Máté Kulifai: According to reports, when meeting Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has mentioned you personally several times. For example, when he was at the White House with European Union leaders, there were reports that Hungary was mentioned in connection with it blocking Ukraine’s accession to the EU, and allegedly Trump called you from the White House – although that was later denied. But there was also a UN General Assembly at which he publicly said that pressure should be put on Hungary over its purchase of Russian energy. At that point the US president called you – perhaps while you were in your kitchen, as you’ve said. To what extent does this personal pressure affect or complicate your relationship with the US president?
I don’t consider it personal. It’s undoubtedly true that the Ukrainian president uses every possible forum to, let’s say, take pot shots at the Hungarians – and me personally. But I don’t consider this a personal matter. Obviously he has his opinion of me, and I have mine of him, but we don’t need to exchange them. He leads a country called Ukraine, and I’m responsible for the future of a country called Hungary; so I don’t consider anything to be a personal matter – even if personal remarks are made. I proceed solely and exclusively on the basis of Hungary’s national interests, and I regard the Ukrainian president as someone who represents Ukraine’s national interests. There are areas where these interests coincide, and areas where they don’t. Where they don’t coincide, there are areas where we can agree and areas where we can’t agree. That’s how politics works.
I’m specifically asking about that telephone conversation in the kitchen because, as we can see, you’ve already spoken to the US president about Hungary’s energy situation and needs, and about why we have a contract with Russia for crude oil and natural gas. Now, however, we’re traveling to Washington as if we needed to discuss this again with the Americans.
This has to be discussed over and over again.
But why?
Because the formats of sanctions are constantly changing. So sometimes there are sanctions of one kind, sometimes another, and sometimes yet another. Now, for example, what’s happened is that we’ve managed to make the Americans understand and accept that Hungary is landlocked, which is a different situation from having a sea, whereby you can trade freely; this gives rise to our energy and security requirements or legitimate demands. Now the Americans have introduced a sanction that didn’t exist before, which doesn’t generally apply to an energy source, but to specific Russian companies. This is a new type of sanction. So, as sanctions are constantly changing form, we must constantly adapt to this and defend ourselves again and again against the unacceptable consequences of new sanctions. Therefore, as long as there are sanctions regimes, the issue of sanctions will always come up in every negotiation.
Will you present the same line of argument to Trump, and will he understand it in the same way?
With a little more wit, yes. A little more wittily.
In the world of diplomacy, small gestures mean a lot, and people give gifts. Can we expect you to give a gift to Trump?
We always bring something. But this isn’t the East, it’s the West – so in the East that’s very important, and there’s a great culture surrounding it. In this fundamentally Protestant culture, this is less the case. It’s more of a small gesture, gifts and aren’t significant. A Hungarian person would never go anywhere empty-handed.
What will you be giving now? Can it be made public?
There’s a big collection, because Hungarians are like that: when they see that their leader is going to an important meeting, they get ideas about what to send, and then they send it. Well, now Hungarians have sent me all kinds of things to give the American president. So there are plenty of gifts, and there’s also an established order for this. I don’t think that at the sixth meeting – this is our sixth meeting – these little things will be of any significance. This will be a brutally honest meeting. We’ll sit down, we’ve known each other for a thousand years, there’s no need to go through the motions of politeness; we know what the five things on the table are, and we’ll have to get started and go through them.
Details have been leaked to the press, and you yourselves have also made public this package of agreements, which will hopefully now be concluded. There’s one element in it that many of our readers have received with scepticism or concern, namely the storage of so-called nuclear waste. Will nuclear waste from the United States really be stored in Hungary, or how should we imagine this?
Right. Exactly the opposite! Anyone who was worried about this can now calmly let their blood pressure drop back to normal levels: the opposite is happening. In Hungary, when we operate a nuclear power plant, we use up its fuel. But the fuel is hazardous waste because it still contains isotopes. It has to be stored somewhere. So we’re talking about the spent fuel elements from our own nuclear power plant.
What does this have to do with the Americans?
I’ll tell you in a moment. In Hungary, the Constitution prohibits us from accepting the storage of any kind of waste, so that’s out of the question. We have a technology today that allows us to store this waste, so to speak, near Paks. It’s an old, reliable technology. The Americans have a much better and newer one, which they developed themselves; their company, Westinghouse, has technology that’s much better than ours. And now I’m going to ask the American president to let us buy it. So we’ll purchase waste management technology that’s better than ours, safer, and can store the nuclear power plant’s hazardous waste in a smaller space. With this purchase we’ll increase Hungary’s security and safety level, rather than undermine it. So your audience can rest assured that this is an excellent agreement in terms of the safety of the Hungarian people.
In connection with the Budapest summit, Donald Trump set a two-week deadline, which hasn’t been met, and there have been several narratives circulating as to why this wasn’t the case. What do you know about the biggest point of contention between the Americans and the Russians at the moment, which is preventing this from happening?
We know what this one-and-a-half point of contention is; but as we’re not the ones negotiating, but they’re negotiating with each other, I’m not authorised to disclose that information.
So this information isn’t in the public realm. Is there a realistic chance that this point of contention will be resolved?
It could be resolved at any moment.
Allow me another question on domestic politics. Obviously the Government and Fidesz also conduct internal polls on popularity and support, and there are differing opinions and statements about what these internal polls show in terms of the ratio between the opposition – the Tisza Party – and Fidesz. In the summer you mentioned figures showing how the Government was performing. My question is whether you’ve seen any internal surveys showing Tisza in the lead, or whether at any time in the past or now it could have happened that you weren’t given the real data, and this came to light.
That’s not happened. Since 2006 or 2007 I’ve only ever seen one poll in which the Fidesz–KDNP alliance wasn’t in the lead. That was back in 2021, when the left-wing opposition joined forces after a primary election. At that time, the united opposition was slightly ahead of us. Since then, I’ve only seen and been aware of polls showing a reliable, strong, pro-government lead – but one which still demands hard work from us.
You’ve occasionally criticised the mobilisation effort. It was perhaps at an event called the Fight Club that you said there was still work to be done for the government side – or Fidesz–KDNP – to mobilise more effectively. What could be the reason for these significant shortcomings, and what needs to be done to change this?
This is reflected in the polls. As you’ve asked about this, there are experts here who understand this better than I do. Their work shows that at the moment opposition voters are much more willing to vote in the election – significantly more so than pro-government voters. But this is always the case: the opposition is always more passionate or more fired up than the ruling party. This will even out at the end of the campaign. I wouldn’t be happy if pro-government voters were already engaging in politics at the level of intensity that will be required in five months’ time. You can’t drive a car in top gear for five months; you need the knowledge and technique to know how to proceed. We’re doing well relative to where we should be by now. My only concern is whether we’ve done everything needed to secure the required growth in January, February, and March. That’s what I need to keep an eye on. But I’d add as an aside that even though I’m also the president of the ruling party, my primary job is still as the Prime Minister of Hungary; I have to weigh things up carefully, because I only have 24 hours in a day, and I have to decide how much time I can afford to spend on campaign issues, polls and my opponents, and how much of my energy I need to devote to governing the country. And the election is still a long way off. I need to know about the campaign and the preparations for the election, but most of my work is still government work. For example, I have to go to Washington. In December, I have to go to Brussels for negotiations. There will be a peace summit in Hungary, which needs to be finalised. We’ve adopted quite a few economic decisions, family support measures and home creation measures, which haven’t been included in the 2026 budget, and I still have to do that. So my energy, my work and my attention are still more focused on governing than on preparing for the election. The opposition is in a different situation. Being in opposition has advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that they don’t have to govern, they just have to focus on the campaign, while we have to manage our resources well.
Let me ask one last campaign question. I didn’t get to ask it during our last interview, but I wanted to. I belong to the generation that voted for the first time when you and your party won the election in 2010; and Fidesz has been in power for the past fifteen years. If the question arises, how would you convince my generation that we shouldn’t try someone else?
Because “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
Thank you for the interview.
You’re very welcome.
