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Interview Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the Kossuth Radio programme “Good Morning Hungary”

Zsolt Törőcsik: Bomb threats have been made to almost three hundred schools across the country, with the institutions receiving the same threatening mail. The message included the following sentence: “The time of reckoning has come, and we are the instruments of Allah’s wrath.” In every location this threat has proven to be false, and the investigation is ongoing. This is one of the things I’ll be asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about in the next few minutes. Good morning.

Good morning.

What’s the latest information you can give us on this case?

The Interior Ministry is working on it, they’re carrying out investigative work. I myself am uncertain about the outcome of this. I have no doubts about the determination or ability of our police officers, because – as events have shown – when necessary the state does what’s needed. So for a threat like this, which came by text message or phone, suddenly the state was able to mobilise thousands of people; and it turned out it was able to do what was needed, it passed the test, and we quite quickly overcame the uncertainty and chaos caused by this threat. What causes more uncertainty in my mind is that Hungary isn’t the only country where this has happened: it happened recently in Bulgaria, and we know of such cases in Slovakia, for example. So it could well be that this isn’t a crime committed on Hungarian soil, but one which originates in some international centre, which is still beyond our reach. The time for that will come, but at the moment we only have security oversight of the areas within the country’s borders. But this work is in progress, and I was on the hotline with the Interior Minister all day yesterday, and they’ve been given a mandate – let’s say strong encouragement – to leave no stone unturned. So they must continue until they find the source of all this. So I want to reassure everyone – parents, teachers, students – that life is back to normal. We must be prepared for “one fool to spawn a hundred”. So once such a thing happens, it probably won’t be in the form of a big, sweeping tsunami of threats in the days to come, but there will be occasions when one cheeky student or another, one angry parent or God knows exactly who else, will feel the inclination to do something like this. This is a well-known international characteristic in all these types of crime. So I agree with the Interior Minister that it’s one thing to investigate what’s happened so far, but we must be alert to the fact that there may be an increasing number of cases, and we must also be prepared for possible provocations. I think things are in order, so we have this under control. This isn’t going to go away overnight, but the main point is that yesterday everyone – all parents, teachers and students – were able to see that they’re safe. To this I’d add the comment that normally this would be dealt with, if not with a shrug of the shoulders, then with the acknowledgement that, “Well, this is how it goes.” The reason we can’t react like that now and can’t simply see this as a case of one fool spawning a hundred is that meanwhile there are terrorist acts in Western Europe. So of course we’d find it easier to put this behind us if it weren’t for the fact that in the community to which we belong, in the European Union, there are terrorist acts – if not on a daily basis, then weekly. But since what we see there aren’t just threats but acts of terrorism, then here even threats must be taken seriously. And the lesson is always the same: if migrants were allowed into Hungary, or had been allowed in, there wouldn’t just be threats of terrorism here, but acts of terrorism; and people’s lives wouldn’t simply be threatened, but would be taken – we’d lose them. What I always say is that, regardless of what public opinion focuses on, the most important issue for the future of Hungary and for Hungarian security is migration. Migrants must not be allowed in. And one must recognise that this is a dividing line in Hungarian politics, because there are opposition parties in Brussels who support the Migration Pact, and are even pushing for its implementation. The Migration Pact also represents a mortal threat to Hungary, a threat of terror, and it brings the risk of that threat to Hungary. It must be rejected. There’s also a dividing line in Hungarian politics: the governing parties flatly reject the Migration Pact and aren’t willing to admit migrants; and there are also political forces in Hungary which demand that the Hungarian government implement the Brussels migration pact. 

We’ll continue with this in a moment, but one more question in connection with the bomb scare: What are the tasks of the security services, and do they need to step up security measures somewhere? Because right now hundreds of thousands of teachers and students are on their way to school. 

Vigilance must be strengthened. So too must be the capacity for detection: as soon as something happens, the nerve centre of the Government or the police must be aware of it as quickly as possible, so that they can take the necessary decisions. This time span must be shortened.

Speaking of migration, Donald Trump was inaugurated on Monday, and in the first hours of his presidency he effectively delivered on his promise, and compared with the Biden administration he’s made a 180-degree turn in terms of ideology, on security, on migration and on economic issues. Looking from or at Europe, what impact can or will Trump’s first actions have? 

First of all, if there’s any champagne left after President Trump’s victory, let’s drink it quickly and toast not only the victory of this President who will bring Hungary a good period, and whose presidency is in our interests, but also that after his victory he’ll deliver on everything he’s promised and enact it. It’s at times like this that I’m reminded of what they say about Hungary in America: that the Hungarians were already “Trump before Trump”. So I look at his speeches, I look at his measures, and these are exactly the measures that we’ve already taken, and which have led to Hungary being constantly declared to be isolated, and to attempts to isolate it – partly from the Hungarian Left, partly from Brussels, and partly from both of them together. But the Western world comprises two pillars: the American leg and the European leg, with the two together making up the Western world. Now, after Trump’s measures, we can safely say that since 20 January, when the President took office, Hungary – which was being subjected to attempts to isolate us – is no longer isolated, no longer sidelined, no longer squeezed out: we are the mainstream. We’re back on the main street of history, as they say in Brusselese babble: we are the mainstream. So we’re in the majority in the Western world, and what we and the Americans say and do together is the majority position. Now the strange thing is that we’re in the majority, but we still have to rebel; because although the change has taken place in Washington, it hasn’t taken place in Brussels. Although we’re the new majority and we’re the new main street of history, in Brussels we still have work to do: we still have to rebel, because otherwise the people in Brussels will impose on us the things that the American president is doing away with in America, and that we’ve successfully fought against over the last few years. This is the situation we have with migration, and this is the situation we have with the Child Protection Act. The US president has said a sentence that’s still missing from the Hungarian constitution. We’ve worked well in recent times on child protection. Marriage: one man, one woman. Bingo! A father is a man, a mother is a woman. Bingo! The US president went further, saying there are only two genders. A person is either a man or a woman. This isn’t yet in the Hungarian constitution. There are still matters to deal with, but the trajectories we’re on – the Americans and us – clearly coincide. And what’s more important – indeed very important – to us, at least to those of us who are involved in politics, is that he’s turned off the financial sluice valves. Before the departure of the American ambassador, the Democrats’ ambassador, some 150–200 million forints were distributed among left-wing NGOs and the left-wing media, among those working against the Government. Now that’s over, the US president has turned off the financial sluice valve, it’s been terminated, it’s over, it won’t continue. So now the “rolling dollars” will no longer be able to roll in from Washington. Now they can only come from Brussels. And they are coming from there. This is even more outrageous, because even the money paid by Hungarians is being used for bad purposes like this. It’s unacceptable that the money paid in by the Member States to Brussels should be used, even in part, even a single cent of it, to support a political force in a Member State. Unfortunately for us, it’s going not to us, but to our opponents. But we don’t need to be supported from Brussels either, thank you very much; leave us alone, but don’t support our opponents either. So the issue of the rolling dollars has now been scaled down from Washington to Brussels. I could also say that the Soros Empire, which is a two-headed dragon, has had one of its heads – in Washington – cut off. Now it must be decapitated in Brussels.

Well, yes, but this also raises a question. Last week you did indeed say that the Democrats and the Soros Empire have fled from Washington to Brussels; but this week you also announced the second phase of the operation, to take Brussels. Now, if everyone’s going to Brussels, or is in Brussels, this will inevitably lead to a kind of clash. How fierce or intense could this fight be? 

Yes, but now we’ve got them in a sandwich – or I’m sure the experts would say in pincers; in the morning when you still haven’t had breakfast, you tend to think of sandwiches. So what we have is the Americans on one side and Central Europeans on the other. And we’re not alone. The Slovaks are doing exactly what we’re doing. We’ve lost the Poles, but they’ll come back, as you can see from what’s happening – it’s only a matter of time. Mr. Babiš is coming back, and the Austrian government will be formed soon. They all think – as we do – that it shouldn’t be possible for support to come from Brussels to left-liberal forces in our countries. Brussels mustn’t do that, it mustn’t interfere. So Brussels has become trapped in a vice, between the jaws of a vice, between the Americans and the Central Europeans. We must fight together to put an end to this. Another benefit from the victory of President Trump, who speaks differently from the way that’s usual in international politics, is that we can finally say what the battle and the struggle are about. This liberal Brussels babble renders the political struggle linguistically slippery: the “rule of law” and all sorts of things are said that normal people can’t put into words when they want to understand – in their own universe and in their own minds – what the political struggle is all about. Now that in America the President is back, this is clear. From our point of view, what the struggle is about and the name of the battle is whether in Hungary we have a national government, or a puppet government imposed on us from Brussels. This was the issue in America: a liberal Democrat government, or a national government? Now it’s the same here. A puppet government from Brussels, or a national government? It was all about this before, but it just couldn’t be expressed so well. Now it’s become simple, and the US presidential election has made things easier for us.

And there’s another area in which Trump has been very clear. This week he’s made several statements about the war between Russia and Ukraine. But there’s another aspect to this, and that’s energy. In recent weeks Kiev/Kyiv has turned off the gas tap to Europe, and there have also been threats to the TurkStream pipeline. In the past few days you’ve been discussing this – in Belgrade, and then in Bratislava/Pozsony. What was the main outcome of these discussions on Hungarian energy security?

The Ukrainians want to pick on us – to put it politely, although vernacular speech has stronger expressions for it. The most important thing is that although they want to pick on us, we can defend ourselves if we maintain a united front with the Serbs. Unlike the previous situation, the situation before the national government took office, when gas – important energy and a basic material for energy security – could only reach Hungary via Ukraine, the national government has built an alternative route. This is the southern route, through which we can import the gas necessary for Hungary to function, and even supply it to our Slovak friends. In parenthesis, I clearly remember that in the early 2010s – ten or so years ago – there was a huge debate about why the hell the Hungarian government was building the Slovak–Hungarian gas pipeline system, why it was connecting the two systems there, around Košice/Kassa, in the eastern region; because there was no need to do so, the experts had shown from the figures that it would never pay for itself, and so on. Now, if it weren’t for that, Hungary and Slovakia would be in trouble. So this shows that narrowly defined expert criteria are important; because they involve division, multiplication and calculation. This is important knowledge, but the experts don’t have strategic knowledge. Strategic knowledge is possessed by leaders with political responsibility. The same is true for the Budapest–Belgrade railway, I can see it there too: reasoning, calculations, readings say that it won’t pay off, it shouldn’t be there, and not like this; and then there’s a moment when it turns out that, from a geostrategic security point of view, that railway line will be our umbilical cord. This can easily happen. Those were my parenthetical comments. Back to energy. So in addition, this all fits into a sanctions policy regime. We have an alternative route, which is a tribute to the foresight of Péter Szijjártó, and so the Ukrainians cannot pick on us in terms of energy security. But what they’re doing is causing prices to rise, and so even though we have access to energy in Hungary, it will be more expensive than if the Ukrainians were behaving properly. If they were behaving properly, if they weren’t picking on us, the situation at petrol stations would be different, and the energy price system in Central Europe wouldn’t look like it does. This is important now, because, when the war broke out, in order to help Ukraine sanctions were imposed not by us, but by Brussels. We’ve never supported them. The sanctions system is bad as it is, especially for us Hungarians. Yet, although unanimity is needed, we haven’t vetoed the sanctions regime: we’ve negotiated allowances for Hungary but we haven’t vetoed it, because on such an important issue European unity is an important asset. Now, if we look at the figures for the last three years, we see that over the last three years Hungary has lost 19 billion euros because of the sanctions. If I translate this into Hungarian, it’s 7.5 trillion forints. This is a horrendous amount – much more than all the income tax Hungarians pay annually to the Hungarian treasury. So they’ve taken 7.5 trillion forints from us through sanctions. And now, of course, the question of extending the sanctions is on the agenda. And I’ve pulled the handbrake and asked the European leaders to understand that this cannot continue: Hungary must not be made to pay such a high price for sanctions. I’m sure that others are losing out, but that’s their problem, not ours, not mine, not the Hungarian state’s, not the Hungarian government’s – it’s theirs. Our problem is that, because of the sanctions, 7.5 trillion forints is missing from the Hungarian treasury. And, because the sanctions serve their interests, now the Ukrainians are throwing manure at the fan and even picking on the Hungarians in the energy sphere – because they’re not allowing gas to flow from Russia to Hungary. So this won’t be any good: on the one hand we’re paying a Ukraine that needs help, we’re accepting the economic consequences of the sanctions; and meanwhile they’re picking on us. This won’t wash! So I’ve told my colleagues to kindly understand this. We’re asking for help. We’re asking them to tell the Ukrainians to reinstate the gas pipeline supply. They’ve closed it now, so let it be reopened. This isn’t a question for Ukraine: it’s a question for Europe and Central Europe. And if the Ukrainians want help, for example for us to sanction the Russians, then let them reopen the gas pipeline and let them allow the Central European countries – including Hungary – to import the gas we need through Ukraine. The second thing is that the route along which we’re now importing gas mustn’t be attacked with all kinds of semi-legal or legal military means. The border point on Russian soil through which the gas arrives in Hungary from the south has also been attacked. Stop this! And thirdly, give us a guarantee that the dirty things you’ve just done to us with gas won’t be repeated with oil; because oil also comes through them, and it’s a serious risk for Hungary. So if you want Europe to continue to sanction the Russians, and if you want us to pay the price for that, then at least do us the courtesy of reducing our financial losses by not acting in the unhinged way you’re acting now. So this energy dispute is a difficult one, because it needs to be seen in this wider context.

What are the chances of this being done? Because, incidentally, the sanctions expire in a week’s time, so they’d have to be extended in a week’s time in order to keep them alive after 31 January.

This is a very simple thing, because all you need is for the people in Brussels to pick up the phone and say, “Dear Ukrainian comrades, it was a good prank, but it’s over, you can’t do this. And if you do this to the Central European countries, which are our members…” Because we’re not asking someone for this as outsiders: in the order of importance we’re ahead of Ukraine. Ukraine is a candidate country, Slovakia and Hungary are Member States. Brussels must represent our interests. “So you have to understand, Dear Ukrainian Comrades, that you cannot pick on the countries of Central Europe, who are paying the price of sanctions in your interest. So behave yourselves and restore that supply.” This is a phone call, and so if in Brussels there’s a will, there’s a way. And I’m trying to persuade our friends, I mean in Brussels, to help us with this: not to represent Ukraine’s interests against Hungary, but to represent the interests of the Central European countries against Ukraine, which in fact is dependent on us. They shouldn’t want to convince us not to block the sanctions, but to convince the Ukrainians to fulfil the conditions necessary for the sanctions to continue. This is what we’re asking them to do. This is what we’re now talking about in an even-tempered, calm, balanced dialogue between Brussels and Budapest. 

Now, if we look at this 7.5 trillion forints over three years, the damage caused by the sanctions is roughly 2.5 trillion forints a year. The Government is spending roughly 1.5 trillion less this year on supporting businesses. If we put this figure into perspective, what disadvantage will the possible continuation of sanctions and expensive energy cause Hungary, and how will it affect the achievement of this year’s economic policy goals?

You see, we’ve come to a difficult question. Of course if the sanctions are continued, now Hungary will be able to stop them, of course, but then in Brussels the sky will fall in and the earth will open up; so there will be everything imaginable in Brussels, but there’s no doubt that the opportunity is in our hands. So if we don’t stop the sanctions and they continue, then we’ll continue to pay the price. But this brings us to another question: What’s the role of the Hungarian government of the day? Is its job to moan, to complain, to point the finger at foreigners? Or is it to manage under the circumstances? We elect governments to serve the interests of Hungarians under the circumstances: “Don’t explain to us why we can’t do what we can’t do, but tell us that, despite the circumstances, we’ll manage in such and such a way.” So rather than lamenting the consequences of the sanctions, I’ve just made it clear to everyone that the capacity of the Hungarian economy, the work of the Hungarian people, the energy of the Hungarian people could take the country even further than where we are now if we didn’t have this sanction brake placed on us, if we weren’t being reined back. I say this as an aside. The question is, sanctions or no sanctions, what can we do? I still stand by my commitment that 2025 will be a fantastic year and, sanctions or no sanctions, energy insecurity or no energy insecurity, we’ll produce a year that hasn’t been seen for a long time. In 2023 we had a bad year because of the war, and for the first time in ten years or so we saw a decline – albeit within a 1 per cent band – in the purchasing power of wages. We managed to correct this in 2024, because it went up by 10 per cent or so. So 2024 was about making back what we lost in 2023, and 2025 should be about how we move forward. It’s no longer about recovering, it’s no longer about compensating for past mistakes: it will be a year for moving forward, which is why I say it’s going to be a fantastic year. And if you look at the year-end numbers, there are some interesting things there. They’re numbers that give a very different feel about the Hungarian economy than when you read the writings of all sorts of liberal economists – undoubtedly intelligent and educated though they may be. First of all, the day before yesterday there was a government meeting, and we looked at the financial situation of families. Because, after all, the fact is that almost 900,000 people will now be receiving interest on their government bonds. This is more than 800,000 people. And I’ve also looked at the breakdown: how much of this is savings in government bonds valued at under a million forints, between 1 million and 5 million, and between 5 million and 10 million. And I can say we have a strong middle class. So the number of families with savings in government bonds between 5 and 10 million, and 10 and 20 million forints can be measured in the hundreds of thousands. If there are 800,000 such accounts and we multiply this by four, by the number of people in the average family, then suddenly we have 3.2 million people living in households with savings in government securities. And what people don’t know – because they don’t browse the macroeconomic data – is that this is only 12 per cent of all financial savings in Hungary. Because in addition to government securities, there are other savings in bank deposits and other securities. So I’ll give you an estimate of the order of magnitude: Hungarian families have financial savings of around 90 billion forints. This puts us in thirteenth place in the European Union. Meanwhile, I keep hearing from the squawking opposition that Hungary is the poorest country in Europe. Meanwhile, if I deduct the debt from the financial savings, giving net savings without debt, then we’re also in thirteenth place in the EU. And in the EU there are countries like Germany, Austria and France, where there was no communism, meaning that capital accumulation started out from a different place than it did in Hungary. In December, when I looked at foreign travel to see what was happening related to Hungarians, I found that, first of all, 544,000 people stayed in Hungarian holiday accommodation in December: in the winter more than half a million of our compatriots stayed in Hungarian hotels. I looked at the airport traffic figures. And there I found that in December 212,000 Hungarians flew abroad. And the most popular destinations were Valencia, Málaga, Nice, Istanbul, Dubai, Bari and Tenerife. So 212,000 people went abroad. From these we can deduct four people, because I went abroad with my family. And I looked at the number of people who went out of the country by car, probably for tourism purposes; and I found that between 24 and 31 December alone, on that long, “free weekend”, 418,000 vehicles with Hungarian plates left the country. Obviously some of these weren’t going on holiday, but it’s still a huge number. So what I want to say is that we should stop all this nonsense about Hungary being the poorest country in Europe, because it’s just doom-mongering. The fact is that Hungary has serious assets – for example, the population has financial savings. There is strength in the country. Now the Government has also decided to raise the previous tax allowance limit of 12 million forints for self-employed individuals to 18 million forints. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people and their families. So we’ve launched the workers’ credit scheme, the housing subsidy, and the Sándor Demján Programme for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. So what I want to say is that instead of whining about sanctions and the Opposition’s usual squawking mindset, let’s put that aside, let’s look at reality, let’s look at the numbers, and let’s see the opportunity. I’m looking at the economic growth data forecast for 2025, its internal breakdown, and we’re off, we’re off to a flying start, we’ll cruise, and then sprint. By the end of the year, in the third or fourth quarter, we’ll have growth of 3.6 to 3.9 per cent, so almost 4 per cent; and we’ll be on an upward course going into 2026. So the outlook is good, and the Government needs to work and not point the finger abroad, not talk about the Ukrainians, not talk about sanctions. We’ll live with all that, and if we’re strong enough to do so we’ll block it, we’ll remove the sanctions regime from European economic policy, and we’ll see what the coming days and weeks bring. The point is that even under these circumstances there will be enough energy in the Hungarian economy for it to have a fantastic year in 2025.

We don’t have much time left, but let’s talk about one more issue. When talking about the economy, everyone tends to compare it with the period before COVID, because that was the first thing to cause a break in a lot of things. At this time five years ago the world was already worried about China and the news coming out of China, and finally in March five years ago the pandemic arrived in Hungary. On Sunday there will be a film on your YouTube channel in which several key players from that time will share details that weren’t known previously. Five years on, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from COVID, and what’s the significance of the film that will debut on Sunday? 

To quote the title of an old Hungarian film: “Don’t panic”. That’s the most important lesson. COVID was a big problem, and we shouldn’t make light of it, even in hindsight, because many of our compatriots died and we – myself included – lost family members and colleagues. God rest Géza Szőcs, for example. But everyone’s family experienced problems. Yesterday I had a long talk with the doctors at the Kútvölgyi Hospital in Budapest, because I went to the Kútvölgyi for the fifth anniversary. I was there during the COVID pandemic, when it was the first quarantine hospital, and I met the doctors we worked with, and saw how they are. I can report that we’ve renovated the Kútvölgyi, the conditions that existed then no longer exist, and after investing around 20 billion forints it’s now a hospital of European quality. So the lesson is that if we work together we can do much more than we think we’re able By the way, when I think back to those troubled times five years ago, when it all started, I always include the name of Minister Miklós Kásler in my prayers. This is because he was the one who warned us – more than a month before any other European health minister – that this was going to be a problem. That’s why we were able to prepare ourselves so that we didn’t have the kind of scenes in Hungary that we saw in, say, Italy or France, where the care system – the hospital system – was quite simply unable to accommodate the sudden increase in the number of COVID patients. So there are many lessons to be learned from this. We should be grateful, not only to the Minister, but also to the doctors, the nurses, and everyone who helped Hungary too emerge from that very difficult situation.

I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán questions on topics including yesterday’s bomb threats against schools, the impact of Trump’s presidency, and the future of EU sanctions against Russia.

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