Zsolt Törőcsik: Not only has the new year arrived, but in the last few days real winter has also arrived. We haven’t had this much snow in over ten years, and snowdrifts, freezing rain and sub-zero daytime temperatures have made our daily lives difficult. The weekend will bring a slight thaw, but then the cold will return. I’ll be asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about the measures taken in recent days and weeks in response to this. Good morning.
Good morning.
There have been delays, road closures and train cancellations, but no settlements have been cut off – or only for a very short time. How do you assess the handling of the situation by the authorities, transport operators and citizens in general?
All such extreme weather conditions are a test for everyone: for people as well as for vehicles, for the state administration operating the supply systems, and similarly for police officers and firefighters. So at times like this the weather puts everyone to the test. Overall, I can say that the country has passed this test imposed on us by the snow. The country functions in times of normality, but it’s clear that we’re not only capable of organising the lives of ten million people without disruption – or with only minor disruptions – in normal times, but we’re also capable of doing so in extraordinary circumstances. First of all, I’m very grateful to those who have had to ward off the danger and keep transport moving: railway workers, road operators, police officers, disaster management personnel, and the army – which was also deployed at certain difficult locations. And, of course, at times like this people tend to be impatient because their lives are disrupted. Considering the extent of the disruption – for example, I also saw that for a long time garbage wasn’t collected from certain streets – people have remained patient and disciplined, have coped with the situation, which everyone has had to adapt to. So overall the country has presented an encouraging, positive image. As far as the remedial work is concerned, we’re fortunate that the last time we had similar difficult moments, when we were suddenly hit by the weather, was either in 2013 or 2014 – I can’t quite remember now. At that time a lot of people were trapped in snowbound cars on the M1 motorway, and we had to send out a round of text messages with life-preserving advice so that no one would suffer serious harm. And those “files” from back then have remained available in order to be used at such times. So, since the Interior Minister back then was the person who’s still in that position now, and the Prime Minister back then was the person who’s still in that position now, we reopened those files to see how we did things. This experience has helped a lot. The Operational Task Force was set up in a timely manner, immediately after the first forecasts; and, as we’ve come to expect from him, the Interior Minister was able to guarantee – working with a strong hand through the Operational Task Force – the operation of institutions beyond the Ministry of the Interior. So I can say that we received a reassuring impression. This isn’t over yet: it will be cold, and freezing rain could come at any time, so let’s take care of one another. I ask everyone to be cautious in their activities, and to take special care of children and the elderly. I expect that there will be more severe cold weather, and even heavy snow. In any case, we’ve passed this first test, and that’s encouraging.
It’s colder than it was at this point in January in previous years, which also means that we need to turn up the heating. Is there enough natural gas in the domestic storage facilities?
I have fairly up-to-date information. I don’t want to bore you, but I start my work every morning by reading the national security report, which summarises the information gathered during the night. It arrives on my desk early in the morning, and one of the sections always deals with natural gas and energy reserves. So I have daily knowledge of how much reserves we have. We started the winter with reserves well above 40 per cent of annual consumption. So we still have plenty of reserves. In fact, we don’t even need to use the reserves – or if we do, only a small percentage, because supplies are arriving continuously. So the country’s natural gas supply hasn’t been disrupted. This is a key issue, because if no gas were coming in and there were no reserves, we’d be in trouble. But we’re not. And our reserves are high. Our natural gas reserves are much larger, and the entire mathematical model we use to calculate this results in us having much larger reserves than is customary in Western European countries – mainly because we have only one pipeline as a major supply, so we have to make provision for larger reserves. And then there’s the issue of firewood, of course. So those who don’t have gas, or can’t afford it, or can’t heat with electricity, need firewood. In any case, the Government runs a firewood subsidy programme every winter, involving local governments. We’ve now doubled this and changed its methods. So we’re delivering tens of thousands of cubic metres of firewood to people in a much faster and more efficient system. There’s no upper limit on what can be claimed: the Operational Task Force and the Minister of the Interior have received legal authorisation – a government resolution – to produce the necessary amount of wood, regardless of the cost, so that no one freezes or is denied such support on the grounds of a lack of budgetary resources. That won’t happen, and the money has been set aside for this purpose. A “red code” is in effect. I don’t know if people are aware that a red code means that when we announce it, all social institutions must be prepared to take in homeless people or people who can’t stay in their own homes because of the cold. And the capacity that we open up at times like this, and which is at our disposal, far exceeds the number of people who have no shelter, or whose shelter is unsafe. So we can accommodate those in need throughout the winter. This system has been established and it’s worked well so far.
What hasn’t frozen, even in the cold weather, is the EU’s support for Ukraine. Even in the first days of the year, billions were flying around. There are now two packages on the table, one of which is a 90-billion-euro financing plan for the next two years, presented this week by the Commission. This is a loan that Brussels would repay from seized Russian assets or reparations paid by Moscow. How realistic do you think this plan is? And how justified is this package, which Ursula von der Leyen says is necessary for Ukraine to be strong on the front lines and at the negotiating table?
It takes a strong person to keep one’s bearings amid these tens and hundreds of billions, but I happen to be that person, so I manage to keep my bearings. I can tell you that, according to its own records, Brussels has so far spent 193 billion euros on aid for Ukraine. The Americans are a separate case, but they’re smarter than us and got out at the right moment. I don’t know if they’ve recouped their investment, but knowing them I don’t think they’d lose out on it. Undoubtedly the previous Democratic administration under Biden provided a lot of support, but the current president stopped that, pulled out and started to recoup the money. The Europeans aren’t following that path; we tend to ignore the rules of common sense, and the leaders in Brussels are constantly providing financial support to Ukraine – almost unconditionally. They say that they’ll give as much as is needed. The Ukrainians aren’t foolish enough to turn it down – if they’re given as much as is needed, then they’ll ask for it. In fact, I’d say that they demand it, and at times the tone is provocative. Returning to the figures, they’ve sent 193 billion euros up the smokestack. Whoosh! Of course, part of that was credit; but everyone knows that Ukraine will never be able to repay that credit. But that’s in the past. Now, however, the EU has no financial resources to give Ukraine for this year and next year. This is why they’ve decided to take out a joint loan of 90 billion euros. They don’t want to get this back through Russian reparations or compensation, there’s no such connection. There’s no connection between this 90 billion and the seized Russian assets: the participating countries – twenty-three out of twenty-six – will go to the market and take out this loan of 90 billion euros. The EU will borrow it on their behalf, then the EU will have to repay it – and the EU will receive it from the Member States. This is why it was important – after an all-night, bloody knife fight – that ultimately Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia didn’t agree to participate in it. So it’s not us, but the other twenty-three countries that are borrowing 90 billion euros, which they’re giving to the Ukrainians – because the EU has no money, so it will take out a loan and give that borrowed money to Ukraine. And later, when it has to be repaid, this EU loan taken out on the money market will eventually mature, the Ukrainians won’t be able to repay it, and then the borrower will have to pick up the bill. But we won’t be there then, because we’re staying out of it. With this we’ve saved a lot of money, and we’ve made it clear that we won’t participate in such a credit arrangement in the future. But of course the 2026–27 period will come to an end. What will happen after that? Now the Ukrainians have already taken action, because they’ve prepared their own request for operational costs. So they’ve compiled a financial request on top of what’s been spoken about so far, which doesn’t include their security and military expenditures. Those will form a separate item, which they’ll submit later. They’ve submitted a financial request for ten years, amounting to 800 billion euros. The size of the sum is truly breathtaking. I have to say that, according to our calculations, 800 billion euros would be enough to pay all Hungarian pensions for forty years, and all Hungarian family support expenses for sixty years. These are horrendous sums! Anyone who isn’t used to numbers ending in lots of zeros can’t really comprehend what a huge amount of money would be flowing from Europe to the Ukrainians to meet their operational costs. So here we are now, and military spending is still to come. Now, why are we doing this? This is always the question, and I usually ask it, as any normal Hungarian would at a European prime ministers’ summit: “Folks, why are we doing this?” And there’s a very clear answer to this, which the President of the Commission openly repeated a couple of days ago. They claim that they’ll win this war on the front lines. So the European Union is betting that Ukraine will win this war against Russia on the front lines. And Europe will be providing financial support for that victorious Ukrainian war. And since, after a victorious war, the loser always pays reparations and even tributes, their argument is very simple: they’ll defeat the Russians on the front line with the Ukrainian army, the Russians will pay reparations, and everyone will get their money back. The money the Europeans give to Ukraine will be received by them from Russia, and the Russians – who caused the damage – will pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction. This is their hypothesis, their assumption; and on the basis of this assumption, in a situation in which Europe has no money, they’re squandering, sending away, burning through hundreds of billions in European taxpayers’ money. So the European economy doesn’t have these amounts, but they claim that they’re not spending this money, because it will come back. Well, I’ve yet to meet anyone, any serious expert, who would claim that the Russians can be defeated on the battlefield to such an extent that they’d be obliged to pay reparations. This is beyond the realm of fairy tales. So they’re feeding Western European citizens a story that’s obviously not true, and suppressing Western Europeans’ dissatisfaction or common-sense questions. I look on in astonishment at how long this can be done for. It’s certain that in Hungary I wouldn’t be able to hold that position for a week: everyone would laugh at me, dismiss me as unserious, and call it a scam. But I can’t say whether this is possible in Western Europe, and for how long it can be done. They’ll continue to do this for as long as the people there don’t revolt – as they would do in Hungary in a week in such a situation.
Well, now the Government’s prepared a report on how much this would cost Hungary, or what burdens it would place on Hungary if it were to participate in this financing. They’ve concluded that in order to provide this money Brussels would expect various austerity measures. But as yet there’s no official EU plan. Why do you think, in order to provide the money, Brussels would expect these things?
Of course there’s an official EU plan. The EU says it can give money to Ukraine from two sources. One is that the Member States, the Member States of the European Union, will give more money to the European Union, or Brussels, and Brussels will send the extra money it receives from the Member States to Ukraine. The other is that if this isn’t enough, they’ll take out a loan. But as a first step, they’ll squeeze everyone and extract everything they can from them. I’d like to remind everyone that today, during a cold winter like this one, people in Western Europe are paying three to four times as much for household energy as people in Hungary are. Energy bills in Hungary will be high now – but imagine multiplying that by three. If we lived in Western Europe and didn’t have the Hungarian system of reductions in household energy bills, then they’d be paying three or four times as much. So what I’m saying is that in the West they’re squeezing money out of people. And they see that Hungary is unwilling to do so. This is why they have a list of demands for us. These are set out in various European documents, so what I’m talking about now isn’t something that was “said at a Council meeting” or “heard”: it’s written down, it’s all documented! What they expect from Hungary is written down. They expect a number of things. For example, they want us to abolish the tax on multinationals and the tax on banks. They haven’t said anything yet about the fourteenth month’s pension, which we’ve just introduced, but they want us to abolish the thirteenth month’s pension. They’re demanding the restructuring of the family protection system and the home creation system. So obviously they want to squeeze the money out of Hungary that they’ve already squeezed out of other countries. Today Hungary is therefore in a special position, a favourable position, because over the past few years I’ve always resisted demands such as “Hungarians should pay more”, and “Don’t do anything that Brussels doesn’t like”. I’ve vetoed, I’ve refused, and when necessary we’ve rebelled – as we did on the issue of migration. This is why we shall not allow Brussels to squeeze us. It squeezes the others enough, and of course there’s a limit to that: they’re also fighting their own battles – but those aren’t in the public eye. And perhaps the limit of their tolerance is different from that of the Hungarians, because we’re not participating in that, we’re not implementing those measures. So we have a long list, which we’ve published. These expectations of Hungary are set out in various documents, which we’ve collected and compiled in a report, and we’ve made it public. So today, if anyone wants to find out firsthand what financial demands Brussels is making on Hungary, for example in matters where it has no jurisdiction whatsoever, such as criticising our first home creation system, they can read about what’s expected of us. So today any Hungarian citizen who’s interested and has the time can read an official report on what good things – things that in Hungary are considered to be good – Brussels wants to take away or change. This makes it easier for me, or helps me, because I don’t have to explain it all the time: now I just refer to the links where it can be found, and I ask people to see the reality with their own eyes. As you know, there’s no money and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Brussels to come up with ever more money; so now that the game’s getting tougher and we’ve gathered all this information, the Government thinks that it’s time to ask Hungarian voters about this issue. Hungary is the only country that always asks its people about strategically important issues: reductions in household energy bills, migration, gender, Ukraine’s EU membership. And now we have this. We’re presenting this to the public in the form of a national petition. Everyone will receive it and will have the opportunity to say “no” to it and say, together with the Government, that we won’t pay: “Don’t count on us, we won’t pay.” We shall not change these Hungarian welfare measures. We shall not change these family support and home creation measures, nor our measures to protect pensioners.
In recent weeks you and several other members of the Government have highlighted this dilemma as one of the issues at stake in the election, while the leader of the opposition has repeatedly made it clear that, in his opinion, Hungary should stay out of the war and shouldn’t support Ukraine’s accession to the EU. So we could say that now there’s a pro-peace unity in Hungarian politics. Why do you still think that this is one of the main issues at stake in the election?
We don’t believe that there’s unity here, as the position of the opposition – which we’ll now refer to as Tisza and DK [Democratic Coalition] – is completely opposed to that of Fidesz–KDNP. Tisza and DK fully support the Ukrainians: they’re pro-Ukrainian political forces. In the European Parliament the European Socialists and the European People’s Party consistently support Ukraine. They’ve always voted in favour of these motions. Tisza even went so far as to hold a vote on this in Hungary. So there was a public vote on whether those who sympathise with Tisza support Ukraine’s membership. Fifty-something per cent supported it! So on the other side – on the left wing of Hungarian politics, where Tisza and DK are located – there’s a political force that supports Brussels and Ukraine. On the side where we are, there’s Fidesz and KDNP, which is a pro-Hungarian political force that opposes and rebels against the demands of Brussels. This is the reality in Hungary. This is what we have to choose from. And as Europe is getting increasingly drawn into the war, with in recent weeks major EU countries signing an agreement to send soldiers to be stationed in Ukraine in the future, it’s clear that this pressure will increase and that they want to drag every European country into the war. Why should only French and British soldiers go there and die, when there are twenty-seven EU Member States? So it looks like there will be increased pressure on young Hungarians to go to Ukraine as soldiers. And there’s a legitimate fear that the pro-Ukrainian forces – DK and Tisza – would give in to this pressure, as they do whenever they’re put under pressure. And, if there were a pro-Brussels government in Hungary, sooner or later young people would be sent to Ukraine. This is a real danger, and it must be prevented at all costs. This is why we don’t want to send Hungarian youth, weapons or money to Ukraine; we don’t want to get involved in this war, and we don’t want to allow this war to suck us in. So, in my opinion, there’s no national consensus on this at all. The most pressing issue for the future of Hungary is its relationship to a war that the EU wants to continue, and even win, and the responsibility for the financial consequences of this. This is the highest stake. These billions are missing from the European economy, so how couldn’t they be missing from the Hungarian economy? And I must also say that I had to raise this issue very sharply at the last Council meeting in Brussels: okay, it’s true that we – apart from Hungary, the Czechs and Slovakia – are sending a 90-billion loan to Ukraine for two years. But we must know that, according to all reliable estimates, every year on both sides a combined total of 400,000 people are dying, being wounded or maimed. Four hundred thousand! So now we’re not just sending 90 billion, but we’re financing the death and maiming of 800,000 people. Meanwhile it’s obvious that instead of trying to win the war, which is the EU conception, it would be possible to switch to a policy of peace and end it through negotiations. So we shouldn’t be sending 90 billion and causing 800,000 deaths, but instead conducting immediate, direct negotiations or supporting the Americans in the peace talks, so that we can end the war through negotiation. So the key question on which the future of Europe depends is whether and to what extent European leaders will succeed in pushing Europe further into this war, and how many of us will be able to stay out of it. Even if we’re alone, we must stay out. It’s early in the morning, and at this hour historical questions may seem difficult on an empty stomach. But in reality, Hungary must answer this familiar dilemma: if Europe goes to war, will Hungary – bearing in mind its size, its strength, and the enormous pressure that’s been repeatedly placed on it throughout the 20th century – be able to stay out of the war? Will Hungary have the leadership, will there be national unity, will there be the shared resolve to stay out of this war? We were unable to stay out of either the First World War or the Second World War – both of which began as European wars. So the term “world war”, which may seem very distant, isn’t so distant – because every world war began as a European war, and European wars began as local wars. For example, the First World War started as a Balkan war and turned into a European war – and we couldn’t keep Hungary out of it. It was the same in the Second World War. The big dilemma is whether Hungary has the ability, the capacity to act, the strength to stay out of a war, despite enormous international pressure. This is the most important question for the next few years.
What will it take for this ability to exist? Because if we look at the past few days, suddenly there have been many flashpoints in the world outside Ukraine – Venezuela, Iran, Greenland – where tensions have escalated within a matter of days. In such a rapidly changing world, what does it take to be able to do this and stay out of it?
For us this isn’t a sudden variable. It may be for newspaper readers, for distinguished TV presenters, and perhaps for some Western politicians, but I’ve been saying since 2010 that a new world is coming. So, as we said in 2010, 2012 or 2013, let’s not believe that what we’re in now will continue. On the horizon there are signs that what we call the liberal world order is coming to an end. So we can see the signs that it will end and something else will come in its place. It’s now become clear that what will come in its place will be the era of nations. And this, regardless of the United States, of who the President of the United States is, was something that could not only be inferred from that change, but earlier it was already clear that the whole thing was creaking and cracking, and that there would be a transformation. And, as you may remember, this is why after 2010 there was an eastward opening, a lot of things, the establishment of strategic relations with Russia, starting to build bilateral relations with those countries and great powers, and my signing of dozens of agreements on trade, security and investment outside of international institutions. So I didn’t wait for the European Union to do something that would result in something good for Hungary. I don’t believe that anyway – it isn’t a good strategy to wait for things to be sorted out within NATO. Instead we’ve concluded bilateral agreements, because the future, the era of nations, will fundamentally be based on bilateral agreements – look at the Russian–Hungarian agreement, the American–Hungarian agreement, the agreement between Hungary and the Turkish, or Turkic, world. We made these happen. So this doesn’t come as a surprise to us. We predicted and prepared for what’s now churning and forming in the world, forming like magma. I’m not saying that there can’t be surprises, because no one except a palmist could have predicted that the intervention in Venezuela would take place. But it doesn’t surprise us – we have a logic, a procedure for dealing with these issues, and we’re able to respond to them in a timely manner.
We’re out of time, but let’s discuss one more issue, because we’ve talked a lot about it over the past year: how the uncertain international environment affects the economy. And in Hungary a lot of support programmes have been launched at the beginning of this year: income tax exemptions for mothers, increased family tax credits, pension increases, wage increases. Elsewhere, however, in this situation we see a wait-and-see approach from an economic point of view. Why did the Government feel it was, after all, justified in launching these programmes?
It’s because we thought about what 2026 will be like. And for Hungarians 2026 will be both a year of dangers and a year of opportunities. The likelihood of dangers must be reduced, and opportunities must be exploited. This doesn’t seem so complicated. Of course in this regard the April election will be decisive, which is why we say that the 2026 election must be a secure election, because if we have a secure election, meaning that the Government maintains its continuity and capacity to act, then we’ll be able to avert the dangers and take advantage of the opportunities. If we switch to the Brussels path – that is, if the pro-Brussels forces win and we take the Brussels path – it will increase the dangers and cause a lot of damage to Hungary. The Brussels path is a war economy: in Brussels they’re building a war economy. The other option is to stay on the Hungarian path, and then we can seize the opportunities. Then there won’t only be danger, but also opportunity. And we’re showing this now. In 2026 there will be an 11 per cent increase in the minimum wage. Mothers will be exempt from personal income tax. The 3 per cent home creation loan is booming, and we want to continue that. We’re introducing a fourteenth month’s pension for the elderly. We’ve reduced taxes for small and medium-sized enterprises. At the end of this year, at the end of 2026, the average monthly salary of teachers will exceed 900,000 forints. Imagine that. Meanwhile, there will be 15 per cent wage increases in three or four other areas, including public administration, social services and culture. And previous wage increase programmes are also underway: justice, water management, and so on. So what I want to point out is that there’s a path that Hungary’s following, and now, at the beginning of January 2026, people can see these measures. And by February at the latest, they’ll also feel that our offer is to continue on this path. Let’s not take the Brussels path, let’s not take the path of a war economy, let’s stay on the Hungarian path and the path of a peaceful economy. And our opponents, who want to take us in the direction of Brussels, need to convince people that it’s better to take the Brussels path, the path of war and a war economy. Once we’ve made this decision in April, and I believe we’ll have a secure election result, in 2026 Hungary will be able to take advantage of the opportunities that have now been revealed and opened up by the many decisions that came into force on 1 January.
Among the subjects I’ve been asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about were EU support for Ukraine, the state of the Hungarian economy, and what’s at stake in the election.
