Prime Minister Viktor Orbán described the Budapest Pride march held at the weekend not as an event of pride, but more as an event of prejudice in an interview given to TV2 on Monday in which he also spoke about the fact that Pride was a prime example of European politics controlled by Brussels, and if today Hungary did not have a government that insisted on protecting national sovereignty, the same thing would happen regarding the issues of migration and Ukraine as well.
In answer to the question of what he thinks regarding the proceedings of Pride, Mr Orbán said he was not there, and so he is unable to render an account with the reliability of witnesses. “What the hell would I have gone there for?” he observed. He said he is one of those who regard the proceedings of the event not as an event of pride. “If I’m in Felcsút, I’d say it’s a disgrace; if I’m in Budapest, I’d say it’s prejudice. Not pride, but prejudice,” he stated.
He said the country has already decided on this issue as in 2022 there was not only a parliamentary election, but also a referendum where the Hungarian people had the opportunity to state their opinion on the issue of Pride and in general the issues of self-serving sexuality, the education of children, child protection and “forms of life different from the usual.” He stressed that 3,700,000 people had said no to what “Pride stands for, to gender.”
He highlighted that never before had this many people attended any referendum – including those held in connection with Hungary’s accession to NATO and the European Union – and stated a concordant opinion as on the issues of family protection, child protection and Pride.
At the same time, he recalled that “the Pride topic,” gender, gender reassignment surgery, same-sex marriage and the right to same-sex child adoption enjoyed some support in Hungary, and as a result, a few ten thousand people would go out onto the street – already back in 2022 there were 190,000 persons who voted for gender in the referendum, and many did not vote at all or cast invalid votes. However, he pointed out, those who reject this are by far in the majority.
“We already decided on this in 2022, and no demonstration of any kind or Pride parade will change my position on this matter,” he stated.
Regarding the march at the weekend, he said now the entire country can see how the system works: “People in Brussels made a decision, people in the capital, members of the opposition, implemented it, and then they had their supporters line up behind this cause.” He indicated that this would be same with other issues as well, including migration and Ukraine.
“A decision is made in Brussels, it is then implemented by the puppet government here, and supporters of Ukraine may even go out onto the street, and that’s it. We’re finished. The country is finished. There is gender, there is migration, and we’re in the war up to our necks,” he explained.
“Now, regardless of Pride, everyone can see, the prototype has been made for us, this is how European politics controlled by Brussels works. This is why they want to make sure from Brussels that Hungary – rather than having a government that protects national sovereignty – should have a pro-Ukraine Brussels government because they can then push everything through, the same as they did with Pride,” he pointed out.
Regarding Ukraine’s EU membership, the Prime Minister said the European Union is not a security organisation, it has no military capability, and if we admit Ukraine to the EU, we would immediately find ourselves at war with Russia. This is not very difficult to realise, and the Hungarians do realise this, he added.
We understand the Ukrainians, and we do help them, but we cannot help them by destroying ourselves in the process, Mr Orbán pointed out, indicating that at last week’s EU summit he stood for a very clear position. What hurt the others most was that the Hungarian position is not a passionate or emotional position, but a cold and rational one, he stated.
He recalled that among the Brussels prime ministers he had been in office for longest, and so he himself had had the opportunity to negotiate the last phase of Hungary’s NATO accession as well as the beginning of Hungary’s EU membership talks. “I know precisely how this happened.” Countries of the former Soviet bloc first had to gain admission to NATO in order to have their eastern borders secured from a military point of view, and the European Union was only an option thereafter, he observed.
However, in the case of Ukraine, there is no such security, given that we stated that we would not admit Ukraine to NATO because this would amount to a world war. Meaning that the European Union is unable to secure a prospective Member State’s eastern borders. Ukraine seeks to gain admission without us knowing the size of the country and where its eastern borders lie, the Prime Minister added.
Regarding the effect of Ukraine’s EU membership on Hungarian families, he said if everyone from Ukraine had free access to Hungary, the citizens of a country armed to the teeth and with sophisticated mafia capabilities and networks would come and go in Hungary as they pleased. We would become a mere transit country, a passage, and our internal security, too, would be jeopardised, he added.
He also said if Ukraine becomes a member of the EU, then all the money will go to Ukraine, despite the fact that already today “we support the Ukrainian state” which would not function without western money. Additionally, he said in continuation, the Ukrainian president demands that the EU finance a Ukrainian army of a million and the Member States give Ukraine a certain percentage of their gross domestic product to keep Ukraine operational. This is not a good idea, he stated, suggesting that instead of EU membership they should conclude a strategic agreement with Ukraine about how the EU will support them. However, they should not create legal grounds for Ukraine “to suck all the money out,” and “for Ukraine’s business businesspeople with dubious backgrounds or mafia people to enter Hungary and the European Union.” At the same time, they should exclude in a treaty the possibility of the EU agreeing to any war involvement, he laid down.
He observed: he is not suggesting that “we should forget about Ukraine,” nor that we should not support them, but “we should not support them by destroying ourselves in the process.”
Mr Orbán recalled that at the NATO summit held in Washington a year previously, everyone “other than us” had enthusiastically talked about Ukraine’s NATO membership, arming Ukraine and the continuation of the war. A year went by, and everything changed to the very opposite; at the latest NATO summit, this was not even mentioned, he pointed out.
He highlighted that the new US President had made it clear that he was pro-peace, and that NATO had not been established to wage wars, but to defend itself and to create peace. Therefore, Ukraine’s NATO membership is out of the question, NATO becoming involved in the Russo-Ukrainian war is out of the question, NATO must concern itself with itself, we must make ourselves stronger, and we must make our lives safer, he added.
This is a completely new situation, finally, there is a place – NATO – where we won, he said in summary. He underlined that from the earlier isolated, losing position, we had suddenly found ourselves on the side of the majority, or at least stronger, position: the United States, Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia, these countries combined constitute a formidable group.
The Prime Minister said what is the most important is that a majority is coming into being in NATO which believes that any conflict undertaken with Russia could lead us to World War III. If it intervenes in the war on Ukraine’s side, then it risks World War III. If it admits Ukraine, it will find itself in a permanent conflict with Russia which poses the constant threat of a world war, he explained, stressing that this must be avoided. He also said that NATO has not yet reached the point – and neither has “the new sheriff” said so yet – where we should sit down and come to an agreement with the Russians because not only do we not want a war, but neither do we want an arms race; at least, we Hungarians certainly do not.
Unless we want to enter a “who’s stronger” competition and spend all the money that could be spent elsewhere, sooner or later, NATO will have to come to an agreement with Russia upon which it looks as a potential enemy and a threat – how much weaponry we keep in deployment, how much we spend on military expenditures – because otherwise the sky will be the limit. We must also avoid an arms race, and we can only do so if “we westerners agree with the Russians.” This has not happened yet, we are not there yet, “no one other than myself says so yet,” Mr Orbán observed.
He added that this will eventually be “decided by the big boys,” but there are a few of us there who share the experiences of our own personal lives with the big boys. An arms race already destroyed our world once before. It toppled the communists, it toppled the Soviet Union, and while this had its use, in the meantime, an inordinate amount of money and energy had been wasted on an unnecessary arms race. Now that we are free, now that we belong to the West, we have no interest in repeating this, the Prime Minister laid down.
He also spoke about his conversation with Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu, saying that once a business starts, it is difficult to stop. In the past couple of years, we have had two Nobel Prize winners and an astronaut. This does not normally happen to the Hungarians every year, he added, underlining that thanks to these excellent people, Hungary’s international reputation is higher today than ever before. Finally, there is a person that every Hungarian looks up to, quite literally, Mr Orbán said.
