Mr Orbán highlighted that in the risky situation that had emerged, in this war situation, a great many factors determined whether there would be war.
In a war situation, the Hungarian prime minister of the day must decide on the issue of war and peace, on whether his or her nation takes part in that war or stays out of it, whether he or she has enough strength to resist the pressure that frequently manifests itself in blackmail. This is the situation that has now emerged, he said.
Security is at stake in these elections because there will be situations when it will depend on the decision of Hungary’s leader, government and parliamentary majority which way Hungary’s fate and future will be headed; security is the most important, the Prime Minister stressed.
If there is no peace, if our money is taken to Ukraine, if household energy prices skyrocket, then everyone will find themselves at the receiving end, he added.
At the event, the Prime Minister said in answer to a question related to the issue of the Druzhba crude oil pipeline that the Hungarian economy cannot be brought to its knees even with an oil blockade until the elections, given the quantity of oil reserves the government has recently accumulated.
In answer to the question of whether he had expected Ukraine and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to “threaten Hungary with oil,” he said he had not, but he was certain that “things will get messy,” he expected more the intensity of personal threats to increase.
This was a risky step on the part of the Ukrainians, the Prime Minister stressed, adding that they have not achieved their goal, namely that petrol should cost a thousand forints or that there should be instability in Hungary’s supply, and neither is it possible to say that the government is unable to protect the country’s interests and is unable to guarantee the normal operation of the economy.
In answer to the question of whether he has knowledge of any more brutal Ukrainian attacks in the making on Hungary’s energy security, he said he has knowledge, but that is “my knowledge.”
He said it is quite telling that on Wednesday morning he was compelled to convene a meeting of the Defence Council, and to order a reinforced state of security for the protection of certain key energy facilities.
In peacetime this requires medium attention or a medium state of preparedness, “now, this level keeps increasing, and today I’ve been compelled to order the imposition of a high level,” he added, telling his audience that they should not be surprised to see police officers patrolling more frequently and military units in the vicinity of such facilities.
Mr Orbán stressed that supplies would last until May, and recalled that in Hungary’s oil supply “the Russian is the main system, the Croatian a supplementary one,” “we are now able to bring oil here via this supplementary system.”
Mol has taken the necessary steps, “we are currently waiting for the incoming big tankers from which we will be able to bring a certainty quantity of oil to Hungary via Croatia, and we will replenish our strategic reserves,” he said.
The Prime Minister pointed out that “the situation is not easy, the Ukrainians can squeeze us, but we can squeeze them, too. At times like this, you don’t just avert and ward this thing off, that’s one thing, but you must also take counter-measures in order to prevent them from getting hooked. It’s like drugs: once you get hooked, it’s very difficult to come off them, and if the Ukrainians – or anyone else for that matter – get hooked on achieving results by blackmailing Hungary, that will not end well,” meaning that we must stop them at the very beginning.
He pointed out that as this was a national self-defence interest, they had stopped all Brussels decisions which were important for Ukraine, including the disbursement of the EUR 90 billion intended for the country.
There are not any physical, technical obstacles to the resumption of oil shipments to Hungary; this is purely a political decision, he stressed.
In his view, the Ukrainians have enough money to pay their bills until April, but after that they will have serious payment difficulties, and so “both the Ukrainians and we have a vested interest in discussing this issue within the shortest possible time, whether with or without the involvement of Brussels, so that shipments can resume.”
He said Hungary has another trump card in its hands, that is the shutting down of the transmission of power, but for the time being, they are abstaining from resorting to this measure because there are also Hungarians living on the other side of the border, and they do not want to put them or the Ukrainian people in a worse position than the Ukrainian leadership.
Mr Orbán also said on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the war, the European Parliament adopted a document which says that “the European Parliament strongly welcomes the proposal for a multinational ‘reassurance force’ for Ukraine.”
He said this is about the agreement signed by France and the United Kingdom about sending military troops to Ukraine. In his view, in the next year or two, “a European war will knock on our door,” and there will be a situation when the Europeans send actual, fully equipped military units, equipped with live ammunition, to the territory of Ukraine.
At the event, the Prime Minister stressed that if Ukraine was admitted to the EU and they were at war with someone, “we would immediately find ourselves in that war.”
He stressed that the statements of Western European leaders were about nothing other than that “the Ukrainians must be pushed into the European Union” already in 2027.
This means that “in 2027 or 2028, there will be a war, a European-Russian war, and we will have to find a chance of survival, advancement, horribile dictu, growth in that environment,” he explained.
He said this would be the task for the next government, expressing bafflement at the fact that so many are applying for the job.
Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that political leaders tended to have more scope for manoeuvre than they were led to believe.
In continuation, he said it is true that it is difficult, but there are positions which can be enforced, and when “we stopped this sum of 90 billion euros to be sent to Ukraine, I was called all sorts of names, but nothing nice.” This is only a question of political courage and freedom, he added.
“It’s very important to have a very robust parliamentary majority, a very strong government, that there should be no factions, no competition within the governing party, that the person at the top should be followed by his or her partners, and that the person at the top should hold on as long as necessary,” he pointed out.
He said if you have all that, there is enough scope for manoeuvre to stay out of bad things even in the most difficult affairs. He added that he saw enough strength in Fidesz and the civic, patriotic, Christian voter camp, “not even mentioning myself,” to enable Hungary to stay out for many more long years.
At the event, the Prime Minister also said that if no cheap raw materials come to Hungary, then all the prices will go up. The price difference between Brent oil – western oil – and Urals oil – Russian oil – is USD 13 per barrel which someone has to pay, and that will “bring the Hungarian economy to its knees,” he stated.
He said in Europe a review of the current energy policy is on the agenda. Today, European businesses should compete with Chinese and US businesses against the background of the fact that European energy bills are 3.5 to 4 times higher. There is no efficiency, there is no management knowledge, there is no know-how that could compensate for this three- to four-fold energy price difference, he observed.
In his view, Europe is dooming its own industry; 140,000 to 150,000 jobs have ceased in Poland, 129,000 in Germany, and entire industries have gone under. He said “it’s all over for the European aluminium industry, the European chemical industry is on its last legs.”
He stressed that higher energy prices would bring even the economy of a country stronger than Hungary to its knees. If those energy prices come to Hungary and we are unable to protect businesses and households from them, then the loss of jobs will start also in the Hungarian economy.
He highlighted that the Hungarian government had recently protected jobs; during the four years of the war, they have created more jobs than have been lost.
In his view, this was only possible because we managed to maintain a cheap supply of energy, “if we don’t have that, then we ourselves will stumble into the river that the Western Europeans have found themselves in.”
In answer to the question of how long this can be maintained in its present form, the Prime Minister said “as long as I’m breathing, it will be maintained.”
Regarding the war, Mr Orbán said he would not like to see his country in the position that many Western European countries are in, they “are busy, managing decline,” without having a plan to reverse the trends, they are only focusing on stopping the situation from getting much worse.
“It’s difficult to live like that,” the Prime Minister concluded.
He added that he was working with all his might to keep Hungary out of the war. There are threats, but “our lives will not be constricted.”
The Prime Minister said it is important that an agreement was reached on an 11 per cent minimum wage increase with trade unions, despite the fact that the war is blocking the economy.
Seemingly, these are only economic decisions, but in actual fact, “these are prospects, decisions to keep up hope,” he laid down.
Now, all decisions are directly related to the war and its consequences. Whichever way we look at things, in the end, everything takes us to the issue of security. Therefore, it was a good decision that Fidesz chose the slogan ‘The safe choice’ for the election campaign, Mr Orbán pointed out.
In answer to a question from a member of the audience about whether the Hungarians will vote in April for a calm phase of construction or a mandate to keep the country on the frontline, Mr Orbán said there are three options. The first one is that we must fight with hope. The second one is that we will settle for the situation that there is a power greater than us and we will continually try to protect our interests with varying degrees of success, while the third option is that “we will win, and they will lose.”
The Prime Minister stressed that he had a clear plan about how we would win in Brussels. The Patriots party group was established, our concept regarding a turnaround in the United States proved right, and in the meantime, we have started gathering allies through national elections.
If one of the candidates of the patriotic forces wins the 2027 elections in France, that moment, “there will be a one hundred and eighty degree turn” because in transatlantic relations the Americans are with us, the V4 has been restored in Central Europe and they have failed to topple the Italian government, he explained.
In answer to the question of whether Hungary as a member of NATO will have to go to war, he said NATO is a military defence alliance, and so the members have no obligation whatsoever to take part in any military operation outside the territories of the Member States.
Therefore, Hungary would not be required to enter a Ukrainian-Russian war. However, if Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, from then on “we’ll have to go,” he said, adding that this is why the government is fighting against both Ukraine’s NATO and European Union memberships.
In answer to the question of whether a possible change of governments would jeopardise the results of the past 16 years, Mr Orbán said the war and “detachment” from cheap energy are immediate threats as the Tisza Party “concluded a pact with Brussels and Zelenskyy to the effect that they will accept their support in the interest of the formation of a pro-Ukraine government, and will promise to let the Ukrainians into the EU and to detach Hungary from Russian energy.”
In his mind, there are two systems in Europe: the Hungarian and the Brussels ones.
“The Hungarian system is put together, from the economy all the way to culture, in such a way that it focuses on what’s good for us, and it outlines a kind of Hungarian model, a Hungarian path. What they conceived in Brussels and what they’re trying to grind everyone into, what they’re trying to make everyone accept is a different system; in that there is no room for national identity, for instance,” he said. He stressed: if there is a Brussels system in Hungary again – because we already had it once before – then “it will be all over for every programme seeking to strengthen national identity.” But not only the topics of national identity would be dismantled; the family, all things Christian and church-related, all things that are based on the principle of performance would be sidelined, he added.
That would happen if the 2002 scenario were realised again; there is only one way to prevent this, “by sending them packing, and protecting the system we have built,” he said.
Mr Orbán drew attention to the fact that we were facing a four-year period when the war would continually “knock on our door, will threaten us.” He indicated that there was no proposed solution conquering all obstacles in his possession, there was only “Sisyphean hard work.”
This is a campaign in which “there is grappling, there is a mobilisation race, we must put hard work, many hours, patience and time into it, and in the end, there will be an outcome,” he said, adding that the campaign will be intense, the opponent is “deceitful and merciless,” but he has no doubt in his mind that we will win.
“This is a battle which must be fought by families, friends, groups of friends and local political communities locally,” he stressed.
In answer to a question about what threat the Ukrainian army poses to Hungary, the Prime Minister said it is a serious one. In his view, the solution to the war situation is to conclude a Russian-European security agreement in which issues of weaponry must also be settled.
Hungary has an elementary interest in the dysfunctional European security system being replaced by a new one, following which a low level of armaments must be determined, arms control protocols must be introduced and the number of weapons kept in order of battle must be reduced, he listed, adding that this should also apply to Ukraine because he would not like Hungary to have to build a military security system against a Ukrainian army of 800,000.
He stressed that Hungary had no interest in the continuation of the war or the conclusion of the war with everyone maintaining enormous armies, instead of a low-armament level security agreement.
He said, according to plans, Ukraine should be given USD 800 billion in the next ten years in order to operate itself, while there is another support package of USD 700 billion relating to the army and weaponry.
Ukraine is a state which is maintained from outside, while the armament of its army poses a constant challenge and threat to all its neighbours, he emphasised.
In answer to a question, the Prime Minister warned: we should be prepared that it will take another three to four years before this situation “smooths itself out,” and so young people would do well to think their lives over in that light.
“From the viewpoint of young people, what’s at stake in these elections is not the next four years, but the next fifteen, and if they make a mistake, they will pay the price. I don’t want to frighten anyone, I’m just saying ‘I told you,’” he added.
Regarding the odds of the elections, the Prime Minister said there is no “snap” solution ready in his pocket.
“On the most important civilisational issues of the future of Hungary, a large majority is on our side,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
Mr Orbán said if the elections were held tomorrow morning, given the present balance of power, Fidesz would win 65 of the 106 constituencies, while there are another ten in which we would fight with good chances.
Four years ago, we won 87 seats, we should aim for no fewer this time either, he confirmed.
In his words, if they also manage to convince people who do not otherwise concern themselves with politics – because it does not follow from their circumstances in life, they lead their lives differently – that it is important also from the viewpoint of their own fate that they should go and vote, then “we could score a great victory.”
“However, if workers, semi-skilled and skilled workers, people from the public works schemes don’t come along in sufficient numbers, then we could take a tumble,” the Prime Minister explained.
