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Mr Orbán said all of Europe’s problems – stagnation, inflation, a rise in food prices, high energy prices – stem from the Russo-Ukrainian war.
The Prime Minister recalled that a year previously he had visited Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and the would-be US President in order to launch a peace initiative and to achieve a ceasefire. However, in Kiev this was rejected.
Mr Orbán said in explanation that with President Zelenskyy, a new politician personality type emerged on the scene, the influencer politician or actor politician, or “comedian.” His previous life did not at all prepare the Ukrainian president for his present job, especially in the middle of a war, he pointed out.
The Prime Minister took the view that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was playing a part, and when he tried to speak to him about more in-depth issues, it did not work. “Here, I am faced with an actual comedian,” he explained.
Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that it had been revealed at the NATO summit that there was a transatlantic split on this issue.
“I’d never seen the likes of this before, that on such an important, strategic issue, countries lying on the two shores of the Atlantic, America and Europe, embark on different courses. America is on the path of peace, while we keep charging forward on the war path,” he said.
He recalled that the Americans had clearly stated: if the two warring parties fail to cooperate with them in the interest of peace, they will abandon them.
The Prime Minister said Europe will be left on its own, and will have to cope with all the negative – including financial, economic and public security – consequences of the war all alone.
Mr Orbán said what we would need is for everyone to agree that the way forward is a ceasefire and peace. However, the Europeans want to continue the war, and the Ukrainians, too, take the view that if they are financed by the Europeans, it is worth continuing the war, he pointed out. At the same time, the Russians take the view that if there is no agreement, they would rather keep charging forward, what with all the sacrifices they have made for the military operations conducted so far, he added.
In summary, he said everyone is more interested in war and less in peace.
He said this war cannot be won on the frontline, it can only be concluded, and any further losses can only be contained or brought to a conclusion, through diplomacy.
There will be a ceasefire and peace if there is a meeting in person between the Russian and US presidents. If there is no meeting in person, then the situation will remain as bitter as it is at present for many long months, he pointed out.
The Prime Minster said if he should draw a map of who is who in this geopolitical situation, the pro-peace camp is comprised of the Turks, the Americans, the Hungarians and the Slovaks. The remaining 25 countries in Europe are in the pro-war camp: either by explicitly stating being pro-war, or silently supporting or tolerating the war, but refusing to quit this “pro-war coalition.” Today in Europe, there is a pro-war coalition, they dictate politics in Europe, and this is a very big problem because it harms Europe, he laid down.
The Prime Minister pointed out that Ukraine had the right to decide on its own future and to designate its own fate. “If it’s peace, then it’s peace, if it’s war, then it’s war,” but they cannot ask us to give them a helping hand with a flawed strategy. The continuation of the war – which they have a right to opt for – is something that harms Europe and may have terrible consequences for Hungary, Mr Orbán stressed.
We must stop the Ukrainians’ aspiration to join the European Union, he pointed out, indicating that he did so on the basis of the result of the Vote2025 opinion vote.
In answer to the question of whether the veto could be avoided from Brussels, he said this is not possible legally, but in Brussels, there are now open violations, and so it is not impossible that they may somehow avoid us on a temporary basis. It is impossible, however, and the European Union cannot allow a situation to arise – even in its worst, most battered “von der Leyen state,” and “despite any Ukraine-Brussels axis” – where the final decision on Ukraine’s European Union membership is not made by the Member States unanimously, the Prime Minister stressed.
At this point in time, this process has come to a halt, and cannot proceed because that, too, requires unanimity, he pointed out.
The Prime Minister also said there will be a very bitter moment when European leaders – not including the Hungarians and the Slovaks – must finally admit that they pursued a flawed strategy, and therefore suffered a defeat. The European Union has already lost this war, and while Ukraine is standing its ground on the frontline, Ukraine, too, has lost it, he said, observing that this moment will have very serious consequences for European politics.
Standing up in the European Parliament and stating that we have spent this much money, we have supported a warring party, and we have lost this war in the end – this usually has earthquake-like political consequences in European politics, he stated. He said they are not there yet, they are only at the stage of the economic consequences: they have “burnt” a hundred-something billion euros in Ukraine, and want to spend even more, despite the fact that there is no rational and describable path to victory that could be supported with any military or political logic. This is burnt money, but no one is able to answer the question of how to defeat a nuclear power on the frontline, Mr Orbán argued.
Regarding the chances of the government parties in the 2026 elections, the Prime Minister-President of Fidesz said, in his view, they will win the elections in an honest fight with a large margin.
The Prime Minister said there is nothing new in the situation that their opponents – primarily from money and based on instructions received from abroad – try “to herd opposition and anti-government voters into a single electoral community, a single camp,” the same as they did in 2022. However, in the meantime, the challenge has emerged in the form of a digital political movement, rather than a conventional party.
Politics also has a human side. Just any characters cannot win in politics. You cannot build a party on a sin, on breaking your oath, you cannot build a community on betrayal, or only temporarily, because the whole thing will fall apart, Mr Orbán stated.
He stressed that whatever “technological cavalcade” we might see in politics, “in the end, human quality will decide.” This is why he believes that they will win: because they have many hundreds, or even many thousands of leaders at local, middle and top levels whom the people know, whose commitment they have had a chance to experience, who are real people, it is possible to know what their virtues are and what their weaknesses are, he pointed out.
Mr Orbán added that in the next parliamentary elections they could achieve a result similar to that of 2022 based on “the extremely robust position occupied in real life.”
Regarding Judit Varga, the Prime Minister said the former justice minister had resigned three times during her last eighteen months in office, “quite simply because she couldn’t bear this abusive relationship,” and the ensuing clemency case then “swept her away, too.”
Mr Orbán highlighted that politics was based on characters, and in the case of characters, history always counted. “We have breathed together with this country since 1998, ever since our foundation, the people know everyone, everyone has a path of growth, achievements, strengths and weaknesses, the people know everything about them. I believe that this is unbeatable,” he stated in summary.
He added: what has been accumulated on the government side in the form of virtues, abilities, knowledge, experience, and of course, also weaknesses, cannot be beaten by any new formation. Not eternally, but it takes many long years of work to compete with this, he observed.
He highlighted that at present “there are wars in half the world,” there were economic difficulties. At times like this, you cannot choose “the unknown,” at times like this, those skills count that can only come from experience.
Regarding former chief of staff Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, he recalled that he was the Tisza Party’s candidate for defence minister – a person who glorified Ukraine, and received instructions from abroad about what position to take when on certain military issues.
Mr Orbán also pointed out that leadership by example was important in the army. The army is a place for serious people, and therefore, it is simply impossible that the army should be led by a general who had a liposuction procedure.
He also said in Hungary, the prime minister is not the army’s commander-in-chief, it is someone else who is at the end of the chain of command. “Therefore, the government’s relationship with the army is complex because while we manage it through the defence minister, the straight line of soldierly hierarchy that constitutes the very essence of the army cannot be enforced,” he observed.
“Therefore, who the chief of staff is, how to appoint him or her, whom to consult with, that’s a complex affair, and accidents like this can happen,” Mr Orbán said in reference to Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi’s earlier appointment.
In answer to the question of why the Tisza Party voted in Brussels against providing access to water for farmers free of charge, first of all, the Prime Minister drew attention to the fact that in Brussels there were bureaucrats, not patriots.
Brussels is an imperial centre where the general thinking is that it is best for the economy if as few national measures distort the functioning of the market as possible. So, if the question is whether water should be given free of charge, the Brussels answer is that everyone should pay because this is the correct procedure on the market according to the textbooks, he argued.
He added: it is another matter that the Brussels bureaucrats manage to create a relationship of dependence with some national politicians, such as in the case of [Democratic Coalition] DK and the Tisza Party. “I don’t blame Tisza, I’m not saying that they want to go against farmers, that they want to harm farmers. They just don’t want to harm their masters. They do have masters, and they have orders to follow,” Mr Orbán explained, indicating that this is the difference between a national party and a Brussels party.
He listed migration, the war and gender as the three main issues of European life, highlighting that on these three issues only a single country had the courage to ask for its own citizens’ opinions. In Hungary there were referenda about the war, about family protection, and also about migration. No other country has done this, he recalled.
He stressed that there was a control regime between Brussels and the national governments subjected to Brussels where the European people were simply barred from deciding on the most important issues. He said if there was a referendum about migration, the result would be more or less the same as in Hungary, on the issue of gender, too, and slowly also regarding the war. Meaning that if the European people were allowed to decide, there would be no war, but there would be family protection, and there would be no migration either.
This is why it is important whether the country is led by a national government or a Brussels one, Mr Orbán said in summary.
