Orban: US uses corruption as “cover story”

Budapest (MTI) – The United States seeks influence in Central Europe and uses corruption as a “cover story”, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an interview to public television M1 late on Tuesday.

Orban told M1’s “Az Este” programme that 2014 had become a busy year because of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and the issue of “national independence” also had to be addressed.

“One would have thought things would calm down after three elections (…) but we are not responsible for living the times that we do,” he said. Orban said “the cards were being redealt worldwide”, and Hungary also felt the general tension prevalent in Europe.

The corruption charges formulated by the United States are but a “cover story” and in fact the US has newfound interests in this region, it wants to gain influence and this is why it needs corruption as a cover, he said. When the Hungarian government demands evidence from the United States it is “somehow never provided”. This is a typical side effect of a secret service manouvre for influence, he said.

This is a new era, the US is not only exerting influence, it has taken an active part in the domestic political affairs of Central European countries, Orban insisted. The main reason for this is the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the talks about the free trade agreement between the EU and the US, he said. There are two areas where US interests are especially overt: energy and trade policy, he added.

“They want to draw us into a conflict which can only have a bad outcome for us,” he said. Hungary does not wish to take part in the cold war atmosphere present in US-Russia relations, he added.

Hungary’s foreign policy is more like the German one; it stipulates that the Russia-Ukraine conflict cannot be resolved against the Russians, only with them, Orban said. This is different from the US position, he added.

“The Americans wanted to build a nuclear plant in Hungary, now they are not the ones building it and this hurts,” he said.