, but just a moment on Hungarian agriculture. If there’s peace, then we must eat, and thank God Hungary has historically been self-sufficient. If Ukraine joins the European Union, then we know who the landowners are there, and what kind of synthetic food will be flooding in. And now an agreement has finally been reached for the period from 2027 to 2033 or 2036 – which my colleagues haven’t heralded sufficiently, because it’s a really great success that the 27 have finally agreed. Even if they now agree on peace, what will happen then? Will we be eating the Ukrainians’ bread, which could possibly cause us some problems?
Thank you very much for your questions, Péter. The message you deduced from my words, that we should “dare to be small” isn’t what I advised: that’s the slogan of another political camp. I just wanted to say that we should dare to be as big as we are – and we’re big. The other thing is that at the same time we should acknowledge how much influence we have. So we’re a big nation. I’ll say it again: many important things in the world today wouldn’t exist without us; we gave them to the world. We’ve not only cultivated and built up the space that’s entrusted to us, creating civilisational achievements in it, but we’ve also created things that are used by the whole world. So there’s no reason for a Hungarian to cower, to grovel, and for money... Let’s forget all that. I recommend a healthy attitude, but at the same time a sound sense of self-awareness that will also protect us against undertaking something that requires more body weight. So if you’re 67 kilos – or, say, a welterweight boxer – you don’t go into the ring at super heavyweight level, because you know what will happen. And it won’t end in glory. So you have to choose the location and the terrain well, when and with whom you’ll do something, and whether that will mean acting against them or with them. So much for our attitude. The Turkish issue. We don’t talk to the Turkish president about it in public. I don’t recall ever having said anything about it publicly, but the Middle East region comes up in all our discussions with the Turkish president. And I’m indeed in the unparalleled position of having – for different reasons – a friendly relationship with the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Netanyahu, and a relationship with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey, which is both fraternal and paternal. And I talk to everyone about everything. So I know all the positions, and I always do my best to bring these positions closer, and also bring in other points of view. So I’m working on what, in a strange way, a Christian must do in this relationship, in this Turkish–Israeli relationship. So I’m doing what I have to do, but it’s very tough going. So I have to say that the positions and mindsets of the two dominant states in the region are very far apart, and require constant political readiness and maintenance on the part of countries larger than Hungary in order to make the region as stable as possible. It’s very far from that today. It’s unacceptable that people are being held hostage in cellars anywhere in the world, and after what’s happened, this is particularly true there. I think it’s unfortunate that, although a change has begun in Syria, I don’t see anyone who dares to say that they’re in control of the process, and that several countries must work together to ensure that what’s happening there doesn’t lead to a second terrorist state, but to some kind of consolidation. Therefore I feel that there’s a great deal to be done, and I can only say to you that the Hungarian state is doing what it can within the framework of diplomacy – and sometimes beyond it – to promote peace in the region. As regards the seemingly simple question of agriculture, Hungary has a robust agricultural sector and a food industry that’s developing in a way that’s surprising everyone. We’ve just launched two calls for applications recently, maybe a month or two ago, for developments – both small and large – in the food industry. Now, I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the figures, but we’ve put out calls for about 150 billion forints in development funds, this is how much can be applied for, and applications worth about 750 billion forints have come in. This means that there’s a tremendous amount of vitality and competitiveness in Hungarian agriculture. And now we’re working on how to take this 150 billion to the next level, so that if we already have such enterprises, they can be successful – both the small and the large. But overall, I can say that at the moment Hungarian agriculture is capable of feeding twenty million people. So we can support twenty million people, while we have a population of ten million. So this is the basic number. It’s true that there are some parts of agriculture, some sub-sectors, in which we import, but in other sub-sectors we export. Overall we’re not self-sufficient in the sense that we produce everything we need, because we import a lot of things from abroad. But overall, instead of just feeding ten million people, we produce enough for twenty million, and we sell enough for ten million. Therefore the long performance of Hungarian agriculture in every age is important for us: first of all it’s important for the people who live off it; it’s important for Hungarian consumers, for all Hungarian people; it’s important for the Hungarian budget; and it’s important for the whole world, because there aren’t many countries that can produce more agricultural produce than they consume. So our contribution to feeding the world – at least at a regional level – is significant. The entry of Ukraine into the EU would – if Ukrainian agriculture remains as it is now – be a death blow for us. So let’s not mince our words, this means that we could close the gates, we could shut up shop. This would be true not only here, but even in France. So obviously there’s now a very strong alliance between agricultural countries that want to rationalise Ukraine’s approach to the European Union, so that we’re not hit by everything that might come in from there. This would require serious negotiations. And it’s not just us: there are also those who want to gain from bringing Ukrainian food into Europe. We have to fight them, we have to push them back, and we have to develop a roadmap to save Hungarian and European farmers. This hasn’t yet come together. What’s materialised is what the 27 think about the future of the European economy, but whether and how Ukrainian agriculture can be integrated into this – and if so, how – is something on which there’s no consensus in Europe today.
State Secretary Zoltán Kovács: Thank you Prime Minister, Minister, and many thanks to you all for being with us today. We wish you a Blessed Christmas. Goodbye.
I wish you all a Blessed and Peaceful Christmas, and a Happy New Year.