There are three major forces – arms manufacturers, energy companies and banks – that surely profit from the war, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated on Tuesday evening in a special edition of HírTv’s programme ‘Bayer Show.’ On the programme, Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that he expected a confident victory for the government parties in the elections, and dismissed suggestions of Russian interference as nothing more than fiction.
Mr Orbán said: we should just take a look at the stock exchange indices of arms manufacturers, where they were in 2021, 2022, and where they are now. “From among the dogs of the war, arms manufacturers are barking the loudest,” he said, adding that Russia is an energy great power, and therefore, large energy companies “want to push” cheap Russian oil out of Europe, including Hungary, so that they can sell their own expensive oil.
The Prime Minister said a prime example of this is Shell which is “a war dog” and has profited enormously from the fact that Russian oil and gas have been forced out of Europe. Shell is looking for its own people, agents, operatives whom they can install in governments in various places, he said, observing that it is for a reason that also in Hungary, one of the key figures of the opposition formation is Shell and Shell’s representative.
Mr Orbán described banks as the third beneficiary of the war, saying that bankers always profit the most from wars because governments never have enough money, and so sooner or later, war loans emerge which – if not repaid – will be repaid by countries as debt slaves.
“It is these three major forces – arms manufacturers, energy companies and banks – that keep pushing the war in the background,” he laid down.
He added: as to why European politicians obey this pressure, in the Prime Minister’s view, the reasons may vary from country to country. He indicated that all he could say was why they did not succeed in Hungary. “Because I kicked them out the door,” he pointed out.
“Everyone is free to reason with me all they like about what interests Hungary has in armament […] and everyone is free to come here, including Shell, telling us what they want: Hungary has a national oil company.” Bankers, too, are free to come, but if they argue too much, they will have to pay a higher bank levy in the end, he observed.
The incumbent Hungarian government is a sovereign Hungarian government, the Prime Minister stated, adding that they will not allow the dogs of the war to occupy a single corner, let alone the core of Hungarian politics. Therefore, we are able to stay out of the war. The patriotic government of Hungary is able to say no; however, other European governments are not.
In his view, the previous Democratic US administration dragged the leaders of Western European countries into the Russo-Ukrainian war.
He said that they could have decided the way Hungary did whose position was based on the foundations of common sense: this is not a European war, but a war of brothers between two Slavic peoples. Therefore, rather than proclaiming justice, it is the duty of politicians to promptly isolate and calm down the war, to somehow create peace and a ceasefire, and then “to achieve the justest possible state of affairs” in the course of negotiations.
The West, the Americans decided that this was their war. Upon Donald Trump’s victory, “a historic door opened” to bring the war to a conclusion, but the Europeans want to continue the war, he explained.
He recalled: at the summit of the prime ministers of the European Union where the issue of Russian energy and a role in the war first emerged, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz shared the same position as the Hungarians, he said he will not supply weapons and Europe can only be detached from cheap Russian energy over his body. Then the German liberal press – which in the Prime Minister’s view is not in German hands in a spiritual sense – tore him apart. Two weeks later, the chancellor announced that weapons must be delivered to Ukraine and dependence on Russian energy must be brought to an end. Meaning that in Germany – at least, during this phase of the war – events were being shaped not by the will of politicians, but were guided in this direction from outside, he stated in summary.
Regarding the incident of the Ukrainian cash delivery, he said “it entered Hungary and was being moved about in here. As to whether they also wanted to take it out of the country or a couple of stacks would have fallen off or it was brought here, we’re in the process of investigating.” “Money was not only brought in here from the West, but also from Ukraine in the opposite direction,” “out of Ukraine, that poor country,” he said, indicating that they will investigate all these affairs. They must investigate all money movements from the other direction as well, money shipments coming here from Ukraine and taken out of here by plane or by any other means of transport: where they were going, to whom and why, he detailed.
Regarding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statements concerning his person, Mr Orbán said these threats must not be allowed to turn into personal affairs, and the organisations which guarantee the security of the country’s leaders must do their job nicely and quietly.
In the context of the closure of the Druzhba crude oil pipeline, he said there were disruptions 22 times before, and the Ukrainians always managed to restart it. Now, however, with the Hungarian elections approaching, the 23rd time around, “they somehow didn’t succeed,” and the Hungarian delegation is not allowed anywhere near in order to investigate the facts on the ground.
He stressed: Hungary has a vested interest in oil coming both from Russia via the pipeline crossing Ukraine and from the pipeline from the South, via Croatiam partly for reasons of quantity and partly to reduce our exposure, so that neither the Ukrainians, nor the Croatians should find themselves in a monopolistic position.
He described the narrative that is also pushed by the Tisza Party’s energy expert István Kapitány – that we must detach ourselves from Russian oil – as absurd. Diversification means increasing, not reducing the number of our options, he pointed out.
In answer to the question of whether there is any point in still remaining a member of the European Union, the Prime Minister’s answer was “a hesitant yes, but yes still.”
In justification, he said Europe is like a cut flow which has nothing to do with the soil which it grew out of anymore. Europe does not know what to think of itself; the world has changed and Europe has fallen out of this modern era, is looking for its own place and has only got so far as to licking its own wounds, he explained.
At the same time, the Prime Minister pointed out that where a country belonged was determined geographically, “a country cannot change its location,” and there is also a common historical root, a valuable common cultural and spiritual heritage.
Regarding the fact that the Tisza Party’s Zoltán Tarr spoke about the transformation of Mol’s management and structure of ownership, he said in 2010 the government introduced a very firm, “tough policy” by having decided that the majority, minimum 50 per cent of the energy sector, the bank sector and the media sector must be in Hungarian hands. He indicated that they had regrouped influence, business stakes, power and economic positions here. “We’re not communists, we didn’t nationalise anything,” he observed, stressing that they conducted all the transactions flawlessly and exceptionally regularly from a legal point of view, in accordance with the relevant European norms.
Therefore, in his view, these companies “can hardly wait” for his premiership to end, for patriotic governance to end, and for a government to come with which they can conclude a new agreement with a view to regaining their positions partly or in their entirety.
He also recalled that they had imposed special taxes on these sectors; over the course of 15 years, they had taken HUF 15,000 billion away from them, and had given it to the people for family support, and to support young people and pensioners. “International big capital lost out on the patriotic rearrangement of ownership, and then on the regime of taxation. They can hardly wait to drown me in a teaspoon of water,” he said.
These “candidates for statesmen are bought in advance,” he stated in connection with the Tisza Party’s politicians.
In his view, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány himself struck bad deals for Hungary, for instance, when he accepted the proposal of banks for foreign currency lending, but “I wouldn’t say that he sat in the pockets of large international corporations.” However, “these liberal guys” are born like that, he stressed.
According to Mr Orbán, it would lead to the simple plundering of the country if rather than a patriotic government, the country had “a Brussels, liberal Tisza government.” The President of Fidesz said, by contrast, his election programme is that he is able and willing to protect Hungarian families from being pocketed; this is the ultimate stake in these elections.
Regarding the Sunday Peace March in Budapest, Mr Orbán said he saw a fantastic crowd which was full of fine-looking people and the square was full of optimistic anticipation.
He said they have turned into the home straight of the elections; until now, everyone could talk all the nonsense they liked about polls and percentages. However, from now on, there are facts, everyone must come out.
He argued: everything they see is different from that which some people have wanted to make us believe in the past one and a half to two years, “that we’re old and tired, that nothing can be expected of us anymore, that the government has no real plans anymore, that the future is no longer with us and it’s time for change.”
He added that compared with this, “the world is in flames,” and the knowledge the government has has gained in significance, as has security, and the people are beginning to see this.
Mr Orbán dismissed suggestions about Russian election interference in the parliamentary elections as nothing more than fiction, and at that, of the poorest kind. He said the electoral fraud narrative is something that is always brought up. Ever since 2010, the Left, the Brussels side has always prepared for the eventuality that should they not win, they should have a second card in their hands, saying that there was electoral fraud. However, in the case of a two-thirds election victory, it would have been frivolous to bring up the idea of electoral fraud.
Now, he said in continuation, even if he firmly believes in a victory, he does not expect a two-thirds victory. Therefore, at this time, building a fraud narrative on the opponent’s part seems a more reasonable political option.
He added: yet, he does not expect this, but expects the government parties to score a confident victory for which they have yet to work hard, and then “our friends will be happy, while our opponents will come to an agreement with us,” he said.
He added that after 2010, they had built a different kind of economy in Hungary which worked, while the economies of the others did not. “We have always clashed on the issue of migration, they were rough with us and blackmailed us, but today, they’re banging their heads against the wall for not doing what we did.” The same will happen on the issue of the war because the European public will not accept that while factories must be closed down and there is no money at home, billions are being sent to Ukraine.
Mr Orbán stated in summary: “I think we will find ourselves in a situation after the April elections where our European critics, rivals or opponents will come to the conclusion that it would be better to somehow come to an agreement with the Hungarians. And I’m not one to spoil any fun.”
