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Zsolt Törőcsik: A Tisza Party MEP recently said that the rule of law procedure and the withholding of Hungary’s EU funds is very effective because it prevents important investments from being made, and meanwhile Hungarians’ deteriorating quality of life is strengthening the Opposition. This is one of the subjects I’ll be asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about in the next few minutes. Good morning.
Good morning.
Party president Péter Magyar responded to this by saying that the Tisza Party will bring these funds home to Hungary. And on social media yesterday you wrote that those who work in Brussels against the Hungarian people should disappear from Hungarian public life. Why do you think that this MEP has no place in public life?
In the European Parliament elections the Hungarian people have sent their MEPs to Brussels to represent the interests of Hungary – and even to fight for Hungary if necessary. I’m not an MEP, I’m just the Prime Minister, but that’s what I regularly do at the Council meetings: I fight for the interests of the Hungarian people. For example, here at home, there’s this ominous issue of them not wanting to give the Hungarians the money that they’re owed; I’ve fought to get half of it paid, and it’s in our account. And we have to keep on fighting. And suddenly you find that people who were sent to Brussels to represent the interests of the Hungarians are appearing among the ranks of the opponents – like in a bad Hunyadi film, I have to say. Perhaps we’d suspected this, and I don’t think everyone was surprised at this news, but maybe at the raw admission of it. Because even if you do something like this, and I see the Tisza Party members doing it, it’s something to be ashamed of. And now we have to hear with our own ears and see with our own eyes that they’re not only unashamed of working against their own country, but they’re proud of it – in fact, it’s their goal. And they’re even happy when things go badly in Hungary, because they think – and not only think, but say – that it’s good for the Opposition. I’ve been in Hungarian politics for many years, but in the last thirty years every opposition party would have protested in defence of their good name if anyone were to publicly claim that the worse things go for the country, the better they go for them. Such suspicions have arisen, but they’re resisted by the opposition parties because they feel that’s not right. But here we’re faced with this being said to our faces, and it’s not just that they’re doing this, but that they’re proud that the worse it is for the country, the better it will be for them, and the sooner they’ll come to power. And what’s more, they’re doing this by conspiring, by colluding with a foreign power – not here in Hungary, but with a foreign power, the Brussels bureaucrats. I had the experience of sitting in a car sometime in the mid-2000s, and suddenly hearing Ferenc Gyurcsány say, “We lied morning, night and evening”. One was shocked, not only because of this – because of course one suspected that the Prime Minister lied – I mean, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány lied. But it was that this could be calmly acknowledged, that it could be said to the Hungarians’ faces. So that was too much. And I also have a feeling of déjà vu because the then Prime Minister said that his was a truth-telling speech. And now they’re trying to explain to us that it’s a good thing for a representative in Brussels to work against their own country. So I think that this should be the moment when the ground opens up under someone’s feet and swallows them up.
What does this show about the instruments and the intentions – either at home or in Brussels – which aim at changing the Hungarian government?
Well, there are two ways to win an election: one is to have a good programme, to go to the people and ask for their confidence; the other is to hope for the country to do badly, and if the country does badly, sooner or later people will want change. I couldn’t think less of people who want to be in government in the second scenario; because politics isn’t about power, but about the country. They must serve the people, serve Hungary! One must never trust anyone who will do anything for power and money.
Let’s continue, partly staying with European affairs. There’s the question of Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, which Brussels wants to fast-track, and about which the Government will ask people’s opinions. Next week the ballot papers for the consultative referendum on Ukraine’s membership of the EU will start to be mailed out. Several public opinion polls on the issue have been published in recent days, however, and some show completely divergent results. How will the consultative referendum be more than an opinion poll?
It’s important that everyone in Hungary can have their say on the issues that determine the future of the country. And these mustn’t just be opinions shouted into the void, but they must be given voice with the appropriate weight. If we look back, we can see that this was the case with migration: we are the only European country to have held a referendum on migration. Then this was true for child protection. A great challenge for the whole of Europe is how we imagine our future, our society, our families, our communities. Here again, Hungary was the only country where people were allowed to have their say. And here on the table is the third big question that will fundamentally determine the fate of Hungary in the coming decades. It is this: Will Ukraine be admitted to the European Union? If so, there will be consequences; and if it can be prevented, there will also be consequences. This is a critical issue. We are convinced – and I am personally convinced – that the admission of Ukraine would destroy Hungary. Quite simply, it would destroy Hungarian families – indeed, it would wipe out the economic gains that have been made over the last fifteen years. But I think that every Hungarian can have a different opinion on this – and even one that corresponds with mine. What’s important is that we have a shared standpoint: that on this important issue – which has been at the centre of European debates for years – it should be clear what the Hungarian position is, which then must be represented in Brussels. In Brussels we’re fighting for Hungarian interests, and in connection with the previous question I’ve said that not all Hungarian parties are doing this. They have their masters in Brussels, and there are Hungarian parties which think in terms of a kind of large European state leading to the dissolution of Hungary, whereby the decisions of the imperial centre in Brussels would have to be implemented in Hungary. And therefore they also support Ukraine, they support Ukraine’s membership; because that’s what Brussels wants. I think we have to confront this and fight to keep alive the possibility that we don’t lose everything we’ve worked for and that we keep economic opportunities open for Hungary. We must fight so that no one can jeopardise our economic results, so that we don’t have to take risks in relation to agriculture, and so that Hungarians don’t have to be exposed to the many public security and public order risks that would accompany Ukraine’s membership of the European Union. This battle is taking place in Brussels. It’s a struggle with the highest stakes; one that will continue not over a few months, but over a few years.
At the same time, there are those on the opposition side here in Hungary who say that it’s a long way off, it’s not a relevant issue, and Ukraine won’t be a member of the EU within the next ten years anyway. But Manfred Weber, President of the EPP [European People’s Party], has said that they’re the party for the support of Ukraine. How determined do you think Brussels is to fast-track Ukraine’s accession to the EU?
This is another case of the Tisza Party having conspired with the European Union and Brussels bureaucrats against Hungary. There’s no need to guess on this, because they’ve told us so. So, as the Tisza MEP said, and we were able to hear it with our own ears, it’s good for them if they try to destroy Hungary from Brussels. In the same way, the President of the Commission and the leader of the largest political group in the European Parliament have said that this will happen by 2030. So we’ve heard them say all this in the European Parliament. We don’t need to guess what they want, because they’re telling us: they want to get Ukraine in quickly – and even fast-track its accession.
What’s the real aim – either in admitting Ukraine to the European Union or in supporting Ukraine? The latter is also taking place: last week a huge amount of money was again transferred from Europe’s coffers for the operation of the Ukrainian state.
Unfortunately, the issue of war is still on the agenda. The Americans have already turned into the street marked “peace” – where we’re also waiting, or trying to achieve results. But the people in Brussels haven’t yet turned in here, and they’re following the sign that says “war”: they’ve come up with a 72-hour survival package; they’re sending money to Ukraine; and we’re following the debates in the European Parliament, in which they’re saying that the fate of Europe will be decided on the Ukrainian front line. So Europe is clearly preparing to continue the war. They say that Ukraine can win this war, and they think that membership of the European Union can help Ukraine to win the war. This is the worst possible idea: Ukraine cannot win this war. And membership of the European Union cannot be an instrument of war; the European Union is the peace plan. It’s a peace plan: enlargement, the granting of membership to a new Member State, must be for peace, not for the continuation of war. But the Brusselites think that if we take in Ukraine, then the war can be continued.
Naturally Ukraine’s accession has and could have economic consequences. But there’s another issue which could have an even greater impact on Hungary’s economic prospects. This is the tariff war, with new developments happening on an almost daily basis. The most important question is what impact this could have on the Hungarian economy.
The tariff war is now attracting attention, but its significance rates far below the Ukrainian–Russian war and Ukraine’s membership of the European Union. The tariff war is a tactical issue. We don’t have to second guess this either, because at last we have a president of the United States who has said what he wants. And although he said what he wanted before the election, the world is now surprised that he’s doing what he promised. So he said that he would reset world trade and improve America’s position in relation to every country – and especially to countries which he thinks the US has been losing out to. Now, in the case of Europe, and looking at cars, this means that if we exported a car from Europe to the United States, we paid a tariff of around 2–2.5 percent; if the Americans exported a car here, they’d pay 10. Many such imbalances exist in world trade. And in reply to this, the US president has said that he’s going to look at each one of them one by one, and he’s going to fix what’s bad for Americans. This is what’s happening. It’s a high-stakes issue, because every negotiation is a tactical question: “I’ll raise them today, and I’ll lower them tomorrow.” So there’s this general opaque swirling situation, at the end of which the Americans will deal with everyone individually – leading to the emergence of a new balance, a new situation. This will last for a month or two – I don’t see this as something that will be with us for a long time. This tariff war will soon turn into a tariff peace, because once the agreements are in place, we’ll no longer be talking about a tariff war, but we’ll be talking about a tariff peace. This is in Hungary’s interest too, by the way. By contrast, Ukraine’s membership of the European Union is here to stay: it will be on the agenda for many years; and if we cannot defend ourselves against it, it will stay with us for decades to come and will destroy us. So today our attention and energy should be focused on Ukraine’s membership of the EU and we should leave the issue of the tariff war to the experts.
There’s another factor that could even threaten the economic outlook. This is inflation, which eased to 4.7 per cent in March. What impact do you see the profit margin freeze having on this?
Well, we’re in a period of high inflation – not just for us, but for the whole of Europe, indeed the world economy, especially the European economy. The reason for this is the war. So if there was no Russo–Ukrainian war, inflation wouldn’t be on the agenda. Prices have jumped since the preparation for this war and then the outbreak of the war itself. It’s therefore quite obvious that the best way to bring inflation down in the long term is peace. This is why I say that in fact the only thing the European Union needs to do is to support the US president in his peace efforts. Of course, we can’t stand around miserably waiting for this to happen and constantly pointing the finger at something else: while waiting for peace we must also take action against inflation. This is called a price crackdown. We tried this at the beginning of the war, if you remember – we tried price controls, we introduced price caps and so on. I think that had its effect. We remember that for a long time inflation was well above 10 per cent, we managed to bring it down to below 10 per cent, and now – according to the latest figures – we’re somewhere below 5 per cent. We’ve now taken steps that we haven’t tried before. There’s been a specialist discussion about whether these steps will work. We haven’t introduced a price cap now, but we’re regulating profits. We’ve now said what the profits are that retailers can put on the designated products – this is a total of over 800 products! And once we set that, they had to cut the price of many foodstuffs. This is what’s happened. I’ve been to villages where they said that prices have been reduced in only one of the four shops; but overall, prices are clearly coming down for the products that have been selected. Now the Government is working to apply the same approach to other retail products in addition to food. We’ve already had negotiations with the big telecoms companies, which have also introduced unfair, unacceptable price increases that are fleecing Hungarians. We want to put a stop to this, and we’ve been successfully negotiating with the telecoms companies. They won’t increase their prices: they won’t increase their prices until July next year under any circumstances; and those that have increased their prices since January will go back to where they were at the end of last year, at the beginning of this year. And it seems to me that we’re very close to agreeing, or perhaps we’ve already agreed, with the banks that the cost of banking shouldn’t be increased in the period ahead – not even as a result of inflation.
Yes, indeed, many banks have announced this or similar measures. How satisfied is the Government with what’s happened in these two sectors, the telecommunications and banking sectors, and is there a need for further action?
We’ve reached an agreement. This is what we’d have liked to see in the case of food. We had several rounds of talks with the food retailers, but we didn’t succeed: they made offers, but they weren’t good enough – they were far below the price increases that they’d implemented in the past. So we had to intervene there. I think this has made it clear to everyone that the Government isn’t going to shilly-shally on this. So this marks the end of the era in which war or inflation can be used as an excuse to fleece Hungarians, and the state will intervene in the price-setting system. For a long time many people hoped that this wouldn’t happen, because the Government is also convinced that it’s a good thing if a government doesn’t have to intervene in the price formation process, but that it’s determined by the laws of the economy and the economic actors themselves. But if abnormal situations arise because prices suddenly run out of control and you see retailers loading too much on to their purchase prices, then the Government will be forced to intervene. And once we did that for food, it became clear that this was a serious issue for all sectors. The Government is determined, it will protect families, it will protect people, and it will intervene. And when you’re dealing with a government like this, it’s better to have an agreement than not to have one. We’re doing in small ways what Donald Trump is doing in big ways.
This week a decision was also taken to add more elements to the Hungarian Village Programme, and this week you visited Tiszakürt with Alpár Gyopáros, the government commissioner responsible for the programme. Before we talk about the details, what did you see there, and what do the local people in a small village think of the Hungarian Village Programme?
It’s good to live in a village. There’s a growing idea in Hungary – and a lot of work is being done on this – that the village and the village way of life isn’t a thing of the past, but of the future. There’s a great tradition and a long history of this in Hungary, in which people don’t stream into cities, but create settlements where services are available that provide for a civilised life equivalent to that in towns and cities. So there’s a great tradition of this. But the argument is always raised – and liberal economists regularly write about this – that it’s not sensible to live in villages, it’s not sensible to organise services on a village scale, and that everything would be much more practical and cheaper if everyone moved to towns and cities, where transport, telecommunications, electricity and so on can be organised more cheaply. This is a far cry from the way we think, because we believe that living in a village is good, and that a life of real quality can probably be lived in a village, where there’s space, where there’s fresh air, where children can be allowed out into the garden and onto the street. You can manage your own house and garden, and it’s not just a chore, which of course it also is, but it gives you the feeling that you’re in control of your own life. So the village is a good thing. And I feel that villagers today aren’t ashamed of being villagers. In the past we managed to create a feeling – already under the communist regime – that the village is underdeveloped and the town is developed, that townspeople are educated and villagers aren’t. Coming from a village of 1,800 inhabitants, I hope I’m a living example of this disproof. So the fact is that there are also many people with good abilities who are born and live in villages, who want to work and who are forward-looking, and who refuse to think of themselves as being written off by history. Well, I think that this feeling is getting stronger – and there has to be a reason for it. In villages today we’re close to having almost complete access to urban services. Where this isn’t yet the case, we’re working on it. There should be shops, pubs, ATMs, a motorway or dual carriageway that everyone can reach within twenty or thirty minutes. There should be a good school – if not in the village, then a school campus within easy reach and a school bus. There should also be a health service, and a district police officer available in the village 24 hours a day. So I think that we’ve invested a lot of energy – and in the future we’ll continue to invest a lot of energy – in ensuring that today everyone who lives in a village feels that they’re an equal citizen of this country. So I can say that the programme has strengthened villagers’ self-confidence and vitality, and it’s also strengthened their faith in their own environment and in their future. To the question of whether we’ve managed to get all the services there, I cannot answer clearly in the affirmative; we’ve got a lot there, but we still have a lot of work to do.
Incidentally, there was another issue this week, also on the agenda of the National Assembly: the new family support measures. The House also debated proposals on income tax exemption for people under 30 and mothers with two or three children, and for infant and child care benefit recipients. How does the Government expect these measures to shape the breathing room for families in the coming period? Some of them will start as early as the second half of this year, and others will start at the beginning of next year.
Here, too, we need to find starting points in philosophy or the philosophy of life. It’s good to live in a village, and we can say that it’s also good to live in a family. And when people decide to start a family, of course they’re thinking first and foremost of their own personal happiness – especially if they’ve found a partner with whom they want to have children. This is a great thing, and nothing else can replace it in your life – but at the same time you need to see that you’re not only serving your own personal happiness, but also the future of the community that you belong to. Because if more Hungarians die than are born we’ll disappear, we’ll fade away, we’ll weaken, the Hungarians will fall behind in the world’s great race – and, in extremis, may even disappear. So having children and a family is a matter of personal happiness, but it’s also important for the Hungarian community and the Hungarian nation. Therefore mothers should be appreciated not only because they’re shouldering a very difficult task; anyone who has raised a child knows how much their wife has to do. We might imagine having to take their place – and sometimes we do that. At such times we feel, we really feel, that they take on something that we men would be incapable of – or are glad to be capable of for just a day or two. So mothers deserve recognition not only for this, but also for taking on something that’s important for the whole community. If this is the case, and I think it is, then it’s not fair that those who have children are worse off than those who don’t. True, this is only for the first 15, 20 or 25 years, because after that the children will in turn help their parents, and the situation will reverse. But even then, for 20–25 years someone who has children will have an extra financial burden compared to someone who doesn’t have children. That’s not fair, and I think it’s the Government’s job to take on the role of righting that wrong. For me this is a personal issue. I returned to office in Hungary in 2010 making a pledge to eliminate this difference, so that the lives of families with children wouldn’t be more difficult than the lives of those without children. And I’m making great strides. For me one of the most important things – and, I repeat, it was personal, a matter of honour if you like – has been to support mothers, to give them security and to ensure that those who have children are exempt from paying personal income tax for the rest of their lives. This is a huge undertaking, and it’s also a huge undertaking for the Hungarian budget and economy. We’ve already introduced tax relief for families with children, and now we’re adding lifelong tax exemption for mothers. This was achieved earlier for those with more than three children – but they’re fewer in number, so perhaps that hasn’t received as much attention. This October mothers with three children will receive this exemption, and from 1 January mothers under 40 with two children will also receive it. Then we’ll move on to mothers under 50 with two children, after which those under 60 will also receive it. So the system – the family-centred economic system in Hungary which puts the family and children first – is being put in place.
We don’t have much time, but what is it that makes the Government see the reduction or abolition of personal income tax as one of the main family support instruments? Because there are so many other forms that this could take.
It’s because there’s another truth which must be linked to recognition of the merits of raising children. That truth is work. So if we don’t link family support to work, then in Hungary there will be fewer people working than should be the case. Therefore I think that the best policy for the country – and indeed for families – is one that gives families, especially mothers, the opportunity to decide whether they’d rather stay at home and raise children or work while raising children. It’s good for the country if mothers decide to work. This is why we’ve set up a family support system that rewards or recognises everyone who raises children – but especially those who, in addition to raising children, also work in the labour market. So a large part of family support goes to families through work – not only through mothers, but also through fathers, because they can pool their incomes, which are subject to tax credits.
Among the subjects I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about were the consultative referendum on Ukraine’s membership of the EU, the tariff war, and the fight against inflation.
