Orbán: My political director spoke ambiguously, which is a mistake

Although Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is in North Macedonia, he didn't miss his semi-regular appearance at Kossuth Rádió's Good Morning, Hungary! programme on Friday morning. He addressed the listeners of the public station from a temporary studio set up near lake Ohrid where a joint meeting of the North Macedonian and Hungarian governments is being held.

He spoke at length about what he calls economic neutrality, and his belief that the world is beginning to organize into blocs (a Western and an Eastern economy), and explained that Hungary should not join either bloc, but should maintain deep economic ties with both.

When speaking about the importance of peace in Ukraine, he also commented on his political advisor, Balázs Orbán's statement which caused a huge uproar on Thursday, when he said: “Based precisely on '56, we probably would not have done what President Zelensky did 2.5 years ago, because it is irresponsible, because one can see that he took his country into a war of defense.”

"The 1956 revolution has now also been brought into the debate on war and peace. One must be focused when talking about such delicate issues, we have to be very precise in our wording," Orbán began.

"My political director spoke ambiguously, which is a mistake in this context, because our very community grew up on the foundations of the 1956 revolution, if it were not for the heroes of 1956, our community would not have been born", the Prime Minister explained, saying that "the events and heroes of 1956 should not be included in this debate. 1956 and the heroes of 1956 are sacrosanct for us", and they should be kept out of it.

"I would not want the Russian-Ukrainian war to cast a shadow on the memory of the freedom fighters of 1956, to whom we owe a deep gratitude," the Prime Minister added. He also stressed that he has no doubts about the political views of any of the leading Fidesz politicians, but said it is important that such misunderstandings should not derail meaningful debates.

Why North Macedonia?

He also went into a bit more detail about what prompted the trip to North Macedonia.

"We know very little about North Macedonia (...), but it is a fantastic country, roughly the size of Transdanubia", Orbán began, adding that the country also had mountains, and said that anyone who went there would certainly want to take a look around. He explained that holding the EU presidency was one of the reasons why they had to go to North Macedonia, and the other reason was migration – given that the country lies on the busiest route for illegal migration, and as a result of previous migration events, the two countries had developed a good relationship.

The Hungarian PM said that the third reason for being there is that important economic routes to Greek ports pass through North Macedonia, so good cooperation is important.

“Salvini is our hero”

They also touched on Matteo Salvini, the Italian Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, who recently visited Hungary and who is facing legal proceedings at home because a few years back, while he was Minister of the Interior, he refused to allow a ship carrying migrants to dock for a long time. Salvini has been given a prison sentence to serve. "He is our hero," Orbán said of him, explaining that they see him as such because he had sacrificed everything to oppose migration.