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PM Orbán: China, India, Arab world pro-peace
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public current affairs channel M1 in the Vatican on Monday that he expects that over time, “the anti-war camp’s numbers will grow by the day”.
PM Orbán: China, India, Arab world pro-peace
Put to him that few world leaders were standing up for peace, Orbán said this was merely “an illusion”, arguing that the world was not synonymous with the West, where, he said, few were pro-peace. But taking “all of humanity”, the overwhelming majority were pro-peace, he said, referring to the Arab world, the Far East, led by China and India, as examples, adding that “the stronger half of the Western world, the United States” was also in favour of peace.
The prime minister said that in central Europe, a pro-peace government was coming back into power in Czechia, while the governments in Slovakia and Hungary were already anti-war. He said the “winds are changing in Poland, too, but we need more time to see clearly.” “I believe economic problems are mounting in western Europe, and more and more countries are admitting that we simply don’t have the money to fund this war,” he said, referring to the war in Ukraine.
Concerning his meeting with Pope Leo XIV, Orbán said: “There’s a concealed anti-war network in the world made up of anti-war leaders.” This network, he said, had “two points of concentration”, namely a political one led by the US president, and a spiritual one led by the Vatican and the pope, “from where the anti-war politicians regularly draw energy, motivation, commitment, blessings and encouragement”. He said that when the Holy Father consulted with either of the warring parties, it was done not against peace, but rather against war.
Budapest peace summit: noone knows when
As regards the planned peace summit in Budapest, Orbán said the meeting was an intention that the two negotiating parties had mutually declared. “In other words, what is delayed will eventually come, but no one knows when, since the delegations are constantly negotiating with each other; but it is a fact that it will take place in Budapest,” he said. Orbán noted the peace summit for the Middle East had been preceded by long negotiations before the parties indicated two days before the event that an agreement would be signed.
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As regards last week’s EU summit, where 26 member states adopted a unique approach on Ukraine’s future in the European Union, Orbán said there were several countries that would never approve excluding any member state, such as Hungary, from such a decision. “And not because they like Hungarians, but because they don’t want to suffer the same fate; no one wants to solve a problem or break a country’s resistance by simply excluding it from a decision, because then this will eventually happen to everyone,” he added.
EU economy in bad shape?
Concerning his upcoming talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni later on Monday, Orbán said they will discuss the Russia-Ukraine war and economic matters — “because the European economy is in really bad shape” — as well as migration. He said Italy was heavily impacted by the latter because “the previous left-wing governments made the mistake of letting in migrants”, and the current government had to protect the country’s borders and find legal solutions for expelling them or integrating those who stay into society.
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“Our problem is finding a way to keep Hungary a migrant-free country despite the pressure from Brussels,” the prime minister said, adding that Hungary had been expected to build a refugee camp for 30,000 migrants and take them in, “but as a reward for our resistance we have to pay Brussels one million euros each day,” he said. “We’re still better off paying this than letting migrants in and ending up like other western European countries which can’t find a way out of the crisis that the influx of migrants has caused in western Europe, both in terms of public safety and the economy,” Orbán said.
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