PM Orbán: Ukraine dangerous country
Eighty percent of online criminal fraudsters “have a Ukrainian background, the members being Ukrainian and headquartered in Ukraine”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday, adding that the fraudsters did not conform to the typical image of mafiosi but were “refined and clever” and used sophisticated technology to achieve their ends. “Ukraine is a dangerous country,” he declared.
Ukrainian fraudsters targeted Hungarians
Orbán said a call-centre network had recently been uncovered in Ukraine targeting Hungarians. The fraudsters pretended to call from retail banks and swindled Hungarians out of their money, he added. The prime minister also warned that Ukraine’s European Union entry would make it “much easier” for criminals to “infiltrate the fabric of the EU”.
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“They would receive the same treatment as financial service providers in the EU and it would be more difficult to act against them,” he said. “Keeping Ukraine outside [the EU] is undoubtedly the only way forward,” Orbán said. Orbán said that 169 suspects had been identified so far, and international arrest warrants had been issued against most.
“There is no doubt that what’s best is to keep Ukrainians outside” the EU, he said. More than 1.6 million Hungarians have already returned their papers in the Vote 2025 questionnaire, “and the knowledge that we need to tread carefully regarding Ukraine’s EU membership seems to be taking shape in Hungarian society,” he said.
Meanwhile, the government has given additional financial resources to the police so that more people can deal with online fraud, Orbán said. These scams can affect anyone who has a bank card or digitally managed savings, Orbán said. “All it takes is one wrong move, one click, and suddenly the scammers have taken the money.” The prime minister said online fraud had so far come to some 8 billion forints (EUR 19.8m). “The authorities are working quite well because they have already managed to recover 1.5 billion,” he said.
Additional financial resources could enable the authorities to allocate more people to preventing and eliminating such fraud and to remedy the damage already caused, he added.
CPAC Hungary 2025
Commenting on his experiences on the first day of the CPAC Hungary 2025 conference on Thursday, Orbán said he had talked with “many people”, and had the impression that “the conviction has grown markedly among Europeans that Ukraine’s accession would bring unmanageable challenges to the bloc.”
Orbán said many former and incumbent heads of state were attending CPAC, “members of the resistance that Hungary has been fighting for 15 years against Brussels’ imperialism, and idiotic initiatives such as allowing migrants into the bloc, gender activists and Ukraine’s EU membership.”
The “movement” is “slowly but surely” garnering a majority in Europe, he said. “We’re saying louder and louder that fast-tracked Ukraine membership is out of the question.”
The coming years will be about whether the “Brussels bureaucrats building an empire” would be able to strip member states of even more competencies and money than before, he said.
Similar steps had been a “standard answer” to crises in Brussels, he said. “Then it turned out they can’t use the extended competencies and can’t overcome the crisis,” he said.
“There is no point in relinquishing these competencies. We mustn’t let Brussels take even more money from us, even more competencies, to take out more loans and drag us into debt or to build centralised economic controls,” Orbán said.
Defence should be strengthened
Orbán said one of the weightiest issues was “how far Europe should strengthen its defence capabilities”. “We could easily be dragged into an arms race with the Russians, and that would eat up Hungarians’ money,” leaving less for schools, economic development, home purchase subsidies and family support, he warned.
Hungary has an interest in the speedy success of the US peace efforts, “so that at least a ceasefire is achieved in Ukraine and arms control negotiations with the Russians start, lest all our money is swallowed by the arms industry.”
Orbán called CPAC “the international Fight Club”, adding that “lies spread fast in politics”, and defence against fake news and misinformation was crucial in the discussion “of important issues” such as Ukraine’s membership.
Cooperation is taking shape “slowly but surely” between right-wing party families on a patriotic footing, the combined membership of which is now more than that of the largest party family, the European People’s Party, he said. “We are already more in numbers, although as yet not as well organised.” The Patriots for Europe alliance had been founded for that reason, and it is “getting gradually stronger,” he said.
Ukraine’s EU membership would be a financial catastrophe, says Orbán
Although the debates with Brussels “seem to be taking place in an international space, our EU membership makes all of them important domestic issues as they have an impact on the budget of Hungarian families, energy prices, inflation and the future of domestic businesses,” he said.
If Ukraine became an EU member, “financial catastrophe and economic suicide” would ensue, Orbán said. He added that European companies may receive orders at first, but the European economy would soon be “destroyed”, affecting Poland, Hungary and Romania in the main.
Also, millions of Ukrainians would flood into Europe, bringing with them “crime and the mafia”, while low-wage workers would also deprive many Europeans and Hungarians of their jobs.
Further, Hungary’s pension system was only safe without Ukraine as an EU member, he insisted, as Ukrainians would be entitled to pensions in Hungary. “A large portion of Hungarian pension money would go to Ukrainians,” he added.
According to the Hungarian chamber of agriculture, Ukraine’s mass farm production based on GMO technologies would “kill Hungarian farmers and Hungary’s healthy food industry”, Orbán said. Ukraine should not be granted members’ rights at once; cooperation with Ukraine “should be negotiated one by one, by each sector in a way that is good for Hungarians and Europeans,” he said, warning that “once Ukraine is co-opted there will no longer be a chance to apply restrictions”.
Mandatory cap on markups for a range of products remain
Meanwhile, Orbán said a mandatory cap on markups for a range of products must be maintained because people needed to be protected against unjustified price increases, and if necessary the measure would be expanded to new products.
Orbán said the markups cap, which was previously “unthinkable in Hungary”, had fulfilled the hopes attached to it as the prices of 900 food items were reduced, and the prices of 420 products in drugstores were lowered.
He noted that a 10 percent markup cap had been set for food products and a 15 percent one for household products. “That should be enough. Anything above that is an unjustified price increase,” he said.
The prime minister said Marton Nagy, the national economy minister, was given the task of curbing inflation, and to that end the government extended the markup cap scheme based on his proposal. Nagy is a “determined man”, so if necessary, markups will be introduced for new products, he added.
Márton Nagy is not a politician, he will not be nice, says Orbán
Concerning the minister, Orbán said Nagy had been appointed as “a technocrat, who is not particularly interested in politics”. “Nagy is not a politician; don’t expect him to make success-oriented, nice remarks, it’s just that he professionally and impeccably completes the assignments given,” the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, Orbán said in connection with the recent natural disaster that hit Praid’s (Parajd in Transylvania) salt mines that the Hungarian government would provide exhaustive aid “not only to Praid but to all the Hungarians living there”.
“Praid is a part of Hungarians’ national identity,” Orbán said. “They love the place as their own; it almost belongs to us… What happens there feels as if it happened to us. It’s painful,” he said, adding that many people stood ready to help in the aftermath of the disaster. “But for now the situation is very difficult, almost hopeless,” he said.
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In addition to the disaster in Praid, floods in the Haromszek region had created a serious situation and “Hungarians there will also need help”, he said.
Meanwhile, Orbán said Romania’s ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party was “a well-organised, strong party which promotes Hungarian interests, not only politically but economically, too.” He said he was in contact with RMDSZ leader Hunor Kelemen and had promised all the aid necessary.