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Talking to publicist Zsolt Bayer and Pestisrácok.hu journalist Áron Ambrózy, among the fulfilled pledges the Prime Minister mentioned that Hungary would stay out of the war in Ukraine, “even if people in Brussels go berserk.” Despite the EU pact, “migrants are out of the question,” while he also mentioned the adoption of the law banning gender propaganda, the doubling of the tax benefit available in relation to children and Europe’s largest tax reduction programme.
“I don’t think any digital movement can override results and performance,” he added, stressing that while in western politics there is the issue of “responsibility of intent” because the liberals always want to know about intentions, this can only be enough for a single election because afterwards, everyone focuses on results. Even the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but this is no reason for us to go to hell, Mr Orbán said, stating that “we have always had an organised political community called a ‘party,’” and it is in addition to this that they are now building their digital political movement in the form of the Fight Club. However, the Tisza Party only has the latter. He added that Tisza was not a conventional party, but “a digital political movement.”
“We have an – even by European standards – unprecedentedly successful and large political community, a party, and it has supporters, while on the other side, there is a digital political movement, but no party,” the Prime Minister said in summary. He added that for victory you needed both. “We have one and a half out of two, while the opponent has one,” he stated.
He observed that in Europe there was neither politics similar to Hungarian politics, nor a game similar to [the Hungarian card game] ulti “because everywhere else, games are played in pairs,” the odd number form “is a Hungarian speciality.” “So, if I want to achieve something, then two persons conspire against me, and I have to beat them. Or if you can’t do something good, then you must immediately spoil the game of the person who could. That’s the essence of Hungarian politics,” Mr Orbán stated.
He stressed that we would only find out many years from now whether what we were observing today was indeed the end of politics, whether the time of politicians relying on facts, programmes, hard work and responsibility was over, and this was politics itself. “I have the same approach to what I see as the Old Szekler to the giraffe: ‘It’s nice, but I wouldn’t want one for home,’” he said.
Mr Orbán also stressed that they had to find a way to talk to people in earnest because otherwise “facts will just disappear at some point.” However, the most robust argument of a governing party is its performance. “If we do this well, you can’t beat that, it’s unbeatable,” Mr Orbán stated.
He mentioned that the government, together with the people, local leaders and businesses, had “done it,” had created an extra one million jobs compared with 2010, and had also achieved that people today had 1.1 to 1.2 million more cars. He also said that while in 2010 an average Hungarian ate 54 kilos of meat, today they consume as much as 68 kilos, and this quantity has increased at the same rate among people in the lower income brackets.
The Prime Minister highlighted that if you could talk to people about the results and the path leading there calmly, then “you can’t lose this election.”
Mr Orbán also mentioned that as long as the franchise was tied to a person’s financial or educational status, “the tone of politics was different, as was the posture of politicians.” Today, there is general franchise; you can moan about whether this is good or not, this is the situation, he observed, adding that as a result, “a country’s decision-making powers and distribution of power are determined on the basis of the decision of the entire community.”
He highlighted that they must be able to explain even more complex issues in a way so that the people understand because “in democracy, you go nowhere” with “academic” explanations. Frivolity and clarity are not readily interchangeable synonyms, Mr Orbán said, encouraging his conversation partners “to not bury politics” just yet.
Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that beating people to death was not acceptable even in a country at war, and if the victim was also the citizen of an EU Member State, the European Union could not stay silent. He said “you can’t make speeches about Ukraine’s suitability for European Union membership, and bury the next day people who are beaten to death in forced recruitment.”
He also said the Hungarian government is keeping track of what is happening and of the families from which men were taken away as part of forced or normal recruitment, knows how many have died and how many have been left orphaned, and is helping them. On the other hand, as the person in question is a citizen of Hungary which is a member of the EU, “we are banging on the door in Brussels, too,” and demand that they take action against the practice of forced recruitment in Ukraine.
Regarding the European Union, the Prime Minister mentioned Britain’s departure as a turning point in the history of the EU. While they were still in the EU, the two concepts were more or less balanced: the concept of “a great common European empire” envisaged on the basis of the model of the Roman Empire that the French-German axis stands for, and the concept of a Europe of nations that the V4 and Britain stood for. Britain together with the V4 managed to prevent all steps that would have led to the accomplishment of the “master plan,” a United States of Europe. Britain left, the conservative government in Poland was toppled from Brussels, the Czechs were “pulled out,” “there are only the two of us left,” he said. The imperial side is in a superior power position, but there is ever-increasing energy coming into being on the nation state side.
“I believe that if we fight well, meaning that if the Hungarians persevere, then on the most important points we’ll be able to preserve our national sovereignty, and the atmosphere, the political thinking within the whole European Union will shift over from the side of the concept of a United States of Europe to our side, or is already in the process of shifting,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
He mentioned migration as an example for this shift to which “the imperial solution” is the migration pact. In Hungary, too, there are parties which support this, including “Dobrev’s party” and Tisza, and “we’re the ones who oppose it.” The majority of European people, too, oppose the migration pact, countries are rebelling one after the other, announcing that they will not implement it.
Mr Orbán added that on the issue of gender, too, he had a similar experience, and the same thing would happen regarding the issue of the war in Ukraine. So, if we persevere and can recreate the V4 – for which there is a good chance in the coming year – then using the change in the general mood in Europe, we will be able to restore the balance between the imperial mentality and a Europe of nations, he said.
In answer to the question of whether it is worth playing the role of the battering ram in Brussels, the Prime Minister said we have no choice because if we were to accept any of what they are trying to force on us, we would eliminate our own national sovereignty and would destroy the results the Hungarian people have achieved in the past 15 years. Their demands are not insignificant; in addition to supporting the war, gender propaganda and migration, Brussels also demands that we do away with state-subsidised and protected household energy bills, revamp the pension system and cancel the state regulations keeping interest rates and prices under control because the logic of the market so dictates. If we accept what Brussels wants, then within minutes, hundreds of thousands, but perhaps as many as 2 to 3 million families would find themselves ruined. Therefore, “my answer to the question of whether it’s worth doing what we’re doing is that if we don’t want to find ourselves ruined, then it’s worth taking this fight on,” he said.
Ukraine’s admission to the EU would, with great probability, mean the completion of the process of the creation of a United States of Europe as Ukraine will stand on the side of the imperial concept, given that it is unable to exist as a nation, and is only maintained from the Brussels Empire. Therefore, Ukraine’s admission – beyond the many terrible things they would import into the EU – would also decide the debate about the future of the sovereignty of nations.
He observed that he had attended the Council meeting where Ukrainian President Zelenskyy had announced that the EU would have to maintain the Ukrainian army of a million. In this regard he said he would not like to be the neighbour of a country called Ukraine which has an army of a million, and God only knows which way they would turn and when. Mr Orbán stressed regarding Ukraine: European politics must prioritise the war among the many issues to be resolved because as long as the war is ongoing, no other issue can be resolved. First of all, we must achieve a ceasefire and peace within the shortest possible time, followed by a security guarantee which defines Ukraine as such, given that today we do not know what Ukraine is, we do not know where its borders lie, we do not know how many citizens it has, he laid down.
Once we have that, we must immediately come to an agreement with the Russians, after the conclusion of a peace or a ceasefire, about whether Russia will take part in the European economy, including whether energy and raw materials will come from there, and whether we will take part in their economy. We must also agree on arms control because if things continue like this and we are now required to spend 5 per cent of the gross domestic product on armaments, “this will kill us, this is impossible,” he said.
He added that Europe would then have to enter into a strategic alliance with Ukraine, without Ukraine becoming a member of the EU. Meaning that we will maintain our sovereignty, and if something does not work well, then we will amend the agreements with Ukraine accordingly. “Therefore, I would adopt this multi-tier approach in the case of Ukraine if we provided the President of the Commission, but this has yet to happen,” he said in summary.
Answering a question, Mr Orbán also spoke about his relationship with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, recalling that in 1998, his German counterpart – who always loved the Hungarian people – helped him as a young prime minister with many pieces of good advice. Their relationship survived even after Kohl lost the elections in 1998, and everyone turned away from him, Angela Merkel first of all. “I maintained this special relationship with him until the end of his life, so much as that when we buried him, after the church service, only a few family members and I myself at the head of a small Hungarian delegation were allowed to stand by his grave, he recalled.
He added, however, that Helmut Kohl would not recognise today’s Germany. Regarding the German model, he recalled that before the migrant crisis, Germany had been Europe’s strongest state, but migration had destroyed them. They often say that migration is not the cause of the decline in competitiveness, but these things are connected: the German identity has been shaken, when they took this enormous number of migrants in, “they capitulated,” and said that Islam is part of German culture, he recalled.
He highlighted that we should learn from this mistake because if we let migrants in and make their stay legal, “from then on, he’s you, he, too, is part of Germany.” And then there is no solution, that is the end of what Germany was before they let migrants in because from now on, this is their Germany, too, he observed.
“Therefore, as far as Hungary is concerned, and on this issue I’m fiercely immovable – I’m usually a gentle person, guileless even, in fact, I try to come to an agreement with everyone, but – I’m fiercely immovable on the issue that you cannot let migrants in, you can never accept this, and that we mustn’t give them any legal status ever because if we do, we’re finished, there’s no going back,” he said.
He added “I can see how the others fell, and I don’t want my country to end up like this, and so we must resist this until our last breath.”
He also said, based on the German example, it is very important that foreign workers can only stay in Hungary for a limited time. In Hungary, the guest worker legislation, which is effectively a European transcript of the corresponding Qatar legislation, is as stringent as possible and reserves the most possible rights and powers for the government. In fact, it does not allow more guest workers to come to Hungary than there are vacant jobs because Hungary belongs to the Hungarian people, and Hungarian jobs are primarily reserved for the Hungarian people, he pointed out.
Meaning that you can defend against this, and we do, he stated in summary, adding that Germany has not defended itself well. The decisive blow came in 2015 when migrants were let in, not only because of the large number of migrants, but because the Germans concluded the debate on migration in a self-surrendering way, he said.
He recalled that the German government had said at the time that ‘we can do this, and what’s happening is good, it’s not a problem to avert, but a phenomenon that we must manage well, and then we’ll turn it to our advantage.’ This is the Soros Plan, he warned, adding that here, too, there is a master plan, the existence of which the liberals call into question, but it was published in writing. Everyone can read it with their own eyes, the article in which George Soros wrote down that – in contrast to the Hungarian plan – every year a million migrants must be brought in.
In answer to a question about his retirement, Mr Orbán said Fidesz is a special political formation because it came into being on the eve of a historical cataclysm, and then became Europe’s most successful political community. “I was there right at the beginning, hence the idea that without me this is inconceivable. This notion has become firmly embedded, but it isn’t so,” he stated, adding that while with another leader Fidesz and the civic national-Christian camp would surely be different, “it would still look good, even if different.”
He highlighted that it was a mere legend that the future of the Hungarian Right was dependent on persons. “Naturally, I do what I have to do, and perhaps even more, whatever there is even above a hundred per cent if this is humanly possible,” he observed. He underlined, however, that this was a political community, the strength, roots, ability to fight and energy of which, in actual fact, stemmed from the fact that the majority loved their country, loved their family, and – miraculously – still preserved its relationship with the Almighty. Meaning that the Almighty, country, family mentality is in a very robust majority in Hungary. The only question is how this can be and should be expressed in politics. Therefore, succession is not as sensitive an issue as they make it out to be on the Left. The time will come, and when the time comes, we will conduct it, he indicated.
He also recalled that in the modern era, the right-wing political community in Hungary had been forged together by two major events after 1956 and the smallholders’ fight against Sovietisation. On the one hand, in 1988, there was no way of knowing “what this would come to,” and so there, a very strong bond developed. Then the young generation, too, had their share of experience, even if perhaps not as shocking, but important, all the same: in 2006, during the crackdown on the 1956 commemoration, the other side showed a facet of their true self, of how far they are prepared to go, what they are capable of doing for power. This very strongly attached the young generation to this civic, national and Christian culture and community that regained its strength in 1988.
“This is why I’m saying that persons are important, even the person of the prime minister is not insignificant, but in actual fact, the trunk of a tree is the most important, and that’s very sturdy,” Mr Orbán said in conclusion.
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