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Zsolt Törőcsik: In recent days further taboos regarding the Russo–Ukrainian war have been broken, after outgoing US president Joe Biden allowed the Ukrainians to fire US weapons into Russian territory. In response, Russia has modified its nuclear doctrine and has fired hypersonic missiles at Ukraine. I welcome Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the studio. Good morning.
Good morning.
In almost exactly two months from now we’ll see the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has promised to end the conflict. But now it seems that both sides want to put themselves in the best possible position. How dangerous is the situation now? How can we avoid more trouble in the next two months?
Although everyone knows this, it’s as well to remind ourselves that Ukraine is Hungary’s neighbour. So we’re not talking about the further escalation and expansion of a conflict in a distant part of the world, but about a war in our immediate neighbourhood. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture how quickly, unexpectedly and immediately developments in a war in a neighbouring country can have consequences in one’s own country. If we add to this the fact that there are indigenous Hungarians living in Transcarpathia, we can see that the threat is direct. So it’s no longer a question of the belligerents grappling on both sides of the front line in a traditional war more than a thousand kilometres from the Hungarian–Ukrainian border, but of means being used that can easily reach countries outside Ukraine – and, of course, primarily neighbours. So this news is about us. The news is no longer about conflicts in international diplomacy, but about direct Hungarian interests and the threat of war against Hungary. As for the situation you’ve just described, it’s true that on 20 January – God willing and if we’re alive – we’ll see Donald Trump, the next President of the United States, taking office. But until then, there are two months. I don’t know, were you ever in the military?
No, that was before my time.
So anyone who’s been a soldier and been on guard duty knows and sees how the day starts, and knows that night is always darkest just before the dawn. So that’s how it is now. We’re in the darkest hour. In just two months, dawn will suddenly break; but until then we’ll be living in a darkness even deeper than earlier – or, more prosaically, in the two most dangerous months of war. With the victory of President Trump, peace is within reach; but the outgoing US Democrats seem to want to leave a graver legacy than the one that existed at the moment of his victory. It’s at times like this that one must be rational. For the time being we should say no more than that Hungary will continue to follow a policy of common sense. Since our fate is also directly at stake, in this military conflict we shall act in a prudent, predictable, calculable and calm manner. After the first news received the day before yesterday I convened the Defence Council, and we reviewed the war’s military context. We also looked at whether, if the Americans pull out of the war, Europe will be able to spur on continuation of the war, and whether it will be able to put Ukraine in a military position in which it makes sense to continue the war. As far as we can see that answer is “no”, and so in military terms the situation is quite clear: if the Americans withdraw support from the Ukrainians, Europe won’t be in a position to support Ukraine militarily with even the slightest chance of success – let alone be able to deal with the financial and economic consequences of supporting a losing war. This also leads us to the thought that we must survive these two months with smart, level-headed policy.
Speaking of Europe, in the past we’ve repeatedly seen that when Washington takes a taboo-breaking step or decision, it’s soon followed up in Europe. We’ve seen this with lethal weapons and heavy armour. What’s the risk of this happening again?
The risk is significant. I’d remind everyone that the German government fell within twenty-four hours of the result of the US presidential election becoming clear. This shows that there are strong correlations here. We Hungarians are used to this. Hungary is a country with a sovereign foreign policy, and whatever crisis strikes the world, we’ll still make decisions based on our own national interests, and we won’t tie our fate to that of other governments. But clearly this sovereignty isn’t for everyone, or not everyone is on this path. There’s the collapse of the German government, for example. So I have to say that the behaviour of some not insignificant Western European governments and countries shows an almost immediate emergence and mirroring of what’s happening in the US. So let’s not take as a starting point the Hungarian situation, where there’s no such correlation; because whatever happens in the world, we’ll convene the Defence Council, we’ll sit down, we’ll convene Parliament if necessary, and then we’ll make a sovereign Hungarian decision. Not everyone is in that position. In some countries the connections with American political events are much more direct than they are in Hungary. And it follows that if the Americans take certain steps, some European countries will either feel obliged to follow the American line, or perhaps they’ll be compelled to do so. On the debate in Germany, therefore, I don’t know how much the Hungarian public can follow the debate in Germany about whether the country should give long-range missiles – they call them Taurus – to Ukraine. This is a debate that’s strongly influenced by the decision of the Americans. But perhaps fewer people know that these weapons that the Americans have now authorised the Ukrainians to use are extremely sophisticated, so they represent the world’s most sophisticated technological knowledge and quality. According to the information available to us, the Ukrainians aren’t able to launch these weapons to hit their targets. These are missiles that are fired and then guided to their targets through an electronic system which requires the most advanced technology in the world, including communications, telecommunications and satellite capabilities. There’s a strong assumption – and I think it’s valid – that these missiles can’t be launched without the involvement of US personnel. This is why, to me unsurprisingly, the Russians reacted immediately and strongly. In general there’s a phenomenon here which perhaps I’ll mention: for political events today the weight and significance of the spoken word is different in Western Europe than it is in Russia. And sometimes we, the decision-makers in Western Europe, don’t give this consideration sufficient weight. For a long time – especially since the advent of modern means of communication – politics in Western Europe has been essentially spoken. So I can’t suddenly come up with a ratio, but in the Western world today politics may be 80 per cent talk and 20 per cent action. Hence all the chatter and idle talk we hear in the European political news. It also follows that some of the talk and some of the things that are said have no direct consequences. Here European leaders who also make prominent statements on geopolitical and military issues can easily indulge in tirades. They think that this will have no great consequences, that it’s just part of a communication battle in domestic politics. The Russian communication system is very different. So there, if the President says something, it’s not just a rant, but it has weight and consequences. If we think back to when the war broke out, we’ll remember that the Russians made the question of whether or not Ukraine would become a member of NATO a topic of international diplomacy. And furthermore, even if it didn’t become a NATO member, the question was whether the arming of Ukraine, which was already in full swing before the outbreak of the war, would lead to its de facto, albeit not legally declared, military integration – in other words, to Ukraine’s integration into NATO. And the Russian president openly raised this issue and asked for an international debate on it, or for this issue to be settled. And I remember the reactions – which were seen, as they tend to be in the West, as a communication issue. They responded in a variety of ways, ranging from the rather aggressive to the non-committal. It was then that the doctrine was put forward that joining NATO, or proposing to join NATO, was the right of every country, and that NATO would decide as it pleased. This was a direct precursor to the war. So I just want to say that when the Russians, let’s say, modify the rules for the use of their nuclear capability, what they call “doctrine”, it’s not a communication ploy, it’s not a trick: it’s been modified, and it will have consequences. Last night or late evening, I saw that the Russian president sent a television message to the citizens of Russia, in which he clearly described the situation and said that they feel empowered – they consider themselves empowered – to declare countries that are giving Ukraine these tools as targets themselves. This isn’t a communication trick, and so you have to be rational. A country like Russia is different from us. Fundamentally it bases its policy, its place in the world in general, on military strength; and a key role in its vision for the future is that it has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with the most modern and most powerful weapons of mass destruction. When they say something on this matter, it must be taken literally. So I believe that over the next two months we Europeans mustn’t be guided by the laws of Western European politics based on communication, but according to the logic of war, carefully considering every word and every sentence according to the rules of common sense. Otherwise there will be trouble.
There’s another hot conflict in the world, in the Middle East, where another decision has also been taken in recent days. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How might this affect the conflict? What message do you think this decision sends?
Hungary takes a pro-peace stance in world politics in general: peace is better than war, the pursuit of happiness is better than suffering. These aren’t very complicated positions, but in international politics they sometimes seem to disappear from the horizon, as if the horizon doesn’t bring them to the surface. So I’m in favour of reducing the number, size and scope of conflicts in the world by every means possible. But the fact is that when it comes to taking decisions the international institutions aren’t acting with prudence. Now, it’s one thing that the International Criminal Court has decided to intervene in an ongoing conflict, an ongoing conflict in the Middle East, dressing the decision in legal robes, when in fact it’s for political purposes. This is an outrageously brazen – and I would say cynical – decision. This is wrong in itself, it’s a complete discrediting of international law, but it can also pour oil on the flames. So one has no choice but to oppose this decision. Later today I shall invite the Israeli prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu, to visit Hungary, and in the invitation I shall guarantee him that if he comes, the International Criminal Court’s verdict shall have no effect in Hungary, and we shall not follow the terms of the verdict. We shall act solely on the basis of the quality and state of Israeli–Hungarian relations, so if he accepts the invitation the Israeli prime minister will be able to conduct meaningful negotiations here in Hungary in appropriate security.
In the meantime, after founding their European Parliament group, the conservative and pro-peace forces have also founded the Patriots party family, of which Fidesz is a member. To what extent can the Patriots be a counterweight to the mainstream in Brussels – whether on the Russo–Ukrainian war, the situation in the Middle East, or other issues where political fault lines in Brussels are now visible?
If I understand your question correctly, if this is about how we can influence joint European decisions, the answer is that the amount of influence one has is equivalent to the amount of power one has. This is just how it is in international politics. So the question is how strong we Patriots are. We didn’t start off badly: we kicked down the door of the European political saloon, so to speak. We asked what was going on, we arrived as the representatives of common sense, and we said, “Folks, let’s get our act together.” The weight of this act was sufficient to create the third largest political group in the European Parliament, which is genuinely different from the European mainstream, from the centre, from the former centre, and which sometimes takes a blunt but clear position on issues such as migration – and, indeed, on the question of family protection and child protection. The last time we held a conference on migration, we formulated a new European policy to protect ourselves against it: those people we don’t want shouldn’t be allowed in, and those who have come in against our will should be taken home. And our vision and our programme are a practical extension of this. So we’ve started well, we’ve started as the third largest, and now we’ve got past the period of setting up the European Commission; this required all kinds of behind-the-scenes negotiations, but now we can return to a period of open, straight talking. And here we must say clearly that we want to be stronger. We’re looking for cooperation with other right-wing formations in the European Parliament, of which there are several. And by the end of the term – which is four and a half to five years from now – we want to reach the point at which our group, the Patriots for Europe group, is the most influential group in the European Parliament. To do this we now need to build alliances and gain strength through politics within the Parliament. This is possible, and we’re working on it. I believe that in the period ahead there will be agreements and alliances in the European Parliament, new ones which will change the balance of power. And, to answer your question, these will significantly increase the influence that the Patriots will be able to exert on European decisions.
A new dimension of the European debate has also entered the public discourse: the economy and economic cooperation. At a conference yesterday you spoke about Eurasian cooperation, which is an idea that appeared after the First World War in the work of a geographer called Mackinder. But in the current geopolitical situation, how realistic is Eurasian cooperation, and the Hungarian strategy that flows from it: economic neutrality?
When we talk about Eurasia, we don’t always know exactly what we’re talking about, so I don’t think the Hungarian public is up to speed on this. This is especially true given that in geography and history classes, even my own generation – and I don’t think there’s been any change in this – have always been much less exposed to this than to the United States of America and Europe being together. So one can look back at how much we were taught about how the United States came into being, that it was really a civilisation that had grown out of European cultural roots and so on. And think about how much we were taught that geographically Europe was really just a peninsula, a geographic formation of not very significant size, at the western end of a large Asian continent, with its most organic connection in fact not being with the United States on the other side of the ocean, but with the territories to the east of us. These include not only Russia, but they also include the Caucasus, which was once part of the Soviet empire, they include China, India, Korea and even Japan. It’s clear that Hungarian public thought finds it difficult to change the way it imagines the world. At this conference I also said that I have three maps on my office wall. There are Hungarian maps, but there are also three big maps of the world, and they all show the same world that we live in, with one of them being drawn with Europe in the middle of the map – which is what our children learn about and see in school. But you can also draw the world with the United States at the centre, and I use this map to see how Americans think, because when they think about the world, they see a map with them at the centre. And from that point of view the world looks different than it does from the European point of view. And I also have a map with Asia at the centre, showing how Asians picture the world. These are different perspectives, and the whole world looks different. We Hungarians aren’t used to looking at the world in this way – we’re used to a single point of view. In education, in public thought and perhaps in interviews like this, I think it’s time to talk more about the fact that Europe has an organic geographical unity with Asia. Through our relations with China we’re accustomed to talking about the fact that now the silk routes – because there are several of them – can and must be rebuilt, and that work has begun. So the reimagining of Europe and the reimagining of Hungary is also a current task, and one that we shouldn’t only carry out in economic policy, trade policy and investment policy, but also in opening up new dimensions in our own thinking.
Speaking of economic policy, of the new economic policy, one of the objectives is to increase the purchasing power of wages. Yesterday there was a wage agreement, according to which the minimum wage will rise by 9 per cent next year and by 13 and 14 per cent in the following years. How will this agreement affect the Government’s targets?
Now, this is related to the previous part of our discussion, in that we talked about the fact that there’s a war and that the Europeans and the Americans certainly want to win this war before the new president takes office. Now Hungary is a different country. We don’t want to win the war: we want to win the peace. This war isn’t our war: it’s a fratricidal war between two Slavic peoples, from which we must isolate ourselves as much as possible. So, in order for Hungary to go its own way, it must stay out of the war – despite the sinister news that you’ve referred to, and despite the fact that the Hungarian opposition, wearing Ukraine T-shirts, holds pro-war demonstrations and takes part in them in the European Parliament. This is their responsibility, or more precisely their irresponsibility, and the Hungarian government and Hungary should distance themselves from this completely. But once we’ve distanced ourselves, the following question arises: OK, we want to win the peace, but how do we want to win it? And here we need a completely new economic policy, because during the years of war we’ve had to do something different from what the Hungarian economy will have to do in the period of peace that’s slowly unfolding before our eyes. And this is why we’ve created a new economic policy, the deep philosophical foundations of which are based on economic neutrality – or in other words, that Hungary must maintain the best possible relations with everyone, using Hungarian interests as its starting point. This is the philosophical basis for a new economic policy that seeks to raise growth to a level well above the European average. And the manifestation of this economic policy is an economic action plan, a new economic action plan, the third important element of which – in addition to housing and helping small businesses – is to increase the purchasing power of wages, to help people protect themselves against inflation, against war-induced inflation. Because when prices are high, the only possible way to protect against this is for people to try to earn as much as possible, to help them earn more. This requires wage agreements. The minimum wage in Hungary is agreed between employers and employees, but the Government puts its stamp on their agreement. If an agreement can’t be reached because the positions are far apart, as was the case here, then the Government must help. We’ve done this and, as a result, we have a three-year wage agreement that will be ratified soon. This means that in 2025, 2026 and 2027 Hungarians can be sure that the minimum wage will be above the rate of inflation. So the purchasing power, the purchasing power of Hungarians’ money won’t decrease, but increase. Even now, this year, we’re expecting inflation of between 3 and 4 per cent, while at the same time there’s been wage growth of over 10 per cent; and with this agreement we want to maintain the momentum of this strong wage growth. I think this is very good news, and it makes life more predictable and calculable for families.
The Government has also launched a national consultation on the new economic policy. But some opposition politicians are attacking it, calling it a waste of money – or even demagogic propaganda. What could be the reason for these statements?
There’s something new in Hungarian politics. I’ve been plying my trade in Hungarian public life for quite a long time, but I’ve never seen anything like this. So now there’s a fashion for openly insulting and belittling people. This also applies to opinions on the national consultation. Those who are against the national consultation aren’t really interested in people’s opinions, and don’t really want to see the will of the people having a direct influence over political decisions. There’s an element of contempt in this, and this coarseness has appeared in verbal terms – in words. There’s a common attitude, according to which: “We politicians know better. The people stink, their breath stinks, some of our colleagues are brain dead, and journalists should be thrown into the Danube.” So there’s a negative, threatening tone in Hungarian politics that stems from contempt. This wasn’t the case earlier. If someone accidentally let something bad slip out, if something slipped out, they’d immediately apologise, row back and say that of course there’s politics, but basically we’re human beings, a community, we should live together, and we certainly don’t want to talk like that, even if it happened once. But in Hungarian public life it’s unprecedented for this to be the essence of political behaviour, for it to just flood out. And, of course, sooner or later verbal coarseness leads to aggression. We ought to spare ourselves from that. So not only do we need to stay away from war in terms of the front lines, but we don’t need a war in public life either. We are one community, we must treat each other fairly, and if we announce a new economic policy, as the Government is doing, it’s only right that we have a national consultation and we don’t look down on people, but ask their opinion. We’re don’t say that they won’t understand it, but instead we want to know what their expectations are, and we’ll align ourselves with those expectations. I don’t think this is a political question, but rather a human question.
Among other things, I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán questions about the war between Russia and Ukraine and about economic goals for the coming year.
