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Mr Orbán spoke to TV2 on Friday evening after he attended the summit of the European Political Community where he had talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. During the discussion covering a wide range of topics, he told the NATO Secretary General that he found Ukraine’s disinformation smear campaign organised by secret services against Hungary unacceptable and asked the NATO Secretary General to take this into consideration upon decisions to be made in the future.
No one has ever seen the likes of this, the Prime Minister said, that someone wants to gain admission to the European Union, Hungary is opposed to this, and Ukraine “rather than wanting to convince us, rather than seeking to disperse our doubts, rather than offering solutions,” wants do discredit us. This is no way to gain admission to the European Union, he pointed out.
Mr Orbán also said Hungary does not need NATO’s assistance, our only job is to ensure that NATO is aware of what is happening, and should not believe any campaign that seeks to discredit Hungary.
The Ukrainians want to say that Hungary is a dangerous country which serves Russia’s interests, despite the fact that we have stated a thousand times that we are not interested either in Russia’s or in Ukraine’s interests; Hungarian foreign policy is guided by a single consideration, namely the best interests of the Hungarian people.
He added that Ukraine’s EU membership which we opposed was extremely dangerous. “If we admit the Ukrainians, we also admit the war to the EU, meaning that this time the stakes are high, here you can’t make a mistake, war and peace are the most important issues in people’s lives, and here we can’t tolerate any foreign interference,” the Prime Minister stated.
The Ukrainian secret service campaigns, the collusion of the Hungarian opposition with the Ukrainians and Brussels, and the money coming from Brussels and George Soros all point in a single direction. They want to transform the European Union and want to admit Ukraine at any cost. This would have tragic consequences for the Hungarian economy. The Prime Minister mentioned the appearance of Ukrainian migrants and the Ukrainian mafia in Hungary, the regrouping of EU funds from Central Europe to Ukraine, and the impact of Ukraine’s admission on the Hungarian pension system and health care among the consequences.
Ukrainian membership would cause Hungary dozens of problems, and at present, we have no means to avert these. This is why the Ukrainians cannot be admitted to the European Union, either swiftly or slowly, until these issues have been settled in a satisfactory manner.
He highlighted that Hungary was a strong country with robust sovereignty protection and self-defence capabilities. We know how to avert the interference of a foreign state, we know how to uncover and expose collusion between Hungarian political actors or opinion makers and a foreign state. We know how to document this, how to restrain this, he listed, stressing that Hungary is able to defend itself.
At the same time, he said we cannot allow anyone to engage in pro-war propaganda unhindered in Hungary from foreign money. The Prime Minister said “we are compelled to state the simple truth that those who are engaged in politics in Hungary cannot accept money from abroad.” We have submitted the relevant legislation to Parliament, he pointed out.
He added that we were not fighting the battles – also financed from outside – that we had fought before. Migration and gender were not insignificant issues, but now it is about the war.
Today, pro-war propaganda is being propagated in Hungary from foreign money. This cannot be allowed, he laid down.
He observed that in Hungary political actors had always fallen into two categories. There were those who served their country, and there were always those who were in foreign pay. This is not any different today. While today they are not financed from Hitler’s Germany or the communist Soviet Union, but from Brussels and Soros foundations, this does not change the essence: they are not Hungary’s friends, but – at this point in time – the Ukrainians’ friends who accept money from Brussels and the Soros Empire, and this is how they try to get into power in Hungary.
In answer to the question of how disappointed he was due to the fact that the Russo-Ukrainian talks ended unsuccessfully, he said it is hard for any development in this war to surprise him. He recalled that last June when Hungary took over the presidency of the European Union, he went to Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Mar-a-Lago to see President Trump who was in opposition at the time.
He said he proposed a joint ceasefire to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy which could be the first step to peace talks, but the Ukrainian president stated in no uncertain terms that he did not want a ceasefire, peace was not on the agenda, time was on their side and they were going to win. He also recalled his trip to Moscow where he likewise realised that there was very little intention to come to an agreement.
He pointed out that Hungary had worked hard in the interest of a ceasefire and peace because there had been no one else to do this job. Then in January along came the new US president, he took over the flag, and today he is holding the flag of peace high. We have a single task, to support the US president, Mr Orbán stressed.
He said there is a need for direct US-Russian, and after or before them, Russian-European talks. Russian-Ukrainian talks will never bring this war to a conclusion.
In answer to a question regarding the possible script of the conclusion of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the Prime Minister said a Trump-Putin meeting should be held within the shortest possible time. This should also extend – beyond the war in Ukraine – to the issues of the sanctions and economic cooperation. The Europeans should understand that there is no point in pursuing a separate path. We should join the Americans, we, too, should conclude agreements with the Ukrainians and the Russians, and these should also have economic contents. We should connect both the Ukrainian and Russian energy and economic potential to the blood circulation of the European economy, and then we will gain momentum, and the European economy will become great and successful again, he listed. In his view, this could happen within just a few months.
He also said in politics perseverance is of the essence, if you fight for a good cause, you must not be lazy, if needs be, you must repeat your message a hundred or a thousand times, and must try to put your conviction into effect. With every single attempt, we do get closer to a ceasefire, except we are not there yet, he observed.
By his account, he always tries to bring the focus of conversations back to Europe, and tells his partners that in 3 years the Hungarian economy has lost more than EUR 20 billion due to the war, while the bigger countries have lost much more.
Why are we doing this? We should want peace, we should want a ceasefire, we should forget about the sanctions, we should return to normal economic cooperation, and we will then gain access to an abundance of economic opportunities, he said. However, also this time, the President of the European Commission spoke mostly about Ukraine and in the interest of Ukraine, he added.
The Prime Minister also spoke about his talks with new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and said that they clarified the position related to Russia and Ukraine in a short sentence: they disagree.
He highlighted at the same time that German-Hungarian economic cooperation was an absolute priority. He made it clear that what was happening now – that Germany was the sick man of Europe, the German economy was not competitive, and its performance was declining – was a problem not only for the Germans. This is a problem for us Hungarians, too, because the two economies are very much connected together.
He stressed that Hungary had a vested interest in the success of the new German government, and would do everything it could to make this happen. We are ready to intensify economic cooperation which the Chancellor was extremely satisfied with. German-Hungarian bilateral relations are making very good progress, economic cooperation is robust, and they would like to intensify this, the Prime Minister said in summary.
Mr Orbán also spoke about the strategic agreement concluded with the Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD this week. He stressed that Hungary must take part in the world’s most modern industrial developments because “we will otherwise be left out.” Meaning that “we need investments which bring here new technologies.” They also agreed with BYD – after the agreement on the construction of a car manufacturing plant in Szeged – that they would bring their European development centre to Hungary. The centre will employ approximately two thousand, mostly highly qualified development engineers.
The Prime Minister stressed that the future lay in electromobility which would replace conventional vehicle production, and Hungary would like to be at the vanguard of this process the same as we were at the vanguard of the production and development of conventional vehicles at the very beginning of the 1990s.
Meaning that we have a nation strategy which has an industry strategy element, and in this the production of vehicles occupies an important place. At the same time, electromobility will be key to the production of vehicles in the next two decades. It is in this context that it is of the utmost significance that, after production, the Chinese will also bring a development hub to Hungary, Mr Orbán added.
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