"If there were peace, the Hungarian economy could grow twice as fast" - Orbán

War, war, war

Orbán said at the beginning of the interview that High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell does not believe that a full-scale European war is a delusion. The Polish prime minister said that there was no diplomatic solution to this war. Europe is playing with fire, Orbán said.

He recalled that we had barely entered NATO when Serbia was attacked by NATO, and that there was an American effort to open the northern Serbian front, which "I refused at the time, and that is why there was no Hungarian-Serbian war".

It is important to be sensible at times like these, and even in the South Slavic war, which was far less extensive than the Russo-Ukrainian war, many refugees arrived in Hungary. Hungary was forced into war twice, in World War I and World War II, "and in the end we were among those who paid the highest price for all this," he added. But every day we are getting further and further away from peace.

I am worried about the future of Europe.

We had no choice... or did we?

A few words about Hungary being forced into two wars on the wrong side of history...

WWI

The assessment of Prime Minister Earl István Tisza (1903-1905, 1913-1917) is highly debated to this day. The opinions about him are mostly divided along ideological lines. Conservatives and right-wingers often idolise him, while left-wingers and liberals usually label him an authoritarian and a short-sighted politician who tried to conserve the status quo, and who refused to make a compromise with Hungary’s national minorities. He is also still blamed by the same circuits for Hungary entering WWI, despite the historical evidence of his anti-war stance. Well, he was initially opposing the push for war, but finally gave in to German pressure and from then on he was a staunch supporter of the war.

WWII

Gyula Gömbös (PM between 1 Oct 1932 and 6 Oct 1936) was militantly anti-Semitic and founded a racist party in the 1920s. To everyone’s surprise, he said in his first speech as Prime Minister that he had revised his previous position on Jews. The turnaround likely stemmed from his realisation that the economy cannot recover from the crisis if the government declares war on Jewish industrialists.

But the state apparatus, the parliament and the political leadership were flooded with anti-Semites of the "new generation". This phenomenon became particularly important in the Hungary of the second half of the 1930s, which was steadily shifting to the right.

Germany was both one of the most important markets for Hungarian goods and the other big loser of World War I, so as the first foreign head of government he visited Adolf Hitler as early as 1933. Gömbös deepened links with Benito Mussolini's fascist Italy, but in 1934 he also established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

After the death of Gyula Gömbös in October 1936, Kálmán Darányi (PM between 10 Oct 1936 and 14 May 1938) took the helm. The Prime Minister fully shared the racist views expressed by his predecessor and mentor Gömbös in the 1920s. Although Darányi is credited with the initiation and preparation of the 'First Jew Law', the bill for which was submitted to Parliament during his premiership, it only became law on 28 May under the government of his successor, Béla Imrédy (PM between 14 May 1938 and 16 Feb 1939). He was one of the authors of the 'First Jew Law' and submitted the 'Second Jew Law' in December 1938. His demise as PM came when they found Jewish ancestors in his family.

István Bethlen, who was still pulling the strings from behind the scenes, put the grey-haired Darányi in the prime minister's chair with the aim of preventing the advance of the extreme right.

But Darányi was unable to do so, and after the initial steps (such as the dissolution of Ferenc Szálasi's (PM between 16 Oct 1944 and 28 March 1945) party and the imprisonment of the Arrow Cross leader), he gradually shifted to the right, as Hitler's Germany succeeded. In a speech in Győr in March 1938, he announced that Hungary was embarking on a large-scale armament programme and would 'solve the Jewish question'. The costs were financed by taxing higher income groups in society, and this severely affected Jews in commerce and industry who were entrepreneurs. It soon became apparent that the government and the extreme right wing wanted to deal with the Jewish question by means of a 'changing of the guard' law (replacing Jews in social and economic positions with non-Jews).

Hungary’s Governor Miklós Horthy declared war with the Soviet Union in June 1941, with Prime Minister László Bárdossy (PM between 3 April 1941 and 7 March 1942) keeping silent. Bárdossy was the one who submitted a proposal for a "Third Jew Law" to Parliament, which was adopted in 1941. The law defined 'Jew' on racial grounds, banned marriage and extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews, which it described as 'racial vilification'; and introduced compulsory medical examinations before marriage. On December 11, 1941, in the absence of Governor Miklós Horthy and without the consent of the Council of Ministers, under German and Italian pressure, he announced that Hungary considered itself at war with the United States of America.

No, Hungary was not an innocent bystander when it came to joining wars that later proved to be losing wars. But back to Orbán...

War and economy

We have different experiences with war, said Orbán. The problem is that everyone thinks about war differently because of geography. A security solution must be guaranteed that includes the Russians. You can say that the French or the Americans will send troops, but they will go home. We have nowhere to go home from here. Even if the front does not get here, we will pay the economic price of the war. We are the ones who are suffering the most.

If war is still on in 2025, then war spending will have to be increased, with less left for other things. If there were no war, the Hungarian economy would grow twice as fast as it is now. It is difficult to run an economic policy in wartime, and the fruits are less,

he added.

According to Orbán, the anti-government forces are financed from abroad to achieve this. "Thirty pieces of silver may not be a lot, but they are not a little", he said, referring to political forces outside his Fidesz party as essentially pro-war, foreign agents acting against the country.

"Only those who vote for Fidesz vote for peace. If they vote for the left, they will vote for war. If you want peace, you will vote for Fidesz," Orbán concluded.

The saying was attributed to Hungary's communist leader Mátyás Rákosi (General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party from 1948 to 1956) that whoever is not with us is against us. János Kádár, who held the same position after Rákosi until May 1988 said that "Who is not against us is with us." Publicist Gábor Murányi pointed out that the axiom attributed to Rákosi did not spring from the Hungarian dictator's head. It was the same axiom that American journalist John Reed attributed to in his 1917 reportage book to a Red Army soldier guarding Lenin and the Kremlin gate. It even appeared in a letter written by Friedrich Engels to a friend of his in 1892.

But the original source goes back even further: according to the evangelists Matthew, Luke and Mark, Jesus most often used the phrase "He who is not with me is against me(, and he who does not gather with Me scatters)".

Elections

On the stakes of the upcoming elections, he said that the main question now is not which political force will have how many MPs. What matters now is the elected representatives' commitment to the war. The majority of countries are pro-war, but there could be a European Parliament that pulls Europe back from the brink of war.

Fuel issue

It was made clear to those involved in the fuel business that the government believes it is important

that Hungarian people should have access to fuel at the same price as our neighbours.

Better to have their profits adjusted to this than to have the government achieve it by force. It would be important not to achieve this via arm-wrestling. What we proposed was not flawless: we asked them for a regional price, which included Czech, Polish and Bulgarian prices in addition to the neighbouring prices, but they asked us to leave them out.

The benchmark should be the average fuel price in neighbouring countries. Accordingly, we will, but we will respect the request that the price should not be higher than the average price in neighbouring countries.

EU membership

I campaigned for EU membership in 2004, and I still think it's better inside than outside, but when we joined we didn't know it was going to be like it is now,

said Orbán.

He then talked about the gender issue and the reception of migrants. He said the EU has been overtaken by its competitors.

"Well, there was no mention of millions of migrants being allowed into the continent, and those who don't want them to come, like us Hungarians, will be forced to take them. [They didn't say] that if you say that a family is made up of a man, a woman and a child, you will be trashed in the liberal media in Europe. [They didn't say] that if a country enshrines in its constitution that the mother is a woman and the father is a man, as in Hungary, then it will face retaliation, this is not what Europe was like!"

Economic issues

If there were peace, the growth of the Hungarian economy could be double,

Orbán reiterated. The German economy has been hit by the war and this is very important for Hungary to have access to Western markets. If they falter, it will affect us. We are interested in the Germans marching on, pulling the economy.

Germans marching may not be the most amicable mental picture to be drawn, but hey, it's his radio interview.

Our most natural market, our western market is coughing, sick.

Now is the time to be smart, it is no coincidence that the Chinese president is coming to Hungary, and our relations with the East and Africa are reviving. The focus of the Hungarian economy will remain in Europe, but we need to expand the radius of action more, Orbán concluded.