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Mr Orbán acknowledged that those who said that there had been an intervention in market processes were right. It would have been good if the government had not been forced to take such a measure, but they came to the conclusion that the present price rises had nothing to do with market processes. Compared with the prices for which supermarket chains procure products, they added an extra 45, 50 or as much as 129 per cent on top, he indicated.
He said it is now hitting back that during the years after the fall of communism, the Hungarian economy was not strong enough to keep supermarket chains in Hungarian hands. These are now in foreign hands, and they only care about their profits. Therefore, they had to intervene, they could not idly watch the people being robbed by supermarket chains, they had to curb price increases.
“We tried negotiating first, but that did not lead to the desired result, and so we were compelled to intervene,” the Prime Minister recalled. In his view, the essence of the intervention lies in that traders are allowed to apply a maximum 10 per cent margin to the procurement price. This has resulted in an immediate price fall in 30 basic food product categories, representing some 760 products in total.
If this were not enough for knocking inflation down, “we have other means up our sleeve,” he observed, adding that the government has a number of means to intervene in market processes. That the government does not intervene every day means that we have a pro-business and pro-market government in Hungary which would like the economy to function according to its own logic. If the market tips out of balance for some reason, it must be tipped back, Mr Orbán explained.
However, he said he sincerely hopes that, sooner or later, foreign supermarket chains will realise that they cannot win a battle against a government, they can only lose. “We should come to an agreement, they should understand that there is an acceptable margin, no one disputes that. Not a single Hungarian disputes that there must be some margin and some profit on their side, but 10 per cent should be enough,” he suggested.
The Prime Minister said some of those who argue for VAT reduction are young or inexperienced. The government has reduced the VAT on a number of basic foodstuffs to five per cent, he recalled, adding that at the beginning of the process, the reduction of VAT resulted in a one-third reduction in prices, while the other two thirds were “swallowed” by traders, and within a year, the remaining one third as well. “So, we reduced VAT, and after the passage of a few months, prices were back where they were before,” he pointed out.
He said in politics there are young people who are not familiar with this, and there are old hands, mostly “lefties” who know precisely that this is how it works, but they have always sided with the multinationals. A VAT reduction means that the money goes to the multinationals, Mr Orbán stated.
Regarding the amendment of the assembly legislation with a view to child protection, he said in normal situations, the former regulation of the assembly law and the protection of children are compatible. They are not when sexuality – regardless of whether between same-sex people or people of different sexes – is taken out to the street, or if all sorts of gender activists want to go into our schools, and instead of parents, they want to tell children what they should know about this highly complex aspect of life and when.
Mr Orbán highlighted that today they were under constant provocation, “normal people of our kind,” because people who follow sexual patterns that are different from the traditional ones – which they otherwise have a right to, no one interferes with that – take this out to the street and have no regard for the fact that in this country there live a few million children.
We would like them to realise that freedom and child protection can exist side by side, the Prime Minister pointed out, adding that “there is room for freedom, and there is a way for the education of children as well,” but children come first. The debate now under way in Parliament is about whether children should come first, Mr Orbán said.
He stressed that the government took the view that the right of children to a healthy education was a fundamental right, and upon the exercise of all other fundamental rights, this had to be taken into consideration. The government is currently working on formulating a legal scenario which allows the authorities to take a stance on whether “such Pride-like events” can be held out in the open street with reference to the freedom of assembly or not, or whether the right of our children comes first, and so there is no place for this out in the open street, he added.
The Prime Minister pointed out that in the present legal situation, the authorities were in a difficult position because it was unclear what took precedence, “freedom or libertarian ideas,” or the right of parents to raising their children. Do Pride marchers or children take precedence? The Hungarian government believes that children come first, and everyone must adhere to this. In this regard, a clear legal situation must be created, he underlined.
With reference to Pride, Mr Orbán said as a father, as a Hungarian citizen, as an individual concerned for the future of the country and feeling responsible for the spiritual and mental state of young generations, he has always been concerned about the fact that events like this have been allowed to take place. “At that, I have been prime minister, and yet, these events have been allowed to happen,” he added.
He observed that behind this sexual re-education attempt, the attempt to re-educate society as a whole, which may also be called an international gender network, there had been enormous pressure on the government, all at once from Washington and Brussels.
Hungary was not in the state to stand up to this “hurricane-strength wind;” however, the world has changed now. “Different winds are blowing in Washington,” and while we will naturally have continued conflicts with Brussels, the Hungarian government must be able to endure this “single-front war,” the Prime Minister said regarding the exertion of international pressure.
He said in the interest of our children, we must try to win this battle, and today, there is a better chance than ever before. The change in the United States has opened up the government’s scope for manoeuvre, and so they can try to enforce the simple human law that children come first, and “all other freedom and libertarian ideas only second,” he explained.
Mr Orbán said since 2010, the government – and this is also his personal mission – has been working to transform the Hungarian economic system into a family-centred system. This is why they introduced the tax benefit available in relation to children and are now introducing lifetime tax exemption for mothers with two children.
The current hunt-like action taken against drugs, too, is driven by the mentality that seeks to support families, he added. The dozens of measures adopted by the government “relate a single story to us,” namely that Hungary needs an economic system which regards the family as the starting point and base unit, and arranges the economy around the logic of the family, the Prime Minister stated.
Regarding Brussels criticisms levelled against the amendment of the assembly legislation, he said “Brussels has no business in this regard.” In recent years, Brussels has become used to drawing national powers away from the Member States which is wrong, and we are fighting against this. It is perfectly evident that the issue of the regulation of family life is solely and exclusively Member State competence. “Brussels has no business here,” he pointed out.
In the context of the smoke bomb incident staged by Members of Parliament for the party Momentum disturbing the debate in Parliament, the Prime Minister said electors will express their opinion on these actions extending all the way to resorting to violence in the general elections due to be held in the spring of 2026.
Regarding the fact that on Thursday in Brussels, he again vetoed the joint EU declaration on the issue of Ukraine, Mr Orbán said we should not feel frightened that there are moments when Hungary stands for a position other than that of the other 26 Member States because the moment will come when the Hungarian position becomes the majority one.
The Prime Minister recalled that earlier Hungary had been the only country which had said no to migration, had built a fence and had taken on the dispute. At a meeting on Thursday, 8 or 9 prime ministers rebelling against the asylum regulation said verbatim what Hungary said and did ten years ago. He said “we shouldn’t be frightened of being alone because it sometimes happens that it turns out that we are right.”
The same thing is now happening regarding the war. “I can already see it in their eyes that everyone can see: this war has been lost. So, it was a bad decision to jump into it in the first place,” he said, observing that Hungarian families have lost HUF 2.5 million per household on this war, while richer countries may have lost even more.
He said we are not in a majority yet, by far, as on Thursday, too, the majority of states decided in favour of the continuation of the war, and sending even more money and even more weapons to Ukraine, but this is not the same rock solid or steely joint will and determination that we saw before. Here, too, the moment will come, the same as with migration, when the Hungarian position becomes the joint European position, he stated.
He said at this point in time, everyone other than us speaks about the desirability of Ukraine’s accession, but the numbers are beginning to influence thinking. Ukraine’s accession is an enormous financial burden for the EU, and there is no money for this. Their answer to this is that we should take on even more debt and should admit Ukraine from that.
Hungary would do well not to engage in collective borrowing with anyone, he pointed out, observing that even the repayment of the loans taken out earlier is causing problems, and so at times like this, the solution is not to borrow more.
Mr Orbán said when they did the sums regarding Ukraine’s accession and calculated the costs necessary for the maintenance of the Ukrainian army, it turned out that the repayment of the enormous loan we took out during Covid, too, was already knocking at the door. This will be due in 2027-2028, we will have to pay interest, and we will have to repay the principal, too. Calculations show that this will absorb 20 per cent of the EU’s total budget, he indicated. If you are encumbered with such a burden, you should realise that taking on even more debt is not the right option, he stressed, adding that sooner or later, from a financial point of view – if from no other point of view – the moment of sobering up will eventually come, and everyone will realise that at this point in time, admitting Ukraine would amount to an economic collapse for the European Union.
He highlighted that the debate about whether Ukraine should be allowed to join the EU would take place in every country. This is taking place in Hungary now, and politics is divided on this issue. It is clear for the parties of the national side, the Christian Democrats and Fidesz, that Ukraine’s accession would destroy Hungary and the entire European economy, and is as such undesirable. On the other side, however, there are pro-Ukraine positions, adopted by both the old and the new opposition, he laid down.
The Prime Minister said this is not surprising because this debate follows the very same pattern in Brussels, too. The Patriots – which the Christian Democrats and Fidesz belong to – clearly say that we should hold our horses. The socialists, of which DK is a member, and the European People’s Party, of which Tisza is a member, are, however, the most violent, most radical pro-Ukraine forces in Brussels. A Hungarian party that belongs to the European People’s Party such as Tisza or a Hungarian party that belongs to the socialists such as DK has no choice but to stand for the position which is taken by the allies of their respective party group in Brussels, he argued.
Mr Orbán said we must fight this battle in Hungary, too, with the national forces on one side, while on the other there are Tisza and DK, the People’s Party and the European socialists who argue for Ukraine’s swift EU membership.
Once we are past this debate, once we have a position determined by the people, the government of Hungary will be able to „firmly gain a foothold” in Brussels, he said. The Prime Minister indicated that the others will not be able to avoid this debate either; it is only a question of time before the people in each Member State start demanding that their voice be heard and they be consulted. Today, the people are not consulted about such issues anywhere outside Hungary, he observed, adding that this is not surprising because nowhere in the whole of Europe were the people consulted whether about the issue of migration, or the issue of gender.
He also said people will be able to cast their votes in the opinion vote already in April, and the vote procedure will be concluded in June, meaning that by the middle of the year there will be a common Hungarian national position. He recommended that everyone should consider all the risks of many types. There is an evident financial risk; there is an agricultural risk, our farmers would be ruined; there is a labour market risk because tens of millions of people would flow into the European Union who have no jobs at home; there is a security risk as Ukraine is not exactly renowned for its public security, from there, all sorts of risks could spill over onto the territory of the EU; there are food security risks because their cultivation culture is utterly different from ours; and there is also a pension risk, he listed.
In the debate ahead, it is well worth going through every point in a calm and composed manner, and assessing soberly the consequences Ukraine’s EU accession would have for Hungary. He pointed out that already from a bird’s-eye view, it was evident that the balance could only be negative. We have enough problems as it is, there is no reason why we should take these on as well.
Regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war, the Prime Minister warned that Brussels was missing the beat when they thought that there would be a big negotiating table and the parties concerned would sit down around it. This is not what the Americans do; they agree with each of the parties separately. We Europeans will suddenly find ourselves in a situation that there is a US-Ukraine agreement, there is a US-Russia agreement, and there is also a Russia-Ukraine agreement of their creation, without us, he observed, adding that Brussels is now realising that this could happen, that Europe messed things up.
“Nothing that we didn’t foresee has happened as during the Hungarian presidency, in July, I described the very situation we now find ourselves in. I sent this document to all the prime ministers, to all European institutions, I spoke to the Ukrainian chief, the Russian chief, the American, the Chinese and the Turkish chiefs as well. In July, I described the very situation we Europeans would find ourselves in; that unless we changed our pro-war position, and started outlining and standing for an independent European stance, we would find ourselves exactly in the position that we are in now: the future of Europe is being settled without us,” Mr Orbán recalled.
