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Zsolt Törőcsik: Measures affecting pensioners were the focus of Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, at which several decisions were taken which have an impact on the elderly. In addition to maintaining the thirteenth month’s pension, the Government will expand the village home renovation programme and make it available to pensioners. The details of this are among the topics I’ll be asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about. Good morning.
Good morning.
Why will pensioners be included among the beneficiaries of the village home renovation programme?
There are two groups which immediately trigger a Pavlovian response in the civic, national government. If something comes up, a problem, an issue, an opportunity, we immediately examine what it will mean for two groups. One is children, and the other is pensioners. To be honest, I don’t know why this is, but it’s probably because we’re normal people. When you have a problem, you immediately find yourself with two thoughts: one about your children, and one about your parents. In the same way, if there’s something good and you can give something to someone or create an opportunity, the first thought is what can one do for children and what one can do for the elderly. And on the Right, or in this conservative, nationalist world, the elderly aren’t simply old people, but our parents and grandparents. So in our minds there’s the idea that life is nothing but an alliance between those who have lived, those who are living, and those who will be born. And in this, the elderly play a key role. So, yes, we’re talking about pensions, but here what motivates governments of the Right is really rather respect and recognition. We don’t see them as elderly people in need of help, although there’s some truth in that, but as people who are to be thanked for the fact that we’re here today: people who built the country, who have maintained the country, who have worked for us and because of us. So in this there’s a deep feeling – what we could call a Christian feeling. And when there’s an economic opportunity, then it’s a natural thought to extend something to pensioners that wasn’t available to them before. We’re talking about pensioners in settlements with fewer than five thousand inhabitants. They have houses, so they have problems just like people with families. And although almost all pensioners benefit from household energy price protection, their situation isn’t easy. And they too will be able to update, modernise, renovate and even extend their own homes – especially if children or grandchildren move in. There wasn’t any support for this up to now, because the money and energy we had was directed to children – that’s to say to people with families. And now we see that this will be a good year – I won’t use the word “fantastic”, because then I’ll be opening up a debate about whether it will be good or fantastic; but let’s just stick to saying that this will be a strong year, and we’ll be able to open up opportunities that weren’t available earlier. I was surprised to see the figures, because there are 2,900 settlements in Hungary with fewer than five thousand inhabitants. There are slightly more than 3,200 settlements in Hungary in total, and we’re talking about 2,900 of these 3,200. Here we’re only counting households, and so in these settlements there are 420,000 pensioners’ households. Some of these elderly people are widows or widowers, some are still married; and so it’s safe to say that what we’re talking about here will create opportunities for 600,000 people. This means that if a pensioner lives in such a settlement and wants to renovate his or her home, or wants to make its energy system more efficient, or wants to extend it, or just make it more beautiful, more comfortable, more liveable, then 3 million forints will be available for this purpose from the Hungarian government. And a further 3 million forints can be taken out as a loan. So we’re talking about a maximum project cost of 6 million forints, and when the bills are paid we’ll reimburse up to 3 million forints.
The other part of the measures affecting pensioners is the retention of the thirteenth month’s pension. Last week you said that the Government would insist on the thirteenth month’s pension. How much of a fight is this going to take, either at home or abroad? We talked about some of this last week.
I find it hard to understand why this has become a political issue. We have pensions for twelve months, we can pay a thirteenth month, and one would think that people – even in opposition – would be crying “Hallelujah, bravo, good!” and then everyone would be happy. But that isn’t what’s happening: somehow there are constant battles – some political, some international, some professional – over the thirteenth month’s pension. The professional one is the easiest, and it doesn’t need to be dealt with – let the experts deal with it. They’re talking about doing it not this way, not that way, but another way; but none of that’s really important. One can always find a way to do it differently from how we usually do it, but this doesn’t change the fact that the thirteenth month’s pension has to be distributed to pensioners somehow. The domestic political tension is higher, which I think is explained by the fact that the Gyurcsány government took away the thirteenth month’s pension. I remember something which I must give them credit for: it seems that they themselves introduced it, sometime in the mists of prehistoric times. And then they took it away. And we gave it back. This is why today one of the culmination points in the debate between the Left and the Right is who did what back then, and who wanted to do what with the thirteenth month’s pension. The Left is always trying to defend itself, saying that it was actually right to take it away. And we, after giving it back, explain that it was stupid to take it away, that it was unfair to take it away, that we’ve finally given it back, and they should be glad. But this fails, and then instead of agreement we have a debate. And then Brussels gets involved. Because Brussels, for various reasons, is interfering ever more deeply in the economic life of the Member States, and is formulating economic regulations. First these appear as advice, as suggestions, as recommendations. Then these recommendations slowly turn into binding rules, mostly with an earlier recommendation becoming the precondition for a subsequent grant or funding offer. So if you accept the recommendation then you’ll get something. So here you’re slowly being baited, the hook’s being dangled in front of your nose; and if you’re the fish that bites, then you’re caught. So we have to be careful with this. For years there’s been a recurring recommendation that the thirteenth month’s pension should be abolished and the pension system should be restructured, with the conclusion being that we should pay pensioners less and give the money to someone else. And at the end of this chain, there are always speculators, businessmen, financiers, banks and people of that kind. So it’s always about less money for the people, and more money for the banks and the financial investors. That’s the logic, I think, if you want to get to the heart of Brussels politics. And we resist this. So they’re constantly telling us to stop doing this, to cease, and the Hungarian government resists. And so far we’ve won these battles every year. We won again this year, because the thirteenth month’s pension isn’t paid in twelve equal instalments, but in one lump sum. This will be sent to pensioners at the beginning of February this year. God bless them, and good health to them!
Turning to the economy, since January several elements of the 21-point economic policy action plan have been launched – including the workers’ credit and elements of the Sándor Demján Programme. More than a month of experience has now been accumulated. What’s the feedback on these measures?
Starting with the issue of village housing support, there’s positive feedback from there, which is very important for me personally. But there’s another debate, in addition to the thirteenth month’s pension, which is difficult for ordinary people to understand: it’s that the Left constantly refer to the village as a community and way of life that should be consigned to the past. They see it as a relic that doesn’t belong to the future, and they think that it’s not trendy, so to say, to live in a village. In my opinion – or in our opinion – the situation is the opposite: we think that in the future the village will offer the most attractive way of life, and that in a village it’s possible to live a life of good quality. So I have a lot of good things to say about village life, having been a village person myself – and I’ll be a village person when my work here is finished. So we have this debate, and we’re enacting measures to strengthen this way of life. So, for example, a home creation grant for small settlements is explicitly about either staying there, not leaving, finding your place, or if you’re not already living there, then you should consider switching to a more relaxed way of life after the hustle and bustle of the big city. Here’s an opportunity, consider it, and if you want it we can help you with it. So there’s a debate about what we think about the countryside, what we think about villages, and what we think about people living in villages. This debate also takes place within another debate that’s ostensibly only about the economy. I’m very pleased that there’s a lot of positive feedback in this area, and I’m very pleased that the number of people applying for workers’ credit is gradually approaching ten thousand. This is also a long-standing issue. Nobody paid attention to it earlier, but I was always rather annoyed that there were student loans, while no one was thinking about people who aren’t studying but going to work. Of course educated people are important, so it’s good that we have more educated people. But life isn’t just about students and graduates: it’s also about people who after secondary school learn a trade, or who have already learnt a trade in secondary school and then go to work. When we decided on student loans – because I think that there we did fine, important things – I always felt that there was a lack of forms of support for young people who go straight into work. This was partly because there wasn’t enough money, but also there wasn’t enough thought invested in how we should go about it. Finally we got to the point at which we could do it, and now we’ve devised a form of support for young people who are working, as well as for young people who are studying. I was also unsure whether “workers’ credit” was the right term. This was firstly because the word “worker” seems to be going out of fashion – something I regret, because it’s good to call a spade a spade, and here we’re talking about work and workers. And secondly I was unsure as to whether young people would be interested in this form of credit at all, as to whether they’d want to take out a loan at their age. It’s true that it’s interest-free, and so on; but it will have to be paid back at some point – not if they have children, of course, but who knows about that? So there’s also an uncertainty linked to young people of that age, and whether a young person in such an uncertain and still developing situation will find such an offer attractive. And I see it rising nicely over time. So I see that these new forms of support that are coming in this year are popular. It’s the same with small business owners. This year should be about small businesses. We’ve launched a programme bearing the name of Sándor Demján, and there too, applications for various applications are coming in by the thousands. So I feel that we’ve hit the nail on the head. We’re offering people something that’s important to them and that they want to take advantage of.
On the Hungarian economic outlook, and we’ve talked a lot about this, how will the measures planned by the new US administration affect it? At the same time, it’s not only the economic measures of Donald Trump’s administration that could affect Hungary and Europe, but also, for example, the move to stop funding the so-called USAID programme. Green MEP Daniel Freund has also spoken out on this decision, literally saying that millions of dollars a year were being spent on rule of law, anti-corruption and pro-democracy programmes in Hungary, and that now the EU should step in to fill this funding gap. Now let’s break this thing down into two parts. The first part is this: What was the role of this programme in Hungary, and from a domestic perspective what’s the significance of its abolition?
Or, if you’ll permit, I’d take a step backwards. We’re preparing to conclude an economic agreement with the Americans of considerable size and importance. I agreed on this with the President before he was elected. This is in part because the Democrats wrecked Hungarian–American economic relations – by not renewing certain agreements, imposing certain sanctions, creating travel difficulties, and so on. So these things need to be remedied. In other words, we must not only remedy the past, but also open up prospects and a future. Of course, US–Hungarian relations aren’t as important for the Americans as they are for us, but they’re not unimportant for them either – especially as now we have many friends in the US administration. This is why the major action plan on economic issues that we’re going to conclude with them is being built and developed. I only say this so that we’re not distracted by politics – because America is important to us not only politically, but also economically. From an American point of view something unpleasant has also happened, although from a Hungarian point of view it’s perhaps different: during the Democrats’ term in government the level of Chinese investment in Hungary exceeded that of America – something unprecedented up to then. On the one hand, it’s very good news that Chinese investment is coming here, but where are the Americans? So we need them too. So we hope that this economic agreement will remedy this problem. Now, politics. There’s a huge opportunity here for peepshow enthusiasts to peek into the witch’s kitchen of politics. So things are happening, things are coming out that one normally never sees. There’s that old wisdom in politics, as in butchery, of course: buy a sausage, but never go in to see how the sausage is made. Now they’re letting people in to see, and even inviting them in! What’s happened? What’s happened is that the US president has decided to make public the recipients of money from various US government agencies over the years, and how much each had received. They’ve set up an information platform and they’ve uploaded all the data. It’s a huge scandal in America, because the poor American taxpayers are now confronted with the fact that their tax dollars, their tax dollars paid in America, have been spent by the liberal Democrat administration on purposes that they don’t support at all – either at home or internationally. So that’s how things stand now in America: going through line by line, going through this mass of information line by line. This is also what we’re doing here at home, and I’ll say a few words about that later. And we’re not just looking at it, but we have work to do on it. It’s turning out that, as we say, one after another the skeletons are falling out of the closet of the previous Democratic administration. There are so many of them that soon we won’t even be able to walk down the hallway. And, week by week, we’ll get a clearer picture that what’s happened is that the liberal global elite and the US government has used the US budget, Americans’ money, to finance their goals – their financial goals and their ideological goals – all over the world. Of course this was presented as aid, but in reality it was a tool of political influence. And what’s more, they did it in such a way that those who received money – including the Hungarians – actually received two kinds of American money. Because those who were given money by the US government were also on the payroll of the Soros Foundation. So they received their loot – if I may put it so vulgarly, but if we’re talking about such a peepshow, perhaps I can – from the Soros foundations on the one hand, and from the official government budget of the United States on the other hand. And they used this money to carry out what we believe to be their socially destructive, pro-migration, anti-family, gender madness financing activities around the world. Now the situation in Hungary is even more complicated, because a third tranche of money fell into the laps of these good people, our compatriots – because Brussels has also been supporting the same goals. And these organisations in Hungary – they’re called NGOs, non-governmental organisations – haven’t been given any authority to do what they do, and they’ve even said that they’re not involved in politics. Of course, they only supported specific causes that were linked to the left-wing parties, i.e. the media, media platforms, online communication, civil society organisations. All of this increased the power of the Left, and all of this money was given to them with the aim of bringing down the Government. So they were given the money to push these issues, to strengthen the opposition parties and to bring down the Government – and in a moment I’ll give you a concrete example of this. This is what they did for a living, and this is what they do now for a living. Now, back in the days of the communists the Hungarian language used the word “agent”, but in fact these people are also agents in American parlance. So they’re not serving their own country, but accepting money from another power in order to represent the goals, ideals and programmes set by that other power. We don’t call them agents, we don’t really have the right word yet, because “mercenary” is a little archaic, and “puppet government” is slightly old-fashioned; we don’t really have the best terms for what we’re talking about, but these are people paid from abroad and by organisations whose job is to overthrow the Hungarian government. This is always what it comes down to in the end. To give you a concrete example, there’s this platform called Politico – let’s be old-fashioned and call it an online newspaper. It’s received money from all directions: of course it’s received money from Brussels, it’s received money from the Soros Foundation, and it’s received money from the US budget. What has this newspaper been doing in recent years? I’ll give you just one example: it’s been running down Hungary all the time. Either because we won’t let in migrants, or because we won’t let these gender-crazed activists with confused identities among our children in our schools, or because we’re not giving enough money – or any money at all – to the war in Ukraine, we’re not sending weapons and we don’t want to get involved in the war. I’m constantly insulted, for example. What’s important here isn’t me personally, because that doesn’t bother anyone; but we’re talking about the Hungarian prime minister, while the opposition candidates who pop up here and there are promoted on all kinds of image-building lists. Péter Márki-Zay – or now Péter Magyar, as far as I can see – are being built up in the category of “most talented and promising politicians”. They’re building up these characters, making them known, trying to make them accepted and popular in the international arena and in Hungary. Well, this has failed. So what President Trump is doing, what we in Fidesz call “the Trump tornado”, is a cleansing wind that’s sweeping all before it. And the facts are coming out. I could also say that the conspiracy theorists are in big trouble now, and they’ll have to invent new conspiracy theories, because the old ones have been proven to be true. Let me give you an example. There’s the issue of migration. It’s always been officially denied that there’s a Soros plan. This was always denied, even though George Soros himself wrote the plan, and published it under his own name. In the last nine years, approximately nine million migrants, illegal migrants, have entered Europe. In this Soros plan, it was written that one million migrants should be allowed into Europe every year. This is exactly what’s happened. And those who supported this idea – Hungarians and non-Hungarians alike, all over Europe – all received money. So I won’t say that what we’re talking about here is a conspiracy, but it’s something dark. Various financial sources, Brussels, the Soros Foundation, the US budget: large sums of money have been injected into the political life of certain countries, with political intent. This is still happening, by the way, with a rearguard action underway in Serbia and Slovakia. So if you take a look at the world around us, you’ll see that these are the funds that are now financing the anti-government movements in Serbia and the anti-Fico movements in Slovakia, and these facts are also being put on the agenda there. And, of course, Hungary’s enemies are making no secret of the fact that they want the same thing here – and you quoted an MEP who hates us, who hates Hungary, who’s a Hungarophobe. So they’re using every means at their disposal and raising money for it, just to bring about the change that they need in order to have governments in this region that are financially and politically favourable to them. And unfortunately in that we’re no exception.
You mentioned just now that this list that’s been published by the Americans it’s being looked at here in Hungary, and perhaps there’s something to be done about it here. What can be done?
To put it in plain language: they must be swept out. So this has to stop. Now that the US president has started, when, if not now? The entire Soros network must be dismantled! All the money coming from America must be made public, and those receiving it must be subject to sanctions. Money from abroad cannot be allowed to influence Hungarian politics, and we shall enforce this legally, with those who are complicit in this facing legal consequences in the future. So Hungarian sovereignty can best be defended when there’s a sovereigntist government in America, from where Hungarian sovereignty has been threatened. Now, at last, a window of opportunity is opening, when there are governments in America and in Hungary that place the highest value on sovereignty. I could also say that over there now they’re doing what we’ve been building here over the past fifteen years. Now is the moment when these international networks must be eliminated, swept away, and their existence made legally impossible. It won’t be a small job, and there will be a great deal of debate – I’d say shouting and shrieking; but this work must be done, and Hungarian sovereignty must be protected.
You just mentioned the issue of migration, and a week ago it seemed that Germany was also going down the path of tightening up, but in the end the proposal wasn’t adopted – despite the fact that recent polls show that almost 70 per cent of the population would have agreed with this tightening. What’s needed, or would be needed, for Europe to change its current migration policy?
We must rebel. I’ve been advocating this for a long time. I try to say it nicely, because rebellion is a harsh word, but I’ve also been calling for it in Brussels, when I talk to my prime ministerial counterparts: I tell them to rebel. We’re mistaken if we believe that the migration pact imposed on us by Brussels can be changed with arguments, fine words and discretion. George Soros has said this: every year we must let in one million people. And until we occupy Brussels, Soros’s people will be there, and they’ll carry it out, and they’ll let one million people into Europe every year. Countering this with sound arguments won’t work: only force will work; we must rebel. We’re not alone. We’re the first to rebel, we’re being punished, and this is why we’re paying one million dollars a day. This makes one cry out, because it’s a lot of money, but if I calculate how much it would cost us if we let them in, we’ll still save money if we pay the penalty and keep the migrants out. But we were just the first rebels, the first swallow on the telephone wire, to be followed by the others. Now Poland is rising up: it’s announced that it won’t implement the migration pact and has suspended the application in Poland of the migration rules imposed by Brussels. Apart from this, because they’re liberals they’re not being punished in the way we are for doing the same thing – so much for the rule of law in Brussels. And the Germans have also declared a revolt – and, sorry, the Italians before them. It’s no coincidence that there’s constant debate about this in Italy, but they’ve rebelled in an Italian way, and there’s a certain charm about it. Germans aren’t like that when they rebel: they rebel fiercely. This is what’s happened now. The raw meat was thrown on the table, and the main opposition party – which has a good chance of winning the German parliamentary election in two weeks’ time – said that enough is enough, and the rules in Brussels must be pushed aside. And about 70 per cent of the German people have said, “Finally!” Then there was a parliamentary debate and it was voted down. So clearly this isn’t simply a migration problem, but a democracy problem. But there will now be an election there, and the Germans can correct this – and I hope they will.
I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about topics including the Government’s latest economic decisions, the effect on Europe of the Trump administration’s measures, and the migration and security situation in Europe.
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