Tamás Cs. Király: Our guest is Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, with whom we’re reporting from aboard “Wizz Air Force One”. Good day, Prime Minister, thank you for talking to us.
Good day. Thank you for your interest.
Do you get anxious in situations like this, before such important negotiations?
Well, slight nerves – is that the right word? But anxiety is perhaps too strong a word – I’m past all that.
Is it that feeling of wanting to just get the whole thing over and done with?
No, it’s more the fact that I can’t wait to launch myself into the fray. I’m a sportsman: I can’t wait for the match to start, and I’m not happy when I hear the final whistle.
Will there be a battle?
No, I don’t think so.
Is everything well prepared? Will you just have to go there and shake hands, or are there still open questions?
The United States has a president who makes it impossible to know anything for sure in advance. So if you go there thinking that everything’s prepared and there won’t be any surprises, you could easily fall flat on your face. So you have to go there with all the files in your head ready to open, and you have to be familiar with whatever the President will bring up.
Is President Trump’s unpredictability good or bad from a Hungarian perspective? Because we’ve heard contradictory statements regarding energy dependence, and many people are wondering what they can believe about what President Donald Trump will do – because what if he changes his mind the next day?
Yes, but I think that’s the wrong approach. I think the American president is very predictable. To explain the phenomenon you mention I’d rather look at the fact that he clearly distinguishes between goals and means. And when it comes to goals, he’s completely predictable: you can be sure what he’ll stand for and what he wants. The question is how. Well, on that there’s complete freedom – let’s say “tactical freedom”. But that’s not unpredictability: it’s the tactical leeway necessary to reach a favourable agreement. But in terms of goals, in terms of big issues, you can trust him: he’s predictable, he won’t let you down, he won’t give up.
Looking at goals, are Hungarian and American goals the same when it comes to Russia and Russian energy sanctions? Because if we very briefly look at it, America’s goal may be for us to buy American shale gas, to wean ourselves off Russian oil, and for Hungary not to support Lukoil, which they’ve now sanctioned. So the goals may be different.
These are more like means. What are the goals? I think the goal we agree on with the Americans is peace – not in the Central European style, but in the American style. The American president is a Christian, and a deeply committed one at that: not superficially, but deeply. This means that he hates those things in the world that cause people suffering. He has a fundamentally Christian attitude towards the world, which we here in Central Europe would express by saying that we’re in the world to make each other’s lives easier, not harder. And you should eliminate whatever sources of pain and suffering that you can influence. This is what drives him. He doesn’t want tactical peace, but peace. Of course he also believes that if there’s peace it’s the most useful tool for good, and business can function better. But the order is clear. So I think that we agree on the scale or level of the goals. I also think that there’s a convergence of interests, in that it’s not in America’s interest to maintain the current fragmented global energy market, which is riddled with sanctions. It would therefore be better if, instead of sanctions, agreements were used to regulate how much energy the world consumes, where it’s sourced from, how much is paid for it, and how much is earned from it. This would also be better for us than a volatile, fragile, unpredictable energy market, in which you don’t know on a weekly basis when someone will come up with certain sanctions and how it will affect your national economy at a strategic level. So we agree on this too. There’s nothing unusual about wanting to sell more of what is profitable.
But do we have a good offer? He is a businessman, after all. Can we offer him something to which he’ll say, “Well, this is good from the Hungarians, this is a good offer.”
We buy everything that’s at a good price for us, and we don’t buy anything that’s at a bad price. It’s that simple.
And what if he says we should buy something that’s possibly at a worse price than if it came from the Russians?
Then I’ll have to ask what we’ll get in return – because he’s a businessman. The Americans won’t expect to do a deal in which they win and you lose, but they’ll accept it if you say, “Okay, but I want to make money on this too”; so we can create what they call a “win-win” situation, and negotiate that. I’m not afraid that the big American fist will come down on us and make demands that are irrational in economic terms. I’m not afraid of that at all. There are, there have been, and there will be proposals, and we usually have supplementary or counterproposals for these. We start negotiating, there are things we can agree on, and there are things we can’t – but I’ve always done this with the Americans, and for me this is nothing new. I remember that in the early 2000s one of these major strategic decisions was about what technological basis the Hungarian Air Force should be built on: should it be the American F-something, or…
That’s the [Swedish] Gripen...
Yes. And then we chose the Gripen, because the Gripen offer was much better. I even told the Americans, who weren’t happy about it, to make a better offer, because for us the other was a better offer.
Are you still in a position to say the same kind of thing?
I’ve never been in a situation in which I couldn’t do that. My political credo is that I won’t allow myself to be put in a position that would make it impossible for me to represent what’s best for Hungarians.
So here, too, we can expect negotiations between partners, and not between superiors and subordinates.
We must be careful here, because the dimensions are different. So we’re of equal rank, but we’re not in the same weight division. So there’s no subordination, but there is a weight advantage.
You often say that you don’t deal with business matters. You say this in reference to the situation in Hungary. In such cases, how much of your inner businessman comes out, and do you like to bargain at this level?
No, not really. My wife is the one who does that, at the bazaar.
Didn’t you bring your wife here?
Instead I feel ashamed and leave, because once a certain line is crossed, I feel that somehow that’s the end. But I don’t have to be a businessman, because I’m involved in economic policy. That’s a big difference! So in economic policy you have to look at whether what you’re doing is beneficial or detrimental to those it affects – in this case the members of the Hungarian nation. So the community must benefit from the agreement. Businesspeople aren’t like that: businesspeople look at how much they will gain personally. Businesspeople don’t confuse the interests of the community with their own, and they always put their own interests first. Economic policymakers can never put business interests ahead of the economic interests of the community. I have to represent the public interest, but in a world where there is money, economy, and agreement. But that’s a big difference! Business and economic policy are two different things.
My last question is that while now you’re on your way to Washington, in 2026 there will be elections in Hungary, and obviously the Hungarian people will decide on this. In November there will be an event in Győr where Péter Magyar and you will be present: the Mayor of Győr has invited both of you to a debate. Péter Magyar – whose American name is “The Man” – has said that he’ll be at the debate, and is waiting for you to be there as well. Do you plan to debate Péter Magyar in Győr?
I debate with Péter Magyar’s masters: every week, in Brussels.
If Ultrahang organises a debate between Ursula von der Leyen and Viktor Orbán, will you take part?
I’ll think about it.
We’ll try. Thank you very much.
Thank you too.