Orbán: Von der Leyen and Weber openly declared their intention to overthrow the Hungarian government

In his usual Friday-morning interview at Kossuth Rádió, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was first asked how come so many people criticized him at the European Parliament earlier this week. He answered by saying: “I found myself in the middle of an interesting situation indeed. I went there, as is appropriate, to represent the Hungarian presidency, we have a programme, which has depth, it's a well thought-out programme, (...) we put together a very high-quality programme, (...) and as there are other people working on Europe's problems as well, we could have had a pretty decent debate".

"Those who gathered were thirsty for blood and they had no desire whatsoever to engage in a meaningful debate, but had imagined a political scuffle instead, so they just came directly at us. When you have ten people coming at you, that's rock'n'roll. And this was rock'n'roll indeed," Orbán said.

"I was worried that if we continued to be gentlemanly, we would be perceived as patsies," Orbán said, adding that he then gave in and doled it out to everyone. He continued by saying that Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber had openly announced that they did not want this Hungarian government.

“They even named the members of the new government. The European Socialists want to delegate Klára Dobrev, while the People's Party wants to appoint Tisza with Péter Magyar”, Orbán said. According to him, this coalition was formed on the spot, with Von der Leyen conducting the ceremony and Weber as witness.

"Brussels wants to delegate a Socialist and a member of the People's Party to the Hungarian government, and that would be the end of sovereignist politics, we would have a Brusselite government, that's the meaning of what happened," Orbán said.

The first and most important thing is that I announced our resistance, Orbán said, adding that after this, they will now think things over in Brussels and the tempers should calm down a bit.

On the issue of migration, Orbán said that there have been changes in attitude, the culture of “Everybody’s welcome” is starting to fade out, because people won't tolerate the current situation much longer. "All of Europe is beginning to turn and they will soon commit to an anti-migration policy," the prime minister explained.

A new stimulus package for the Hungarian economy is being prepared

"For weeks now I have been focusing exclusively on the Hungarian economy, this EU attempt at crucifixion was just a detour. We have put together the first big action plan that will give a new stimulus to the Hungarian economy, with concrete measures already being outlined" – he said.

We won't be seeing a 3-6 percent economic growth in the fourth quarter, but we will witness a huge upturn in the first quarter of 2025.

"There will be a big housing boom" -as a result. He said he doesn't think it's unrealistic for the average wage in Hungary to reach one million forints, (2490 euros) the minimum wage will be raised, and there will be a workers' loan, and they want to achieve an increase in the size of small businesses too. On this, the state will provide capital and other tools to enable businesses to grow.

When the interviewer asked where the money for all this would come from, Orbán said that there are ways of obtaining funds for development, and that he had already discussed the specific plans with the responsible minister.

September's consumer spending is looking quite good, "it's obvious that there is money", Orbán said. The problem is that the automotive industry has slowed down, and we are "a major automobile manufacturing power", although we would not have thought that about ourselves before. He said that he expects the car industry to regain momentum in the second half of next year, which is why he is willing to commit to an economic growth rate of 3-6 percent.

To the question about the outlook for the Hungarian economy in the longer term, Orbán said it was looking bright.