PM Orbán dreaded losing his veto right in the European Council and the end of Russian energy imports

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called on people to participate in the Vote 2025 referendum in an interview with public radio on Friday, emphasising that “Ukraine’s EU accession would bring dangers directly threatening our everyday lives”.

Ukraine’s EU membership is the most important issue, says Orbán

On the last day of the referendum, Orbán argued that those who so far stayed out of the vote “should now listen to the others”, more than two million people who already had their say on Ukraine’s EU membership. Orbán said this was the most important issue shaping the next few years and Hungary’s future.

He pointed out that most or all of the area-based subsidies would be lost to Hungarian farmers, and many Hungarians could lose their jobs as hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian workers could come to the country.

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If cheap Ukrainian grain was allowed in the EU, Hungarian farmers would be unable to sell their crops, or would be forced to do so at severely depressed prices, he said. Should Ukraine become an EU member, “the Hungarian government will have no means to stop hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian workers from coming to Hungary; there is a huge disparity between Hungarian and Ukrainian wages, and millions live in Ukraine who can’t find a job.”

Ugly debate awaits him in Brussels

Regarding the EU summit next week, Orbán said he anticipated it would be “an ugly affair and a big debate”. “I need two things; one of them is experience, that is in place. It’s a great advantage that Hungary’s government has been the longest in place [in the EU] and that I’m the prime minister,” Orbán said.

He said the other was “strength; the important thing is what Hungarians think. The strength of a people cannot be … circumvented or swept off the table,” he said. “If we have strength and experience, we can have results in Brussels.” He said Ukraine’s accession will be decided now. “The European Union cannot be stopped once it has started” moving in a certain direction, Orbán said . “Once the EU has started on a way, it cannot be stopped. It’s a steamroller…” he said.

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Under huge pressure

Orbán warned against “underestimating” the EU: “Things can be thwarted there if we don’t allow them to start in the first place,” he said. Already running processes “can be amended, maybe, but the steamroller will run its course. Those who think they can stop Ukraine’s EU accession later don’t know European politics, because they have never seen something like this before.”

Orbán said “all countries” had patriotic forces which rejected migration and did not want to yield competencies to Brussels, and which did not want Ukraine to join the EU; on the other hand, all countries had political forces “that support Ukraine’s accession, that suffer, accept and possibly want migration, and are willing to yield competencies to Brussels.” Since the latter are currently in power, countries with patriotic governments such as Hungary are put under pressure, he said.

“We are under huge pressure, this is the natural state of European politics: patriots and national governments on the one side and federalists, Brussels and pro-Ukraine forces on the other.”

Oil price increases

On the conflict between Iran and Israel, Orbán said that if Irán disintegrated as a result of the current war, “a significant region of the world could become ungovernable and uncontrollable.” On the consequences of the conflict, Orbán said the price of Brent oil had increased by one-fifth in a month. The war is pushing prices up, so the war is bad for Hungarians, he said. Similarly, if Hungary could not import gas from Russia, utility prices for households and businesses would also increase, to two and a half times their current level, he said.

What Brussels is doing on the latter issue “is an obvious fraud, scheming, and mockery of the rule of law;” after failing to ban imports of Russian energy resources, they now want to take this measure as a trade policy decision not requiring a unanimous decision, Orbán said.

End of the thousand-year-old Hungarian statehood without veto

Orbán said the removal of this “hard-fought right” would mean “the end of the thousand-year-old Hungarian statehood as we know it,” since Hungary’s foreign and economic policy would not be decided in Budapest, but by bureaucrats in Brussels.

Regarding a ban on Russian energy resources, Orbán said: “Brussels wants something that is contrary to Hungarians’ interests. Why would be accept that? Let’s fight for our interests!”

Orbán mentioned defending government measures freezing interest rates for retail borrowers and mandating caps on markups for a range of food and non-food products as two of the Hungarian government’s important battles to be fought with Brussels.

Ha said the rate freeze had saved around 300,000 households from 55 billion forints so far. Phasing the measure out would put around one-tenth of those borrowers at risk of bankruptcy, he added.

Orbán said the rate freeze was necessary until the cost of borrowing fell with a reduction of the base rate by the National Bank of Hungary (NBH).

Without the mandatory caps on markups, he said the prices of most of the affected products would rise significantly. He acknowledged retailers’ motivation to boost earnings but said some profit was “unjustified” and, past a certain degree, “could ruin people”.

Profit maximations

The markup regulation is nothing more than a tool for controlling the cost of living of families and curb prices increases, which limits the profit of multinationals, but it is good for Hungarian families, Orbán said. “This is what Brussels wants to take away from us,” he said, indicating that since the government refused to abolish it, they launched a procedure. He added that the positions would not converge, so the EU would launch a long lawsuit at the European Court of Justice. Orbán expressed his hope that by the time the procedure ended, prices would normalise and “the whole debate would no longer have any significance to Hungarian families”.

On the 2026 budget adopted earlier this week, the prime minister it was a “budget of the will,” with the government setting high targets in spite of the difficulties.

2026 state budget is the “budget of will”

Orbán conceded that it was reasonable, in times such as the present, not to set goals and to accept the status quo, but he said “we’re not like that, we’re not going to twiddle our thumbs waiting to see how the global situation develops”. “We will set goals and achieve them. The 2026 budget is proof of that,” he added.

He said a 50 percent increase in tax allowances for families raising children would come into force on July 1 and show up in August payslips, and another 50pc rise would happen in January. He noted that support for families raising infants and toddlers would become tax exempt from July 1 and highlighted personal income tax exemptions being rolled out for mothers of at least two children.

He said that municipal workers in settlements with fewer than 10,000 residents would get a 15 percent pay rise from October and another 15pc bump in pay from January. He added that the government was working on raising pay for municipal workers in cities with populations up to 30,000, too.

These are “huge goals” and “we will fight tooth and nail to achieve them”, in spite of the war and other threats, Orbán said. There may be economic difficulties and things may be far from perfect, but there are goals that are important to Hungarian families, and the government must achieve these goals, he said. And since they are enshrined in the budget law, achieving these goals is the government’s legal obligation, he added.

More Orbán-related news HERE.