Vilmos Velkovics: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is our guest on HírTV. Thank you very much for speaking to us.
Hello.
We’re reporting from the flight to Washington, where you’ll be meeting President Trump, and hopefully reaching an agreement. Both in terms of quantity and quality, what is indicated about the importance of this event by the fact that two-thirds of the members of the Government are on this plane, along with the heads of research institutes, the heads of large energy companies, and journalists?
It means that it won’t be a negotiation between President Donald Trump and me, but between America and Hungary. I always work as part of a team. So the Prime Minister’s Office and the Government aren’t a one-man show. If you don’t have a good team, you’re lost. For a government machine to function well, you need highly reliable, high-quality professionals. This is why, whenever I can, I involve my colleagues in negotiations that may affect their work. I never go alone. But there’s more to it than that. Over the past ten months we’ve undone all the destructive things that Biden and his team did – meaning that we’ve lifted all of the political and economic sanctions that the Democratic administration imposed on Hungary. We discussed this over the phone and agreed to bury them. This has now happened. The reason so many of us are going now isn’t simply because this will be the sixth meeting between the Prime Minister of Hungary and the President of the United States, but because we want to establish strategic cooperation, we want to open a new chapter, and we want to launch a new era in this relationship by engaging with Hungarian and American society on as broad a basis as possible. Of course, the highlight of this is the meeting between the Prime Minister and the President, but in the meantime all the ministers will have their own meetings. Hungarian companies with economic interests in America will all have separate meetings, people from the scientific community will all have meetings, and people involved in the think tank world will all have meetings. So this is essentially an American–Hungarian day, a whole day when we’ll discuss American–Hungarian relations in all their aspects.
If I understand correctly, there are two major issues on the table between you – or that will be on the table. One is the question of peace and war in the Ukrainian–Russian conflict; and the other is economic and energy questions, where there are problems to be solved and opportunities to be seized. What’s the order of importance in your mind?
Peace. Peace is the most important thing. So what would help Hungary the most today is if the war ended tomorrow morning and a ceasefire or peace was established. Today the war is blocking the entire European economy, including the Hungarian economy. Normally the Hungarian economy should be growing at a rate of between 3 and 5 per cent – it has that much potential, that much strength. There are quite a few other countries in Europe that have that much potential, but it’s not being realised because when there are sanctions, when there’s uncertainty, when there’s a wait-and-see attitude, when energy prices are high, then the results of economic activity are much more modest. Therefore, if the war were to end suddenly and we found ourselves in a predictable environment, it would immediately give a boost to the Hungarian economy. I’m sweating blood so that I don’t have to give up the goals – the original goals – which I asked people’s trust for when they elected me. I won’t give them up, even though all macroeconomic rationality would suggest that we give them up, postpone them, and do them later. But, you see, I have an agreement with the Hungarian people: preserving the purchasing power of pensions and the fourteenth month’s pension are part of that agreement in my mind. We have an agreement with families that we’ll increase the amount of tax relief for them. We’ve promised mothers that through them we’ll try to stabilise the situation of families in Hungary. We’ve promised young people that Hungary will be the easiest place in Europe to start a family and buy a first home. I’ve taken all of these on. I can’t now say that there’s no growth, that there’s a war, that people will have to wait. Under these circumstances I’m sweating blood to be able to do all of this and keep my promises. I’ve promised researchers that there will be large pay rises if they finally organise the world of research in Hungary into a transparent system. This has happened. Now they’re right to ask, “Where are the pay rises?” I’ve promised workers in the social sector that they’ll also get their turn, and we’ll definitely give them a pay rise of between 10 and 20 per cent. I’ve also promised minimum-wage earners that their wages will exceed inflation. These have been all my commitments in 2022. And if it weren’t for the war, I’d be able to fulfil them with ease – smoothly, elegantly, to everyone’s satisfaction. Today, however, I have to produce microeconomic results in difficult macroeconomic conditions; this is provoking a lot of debate about whether it’s necessary, whether it should be done now, and so on. It’s much more difficult to govern the Hungarian economy in wartime than in peacetime. Therefore, if I could ask for one thing from the goldfish in the tale or the fairy, it would be for a ceasefire tomorrow morning, for there to be peace, and for the economy to return to normal.
What strategy are you taking into the negotiations? You have a good personal relationship, but Trump is still a businessman who likes to win.
Yes, but my job isn’t to achieve something against him: it’s to achieve something together with him. So I won’t have to outmanoeuvre him or try to use him somehow, but I’ll need to make proposals that I’ve prepared, and for which I can say, “These are good for you and good for us, so let’s do it together.” So I’m preparing for negotiations between allies, so to speak, rather than for manoeuvring between rivals.
Is there a red line in your mind that you won’t cross?
There’s nothing but red lines: we’re a national government. Obviously there are no such things for a liberal-globalist government. For me, anything that reduces Hungarian sovereignty must be stopped. So no agreement should be made at the expense of sacrificing, reducing or curtailing Hungarian sovereignty; we must resist, we must stand our ground, and then whatever will be, will be.
How much ammunition can this provide in the battle against Brussels, for example lifting sanctions against Hungary?
A great deal. How has it been so far? So far, during the Biden administration, neither Brussels nor Washington supported Hungary’s efforts, and after a while they actively opposed them. After all, analysing the deepest layers of governance shows that in 2010 we embarked on something that was not accidentally remarkable, but which grabbed the attention of the whole world: we said that liberal zeitgeist or no liberal zeitgeist, left-wing zeitgeist or no left-wing zeitgeist, what was happening would destroy Hungarians economically, politically, in every respect, in their culture, and so on. And that’s why we said that we’d implement modern Christian governance. This is why we drafted the Constitution, this is why we convinced people of how it was the right thing to do, this is why we stopped migrants, this is why we pushed gender activists out of schools, and this is why we’re not going to war – because we’d lose our sovereignty, and that would be incompatible with Christian governance. So we have an experiment that we alone launched in 2010, to the best of my knowledge; because I thought that if we didn’t launch it, the conditions of existence for Hungarians in the coming decades would be radically diminished. So we had to try it. And after we got a two-thirds majority in 2010, there was momentum, and we got started. This happened amid general resistance: Brussels was against it, and Washington was against it. For a while it didn’t matter too much to them. So they’re not always so stubborn there, it was like… “Let them do it!” But then issues emerged in which our resistance suddenly became dangerous for them. Migration was one such issue; because we said that it was possible to take action against the global migration and people-smuggling network organised by Soros and co. – you just had to want to do so. And then there was a government in Hungary that took action and did so successfully. This caused enormous difficulties in Brussels, and also went against what Biden and his colleagues had committed to: that Democratic governance should be pro-migration. And from that point on, both the Brusselites and the American Democrats declared us to be a dangerous opponent. We went through some very difficult times. Now there’s been a radical change, because neither of them was able to pin us down on the wrestling mat; and meanwhile there’s been a turnaround in America, where they’re doing on a large scale what we’re doing on a small scale. This provides us with serious protection, intellectually as well, because from now on it’s difficult to say that only the crazy Hungarians are trying something, since the path that Hungary has chosen for itself is also being followed in the cradle of democracy, where they’re trying economic solutions similar to ours. So you can’t say that they’re encountering some kind of half-Asian, backward way of thinking that’s come from the steppes. No, this is a rival world system that we’re now building with the Americans and a small but increasing number of Central European countries. The Argentinians are also in this network, as are the Israelis, and so on. So from now on the stakes are higher. Of course for us Hungary comes first, Hungary is the most important; but what we’re doing has entered an international context. And it was much more difficult for me to deal with Brussels while the Americans weren’t standing by us in this matter. Now it’s much easier in Brussels, too. I’m not saying it’s easy, because 25 or 26 people come up against me – which isn’t that simple. But when I stand there, I’m no longer standing alone, but rather with a large network of connections that we’ve built up – which, incidentally, not only applies to America, but also extends to China, the Arab countries and the Turkic world. From this we’ve built a large network, a hinterland, an alliance system that rivals the power of Brussels. So with such a hinterland, any attack from Brussels can be repelled.
Will the negotiations be successful? Are you optimistic?
If I don’t mess it up. The chances are good.
Please don’t mess it up.
I’m working on it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
