Most Friday mornings, Hungary’s Prime Minister gives an interview on one of the public radio stations. Since the independent media has not had a chance to interview him for several years, these weekly radio interviews provide a rare opportunity for finding out what the leader of the country thinks about current events, how he sees his opponents and any issues at hand.
Although at the beginning of the week, the Hungarian Prime Minister was on holiday in Croatia, by Friday morning, he was back in Budapest to give his semi-regular weekly interview at the public station, Kossuth Rádió.
Orbán began by commenting on the EP having re-elected the President of the European Commission for another five-year term, and said that Hungary did not support the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen because "her performance at the head of the Commission over the past five years has been below par".
"European politics functions in a distinctive system, one that's different from what we're used to here at home: von der Leyen is our employee, she's your employee too," Orbán said, suggesting that the European Commission and its leader should follow the guidance of the European Council – the body composed of heads of government and state – if only because “she's an employee who gets her salary from the European budget, which is put together by the member states, so it's safe to say that she's in a relationship of dependency.”
Thus, according to Orbán, the problem is not what von der Leyen is doing, but that "the prime ministers have allowed" her to deviate from the guidelines or to proceed with little efficiency along the set course. "Von der Leyen has to do what the prime ministers say" because the centre of gravity of European policy is in the European Council, Orbán concluded, noting that what's needed is a secretary-general-like executive. "All of us prime ministers will be better at holding her to account" – if the member states' parliamentary elections go well.
Orbán expects a balance of power more favourable for Fidesz
For this to happen, "the pro-war and pro-migration prime ministers" must not remain in power after the parliamentary elections in certain member states. Other opponents include party leaders working against Hungary in the EP, led by "a German man, Mr Weber, who is known to be a Hungarian-hater and a pro-war, pro-migration man", Orbán said of Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People's Party.
Orbán said that the national, sovereignist side had gained strength in the parliamentary elections of member states. "We have made great progress, ours will be the third biggest parliamentary group, and it will soon become second, and then we'll see from there," he said, "but we have not yet made a breakthrough," for example in France, where the National Rally led by Marine Le Pen came third in the parliamentary elections. But there are more elections ahead, where I think we can make a breakthrough, in addition to the "expected breakthrough" in the US presidential election, which Orbán hopes will result in a victory for Donald Trump.
“I stand by my prediction that the patriots will be in the majority in the Western world by the end of the year – both in Europe and in the United States – we will be in the majority.”
For the moment, however, Orbán says that "European leaders are not doing what the people want". The European People's Party, led by Manfred Weber, for example has also ignored the movements that were noticeable in the EP elections, which, Orbán claims, show that people reject the cooperation between the right-wing party alliance and the left, which nonetheless continues in the European Parliament.
In the Prime Minister's interpretation, this means that it is in vain for people to want peace and reject migration, the left remains pro-migration and pro-war.
In addition to this, certain political forces mock the traditional family ties "which organise life around a man and a woman and the raising of children" and elevate other forms of cohabitation to the same level.
Competitiveness and how to achieve it
He spoke about the EU's competitiveness potential, which Von der Leyen also discussed in her speech. However, Orbán said that when there's a war going on, and they are practically "wheeling money" to Ukraine, (the amount has already exceeded €100 billion), it is difficult to talk about competitiveness, as that area is precisely where the EU is taking away resources from by siding with Ukraine in the "war between two Slavic nations".
However, the central theme of the six-month long Hungarian presidency is exactly this, the improvement of competitiveness: a meeting will be held on this in Budapest in November, where Orbán plans to present a pact on competitiveness.
During a war, one has to work with a wartime budget, but if there were peace in 2025 "which is already on the table," then we could make a peace-based budget, which would roughly double the growth of the Hungarian economy we've seen this year.
Von der Leyen not in Soros' pocket
"Von der Leyen and the European liberals are naive people" – Orbán said, adding that in his opinion, they are not in it for profit. “It cannot be said that she or other European leaders are in the pockets of financial speculators like George Soros.”
I have spoken to both sides, I am the only one in Europe who has spoken to both warring sides. "Let us not be naive", the parties do not want peace. "Both sides believe that the continuation of the war will strengthen them. Both sides hope to gain an advantage which will improve the situation prior to the peace talks which will start who knows when." "If the warring parties don't want peace, then the question is whether the world's major power centres are willing to work for peace." Orbán said the warring parties must be persuaded to negotiate.
For this to happen, China, the United States and the European Union need to be on the same page. The Chinese are pro-peace, Trump's victory in November will make the US – which, according to Orbán currently has a pro-war president – pro-peace, and then only the EU will have to change direction.
"We know the Soviets, we know the Russians, we know the Ukrainians, we know them very well", Orbán said, with regard to Hungary and the Central and Eastern European region, and added that instead of trying to gently convince the two warring parties, they should be sternly informed that "the world is not asking for peace but it expects" it. He believes that Trump has worthwhile things to say about peace, and that the EU must prepare for this.
Therefore, according to Orbán, supporting Ukraine in its defence against Russia is not the way to get Russia to recognise that it should negotiate instead of partially occupying Ukraine and systematically bleeding the country dry.
"The naive Europeans think that we should just tell President Putin to stop bombing such and such a city, or tell the Ukrainian president that of course we will give him weapons as long as they don't fire far, into Russia's territory, because that's not nice. Well, this is not working" Orbán said, even though the EU's support for Ukraine is aimed precisely at ensuring that its eastern policy does not end in feeble requests towards Putin, such as saying that it wants peace because it is pro-peace, but without providing any specifics.
A shift towards a pro-peace policy is coming
"Instead of the EU being the strongest pro-peace world power, the Chinese and the Americans are making the season ahead of us a pro-peace political era, and we are missing out." Orbán said it would take time for European politicians who have dug themselves into the trenches to get out of them and make their way to the negotiating table instead.
According to the Prime Minister, this is precisely the purpose of his peace mission – as he referred to his recent trips, including the one to Moscow.
Orbán believes that this will certainly be necessary with Trump's victory, but “it would be better if it were not a panic-like rush towards a turnaround, but a process of the EU switching to a pro-peace policy.”
Assassinations are committed by those in favour of war
"Thank God the president did not allow anyone to shoot him," Orbán said of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which he said was further proof that pro-war forces are carrying out assassinations against pro-peace politicians.
He mentioned that he recently spoke with Trump, whose economic plans he considers a model to be followed, citing as an example the Republican presidential candidate's plan to make tips tax-free. Orbán also believes that tips should not be taxed.
Viktor Orbán avoids critical questions at home. It’s been years since he gave an interview to independent media. However, for several years, most Friday mornings he has been a regular guest on state-owned Kossuth Rádió, where he is interviewed by a lead editor of the public broadcasting service (operating from an annual budget of 320 million euros). Katalin Nagy has been almost exclusively the one allowed to interview Orbán on the state-owned channel throughout his third and fourth term with a two-thirds majority in parliament. She has received the state decoration of the Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary and doesn’t shy away from asking questions.