PM Orban: The war is against terrorism

Hungary should be grateful for being able to live in peace, the PM said and added that Hungarian diplomacy must do everything possible to prevent the conflict from spreading.

"Terror is unacceptable. Seeing the manifestations of it is shocking," Hungary's PM Viktor Orban said referring to the Israeli-Palestinian war in his  weekly interview on public radio MR1 Friday morning, and reminding his listeners that we should be grateful for being able to live in peace.

No Hungarian victims

"The peace and security of Hungarians must be protected," he said, adding that Hungary has always been against terrorism. The top priority is to get all Hungarians out safely. We should also be grateful that no Hungarians were among the victims.

"Anyone suffering a terrorist attack, has the right to take action to prevent it from happening again,"  he underlined. The conflict must be localized, he said, pointing out that it would be dangerous if Israel were to go to war with an Arab country. It is the job of Hungarian diplomacy to pursue a policy of de-escalation, the prime minister stressed. 

Mr. Orban recalled that Arab-Israeli relations improved considerably during Donald Trump's presidency. "Those years were marked by an easing of tensions, also in relations that no one would have thought possible a few years earlier," he said, maintaining the importance of salvaging whatever elements of those rapprochements of recent years that can be saved, despite the terrorist attacks, even if it will not be easy.

Government acted in time

"The demonstrations cropping up all over Europe in support of terrorists, should sound the alarm bells here, too. There were attempts for similar actions in Hungary, but you can't organize such things here. We will not grant permits for any such events," he said. However, there seem to be people in Western Europe who approve of such demonstrations, he pointed out, adding that their approval comes after having previously allowed masses of undocumented people - obviously, including Hamas proxies - into Western European countries without controls.

"Let us thank God that in 2015, we had the sense and the heart to build the border fence and the legal barriers to keep terrorism out of Hungary," he said. 

Hungary has one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe and they must be protected by the Hungarian state, the prime minister said, stressing that "It is impermissible for Hungarian citizens to feel that their safety is at risk. The level of security in our country must not be allowed to decrease".

Brussels wants to let aggressive migrants into Europe

On the adoption of the migration pact, PM Orban said that it is obvious that Brussels has lost its clarity of vision. They want us to let in those migrants who are aggressively taking up arms at Hungary's southern borders. "We want to share in the good, not the bad. The EU is not about redistributing among us the bad things," he added, saying that they expect us to also build a migrant ghetto to accommodate tens of thousands of migrants.

According to the premier, Brussels wants us to partake in the security risk they have been suffering from for years because of their bad decisions. "The EU has decided that we, too, should build a migrant ghetto. They want to impose a bad thing on us," he noted, stressing that the only viable way to deal with migration is the Hungarian solution. There are no migrants in Hungary and there will never be any. The EU wants to destroy this model.

He pointed out that the written solution previously agreed upon has been swept aside by the EU and that we now have to defend ourselves politically. "Change is needed in Brussels. They are not helping, they are destroying," PM Orban said, opining that Brussels knows full well that the majority of European people agrees with the Hungarians. "Brussels's new rules are being interpreted by the migrants as an invitation, he noted, stressing that Hungary's "government stands on very stable footing: we are protecting our borders of a democratic decision to do so".

Hungary stands on more than one leg

"I see single-digit inflation ahead in November," the PM forcast. "But the two together turned out not to work. The aim was to maintain high economic growth while at the same time battling inflation. But as it turned out, the two things couldn't be accomplished simultaneously."

That is why 2023 has been the year to bring down inflation, and economic growth will be restarted in 2024. "We will aim for high economic growth," he said noting that it is difficult to grow in an environment where others are not growing.  

"That is why it is paramount that the country stands on more than one leg. The European Union is our priority, but we must be open to every market in the world. The Hungarian economy has a clear interest in interconnectivity. All markets are important for us," he concluded.

Speaking about his visit to Georgia over the past two days, he said that the question is whether the Caucasus world can connect with Europe. "We have a major common project in the works which has never been attempted by anyone in the world before: we want to bring green energy electricity produced in Azerbaijan to Europe through Georgia, Romania and Hungary. To do this, we need to lay an over a thousand-kilometer-long high-voltage cable under the Black Sea and build the related infrastructure. This is also supported by the EU and will be good for the whole of Europe," he said. 

Talent can be harnessed

Commenting on the Nobel Prizes awarded to Katalin Kariko and Ferenc Krausz, the PM said that all Hungarians are delighted with this success. He said that these were two scientists who had started out from deep in Hungary. "The talent and knowledge that Hungarians have can be called forth. This is our reserve, and why we should never be afraid," Viktor Orbáan said.

Cover photo: Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the studio of Hungary's MR1 public radio (Photo: MTI/Prime Minister's Press Office/Zoltan Fischer )