Menu
The Prime Minister, who arrived in the studio for the interview after inspecting the flood defence effort in Dunaszekcső, said the final score can now be announced, Hungary 1 – flood 0, and while the receding of the flood can sometimes cause problems, this time they are not expecting difficulties. The receding has sped up and the highest water level is leaving the country two days before they had expected, he indicated.
The Prime Minister said people from the water authority have done a fantastic job, “we doff our hats to them,” while soldiers and police officers have also done a great job.
He said this is the fifth flood defence effort he is overseeing as prime minister, cooperation between state agencies and local governments has been the smoothest on this occasion. He spoke about the cutting through of the dam at the Leitha and the releasing of the water mass into a reservoir as an exciting moment; he said he had never before been required to issue an order to such an effect.
He observed that people from the water authority were still patrolling flood sites. There are monitoring services and standby duty, but in his opinion there will not be any problems.
He said Interior Minister Sándor Pintér was in charge of the operational part of the flood defence effort, and so only four hundred police officers had to be deployed for work on the dams. This is important, the Prime Minister underlined, because during major floods this can be a problem. If you are required to deploy police officers away from their usual stations, public security problems can easily emerge.
This time, police officers were not required in large numbers, there were many people from the water authority as well as many volunteers whom Mr Orbán thanked for their hard work, while the deployed soldiers also stood their ground, he listed.
He said inmates helped with the flood defence effort, too. At times like this, they select those who are serving sentences for minor offences and volunteer for the job.
According to Mr Orbán, we have a very well-established flood defence system, and compared with the flood defence systems of neighbouring countries, the difference is evident.
He recalled that Hungary had maintained in effect a flood defence system ever since the mid-sixties. However, the water defence system does not follow the system of public administration as in the event of a flood, we must protect ourselves according to the water’s own logic, rather than according to the logic of bureaucracy, and we have thoroughly practiced this method since the middle of the 1960s.
If an expert who retired in 1968 were to return and to resume work, they would know exactly what to do, he observed.
Mr Orbán added that these days there are ever fewer unexpected events and the young water management experts that he was in contact with have learnt all the tricks of the trade from their older counterparts.
“I remember how it was at the great Tisza flood, in 2000. Seeing the young ones today, young people from the water authority, the older ones passed on their knowledge and experience to their young colleagues very effectively,” the Prime Minister recalled.
Regarding flood infrastructure, the Prime Minister observed that more than a hundred years ago all the necessary flood protection facilities were built in territories South of Budapest. However, defence on the upper mountain sections of rivers tends to be more difficult.
Talking about the difficulties of flood protection on the Danube, he mentioned that “there are some problems at Baja” because there are islands there, but serious professional challenges and difficulties in the flood protection effort emerge mostly on the upper section of the Danube, at the Danube Bend, Esztergom and in the region of Szigetköz. He said it is not possible to provide protection with pre-built dams everywhere because sections will always remain which must be protected with temporary flood facilities, while floodplains cannot be protected at all.
In answer to his host’s question, Mr Orbán said, the same as after the last major flood in 2013, also after this year’s flood, the water authority will prepare its written report about the experiences and conclusions of the flood defence effort.
They will hand in their list on this occasion as well, the government will discuss their report and will decide, based on this, about what further works may be required, the Prime Minister said.
He pointed out that the Hungarian section of the Danube was a special section because Budapest was the only capital of Europe where the water level of the water mass flowing through the capital could not be adjusted.
“Everywhere else they can take care of this with dams, but the Hungarians don’t want to build dams across the Danube. The Danube is a sacred river, it can’t be violated with dams built across it,” the Prime Minister stressed, adding that this is why it is necessary to put up a defence effort high up and with dams built on the banks along the length of the river.
Also by international comparison, Hungary defended itself against the flood to the highest standards, the Prime Minister stated, observing that this is helped by the fact that we always have an advantage of two to three days compared with other countries which are also required to defend themselves.
Most of the rain falls in the mountains, and so “there, problems emerge immediately,” and by the time this water quantity arrives in Hungary, we can prepare better for the job in hand, he said.
“So, we did a good job defending ourselves, that’s true, but we also have an advantage,” the Prime Minister concluded.
He highlighted that with the passage of the flood, a very important phase will begin in the flood defence effort, “there is a public health job to be done,” as part of which some public health cleaning and tidying must be carried out.
He observed that there was a stringent protocol about how to dismantle the dams, what to do with what, and here Chief Medical Officer Cecília Müller “is in charge,” meaning that this job will not take long.
Because whether we want it or not, he pointed out, the water from the Danube also enters the sewers, from time to time, it even makes them burst, and so the artificial or temporary flood protection facilities coming into contact with the water can easily become contaminated.
Regarding damage, in the interview Mr Orbán said as the water has not burst its banks, there has not been significant damage. However, in the case of buildings built on floodplains, damage had to be expected.
At the Leitha, they were required to release the water into temporary reservoirs, but as in the privately owned agricultural fields that surround the area crops had already been harvested, no significant damage was sustained there either, he explained.
According to the Prime Minister, the cost of the defence effort itself was a large item, including the wages of the people working on the dams, material costs and overtime, but all this “does not come cheap at times like this.”
This flood will be remembered in the history of Hungarian water affairs as one of the largest floods ever experienced on the Danube, and we were in grave danger, said the Prime Minister.
Mr Orbán stressed that the country had completed an enormous amount of work, and now “we tend to relate anecdotes and remember the spiritually uplifting moments,” but there had been dangerous periods, too. Had cooperation among the participants of the flood defence effort not been this smooth, we could have found ourselves in grave trouble, he stated.
In answer to the question of whether Hungary will be left to its own devices as regards the flood defence costs or will – similar to other countries – request help from Brussels, he said in Brussels funds intended for such purposes are as uncertain as the dog’s dinner.
He always tells everyone not to concern themselves with Brussels. We must be able to protect Hungary without Brussels or anyone else, “this is our country,” “no one will protect it for us,” he stressed.
Mr Orbán took the view that we must be able to raise the necessary funds, and if someone from somewhere is prepared to cover at least a part of the costs, “we’ll be grateful, but we shouldn’t count on this.”
In answer to a question relating to the problems of the war in Ukraine and the European Union’s competitiveness, the Prime Minister said “we are living in an era of two grave problems.”
One of them is the war itself because an inordinate number of people are dying, Christian people in an internal war, and at that, in our immediate neighbourhood, he said.
He added that while Europe’s population was declining, in the eastern half of the continent, people were killing each other. This – beyond being painful – is absurd as well.
The other problem or challenge we are facing is that in the meantime – though this has now been ongoing for many long years – the world economy is undergoing a complete transformation, and the big question of the future is who will succeed in adapting to this well, he pointed out.
Mr Orbán said regarding this Europe is not in the vanguard; he himself is positively pessimistic concerning European capabilities.
“The question is whether Hungary understands what’s happening, whether Hungary knows how to adapt and whether it will be able to,” he stated.
He added that now that the water has passed, we will concern ourselves with this question; this will be the genuinely important question of the coming month or two.
In answer to the question of whether the Hungarians have the adaptability which could make Hungary successful, he said he has a good plan, the most important elements of which he will present in a speech at the National University of Public Service on Wednesday.
“Our position is, my position is that the big ones, the great powers are working hard to tear the united world economy into two,” “and want to force countries of our kind to join one camp or the other,” he said.
He took the view that we must not accept this proposition, “in this era of the world economy splitting into two,” Hungary must preserve its economic neutrality; in fact, rather than just preserving it, we must build economic neutrality.
“If we can do this – and I think we can – Hungary will be successful. If not, then we’ll become subordinated to the countries of one bloc or another, and then once again someone else, not the Hungarians, will benefit from the hard work of the Hungarian people,” Mr Orbán argued.
