PM Orbán announces unique tax exemptions, possible food price caps and Pride ban in State of the Nation speech – PHOTOS

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called for making 2025 “a breakthrough year”, in a speech assessing the nation over the past year on Saturday. Orbán called 2024 a “manly year”, saying that “yesterday we were heretics, but today half the world is knocking on our door.” He also announced unique tax exemptions, possible food price caps and Pride ban in his annual State of the Nation speech.

Péter Magyar’s betrayal

He said that despite the “thunders” that preceded last year’s European Parliament elections, they had remained calm because they knew that “what matters is time, and the one thing that’s constant in politics is change”.

“We lost our president and our top MEP candidate, and the war was also looking increasingly worse,” Orbán said. “But we also faced betrayal. It turned out that the road from the front row of this event to Mr. Weber’s coffers in Brussels isn’t that long,” he said, referring to Péter Magyar, the leader of the opposition Tisza Party.

“One who betrays his friends also betrays his party,” he said. “This kind of person will betray everyone right away. Why wouldn’t he betray his country?”

The prime minister said 2024 had been a “nightmare”. He noted that the former US ambassador to Hungary had “assumed leadership of the opposition”, and Hungary had endured “shots from both Washington and Brussels” while “the agents of George Soros in Hungary were setting fire to haystacks and poisoning wells”.

But, he added, Fidesz’s strength was in the loyalty of its community. “Those who don’t understand or feel the beauty of this are free to leave. In the end everyone will get what they deserve,” he said.

Orbán said that in politics there was no victory without suffering. “Pain is our friend, and then victory will compensate us for everything, it’s the best medicine,” he said. “We only have to wait 14 months for the next one,” he said, referring to the 2026 general election.

Orbán said that last year Fidesz had gone from the resignation of the president in February to the second biggest margin of victory in the European Parliament elections in June.

PM Orbán: we were pioneers

“The word patriot rings louder than ever in Brussels today, even though it takes death-defying courage to talk about patriotism there,” he said.

Assessing the period between 2010 and 2025, Orbán said “a handful of Hungarians have been fighting an empire on their own” for the last 15 years.

Orbán said Hungarians had played their part in changing the world, far beyond what is warranted by the country’s size, economic weight or population

“We were the pioneers, vanguard and initiators of the uprising,” he said.

“It was at times brutally difficult and sometimes seemed hopeless … I am not talking about Fidesz or the government but Hungarians. The Hungarian nation was there behind us, one and all, all the way through,” he said.

He praised Hungarians’ “perseverance and determination”. “They didn’t give up, they didn’t back down, they never said we should give in to Soros … or surrender to Brussels,” he said.

He thanked “all revolutionary Hungarians protecting their country against the empire with their diligence, work and obstinacy.

“I am grateful to serve such a nation,” Orbán said.

“We have given the country a new Christian national constitution, protected ourselves from migration, protected our children from gender activists, stood up for peace and stayed out of the war,” Orbán said. “We have protected Hungary from Soros and his affiliates, protected forex debtors from banks and families from skyrocketing utility prices,” he said, adding that the number of jobholders in Hungary was at a record 4.7 million.

“This year the struggle continues,” he said. “We’ve been rebelling up until now, but now we also want to win.”

The USA also revolted

“This year will be different: now we’re the ones on the main street of history, and our opponents are wandering the muddy suburban backroads,” he said.

Commenting on this week’s meeting of European leaders in Paris, Orbán said the EU was “outraged that the [peace] talks began without them and they want a seat at the table”.

Orbán said that after Hungary, the United States had also “revolted”. He warned, at the same time, that Hungarians should not think that the US’s “successful revolt” would secure “victory” for Hungary.

“They can’t win for us, they can only improve our chances,” he said, adding that US President Donald Trump was “not our saviour but our brother-in-arms”

“From Hungary’s perspective, all that has happened was that in the battle of David and Goliath, David’s brother has arrived and he seems like a pretty tough guy,” Orbán said

“We’ve been given a chance to break out from a castle that’s under siege … and break through the empire’s positions,” he said.

“Now is the time to think big and bold. So I propose that 2025 be a breakthrough year.”

The prime minister warned, at the same time, that they “shouldn’t fall in love with last year’s success”. “Though our opponents have been dealt a serious blow … it would be a mistake to underestimate them.”

“We can only achieve a breakthrough with disciplined and planned military manoeuvres, even under these circumstances,” he added.

Orbán said that “the empire has two heads: one in Washington and one in Brussels, and a Soros-branch here in Budapest.”

“The US has unveiled and made public a deeply corrupt, oppressive power machinery that syphoned billions from the US budget into sham NGOs and journalists, judges, prosecutors, politicians, foundations and bureaucrats they had bought,” Orbán said. “An enormous machinery that operated a liberal dictatorship of opinion and political oppression in the entire Western world, including Hungary.”

Government commissioner will be sent to the USA

Orbán insisted they had created a “robust financial and power machinery to break down the freedom and independence of nations and maintain the empire.”

The government will send a government commissioner to the US to gather all data and evidence concerning Hungary, Orbán said. Then they will “create the legal and constitutional background so we don’t have to watch idly as sham NGOs serve foreign interests before our eyes and organise political action.”

He urged legislation similar to the US’s Magnitsky Act to “turn off the money taps of the Soros network and so state organisations could fulfil their obligation to protect sovereignty, and to enforce the law against previous offenders.”

“The Budapest branch may be dealt with by Easter,” he said.

At the same time, “there is an important and increasingly multifaceted fight to be fought” against Brussels, he said.

He said liberal networks were “retreating” to Brussels from the US, and the same was expected from other “patriotic countries”.

Hungary was “fighting five major battles against Brussels bureaucrats”, and “there are things Hungary can’t budge on”, he said.

Hungary will not suffer the migration pact “which Brussels would use to direct migrants here”. “We will not stop protecting our children”, he said, proposing to enshrine in the constitution that a person is either a man or a woman.

Possible Pride ban

He said the organisers of the Pride March “should now bother with the organising, it’s a waste of money and time, no matter what kommandant Weber and his Hungarian agents say”.

Orbán vowed to preserve the 13th month pension and utility price caps, saying that Brussels was calling for scrapping the 13th month pension and calling the Hungarian pension system “unsustainable”. “The Hungarian pension system is sustainable if everyone works and we keep wages growing,” he said. The government is aiming for just that, and an average wage of 1 million forints, he added.

The EU was similarly demanding that the government scrap the utility price caps “even though it is a chance for survival for millions of families”. A 250,000 forint annual utility cost would amount to multiple times that sum in other countries, he said

Regarding Ukraine, Orbán said the war “was not about Ukraine but about an attempt to turn a buffer zone called Ukraine between NATO and Russia into a NATO member.”