PM Orbán: ‘Others making decisions on Hungarians’ blood unacceptable’ – interview

Bringing back military conscription “is the internal affair of all nations”, not a matter to be decided as part of “an imperial army of the European Union in Brussels”, because “others making decisions on Hungarian blood is unacceptable”, Viktor Orbán told public radio in an interview on Friday.

United European Union army?

Whereas the draft was the business of individual nations, the German leader of the European People’s Party (EPP) had raised bringing back conscription “as part of a united European Union army”, the prime minister said, adding that this would entail taking “the fate of our own young people” away from the country’s own powers and depriving Hungary of its sovereignty. “This is unacceptable,” he said.

Bringing back the draft “is not on the agenda in Hungary”, he said, and citing “European plans” he said it was “unacceptable” for others “to decide on the blood of Hungarians”.

Meanwhile, Hungary has introduced defence studies into secondary school curriculum, Orbán said. “We are doing a lot of things that will make Hungary and the whole of society capable of self-defence without conscription,” he said.

The draft was abolished thirty years ago, at a time when “peace has been successfully established in Europe, Russia pushed back from central Europe, and NATO had basically no rival on Earth.” That meant professional servicemen were enough to effectively protect the country, he said.

He praised professional soldiers as the “best of society,” ready to change their way of life to defend the homeland.

Orbán said the values represented by servicemen, such as discipline, self-sacrifice, comradeship, and teamwork, should be present in other groups, too, and reinforced by programmes such as reserves training and military secondary education. “And summer programmes bringing young people closer to the idea bearing arms, to honour and love the homeland”, he added, without reintroducing conscription.

Meanwhile, Orbán warned that every week “brings us closer to war”. Europe “might be bringing Russian forces closer” by financing Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil, he said.

Orbán said that every week brought something “pointing towards a drift into war”. One such event was the start of negotiations on sending French training officers to Ukraine, he said. An even more concerning development, he added, was that an increasing number of players, including NATO’s Secretary-General, had said that besides self-defence, Ukraine had the right to use Western-donated weapons to attack Russia.

Orbán said he expected a “big argument” on the degree to which those weapons could be considered Ukrainian. “Russians have already announced they consider NATO to have a hand in the damage done on Russian soil,” as Ukraine would be unable to inflict it without NATO’s help. “So we have become one step more involved,” he said.

Russia had made clear its troops would advance until it had secured an area broad enough to make it impossible for Ukrainian forces to fire “into Russia’s old territory”, he said.

“We must realise that supporting Ukraine in firing at Russia bears the risk of bringing Russian forces closer to us.”

Orbán said the drifting into the war had occurred in three phases: “talks, preparation and destruction”. “We’ve moved past talks, what we’re analysing now is the matter of preparation, which puts us centimeters from actual destruction,” he said.

Western European nations, he said, were striving to win the war and felt safer because they were geographically far from Russia. Those countries saw Ukraine and central Europe as a buffer zone, he said. “It’s the same as it used to be, right? That’s what they used us for.”

Orbán said the pressure he was withstanding from Europe was growing with every summit. Resistance, he said, depended on whether “we have the country backing us”, and whether Hungary was united in its pro-peace stance, “whether we are brave enough to stand up for peace and to say we are not ready to die for Ukraine.”