“In 2026, I will ask for a mandate in the upcoming elections from members of the electorate in order for us to stay out of a European war. This is what I’ll seek their authorisation for. I’d like to ask them to confirm me, to authorise me to keep Hungary out of the European war alliance,” he stated.
He stressed that a different world was unfolding before our eyes, and in this the people wanted to designate the path on which they felt their future to be the safest.
“I have always been optimistic, I’m optimistic also now,” he added, stressing that they must talk clearly and plainly about the possibilities facing the country and will have seek a mandate for a clear goal.
“This is what we do. We know what we seek a mandate for, we know what we ask the people’s votes for, and we know what we want to do with the power, the strength so obtained,” he pointed out.
He laid down that in 2026 we would have to decide whether Hungary would join the so-called European coalition of the willing that wanted war or would stay out of the war.
He added that if we stayed out of the war, we would not have to change over to a war economy, we could continue to have a peacetime economy.
The other route is the war economy, he stressed. This meant, he said in continuation, that “we will enter the war, the Hungarian economy will be re-organised into a wartime economy, the Hungarians’ money will be taken to Brussels, and from there to Ukraine because for war you need money, and then there will be impoverishment in Hungary.”
He stressed that Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Alliance had a unified leadership which was the greatest competitive advantage because compared with all European countries, Hungary had the most capable, most competent government as a result.
The Prime Minister said the largest possible number of decisions must be made on the basis of the widest possible range of consultations because if “partisan decisions,” individual decisions are made such as in the clemency case, that could lead to instances where the decision-maker’s judgement fails for whatever reason on a particular day and a bad decision is made with far-reaching consequences.
“Therefore, we must rely far more on consultations, on joint decisions and the joint implementation of joint decisions. That’s the lesson we must learn,” he added.
He warned that politics was the profession requiring continuous renewal the most everywhere in the world. Those who fail to learn, who fail to adapt, who fail to pay attention, who have no experience can easily go astray.
In response to the suggestion that Fidesz “moves sluggishly, more like a mother ship,” and they may perhaps be better-off with a drone, the Prime Minister said they are not sure about this, “drones are selling well on the market now,” however, he does not like such risky adventures.
“What I like is if there are three or four clear values on which a country’s policies are based,” he argued, stressing that from this respect Hungary is an exceptionally stable European country: we have a workfare economic system which is different from the system of the Brussels war economy, and we have a social system based on families which is also different from what you experience in Brussels.
In his view, “Hungarian life rests” on these two pillars, these cannot be abandoned, “no drone will replace them.”
Here, there is no migration, gender, Brussels subjection, here, we have sovereignty, a pro-family policy, and merit- and performance-based economic policy, respect for families, he stressed, indicating that these political tenets “must not be removed in the event of any drone attack.”
In answer to the question of how much self-reflection there is in the leadership of Fidesz and how “stowaways” appearing in the party who only wish to further their own interests could be best handled, Mr Orbán said it is to be hoped that those who leave the party also take their negative qualities with them. He added that it was best if characters who wanted to create were in the majority and stowaways were in the minority. He observed that he had yet to see a bus “where there aren’t a couple of people trying to skip the fare,” but what was important was that they should not be allowed anywhere near the steering wheel.
He also highlighted that self-reflection was an issue of character, rather than a political, ideological, party or government issue. In his view, the Hungarian government is doing well in this department, the cabinet is comprised of individuals with a fair amount of self-reflection, everyone accepts that “the church is always in need of reform,” there is always something that could be done better.
In answer to the question of whether Péter Magyar’s appearance and explosion into politics caused any surprise or paralysis in Fidesz, Mr Orbán said he did not see any paralysis. He stressed that a governing party had to work, any duels or clashes with opposition parties were only secondary and it would harm the country if the government were expected to campaign instead of governing.
Everything has its own time, the campaign and governance included. A governing party cannot adjust its steps to what is happening on the opposition side, he pointed out.
Regarding the opposition, Mr Orbán said now they have re-organised themselves, a new opposition is coming to replace the old one, but there are changes only in the persons, not in substance, given that on the opposition side there are forces which “want to execute the Brussels instructions.”
He added that those were in the opposition who accepted the migration pact from Brussels, who would go to war together with the Europeans, who would accept gender regulations and who would introduce a wartime economy.
“Lately, my job has been not to enrol in a campaign race, but to keep the country in a state so that we can stay out of the trouble, the lethal danger that is threatening Hungary and that is called war and war economy,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
He said in the Hungarian parliamentary elections in 2026 we will have to decide whether Hungary will continue to pursue the policy of staying out of the war or will join Brussels. 2026 will be the year of a war decision: Yes or no? Will we stay out or will we not?
Mr Orbán took the view that 2025 had been an important, watershed year. Donald Trump won the US presidential election and it was a legitimate hope that he might line up the Europeans behind himself and end the war in Ukraine. We ourselves built our plans on this when we thought that 2025 would be a breakthrough year. We will move from war to peace, and the Hungarian economy – as the blocking effect of the war will cease – will again gather momentum. This is not what happened, and in this sense 2025 is a watershed: this is the first time since he has been in international politics and has observed events that the Americans and the Europeans occupy opposite positions on an issue of strategic importance, the issue of a European war, he indicated.
We had not seen anything like this before. The US president issues the directive that the task in hand is to put an end to the Russo-Ukrainian war and to restore peace, and in response the Europeans say ‘no,’ they want to continue, Mr Orbán stated. He said they have decided that they want to continue the war even without the Americans, “we are providing weapons, we are providing money, and if needs be, also soldiers. What’s more, we’re even prepared to re-organise the entire European economy into a war economy and we are announcing a completely new economic strategy. This is what happened in 2025,” Mr Orbán stated in summary.
He said Hungary had to answer the question of whether to support the American peace efforts or the Brussels war decision. Will we stay out of this European war decision, turn against it, if needs be, will we openly say no to the invitations, the manoeuvres with which they want to involve us in this European war community and suffer all the resulting consequences? Staying out or not staying out, that was the question in 2025, the Prime Minister explained.
He said from Hungary’s point of view he will never accept any necessity for the future. He recalled that in 2024, before the entry into office of the new US president, the United States of America and Brussels together had tried to push every European country into the war against the Russians and into the military alliance assisting the Ukrainians. Hungary managed to stay out also back then, he recalled, underlining that the conclusion is that a country can stay out of a war even against simultaneous pressure from America and Brussels if it regards its sovereignty as important, if it is able to enforce its will, if it is able to make decisions, if there is internal political stability and if there is wide popular support behind a government.
In 2025 the situation is better than it was in 2024 because the Americans switched to the side of peace, except this has not brought about a solution, Mr Orbán said, indicating that the hope that the US President will line up the Europeans behind himself, will quickly restore peace, the economy will start growing and a promising economic perspective will unfold for Hungary has not materialised because the Europeans said no to peace, and they said yes to war.
Therefore, we Hungarians were compelled to re-calibrate everything. We had to decide that if we choose not to go down the path of the war economy together with the Europeans, but pursue the path of peacetime economy, precisely how this could be done, what the schedule should be, what precisely a peacetime economy is while everyone in Europe is building a wartime economy, he argued.
He pointed out that in Western Europe there was an austerity-based economic policy that stemmed from the nature of the war economy: they are raising taxes, living costs are rising, debt levels are increasing. We are not doing that, Mr Orbán stressed. He recalled that Hungary had decided to carry on on the path of a peacetime economy. Hence the doubling of the tax benefits available in relation to children, the lifetime tax exemption of mothers, the fourteenth monthly pension, the 11 per cent minimum wage increase, the tax reductions granted to small businesses, the first-home programme with fixed 3 per cent interest. He said it took 6 to 7 months to create this peacetime economy, but this peacetime economy is now on its way, and the majority of measures will take effect from 1 January.
The performance of the Hungarian economy is based to a considerable extent on the value of the goods we produce here at home, in Hungary, which we then sell abroad, and one of our most evident markets has always been the European Union, primarily Germany, the Prime Minister added.
He said if Germany changes over to a wartime regime in its economy, beyond doubt, that will have a negative impact on the Hungarian economy. At times like this, we must check to see where there are markets outside Europe which we can place our products on. This is why they announced the strategy called ‘connectivity’ or ‘economic neutrality’ which seeks to find markets outside Europe for Hungarian products, the Prime Minister explained.
By his account, it will take quite a few more years before a considerable percentage of Hungarian products will be placed on non-European markets, but this job will have to be carried out. If they are unable to place Hungarian products outside European markets, the growth of the Hungarian economy will come to a halt, Mr Orbán pointed out.
In the interview, Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that while the West had been united, it had been possible to send countries, for political or ideological reasons, to a place called cutty-stool, but this era was over now.
He pointed out that if the Americans finally succeeded in coming to an agreement with the Russians, in consequence of which the Russians were removed from the list of economic sanctions, that would mean that the Russian market would open up to Hungary, we would be able to place products in larger quantities on that market and would also be able to buy energy in larger quantities from there.
The big question of 2026 is whether the conflict between the United States and Europe will reach a point where the Americans will conclude a peace with the Russians even without the Europeans, he said.
Hungary is, at it is, strong enough to be able to stay out of a war, if needs be against the whole western world, if needs be against Brussels, he stressed.
He observed that Europe had decided to go to war, and the meetings of the European Council were now war councils.
In answer to the question of whether it is possible to remain neutral and non-committed, Mr Orbán said this is not our goal.
He said we want to remain a part of the western alliance system and would like political decisions to be made on the basis of common sense. Rather than wanting to leave the western alliance system, we want reasonable decisions to be made both in Brussels and at the NATO headquarters, he stated.
We will have to occupy Brussels sooner or later in order for “the pro-peace forces to be in the majority,” this is what they are working on, this is an ongoing struggle, this is why they established the Patriots, he indicated.
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