PM Orbán: the Soros network lost the USA, ceasefire in Ukraine on the horizon
Maintaining a “strategic calm” in times of war is of crucial importance, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public radio on Friday.
Christmas ceasefire important
Speaking from Brussels, the prime minister noted his recent proposal of a truce and a large-scale exchange of prisoners of war in the Russia-Ukraine conflict for the time of Orthodox Christmas.
Orbán said he had started the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union with a “peace mission” and “made another round” at the end of it: he visited the president-elect of the United States, had long talks with the Russian president and met the president of Türkiye, too.
Concerning his proposal for a ceasefire, Orbán said once there was no chance for “a great, overall peace agreement and the parties are not willing to agree on a long-standing ceasefire, there should at least be truce at Christmas … even at the time of the first world war the belligerents did agree that nobody should die in the front lines for at least a few days.” He dismissed possible counter arguments, suggesting that a few days would not be sufficient for the warring parties to reorganise their troops. He also added that once a ceasefire could be achieved for Christmas time, it would raise the opportunity of negotiating a longer truce later on.
Putin considers
Orbán said he had convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin to consider his proposal, while “the Ukrainians had more of a gut reaction” but “if they sit down and think it over, they could easily change their mind, which I think would be in their interest.”
Concerning remarks by Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, Orbán said “one must not be provoked … we need to treat that with magnanimity”. He said that Zelensky was “the leader of a country in trouble, with foreign troops on its territory.” Ukraine has lost many millions of people because they left the country, hundreds of thousands have died … the country is full of injured people, widows, orphaned children, its energy infrastructure is in ruins and it is not clear how the country will make a living in future,” Orbán said. “The leader of such a country may make furious remarks,” Orbán said.
While the situation on the front lines of the war “changes by the day to the benefit of Russia and to the detriment of Ukraine … changes are happening in Washington, the headquarters of Western civilisation,” Orbán said. He added that those changes “will be good” for the West. “We’ll have a more normal life than before,” he said.
People fed up with war, sanctions, inflation
“Those two new developments should make us Hungarians cautious; if such great changes are about to happen, it is not worth insisting that irrespective of the changes we’ll keep doing what we have been doing,” he said, adding, however, that “apart from us there is hardly anybody else in Brussels that would think so.”
European leaders “feel that the war must be brought to an end” and the need to create a lasting, predictable security system that would make it possible for economic growth to resume in Europe. Orbán said the people were “fed up with the wartime situation, inflation and sanctions”.
Despite this, he added, “this past week the opposite of all of this has happened in the European Parliament and the European Commission”. He said the EP’s biggest parties had formed a pact and “put it in writing that they will continue doing what they’ve been doing: supporting migration, gender and the war”.
“So it doesn’t bother them that the world outside the Brussels bubble is changing, they want to keep moving ahead,” he said, adding that this indicated that the biggest problems today were in Brussels.
Lots of American money invested in Ukraine
Meanwhile, Orbán said he had been informed during his talks in the US that Europe and America had so far spent a combined 310 billion euros on the war in Ukraine. “This is a huge amount which would have been sufficient to do wonders” such as closing the gap between the Western Balkans and Europe or facilitating such development in the Sahel region that could help prevent illegal migration. “Those funds could have been spent on investment projects supporting Europe’s security, weapons factories or on the European economy,” Orbán said.
Concerning plans to give Ukraine fast-track EU accession, Orbán said “all countries with a strong agriculture have given an instant, negative reaction”. If Ukraine joins the EU “without resolving the situation of people making a living from agriculture”, farmers could go bankrupt and Hungary would be in a difficult position “to save its agriculture”, he said, and warned against a “hasty, ill-advised and too fast” procedure. He also added that the parties in the Patriots for Europe group included representatives of countries with a strong farming sector such as France, Italy, Austria, Poland, and Hungary.
Orbán: the Soros “network” lost the USA
Orbán also said there were global networks that had serious influence on public life, politics and the economy in several countries. One of these, he said, was the “Soros network”, which had “lost the US as one of its two headquarters”.
“The liberal philosophy and world view, a mighty network and global power embodied by the Soros empire, is being pushed out of America, it only has Brussels on its hands … but it has a grip on Brussels and it will pull back here.”
He said the “key to the future” was the European parliamentary opposition Patriots’ gaining a majority in the foreseeable future, adding that “the question is if we can retake Brussels from George Soros”.
Von der Leyen is not a fan of the Hungarian government
Asked if Europe had become stronger or weaker during the Hungarian presidency, the prime minister said: “It’s still here.”
He said the Hungarian presidency had solved some problems that had gone unsolved for “years or even decades”, which had earned the presidency broad recognition.
Orbán said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — whom he said he would “not describe as a Hungary fan” — and several European leaders “who aren’t sympathetic to Hungary” had all acknowledged the work Hungary had put into the presidency.
Among the accomplishments of the Hungarian presidency, the prime minister noted the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the bloc’s passport-free Schengen area after a 13-year wait. “We have a shared destiny with the Romanians and the Bulgarians, though our relationship with the Romanians is colourful and contradictory, Hungary’s goal is not to hinder others, but to make sure we help each other,” the prime minister said.
Orbán also welcomed the progress made when it comes to the Western Balkan countries, highlighting the progress in the case of Serbia.
European politics, he said, had come closer to the real problems thanks to the Hungarian presidency.
The presidency may have restored some faith in the importance of performance and work, Orbán said.
The Hungarian presidency’s successes
“If we want European people to have a better life or to be able to protect the standard of living they have already achieved, then competitiveness must be improved,” he said, adding that the 27 EU member states have been able to reach an agreement on the most important issues on the path towards this.
“This means that we have a working plan, an action plan to restore competitiveness, which, as a result of our work, has been accepted by everyone,” Orbán said. “This is a common base from which we can begin to restore competitiveness,” he added.
Orbán said that these days work was “talking and communication”, and less attention was given to performance and what was actually happening.
He said Brussels had “lost touch with the reality we’re living in”. “It’s very hard to have an effect on reality with the language, legal system and political forms they use here,” he added.
Meanwhile, the prime minister said “a lot of work” had gone into drafting the 2025 budget, noting that the central bank will also have a new governor from March.
Government change
He hailed the work of György Matolcsy, the outgoing governor, noting his efforts to help hundreds of thousands of troubled forex debtors and his introduction of new elements in Hungarian economic policy.
He said that with Mihály Varga, the incumbent finance minister, replacing Matolcsy, the finance ministry will be merged into the national economy ministry, creating a new economic ministry headed by Márton Nagy.
“What’s most important is to get off to a flying start,” Orbán said, adding that the government’s aim was to be able to use the budget to enact measures as early as January that will allow families, employers, employees and SMEs to feel that “the war is over and we’re at the start of a time of peace”.
Orbán said families will be able to feel the impact of most of the measures as early as the beginning of January.
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