In response to the suggestion that few leaders in the world stand for peace for the time being, Mr Orbán said “this is only a misapprehension” because the world is more than the western world. There, few people are on the side of peace; however, “as regards humanity as a whole, the overwhelming majority is on the side of peace.” He mentioned the Arabs and the Far East led by China and India as examples, and then observed that “the stronger half of the western world,” the United States was on the side of peace.
The Prime Minister pointed out that in Central Europe, the pro-peace, anti-war Czechs “are now coming back,” in Slovakia and Hungary, there were anti-war governments in office, while “in Poland, too, the winds are changing, but it takes some more time before we can see things more clearly.”
“I believe that as economic troubles are intensifying in Western Europe, ever more countries are realising that we simply don’t have the money to finance this war,” the Prime Minister said in reference to the war in Ukraine.
Regarding his meeting with Pope Leo XIV, Mr Orbán said “there is a hidden anti-war network in the world” which is comprised of anti-war leaders. This network has “two focal points,” one of them is a political focal point with the US President at its centre, and there is also a spiritual centre “from where politicians opposed to the war are receiving ever more energy, motivation, commitment and blessing time and time again;” this focal point is situated in the Vatican, centred around the Holy Father himself.
The Prime Minister highlighted that when the head of the Catholic Church consulted with either warring party, that was not against peace, but against war.
Regarding the Budapest peace summit, Mr Orbán said the peace summit is an intention that was mutually declared by two parties that wish to negotiate with each other. Meaning that “it may have been delayed, but it’s forthcoming,” but no one knows when as the delegations are engaged in ongoing negotiations. However, it is a fact that it will take place in Budapest. He referred to the latest similar major peace summit where the Middle East peace deal was concluded; also before that summit, the parties concerned were engaged in long negotiations, and told the world that a deal was going to be signed just two days before it happened.
In the context of last week’s EU summit where 26 Member States adopted a unique approach to Ukraine’s future in the European Union, the Prime Minister said there are a number of countries which will never under any circumstances consent to any Member State, including Hungary, being excluded from such a decision.
“And not because they love the Hungarians, but because they don’t want this to happen; no one wants to solve a problem by breaking a country’s resistance by quite simply excluding it from the decision because then anyone can be next,” he added.
On Monday, Mr Orbán also met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In the interview which was recorded before the meeting, he indicated that the topics would surely include the Russo-Ukrainian war and economic issues because the European economy was “in very bad shape,” while they would also cover the issue of migration which especially affected Italy where earlier “left-wing governments messed things up because they let migrants in,” and the incumbent government was now required partly to protect the borders and partly to find a legal solution to getting rid of migrants or to integrating those who were staying into Italian society.
The Prime Minister highlighted that “our problem is how to preserve Hungary as a migrant-free country despite the Brussels pressure.” We should have already built a refugee camp suitable for accommodating up to 30,000 migrants and should take migrants in, but in return for our resistance, “as a reward, we are required to pay Brussels a million euros a day,” he pointed out.
“We’re still better off paying them than letting migrants in and ending up the way the other Western European countries have which cannot find the way out of the crisis situation that has been caused by the arrival of migrants in Western Europe both in the area of public security and in the economy,” Mr Orbán underlined.
