He said in the petition we can say no to three things: the continued financing of the Russo-Ukrainian war, that they want us to pay for the functioning of the Ukrainian state in the next 10 years, and we can also say no to the increase in household energy prices due to the war.
Mr Orbán highlighted that Europe was already at war; the only question is how fast the effects of this will reach our lives.
He said the number one threat is that young Hungarians will be taken to Ukraine as soldiers, stressing that the Europeans would not like Hungary to have a government which urges the country to stay out of the war, “but one which wants to follow the West every step of the way.”
The leaders of the European Union have decided that they will defeat Russia in the war, on the Ukrainian front, he stated. He mentioned that the EU had so far given Ukraine EUR 195 billion, and they had decided on another 90 billion. According to the European Commission’s plan, a capital injection of USD 800 billion would be in harmony with the underlying concept, and military expenditures in the magnitude of USD 700 billion – according to the Ukrainians – would be an additional item, he listed.
The Prime Minister said the continent will suffer the consequences of the war for 2, 3 to 4 generations, and then added that it was also part of the plan that Ukraine should join the European Union by 2027 which would in turn “destroy Hungarian agriculture” and “would consume all our money.”
We will not allow a Tisza Government to guide Hungary onto the Brussels path, at the end of which our children will be taken to war as soldiers, he said, appealing to his audience.
If we fail to stand up for ourselves and state swiftly and robustly that we will not pay and will not take part in this, then they will push us into a debt which will be repaid not only by our grandchildren, but also by our great-grandchildren, Mr Orbán stated in connection with the funds intended to be provided for Ukraine by the European Union.
He recalled that in the nineties we had been a buffer zone between the western world and Russia which had finally come to an end with our NATO accession. At that time, this role was taken over by Ukraine and the two worlds influenced the fate of our eastern neighbour in equal proportions.
He added that the West had then decided together with the Ukrainians that Ukraine would join the western alliance. This in turn gave the Russians the impression that NATO had arrived at their borders, and Moscow stated in no uncertain terms that if they insisted on Ukraine’s accession, that would lead to war. He indicated that he could not rule out the possibility that “the Russians have all sorts of territorial ambitions.”
We must resign ourselves to the fact that NATO and the European Union cannot position itself directly at Russia’s borders because the Russians will always react to this by going to war. Therefore, there must always be something, a buffer zone between Russia and the eastern borders of the West, including Hungary, he stated, stressing that we should now come to an agreement on how Ukraine will again become a buffer state.
If this does not happen, the alternative is ongoing war, he added, stating that “you learn in marriage that at times peace and being at peace with each other is more important than the truth, and he then encouraged members of his audience not to seek the truth in this conflict, but to seek instead how to achieve peace and minimise threats.
He also said if Ukraine were a member of the European Union, today the EU would be involved in a direct military conflict with Russia.
We do not not support Ukraine’s European Union membership because our heart is made of stone, but because we do not want to harm ourselves, he indicated.
Ukraine will be a militarily unstable zone also in the longer term, and if they take part in any integration – NATO or the European Union – which we are also part of, there will be a constant threat that they might drag us into this conflict, he warned.
Therefore, Ukraine must stay outside the European Union. We need cooperation between Ukraine and the EU, they cannot be abandoned, we must conclude strategic agreements, agreements that are also good for us, but letting them is a deadly threat which poses Hungary a constant risk of war, he stressed.
He recalled that we had had two world wars here, and while we had had fantastic leaders, neither had managed to keep Hungary out of war.
Here, we can only stay out of the war with full national unity. “I will be there where I will have to be,” he said, adding however, that a good state leader is not enough on their own, we will also need full national unity in the coming years.
He also said while the Ukrainians want to drag us into the war, while they speak to us in a disgraceful and disrespectful tone, today we take care of 30,000 Ukrainian refugees in Hungary, Ukraine receives the bulk of its energy supply, 40 per cent of its total electricity needs from us, and if we stopped supplying them with petrol, their vehicles would be inoperational.
While we are tough, stand for our interests and will not back down, we do have a heart and will give people in trouble what they need even if they are Ukrainians, he stated in summary.
Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that the Hungarian government did not have a single conflict with the European Union whose course they were familiar with, about which they did not know how to win in the end, or how to back out of those that could not be won. “We will not drag Hungary into any irresponsible adventure, we will not carry out any daredevil operation because we are the embodiment of security, we are the safe choice,” he stressed.
Regarding the Hungarian government’s conflicts with Brussels, the Prime Minister said we must not drift or jump into these because they will only lead to trouble. Instead, the circumstances must be carefully assessed, while the given situation must be thoroughly understood. He warned that we must not have any illusions. We should only take on conflicts that can be won, and must never believe that one can win a bigger conflict than one is actually capable of. Meaning that we need strategic calm, and then we will have to see whom we can forge an alliance with, who can be bought out or removed from the sphere of our opponents, he argued, mentioning as an example that this is how Hungary could stay out of the loan of EUR 90 billion to be provided for Ukraine by the European Union most recently. He observed that the top priority was to always have an exit, lest the plan should fall through.
In his view, “you must keep trying because you can’t make much progress dwarf style.” If you keep adopting the dwarf posture, you will share the fate of a few other countries which “if called from Brussels only say on the telephone ‘Jawohl.’ We don’t want this. This is not who we are,” he said.
He also stressed that if the patriotic government remained in power, the reduction of household energy bills would remain in place. However, if a Brussels government comes, it is all over for the reduction of household energy bills.
In answer to a question, the Prime Minister said it is very difficult to maintain the reduction of household energy bills, but it must be looked upon as a service which the Hungarian state must provide, “and as long as there is a patriotic government, this is how it will be.” He observed that the reduction of household energy bills could not be maintained as a matter of course, but “we are able to maintain it.”
At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the opponents of the government side wanted to do away with the reduction of household energy bills. The government receives regular written orders from Brussels, calling for the cancellation of the reduction of household energy bills, and Hungarian politicians supported from Brussels, too, do so, Tisza itself claims that the reduction of household energy bills is nothing more than humbug, Mr Orbán added.
He indicated that when the government introduced the reduction of household energy bills, it detached the price of household energy from the prevailing market processes, meaning that the Hungarians pay less for energy than if they had to buy it from the market, without state regulation. He recalled that in Western Europe where there was no reduction of household energy bills, families paid two to three times more for household energy than the Hungarians.
He warned that the poorer a person was, the more they would be floored by high energy prices. Therefore, the Hungarian government decided to regard household energy as an issue which must be regulated on a national scale, to take the extra profits away from those who make a lot of money in the energy industry and to distribute them among the people in the form of subsidised household energy prices, he argued.
He drew attention to the fact that this had a price as in the Hungarian energy sector, actors were unable to make the same high profits as their western counterparts.
In the context of the appearance of former Shell Executive Vice President István Kapitány on the side of the Tisza Party, he observed that due to the price rises caused by the war, the annual profits of Shell had increased from 19 billion to 40 billion. “This is the extra profit that we took away and gave the people so that they should not have to pay the price of the drastic and unbearable changes that have occurred on the energy markets,” he indicated.
Regarding electricity, he said it is an important goal that Hungary should attain energy independence. With a view to this, he said in continuation, they will first build the Paks 2 nuclear power plant, will extend the operating cycle of Paks 1, will increase the capacity related to solar panels and the batteries necessary for the storage of energy, and will in the meantime “cunningly and quietly” also buy gas fields of our own around the world.
As a result, by the end of the term of the next government, Hungary will be able to generate its own power needs, he pointed out.
Concerning relations between Kaposvár and the government, he recalled that during consecutive Fidesz governments, investments worth HUF 100 billion had been channelled to the Kaposvár industrial park.
He highlighted that the friendship between Fidesz and Kaposvár dated back a long time, “we have never tired of each other,” and then recalling a conversation he had with Mayor Károly Szita in 1994, he spoke about what the municipal leader had asked for in connection with the development of Kaposvár so that they could offer the people living there a quality life.
He said that already back then, Mr Szita asked for road developments so that “Somogy should not feel like the end of the world,” he advocated for granting the local college of higher education university status, while he also stood up for the development of the hospital. Mr Orbán mentioned that according to the concept of Fidesz, robust county hospitals must be maintained everywhere.
Regarding the refurbishment of the Kaposvár Theatre, he said Mr Szita argued for the need for the availability of quality culture.
In the context of the success of promoting the former college of higher education to the rank of university, Mr Orbán observed that 30 per cent of those graduating from here stayed in the city which was an extremely high percentage even by international comparison.
Concerning the concepts of the Tisza Party related to the development of seven regional hospitals, he said that would mean that “it would be all over for” the Kaposvár institution, “or would be demoted at the very least.”
Welcoming Bishop Béla Balás – whom he only calls Father Concrete – in the audience, he highlighted that after the change of government in 2010, they created a patriotic, Christian Constitution with which they managed to answer, after twenty chaotic years following the fall of communism, the question of “what Hungarian life is about” and which “lays down the mission of the Hungarians in the world.”
Answering a question from a member of the audience, he said the village lifestyle and the direct relationship with nature are values that must be preserved. “Somogy Land” has a great deal of responsibility in this endeavour as this is the county with the highest number of villages, he observed.
He recalled that Hungary was a country whose agriculture was able to feed 20 million people.
Agriculture is a very important pillar of the Hungarian economy, not only for civilisational, but also financial reasons. There is an ongoing fight between traders and producers everywhere in the world. When we speak about the fact that Mercosur brings cheap food in from South America or Ukraine exports to us cheap foodstuffs, it is about 10 million Hungarians having to consume imports, he pointed out. If you are able to protect Hungarian agriculture, you will have protected your producers. If not, then you will have surrendered the consumption of 10 million people as well as its financial potential to importers, meaning to traders. Therefore, having a Hungarian countryside, having villages and having agriculture are also key issues of Hungary’s sovereignty, he stated in summary.
He added that EU contracts must be ratified by the national parliaments of all countries. However, Brussels now came up with the idea that the European Commission should be allowed to enact the agreement on a temporary basis before that.
He also observed, however, that if farmers stood up for themselves, Brussels politicians were not as brave as they showed themselves to be at press conferences. We need pan-European unity, and Hungarian farmers can be saved, he pointed out.
He also recalled that in the past 15 years, Hungarian agriculture had made much progress, its efficiency had increased, regarding its productivity, since 2010, it had achieved a 53 per cent growth, and we were the seventh country with the most productive agriculture in the European Union.
This is not bad out of 27, but we must not stop until we reach the podium, we must be in the top three, we will mobilise a great deal of funding to this end after 2026, he pledged.
He warned, however, that Brussels was the opponent of farmers, as were von der Leyen, Mr Weber who is the leader of the European People’s Party and also Mr Zelenskyy as he himself wants to bring here Ukrainian foodstuffs of inferior quality, and the leader of the Tisza Party, too, is in that same package. “If you get Tisza, you get with it a von der Leyen, a Weber and also a Zelenskyy,” he said.
Regarding US President Donald Trump, he drew attention to the fact that while people in the West made malicious comments about him, in actual fact, all international institutions operated “in a well-educated, European, academic style” have recently become paralysed, and then along came Donald Trump, turned everything upside down, and now results are forthcoming. “Naturally, always on a lesser scale than what he talks about. But this is what a message is about, isn’t it?” he observed.
In his view, Donald Trump has saved the “dysfunctional” NATO, put an end to the war in Gaza, stopped the drug consignments coming from Venezuela to the western world, and Iran posing a constant deadly threat, too, “is now down.”
He observed that the US President “may have wanted to put Greenland into his whiskey as a large piece of ice,” and he could not achieve that, but from now on “that piece of ice is definitely his” and what is happening within NATO is what is important for the United States.
He indicated that “if we were in luck,” then Donald Trump could even achieve a result in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
He said on the whole it is good for Hungary that today America has “such a curt, very self-confident and active president who may have a strange, unusual style, but is very efficient” because he is solving a few of the international world’s unsolved problems.
He added that had they not supported Donald Trump already from 2015, it would have been all over for the reduction of household energy bills in Hungary a long time ago as America ordered a ban on the importation of all gas and oil coming from Russia. “We had to achieve an exemption; we had to secure a clause saying ‘except Hungary.’ And this is just what happened,” he recalled.
He indicated that US permission was also necessary for Mol to be able to buy the Serbian oil refinery. Additionally, he said in continuation, America is today present in Hungary as investor much more robustly than before Donald Trump’s presidency.
Regarding the protective financial shield to be provided for Hungary by the United States, he said negotiations concerning its specific form are ongoing. However, if anyone, whether on the London money markets or in Brussels as part of the EU budget wanted to mess with the Hungarians or wanted to create a financial crisis, there is a US contact, with the aid of which they would be able to avert this.
In answer to the question of whether they are scared of the threats and revenge of the Ukrainians and the Ukrainian president, he said when Volodymyr Zelenskyy threatens him, all he thinks of is that “he is my fifth Ukrainian president. We don’t even remember the names of the previous four,”
He stressed that, from time to time, personal threats had to be taken seriously, but the duty of a prime minister was to maintain calm in the country. “My duty is not to keep the country in suspense in connection with one threat or another, but to handle these threats calmly as long as there is no need for everyone to know about them,” he said, adding that today the level of threat is not universally high, but medium with surges every now and then.
“We must pay more attention to those, both I and my family. The latter bothers and hurts me more than my own business,” he observed.
He took the view that there was a specific Ukrainian form of threat that they combined with insults. However, you must only respond to these if they cast aspersions on Hungary’s integrity and reputation.
“Hungary must always be given the respect that it deserves […] you can’t speak to us in just any tone, and if someone fails to give us this respect, it’s the prime minister’s duty to demand it nonetheless and to enforce it,” he indicated.
He observed that the “von der Leyen-Weber-Zelenskyy-Péter Magyar” package also had a Hungarian actor who likewise spent his days by issuing threats. In response, he said “never tell the crocodile to shut his mouth until he reaches the other side of the river.”
According to Mr Orbán, those who believe that EU funds solve any problems in this country are not familiar with reality. “We would be fine without EU funds,” the Prime Minister added, stressing that the balance of Hungary’s contributions and receipts, “that we gain from membership as a financial benefit” amounts to three per cent of the GDP. We keep fighting for these funds “because we’re entitled to them,” and we must take them away from those who do not want to give them to us “by maintaining the appearance that they voluntarily gave those funds to us,” he said.
He highlighted that EUR 12 billion of the EUR 22 billion Hungary would be entitled to from the seven-year EU budget was already on our account. “There is another 10 billion left which they must give us, whilst feeling good about it.”
In answer to a question concerning road refurbishment projects, Mr Orbán said the state covers the costs of works to be carried out on sections of road located within the boundaries of settlements, while after the elections, the government will make an offer to farmers with a view to making dirt roads in the countryside passable.
Regarding the situation of teachers, he said with the recent pay rises, they have managed to take the first step: teachers should no longer look upon themselves and their profession as victims. It is bad for everyone if teachers are frustrated, he said, stressing that in such a state it is difficult to furnish children with calm, composed and ever-expanding knowledge.
He mentioned that the curriculum had to be re-considered, the same as what should constitute the central plan and what teachers could decide about, and how performance is measured and controlled. He said the goal is to find a solution that is equally good for the government, teachers and parents.
Mr Orbán stressed that Fidesz was the safe choice.
We are living in an era of threats, there will be plenty more dangerous moments, there is a direct threat of war, young people are facing the threat of having to serve in the war, so there is the threat of military service, and we are all facing the threat of an economic bankruptcy, unless we all resist what Brussels and the representatives of the prospective puppet government sent here from Brussels want, he warned.
In his view, Fidesz is the safe choice because they stand on national foundations, because they say no to everything that is bad for Hungary, while additionally “I’ve been sitting in their kitchen for 37 years, we know each other, there are not many surprises left,” he told his audience.
He added that Fidesz would always be the people’s party, and would never allow anyone from Brussels or elsewhere to come forward with a programme that was bad for the Hungarian people.
“I understand that change is needed from time to time. And young people, too, need some space. I also understand if someone wants to become prime minister. That happens. Everything has its own time. This is no time now for experimenting, however,” Mr Orbán stated in summary.
