Mr Orbán stressed that Hungary did not want to become involved in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
“We suggest to the Ukrainians that we should instead try conducting peace talks, we can help with that. We won’t send people, we won’t send weapons, and neither will we provide money, but we are happy to help with organising peace talks,” the Prime Minister said.
If the EU does not want to be left out of the decisions about Europe, it will have to attend talks, but rather than seeking permission to attend the talks of others, it must initiate talks and diplomatic communication in its own right, Mr Orbán added.
He said the Budapest Peace Summit is on the agenda. The Americans and the Russians are negotiating, and may come to an agreement at any time. As in the event of an agreement, such a peace summit can be carried off very swiftly, Hungary is in stand-by mode, he said, informing members of the press.
He said Europe should be ready not for the Russian-US talks, but should initiate talks with the Russians directly. “We should be doing precisely, mirror-style, what the American President is doing,” he stressed.
He laid down: He would not like Hungary to be a member of an alliance, a newly admitted member of which is living under the shadow of a continual threat of war and, he highlighted, “which could drag us into it at any time because the Russo-Ukrainian war is not our war.”
If Ukraine is a member of the EU, the Russo-Ukrainian war “becomes our war, and we don’t want that,” he pointed out. He further said that Ukraine’s state “would absorb, would suck all the money out of Europe” that Europe needs for the development of the economy, including in Hungary.
In this regard, he pointed out that Hungary did not support the commencement of talks about Ukraine’s EU membership and did not support any financial measure which would take the Hungarian people’s money out to Ukraine or would jeopardise it in connection with Ukraine.
In the context of the European Council’s position concerning Ukraine, the Prime Minister said “Hungary was not in the position to support the adopted text.” “Hungary is not a part” of the text agreed to by the 26 other Member States, he stressed.
Regarding the EU plan to use the interest on Russian assets deposited in European banks and subsequently frozen in the wake of the EU sanctions for supporting Ukraine, Mr Orbán took the view that “if we once touch, if we lay our hands on any amount deposited here that doesn’t belong to the EU, but to a state outside the EU upon a political order, and at that, in a questionable manner from the viewpoint of international law, that would shake the trust of all actors making financial investments in Europe and would ruin this sector.”
The Prime Minister said this week he exchanged messages with the Russian President, during the course of which Vladimir Putin made it clear that they would respond to any EU measures concerning Russian funds with counter-measures. This means that corporate assets in Russia “could be in trouble,” he explained. Multiple Hungarian businesses, including large Hungarian strategic companies have significant assets in Russia, and – he said – “I don’t want to risk those assets.” The Hungarian Prime Minister cannot risk Hungarian assets being taxed, scalped or seized as a result of any counter-measure adopted due to a Brussels decision, he underlined.
The European Union would have a vested interest in preventing this sector from dying as Europe is competing for the euro to catch up with the dollar as a world currency, and later if possible, to overtake it, he pointed out.
Regarding the 19th sanctions package adopted by the European Council on Thursday, the Prime Minister said “we took everything out of it that was bad for Hungary.” The austerity package – which continues to pursue the flawed EU policy of sanctions – will not negatively affect Hungary, he stressed.
According to his information, the amount which the Hungarian economy has lost on the war so far is somewhere between EUR 20 and 30 billion. In his words, it clearly follows from this that every Hungarian family and every Hungarian small and medium-sized business has a vested interest in the restoration of peace within the shortest possible time. The money should stop going to Ukraine, and the Hungarian economy as well as the other economies of the EU should no longer be blocked by the sanctions. This is in everyone’s best interests, he laid down.
Regarding migration, the Prime Minister said the EU wants to instate the migration and asylum pact at the end of 2026-at the beginning of 2027. The migration pact is “a lethal threat” for Hungary, he stated.
“Today, we are Europe’s only migrant-free country,” Mr Orbán said, adding that “if they want to force us into the migration pact,” then Hungary would be required to build facilities providing accommodation for up to 30,000 migrants simultaneously, and should an emergency related to migration develop in the European Union, the European Commission will decide on the distribution of the migrants arriving in the EU. Not Hungary, not the Hungarian people, he pointed out. Hungary rejects the migrant pact, the Prime Minister laid down, adding that Hungary will not implement the pact, and neither is it implementing it now for which it is required to pay a fine. But, he highlighted, “a fine is still better than migrants in the tens of thousands being set upon us.”
