PM Orbán: Hungary’s aims in the American-Chinese conflict in line with the Americans’

As a friend of the new president of the United States, Hungary has a huge and unprecedented economic opportunity, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a weekly interview with public radio on Friday.

13th month pension in Hungary remains

The prime minister said there was a direct link between major changes in the world and the finances of Hungarian families as well as the economic outlook for the next few years.

“Things inconcievable a few months ago will become possible next year,” Orbán said. Referring to the government’s Demján Sándor Programme, he said it was “unprecedented assistance” to small companies, and it was directly linked to opportunities in global politics. International developments have also created opportunities for cheaper housing and will allow for increasing the purchasing power of wages and a continued 13th month pension programme, he said. “All those will be possible because … we understood global political developments correctly and made preparations accordingly,” he added.

Photo: MTI

Orbán: “war our greatest problem”

Orbán said the war in Ukraine was “our greatest problem” and insisted that without the war “inflation would not have run so high” and energy prices “would not be where they are”, adding that without the EU sanctions against Russia the European economies would be in a much better state.

Had the Democrats won the US elections, Hungary should have needed to prepare a “war budget” next year and would have spent “not only two percent of GDP but three or four … on military purposes”. The Hungarian government, however, “had known that if Donald Trump wins they could prepare a peace budget,” Orbán said. That is why, he said, the government had requested from parliament to wait with tabling the draft budget for the US election to take place, “to see if 2025 would be a peace or a war year, and submit a budget draft accordingly”.

Talking about economic neutraliy and “a new economic policy adapting to these changes,” Orbán said that Hungary’s 21-point action plan would bring positive changes to people’s everyday lives.

EU summit in Budapest today. Photo: MTI

Hungary’s aims in line with the Americans

Orbán acknowledged debate over the “American-Chinese matter”, but said Hungary’s aims were really in line with the Americans’.

Donald Trump and the Americans want to do good business with the Chinese, and we don’t want to do any differently, just reach good agreements, he added.

“Everybody wants that, so it isn’t necessary to take one or the other disputing side. Why not take our own side?” Orban asked. “We have our own Hungarian interests, the Hungarian people are important for us, and we have to do what is right for those interests,” he said, adding that was how Hungary needed to politicise in both the West and the East.

Orbán insisted that great achievements and devopment, and “high quality life based on our own performance” required a commitment to a Hungarian identity and Hungarian interests “to guide us through the political universe”. While “some say we are too small”, Orbán said “we are not small, this is a great nation”, adding that he had seen successful countries of a similar size to Hungary that “cleverly made friends in the world and then turned it into economic gains”.

Trump’s victory is “such a great win that it is visible not only from the Moon but from Mars,” Orbán said. He went on to say that if Trump had won the election in 2020 “these nightmares two years would not have happened; there would have been no war because America would have had a strong leader to make the necessary deals in time.” “That did not happen and we have been paying a terrible price for the past two years; Europeans, with one or two exceptions such as Slovakia or the Vatican, have supported that bad thing,” he said.

Trump seeking peace

Orbán said that Donald Trump, the next US president was “obviously seeking peace rather than war, anti-migration policies rather than migration and family protection rather than gender.” Trump’s policies will “make a change in the world and us Europeans will have to react,” he added.

Concerning the war in Ukraine, Orbán said “military defeat” was “obvious”, and said the US “will get out of this war rather than encourage it”.

“They say a lot of things about Donald Trump, but nobody questions that he doesn’t start wars. He hates war, he’s a real businessman,” Orbán said.

“Europe alone will not be able to finance this war … there are some that would want to do so, but there is an increasing number of those that used to be loud and now silent, and those that cautiously call for adapting to the new situation,” Orbán said.

“And here we are that say that the moment has come to quickly switch from war to peace,” he said, noting that the war had caused huge damage “to the world, Europe, and Hungary.”

The switch from war to peace is under way, Orbán said. “That’s what made the meeting [of the European Political Community] in Budapest so exciting, it has been the largest diplomatic event of Hungary’s history,” Orbán said, and thanked Budapest citizens for “putting up with it”.

“Peace needs strength”, says Orbán

Put to him that one of the warring parties in Ukraine was saying that “peace needs strength, and strength is needed to get to peace”, Orbán said: “That’s a good idea if you’re strong but not so good if the other side is stronger.” He praised Ukraine for the heroic fight they put up in the past two years. “Whether their leaders have steered them in the right direction is for Ukrainians to decide.”

“Europe’s greatest problem is that those that should be consulted are being ignored,” Orbán said.

“If you don’t go to Moscow, Kyiv or Beijing, if you critise and despise Donald Trump rather than treat him as the incoming US president, how are you going to make plans for the future?” Orbán asked.

Referring to his own visits to Kyiv and Moscow, and talks with the presidents of China and Turkiye as well as with US President Biden and Trump, then presidential candidate, Orbán said he had written a subsequent report to his European peers. “Now the situation is exactly what we could foresee … no leader should say they are surprised or expected otherwise, as a result of the Hungarian peace mission all this could be foretold,” he said, adding “not because we can see the future or we are good at guessing the numbers on the lottery: it is because if you communicate you will understand what could come next.”

The next period will be about making swift, important decisions “with a high risk of errors”, and the EPC had come together to support each other in “everyone making their own good decisions,” he said.

He said they looked forward to a meeting with Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank and former prime minister of Italy, about his analysis of the European economy.

European companies pay too much for gas, electricity

The root of the problem is that European companies are currently paying four times the US price for gas and three time the price for electricity, he said.

Orbán said such a competitiveness disadvantage could not be offset by any other measure.

New energy regulations are needed “that don’t ruin European companies and families,” Orbán said. Hungarian families are paying the least for gas and electricity in Europe, “and that is a competitive edge for Hungary that is hard to appreciate until one enters the international arena,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hungary is facing a challenge in finding a market for Hungarian products, he said.

Regarding illegal migration, Orbán said Brussels was the “centre of judicial activism supporting illegal migration”, so change must be achieved there.

Should migration be in the hands of national courts, “it would be easy”, Orbán said. “The trouble is that Brussels interferes in the procedure … that’s the head of the snake.”

He pointed to Italy as an example, “where the government issued excellent laws to curb migration, but the Italian judiciary sent them to Brussels citing concerns that they were incompatible with European law.” Predictably, Brussels then “rejected the excellent regulations made by Italy’s government,” Orbán said.

“They are doing the same to us, but we have rebelled,” he added.

National Consultation

Speaking about the latest National Consultation survey, Orbán said the government’s weight in Brussels was depending on its backing in Hungary. “I can rebel in Brussels because the Hungarian government has the backing of the majority of sensible people who don’t want migration but who stand for a family-friendly government, peace, sensible energy prices and the 13th month pension.”

“It is best if people know in Hungary that, should Brussels’s policy be put through in Hungary, all families would be worse off, and the government needs people to clearly express their support in order to protect itself and families.”

“We need stable positions, and the people can give us that,” he said, calling on people to fill out the consultation.

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