PM Orbán: Supporting Ukraine means supporting the war and tax hikes

Those who support Ukraine also support the war, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday.

Supporting Ukraine is supporting war

Given that war costs money, those who support Ukraine and with it the war also support tax hikes taking money away from national governments, “since Brussels doesn’t have any money”, Orbán said. Those who want peace will make it happen, he said, adding, however, that of the world powers, only the United States wanted peace.

He said the biggest obstacle to the US president’s peace efforts today were “the group of European countries that call themselves the coalition of the willing”. “They’re willing to send others to war to die, because they’re not going to war yet, only arming themselves,” he added. Orbán said there was a fundamental disagreement between the US and the European Union on how to end the war, “but they won’t admit it because they don’t want a transatlantic conflict”.

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Orbán: Anti-war, pro-peace government key for Hungary

“Europe is heading for war, therefore it is crucial that Hungary should have an anti-war, pro-peace government,” Orbán added. The prime minister said the world powers were coming up with new weapons and “we are clearly at the starting point of an armament race, a spiral”, adding that “everybody is talking about substantially increasing military spending”.

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Orbán compared the current situation to the era preceding the first world war, and warned that “Europe’s leaders cannot see that they are playing with fire”. “A bedazzled Europe is staggering towards a situation which poses an increasingly direct risk of war,” he said.

Firmly for peace

“In this situation we must firmly put our foot down and stay on the side of peace; we must declare in advance that we will stay out of every small decision lest we should find ourselves in the middle of a war in the end,” Orbán said.

“Therefore it is crucial that Hungary should have an anti-war, pro-peace government and that the people understand and express their wish that they would not totter on with other European countries towards a hazardous situation,” Orbán said.

Tisza pensions expert ‘attacking again’

The opposition Tisza Party’s expert on pensions is “striking again, with the aim of eliminating pension premiums, pensioners’ Erzsebet vouchers, and 13th month pensions,” he said.

“This is not surprising,” Orbán said, adding that in the past 35 years the left wing had advocated an economic policy “that strips people of a lot of money so that politicians could spend those funds on building a society believed to be fair.” “Brussels bureaucrats, bankers and heads of multinational companies go hand in hand with them,” he added.

“But we think that the basis for a good economic policy is to leave as much money as possible with the people,” Orbán said, noting the government’s family tax benefits, the PIT exemption of mothers, the flat income tax and “Europe’s lowest corporate tax”. “That is also why the government restored the 13th month pension and seeks to introduce a 14th month pension,” he said.

“The leftist, Tisza and Brussels-leaning economists and experts, of course, see red. And that is just as well. For us it is most important that Hungarians benefit,” Orbán said.

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