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Zsolt Törőcsik: There are no reasons to object to Ukraine starting the EU accession process – this is how a European Commission spokesperson reacted to the results of [Hungary’s consultative referendum] Voks2025. Around 95 per cent of the almost 2.3 million people who voted in the consultative referendum rejected Ukraine’s accession. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is our guest in the studio. Good morning.
Good morning.
In Brussels last week you said that the result of Voks2025 had halted the accession process in Ukraine. But now a spokesperson for the Commission has said this. What’s happened in the meantime? Why is the Commission still not taking the result into account?
You’ve chosen an interesting sentence. It didn’t jump out at me as sharply as it did when listening to you just now; they say that there are no reasons – is that how it was put? That says it all about Brussels! We have only one reason: that’s the people’s decision. So there’s a reason, but unfortunately it doesn’t play a role in their minds. My hypothesis or assumption is that if a vote were held in each of the Member States of the European Union – like Voks2025 in Hungary – on whether Ukraine should join the European Union, then in the majority of countries, and perhaps in every single country, people would say no, just as in Hungary. Because the elite in Brussels, who live in the bubble there – those bureaucrats who live in the Brussels bubble – might be able to give some sort of complicated explanation as to why it would be good for Ukraine to join the European Union, but people have two very simple, down-to-earth, basic, obvious answers as to why it wouldn’t be. The first is that if you take in Ukraine, which is at war, you’ll be taking in war. And we in Europe don’t want war. Two: Ukraine joining would destroy our economy, and there’s a huge risk of that. The further east you come from the west, from the Atlantic towards Ukraine, the more you risk your economy being destroyed if Ukraine becomes a member. Unfortunately for us, we’re at the eastern end of the line I’ve described: we’re a neighbour of Ukraine. The closer you are to Ukraine, the more directly you’re threatened with war and economic ruin if Ukraine joins. So the Commission is wrong. They think that an important decision that will determine the fate of the whole of Europe can be taken without the people. They’re wrong. Ukrainian membership will not happen. Hungary has now stopped it. It’s pointless for them to say that they’re ignoring it: they’re forced to take account of it, they cannot bypass us, they cannot get around us. There will certainly be some trickery, the prelude to which can be heard in these sentences; but the reality is that, in the end, there’s no way that Ukraine can be admitted against the will of the people of Europe. And by the time we get there, we won’t be alone, just as we’re not alone on migration. There too, we were alone at first; and now, if we look around, everyone’s with us – almost without exception. The same will happen with regard to war and peace and Ukraine’s membership. People in Europe perceive that we’re living in the shadow of the threat of imminent war. In a way the whole zeitgeist can be described as living in the shadow of war. Basically, of course, we’re in the shadow of a war in Europe – the Ukrainian–Russian war – but there are wars elsewhere in the world that we pay less attention to. There’s Israel–Iran, and there’s Pakistan–India. So there are hotspots in the world from which the news comes to us, and if people – all of us, myself included and, I think, you included – had to describe the age we’re living in, we’d describe our lives as being lived in an age of danger, a time of such war threats. And here in Europe this comes from Ukraine. We must insulate ourselves from this, we must stay out of this, we must avoid war.
At the same time, while Voks2025 was taking place it was attacked – and it’s still being attacked – in Brussels, Kiev/Kyiv and Budapest. And Politico has said that you’re invoking the Hungarian people’s position, despite the fact that fewer than three million people voted. Péter Magyar, the President of the Tisza Party, wrote that the result was only 95 per cent, even though the agreed plan was for 105 per cent. And the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine described the vote as aggressive incitement of groundless hatred. Even in the light of the result, how much pressure is Hungary under now to change its position on Ukraine?
Let’s separate out these opinions. In Hungary there are people who think that insulting others is right or acceptable, or if it suits them they can do it. But in my opinion mocking the votes and opinions of 2.3 million people isn’t right. I don’t think even the Tisza Party or any talented musician can get away with, say, calling the governing parties – or the people voting in Voks2025 and thus labeled as pro-government – “protozoa.” People can’t talk to one another like that. For that there’s no excuse – neither talent, nor youth, nor political ambition. So we must reject these and defend one another. Normal people, honest people, who want to show respect for one another, must defend one another, and this is why I’m speaking about this here in very sharp tones. So hang on a minute! There are the foreigners, and that’s another story. They believe they can do this – and they’ve done similar things before, so it’s not unprecedented in the history of the European Union: the Brussels bureaucrats have a great deal of money at their disposal, and they continuously send enormous sums to Hungary with the aim of influencing politics. This is something we’ll have to address later this summer or in early autumn. Supported by a staff of 30,000, they think that they can bring about fundamental changes in this or that country’s internal political affairs with all this money – along with their diplomatic influence, media power, and the help of their appointed proxies and prefects in certain countries, in this case their prefects in Hungary. So Brussels isn’t hiding the fact that it has an interest in a Member State’s parliamentary elections, and that it wants one party and not the other to be in government. So it wants to tell the people that in this case things will be like this – in Hungary too: it wants to tell the Hungarian people who to vote for, how to live, and what position to take on important issues. I think this is wrong! Brussels has no right to do this! It’s an abuse of power. That’s not why we created the European Union – we didn’t create Brussels in order to exert pressure on the political opinions of the citizens of the Member States. They have no right to do that! Consequently, they must also be rejected and we must carry on with our own interests, our own convictions, our own way of life, our own principles – as Hungary is doing. I’m also very proud of my country in the sense that the Hungarian people immediately come forward and give their opinions on the most complex issues – including those that Brussels wants to sweep under the carpet. Once we’ve managed to formulate it well, we form an opinion, we express it, and then we’ll represent it. And – irrespective of whether we’re in government at any particular time – I hope that Hungary will always have a government that stands up for the interests of the Hungarian people everywhere, which includes standing up for them in Brussels.
Speaking of the domestic political aspect of pressure being brought to bear, on Wednesday the National Assembly’s Committee on National Security was informed that the Ukrainian secret service had approached journalists and politicians, and that recently a Ukrainian politician responsible for EU affairs said that if the opposition forces come to power in 2026, there would be no further obstacles to Hungary’s accession. How does the Government interpret the message of these steps and statements?
It’s already been manufactured: the Tisza Party held a party referendum, in which 60 per cent of the participants – obviously their supporters – said that they support Ukraine’s accession. So the plan, the product, has been manufactured in order to create another large party to stand against or replace the governing party, to use it to win the election, and then through it to implement the decisions taken in Brussels. It couldn’t be simpler. Now the Ukrainians come into the picture because in the next ten years the most important issue for Europe will be the issue of war and peace, the issue of Ukraine: whether or not we admit into the Union a country at war, whether or not we allow war into the Union. The Ukrainians are playing a role in this, because ultimately it’s about them. It’s also about the power of Brussels, but mostly about the future of the Ukrainians. And, obviously for a country at war, it’s not surprising that they think that it can be solved by force. This is why they’re constantly carrying out intelligence operations in Hungary. We don’t usually talk about this – it’s called “secret service” because it’s not public. But it’s going on. It’s not just Ukraine, by the way: international politics has this kind of shadowy, dark underbelly and permanently unlit corners where all sorts of things go on. All countries are involved, partly defending themselves, partly initiating. We’re also defending ourselves against this, we also have a secret service, and we’re also monitoring other secret services. We’re monitoring what’s happening in Hungary, and we see – and I don’t want to say more about this – that there’s intense Ukrainian secret service activity here all the time. They’re not only targeting politicians in order to exert pressure, but they’re also looking for their people in the intellectual world, in the world of foundations, in the circles that influence thought, in the world of journalism and the media. This is as prescribed by intelligence methods, by the way. So there’s a very active Ukrainian presence in Hungary today; but we’re here and we’re watching.
But the Tisza Party also says that it doesn’t support the accelerated accession of Ukraine. Where’s the conflict here? What makes the Ukrainians think that the Hungarian opposition would be more understanding or more sympathetic to them than the current government?
The phrase “accelerated or not accelerated” no longer makes sense. There’s a kind of membership here, and the EU has said that it wants to admit Ukraine before 2030. You can call it fast-track or whatever you want, it doesn’t matter: they want it to be admitted. So this thing that we’re talking about – bringing in war with Ukrainian membership and destroying the European economy, including the Hungarian economy – isn’t a threat somewhere in the distant future. The Commission has a work plan. I sit among them at the summits of prime ministers, when they tell us what’s going to happen in which year, and they give us the year numbers. This isn’t about the future of our children, in the longer term, of course: it’s happening in our lifetime, next year, the year after that, or 2030 at the latest. This is knocking on the door.
There’s another issue in which pressure is being exerted on Hungary from Kiev/Kyiv – or in which there’s an attempt to do so: the 18th package of sanctions and the complete divestment from Russian energy. President Zelenskyy most recently asked the German Foreign Minister to persuade Hungary to support him. What would it take to persuade you to do so?
Well, if you paid attention at school, when a German tries to persuade us, you think, “Hang on a minute, this isn’t going to work.” So we shouldn’t let the Germans persuade us of anything. We’ve been in two world wars, and we were “well persuaded, thank you very much”. We don’t want to be persuaded by the Germans again. So let’s stick to the idea that the Germans and the Ukrainians should each mind their own business, and leave Hungary to the Hungarians. It’s undoubtedly true that there is what we call the Zelenskyy Plan, which consists of trying to prevent the two countries that still buy energy, basically oil and natural gas, from Russia – Slovakia and Hungary – from doing so. And as I said at the last Council meeting, I understand that they think that they’re harming Russia – although I’d add that Hungary accounts for less than 3 per cent of Europe’s oil imports from Russia. So I don’t think that this will bring the Russians to their knees and drive Vladimir Vladimirovich to despair. But whatever cleverness they see behind this, the reality is that families in Hungary will see their utility bills increase three and a half times for natural gas, and double for electricity. And I told them, “People, I understand everything. Give me an argument as to why the Hungarian prime minister should support a measure that would increase the gas bills of his own citizens and their families by three and a half times? Give me one reason a sane person would do such a thing? I wouldn’t do that! I’ll veto, I’ll stop, I’ll block, I’ll fight you. Don’t ask me to do that!” This is called the Zelenskyy Plan. They want to sacrifice the financial situation of Hungarian families for the sake of Ukraine. This is impossible!
Indeed several times we’ve talked about the fact that if this plan were to be implemented, household energy bills could increase by a factor of three or four. This would happen at the very time when the Government is increasing family allowances and introducing new measures to support young people. How would the value and impact of these support measures be affected if on the other hand we had to pay more in energy bills?
Everything would need to be rethought. Of course, people live their daily lives, and they’re not very interested in what I say about the fundamental pillars of the economy; but their daily lives, the daily lives of those who are listening to us, their economic standard of living, have pillars which, if they were removed or dismantled, would put the whole standard of living that they’ve been able to create for themselves today in uncertainty, in danger – or would lead to collapse. First, do they have jobs? So it’s very important that in Hungary, if you want to work you’ll have a job. If a different economic policy comes along, say the price of energy goes up for companies and companies can’t produce profitably, they can’t sell their products, they have to change their operations, then redundancies will come. So a high energy price brings the threat of unemployment. Without employment, the security of any of our listeners’ families would be immediately shaken. The second thing is wages. Imagine you’re not made redundant, but the high price of energy makes companies unprofitable – say, here, in the radio, they’d say, “Dear Zsolt, unfortunately, next month, if you want to work, you’ll have to accept that your salary will be lower.” We’ve got out of the habit of that. Since we’ve had a national government in Hungary that hasn’t happened. No such thing! But that era can return. We had a lot of it before 2010, but we don’t remember it now. And the third thing is that there would be no planning – so if all our money and savings are taken away by high energy bills, then families can give up their dreams, their plans, their joint plans for the coming years: there will be no car, there will be no bigger home, there will be nothing – we’ll be happy if we can pay the bills. So this is the kind of thing we’re talking about when we talk about the Zelenskyy Plan. It’s not an abstract political issue – it’s something that has one foot in the door, in people’s homes and in people’s workplaces. So we certainly mustn’t give in, because if we do, the financial security of families will be shaken. This is why it’s absolutely essential to prevent Brussels from telling us what happens in Hungary. They’ve wanted this for a long time. They have a simple argument. The Tisza Party says the same in Brussels, and this is also the case now with free water for farmers: the market must be allowed to dictate prices. I agree that generally the market should be allowed to determine prices; but if market prices are ruining people, then let’s protect people rather than market prices. So there are cases – as now when we’re in a time of war – when families need to be protected. And this is when we need a national government, when we need to stand up to Brussels and stand up for our interests.
Now, speaking of water and irrigation, the European Parliament has adopted a report calling for farmers to bear a proportionate share of the cost of water use, while in this country they can irrigate for free. On the basis of this proposal, what would be the long-term fate of irrigation? After all, in the current context of an increasingly severe drought this makes a big difference.
There are two things that your question touches on here. The first is a long-term issue: what will happen to Hungarian agriculture and Hungarian crop production in such climatic conditions? So, is what we’re seeing now – drought, heat – temporary? Is it normal to have seven dry years and seven wet years, as we know from the Bible, or is there really a climate change that will force Hungarian agriculture to adapt in the longer term? I’m a conservative person, and so I think you always have to start with what looks like the bigger problem. So we must never prepare for the small problem, but always for the big one, and we must avert it. So I think that we need a plan on how Hungarian agriculture should adapt to the climatic conditions – and there is a plan. For example, it’s certain that now we’re irrigating 100,000 to 110,000 hectares. We need to increase this to at least 300,000 to 400,000 as a matter of urgency; and then we need to increase the proportion of areas where we can irrigate to four to five million hectares. So we need to increase the proportion of areas where we can irrigate as much as possible. In Pannonia – that’s to say Transdanubia – this is largely out of the question, because apart from Kisalföld there are very few flat areas – and in our hilly region, where I live, it would be difficult or almost impossible. But the areas of the Great Plain must be saved. So we definitely need a big irrigation plan. We have the outlines of this, and we’ve spent money on it, but here we’re facing a much, much greater challenge than people think. We’ll have to put a lot more money into this. Now, too, and this is a question for the short term. We won’t avoid it this summer, since we’ve no chance of doing that because the drought’s already here; but we can reduce the damage caused by the drought. We’ve had to mobilise 5 billion forints, we’ve had to assign around 1,000 people, and 205–210 machines are out there, huge excavators. We’re dredging ditches and channels and we’re repairing sluices so that there will be water. Yesterday I was in a place where I think they were doing it well, doing it successfully. We have a huge advantage: the University of Baja. This was a college when I was young, and now it’s a university, where Hungarian water engineers are trained. That’s the power centre, the intellectual heart of Hungarian water management and water engineering knowledge, which is a subject in which we’re very strong. Yesterday I met several experts who were trained there, and they obviously know everything there is to know. So we have good experts, we have plans, and we have to get through this summer. I need to add that of course we’re talking about the drought, but the grain has been harvested. So as I go around the country, as I talk to farmers about what the yields are, what the averages are, we can see that the cereals will be fine. Yesterday, for example, I was in a place where yields were surprisingly high. In our region, however, in Fejér County, yields are rather average. But still, the point is that there’s no problem. So we’re doing okay with the cereals, we’ll have as much as usual, the country will have bread, we won’t starve, we’ll have food. We usually produce twice as much cereals as we consume ourselves, so we’ll have enough for export, which is fine. The problem starts with sunflower and maize, which are spring-sown crops and need rain now. In May we were fine, but now we don’t have any, so we need to irrigate now – and this will continue to be the case in the longer term, with July, August and September being problematic. And if there’s no precipitation in the winter, if there’s no snow seeping into the soil, then we’ll have to make up for it somehow – and if God doesn’t help us, we’ll have to do it artificially. This is a big plan, a big task for Hungary over the next fifteen years.
And to what extent can this plan be hampered by the European Parliament’s initiative or plan on irrigation?
It’s about what I said before: these are people in a bubble, and they’re not in touch with reality. We have the same problem with Brussels as we have here with the gilded youth of Buda in the Tisza Party. Exactly the same! They live in a bubble, and they’re out of touch with reality. They sit there in Brussels and say that it’s good to have a market price for things. Of course it’s good, but farmers in Hungary, for example, can’t pay for water, because then there will be a smaller area under irrigation, because they don’t have the money for that. In such cases we shouldn’t look at textbooks, but we should say, “Here’s a specific issue, please, help must be provided here and now.” It doesn’t matter what the gilded youth of Buda or the people in Brusseleers have read in their textbooks – you have to start from reality. We’re people from the country, we know this, we know that we need water, and farmers don’t have the money to pay the market price for water. So we need to give it to them for free, if possible – even if Brussels kicks and screams. This is what we’re doing now – we’ll always find legal ways to give farmers free water. This is a key issue for Hungarian agriculture and for their personal lives.
So that’s a debate with Brussels, but there’s also a debate at home, in Hungarian society – about last week’s Pride. There’s disagreement about who enjoys, or enjoyed, the backing of the broader public in this matter. The organisers say – and the opposition also says – that they have that backing, because there were a lot of people out on the streets in the parade. On the government side, however, they say that on this issue what’s decisive is the result of the 2022 referendum. What do you think is worth looking at in this regard?
I think that each person will decide for themselves what they think about this issue. Hungarians say, “It’s no good politicians trying to tell me what I should think about something. I’ll know. It’s not only in a physical sense that I think my house is my castle, but also intellectually. So leave my mind alone. I’ll decide on that. In fact, I know best.” This leads to difficulties, but for a country it’s also a great strength that people insist on thinking for themselves – and this is what I think Hungarians are like. Anyone who doesn’t accept this, or doesn’t recognise it, has no chance in politics. So everyone should follow their own line. I, for example, follow my own line in this matter; and I too was surprised, because I thought that this Pride issue was closed. Now it’s not whether or not they come together for a demonstration – that’s never settled. People always have opinions that they want to say, they’ll come together, more or less, when they want to say it – and now, for example, there are many people who want to say it. But I thought that Pride as a social phenomenon was over, and that it was no longer a serious threat. Because – and let’s forget politics for now – if I go to Western Europe and talk to parents, there Pride is a daily danger. So there is sensitisation in schools. There, if you look at a school textbook with which Western European boys and girls the same age as your children are being sensitised, you’d be horrified at what they say, like, “You’re a boy, or a girl – or maybe not, but you’ll decide which. And then comes the Hungarian children’s storybook, in which you’re told how nice it is when two people of the same sex live together like your mum and dad – only you know, it’s not exactly like that. So this is what’s happening! And I thought Hungary was defending itself against this. I thought this because there was a referendum in 2022 – not just a parliamentary election, but also a referendum. And then it was clear: three and a half million people said “No, we don’t want any of that.” And, even then, 190,000 people – I think they were on the streets – 190,000 people said “yes”, they wanted that. That’s a good proportion! Let’s keep it that way – not only in the election, but also in relation to Pride. But I thought we were past all that. But no, we’re not past it. It’s a real danger – because it’s not the size of the demonstration that’s important, but the fact that the opposition parties have decided that they’re going to join forces with Pride. So they’ve made it their programme that now they want to re-sensitise our children, whom we thought we’d protected. Now imagine a situation like the one in the years before the national government entered office, when the capital city owned and operated Budapest’s schools. And then the Mayor of Budapest – who organised and implemented the Brussels decision that there should be a Pride in Hungary – will say, “We run these schools, we’re responsible for them, and we’re sensitising the children.” So the stakes are high: this is about our children. And on this I am adamant. And fortunately I have the backing of the referendum: three and a half million people have said, “We don’t want any part of that.” So nothing can sway me on Pride. I don’t want to argue and fight with those who went there, because they’re Hungarian citizens, they’re part of our community, they have their own opinions, they disagree with us; and they particularly disagree with us on Pride, and they have the right to say so. So we don’t want to get involved in any legal dispute, because politics should keep its distance from that. We never fight against ordinary Hungarians. We’re fighting against foreigners and against their prefects. So the fact that there’s also a culture of peaceful disagreement in Hungary, that such a demonstration can go off without a hitch, is in my view a great thing. The authorities will do their job, and politics should be left out of that. But politics shouldn’t be left out of the debate on Pride, in the sense that it shouldn’t give in to pressure and allow gender propaganda back into our schools – or indeed our kindergartens. I saw a clip of a teacher saying that she’s been doing sensitisation in a state school, when that’s forbidden. She’s doing sensitisation – in fact she thinks all the normal teachers are doing it, and that it should start in kindergarten. We need to do something there, and we should look into what’s going on. It’s banned, there’s been a referendum, there are laws, there’s a National Curriculum. So how is someone here conducting sensitisation in schools? So here we have a job to do – this whole Pride is a much more serious, real and direct challenge than I thought before Budapest Pride.
Speaking of families, let’s talk about another topic. A new subsidy was announced this week to help people get their own home, their first home, in the form of a 3 per cent state-subsidised preferential loan. Who’s this actually aimed at? Because there are far fewer restrictions than in previous programmes.
Two numbers are worth knowing. In Hungary, 80 per cent of people over 40 live in their own home. So 80 per cent of people over 40 live in their own home. But for those under 40, only 40 per cent live in their own home. This clearly shows that it’s difficult for young people to get their own home. We want to help them. We’re offering a subsidised loan of 50 million forints at a fixed interest rate of 3 per cent for a maximum term of 25 years, with a 10 per cent down payment and no restrictions on residence or age. So now it’s the turn of the young! Let them take advantage of it, the opportunity is open, let them try to use it and ensure that the proportion of under-40s who own their own home is as high as that of older Hungarian citizens. This is usually done at the beginning of the year, in the annual “state of the nation” speech; and this was the case again this time, when I presented a plan of what we’d implement this year. Of course we hoped that there would be peace and it would be easier. There hasn’t been peace, the situation isn’t easy, but we shall do everything we committed to at the beginning of the year. So, tax-free childcare allowance and parental leave benefit from 1 July: check! Doubling the family tax credit: check! First homes for young people: check! The programmes have been announced, and it will take time for the reality to arrive. There’s this 3 per cent fixed-rate loan for young people. We’re presenting this now, we’ve worked it out, we’re in discussion with the banks, and it will be available from September. So decisions have already been taken and will come later. Tax exemption on childcare allowance and parental leave benefit will also increase monthly income by between forty and sixty thousand forints – but not now, because we’ve introduced them on 1 July, and they’ll appear in salary and parental leave benefit envelopes on 1 August. But these are all already in place. So I think that the plans that Hungary has set for this year can be ticked off, one by one.
In the last half hour I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán questions on topics including the attacks on Voks2025, the drought situation and Pride.
