Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Interview on Kossuth Radio’s „180 Minutes” Programme
23 May 2014

Gábor István Kiss: It’s eight thirty-five. What would happen if suitable respect was awarded to Hungary and to Hungarian MEP’s in Brussels and in the European Parliament? Will there be continued debate on the Hungarian model? And what should the European Union do about Ukraine, one of its greatest challenges? We will be putting on our European glasses for today’s discussion. I have sitting with me Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Good morning.

Viktor Orbán: Good morning to all your listeners.

GIK: During these first few minutes I will primarily be taking on the role of devil’s advocate, and let’s talk a little about the expected turnout for the elections.

VO: In our profession we call this the opposition, but that’s alright, go ahead.

GIK: Let us nevertheless begin with these questions. So why should I care who represents Hungary in the European Parliament? Isn’t there such a thing as pan-European citizenship? I have our national parliament here; why should I go out to vote again?

VO: These are valid questions

GIK: And what is the reply?

VO: My reply is that the modern world is different to what it used to be like. Even in countries like Hungary, that uses all the power it has at its disposal to protect national spheres of authority and that does everything in its power to ensure that the Hungarians feel – and let that be the reality – that it is Hungarians in Hungary who decide on the fate of the Hungarian people. But nevertheless, the fact is that since we are members of the European Union there are several decisions made here in Hungary that can be prevented in Brussels. Brussels is a kind of border fortress and they often attempt to force their will on us by amending issues that are important with regard to the Hungarians. They want to reverse the reduction of energy prices, they want to prevent the protection of Hungarian farmland, and, to quote a politician who is perhaps of more consequence than myself, in an article published yesterday the former President of France suggests nothing less than that fifty percent of the spheres of authority that currently belong to Brussels should be returned to national spheres of authority. From this it is clear…

GIK: From Sarkozy’s article…

VO: Excuse me! From this it is clear that although we are talking about Brussels, and Brussels is far away, and there is no pan-European citizenship and European identity will never replace national identities, it is nevertheless important with regard to our everyday lives that we are represented in Brussels by people who stand up for Hungarian interests and who are capable of winning respect for the Hungarians. This is why I have been travelling around the country telling people everywhere that the Hungarians should go out to vote on Sunday. I ask that they take the elections seriously, do not take them lightly, and think long and hard about who to give their vote to.

GIK: I’m glad we touched on Sarkozy’s article, because it means that criticism of the institutional system is perhaps well-founded. But what I would like to ask you now is that you say that it would be good from your point of view if the People’s Party represented the largest group within the European Parliament, to which I say that if I take a look at the People’s Party’s election manifesto and that of the other party that is expected to gain a high number of seats, the socialists, then if I remove the headers I can hardly tell the difference between the two.

VO: There is some truth in this observation, even though the full picture has many more nuances. But as the case of Fidesz and the case of the Christian Democratic People’s Party shows, the large European parties are partitioned internally and there are those who think what we think, and what we think is significantly different to what the European socialists otherwise think, and in many cases different to what a few significant parties think that belong to our party family, the European People’s Party. This is why it cannot be stated that the votes given have no significance. The votes provided do indeed determine the internal relationships of European politics, and as such the future of Europe. This is why I am campaigning, am trying to convince people and am speaking throughout Europe, including outside Hungary, about the fact that Europe cannot remain as it is. At this time, Europe is not competitive; Europe is currently disappointing its citizens and so Europe must be renewed and significantly reorganised.

GIK: There will be a full change of staff in the most important positions and within the institutional network, and what I say to you is that the important issues aren’t decided on the benches of the European Parliament. Having seen the debate between the star candidates, and having seen the differences between what the star candidates have to say, what I say to you is that the only important issue is who will be the President of the European Commission, and it is not at all certain that this will be the decision of the European Parliament.

VO: The world of the European Union – the Council of Prime Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament – is a complicated legal construct. A construct with a sensitive internal balance. One must be absolutely sure before introducing any change in the sphere of authority of any of its institutions, because that can lead to paralysis, and paralysis leads to loss of time, and loss of time leads to unemployment and economic recession. So we cannot allow a state of paralysis to occur. And accordingly, I belong to the group within the European Union – and there are two well-defined groups among Europe’s prime ministers – who say that naturally there are star candidates, but it is not compulsory for one of the star candidates to become the President of the European Commission. This sphere of authority has always been controlled by the prime ministers of the European states; the Council always decides on this issue. It is undoubtedly true that Parliament must approve the decision, meaning that we must come to some form of agreement with the European Parliament and we must find a suitable individual, but for my part it does not follow from today’s state of affairs that the President of the Commission must be elected from among the star candidates of one of the parties. I belong to the group of prime ministers who are against this kind of automatism.

GIK: I will not mention names now and I don’t know if the average Hungarian listener is capable of listing the candidates put forward by the five party families; all I would ask is that in your opinion then, the next President of the European Commission isn’t among them?

VO: There is no automatism. I am not closed to the possibility that we will consider deciding on one of the candidates if we hear convincing arguments, but to Hungary it does not follow from the fact that one of the party families has made someone a star candidate that we should support the star candidate of the winning party. There is no such automatism.

GIK: With regard to Hungary from the point of view of expected conflicts, and will there be conflicts at all in comparison to the precious five-year term, do you count on the European Parliament becoming even more political? Will it engage in even more political debates while you stand by at the edge of the carpet? Or do you count on the fact that it is important to be on good terms with the Commission and that’s the important thing anyway?

VO: We will have to fight our own battles everywhere. There will be no part of the European Union that is not a European institution in which we won’t have to stand up for Hungarian interests. My job as Prime Minister is to stand up for Hungary in the Council of Prime Ministers. The job of the Members of the European Parliament who we will elect this Sunday will be to stand up for Hungary in the European Parliament and to not want to hinder the work of the Hungarian Government. What provides an element of spice to the elections in Hungary is that over the past five years the Hungarian political opposition has exploited the stage and meeting halls of the European Parliament to try and thwart the changes that the Hungarian Government and the people of Hungary have implemented together here at home. And this is why I ask the people of Hungary with a good conscience and without any anger or animosity not to send parties to Brussels with whom we then have to battle against over there and who don’t help us, the Hungarians, but who help the adversaries of the Hungarians. And there are many such candidates from both left and right.

GIK: Let’s take a quick look at Europe’s crisis symptoms, and at the economic part to begin with, say. Both European politicians and you yourself have often said that Europe must regain its competitiveness somehow, haven’t you? While Europe was busy with institutional reform, the world has passed us by and countries from other continents have appeared to occupy gold and silver medal positions. As far as economic competitiveness is concerned, Europe can hardly compete for a place on the podium even. This is one factor. The other is job creation. Please give me an exact recipe as to what you will be representing in the European Council and what Hungarian MEPs will be representing on the benches of the European Parliament during the next five years. 

VO: We all must cook dinner from the ingredients we have available. I cannot represent anything other than what we are doing in Hungary and what has been successful according to Hungarian experience. Tax reductions must be implemented, bureaucracy must be radically reduced, with regard to which I/we still have some unpaid debts towards the people of Hungary; small and medium-sized enterprises must receive support and where the market is incapable of providing work the state must come forward to take on the responsibility of employer and must try to provide work to everyone within the framework of some kind of start-up or public work programme. This is what I too will be doing in the upcoming period.

GIK: There is an important difference between you and the European Union’s leading politicians, and this leads us on nicely to the Hungarian model, because one of the crucial questions is that you say: the crisis will be over when everyone has a job. We usually hear the exact opposite within the EU: we will be able to provide work to everyone once the crisis is over.

VO: You have pinpointed the most important philosophical difference very nicely.

GIK: But what follows from this with regard to the next five years? Because this is a topic of debate within the European Parliament.

VO: Everybody does what the responsibility they have towards their own nation requires. The politics I will be practicing in Hungary – and this is what I have received a mandate to do – I have been entrusted with continuing our politics according to which if the market is incapable of giving people work then the state shouldn’t shrug its shoulders and say: see, people, this is what the modern, integrated market economy and globalism are like, there’s nothing we can do; things will improve eventually and then you will have jobs too. I am against this kind of politics. It is a politics that is bad, morally unacceptable and that cannot be practiced from the point of view of common sense. What I say is that at such times the state must find a way and find an alternative. There is not just one instrument that can be applied; there are many. All of them must be applied to enable people to maintain themselves and their families from work rather than from benefits. And my basic philosophical standpoint is that the world owes every single individual the chance to be able to maintain themselves and their families through work.

GIK: In your opinion, how many members will the European Union have at the end of this five-year cycle? To be more precise, what are you expecting with regard to Great Britain? Will it still be a member of the European Union in five years’ time?

VO: I see no reason to believe that it will not be. I would prefer the number of member states to increase and for enlargement to continue.

GIK: Serbia?

VO: Serbia too. I am a very strong supporter of the enlargement process. This follows logically from our geographical position. It is in our interests to be surrounded from all sides if possible by European Union member states and with countries that have deep-rooted strategic agreements with the European Union. In my opinion, peace, the balance of power and good trade opportunities all require us to follow such a policy. This is what I practice, and I have always supported it and will continue to do everything possible to enable all of our neighbours who are not yet members of the European Union to join the EU.

GIK: How many members will the eurozone have in five years’ time? More precisely, Will Hungary be part of the eurozone?

VO: When I was elected Prime Minister nobody told me that I would also need to be able to look into the future with regard to such concrete issues. That isn’t in my contract. I am neither omnipotent nor a fortune-teller, and so I cannot reply to that question. What I can tell you though, is what we need to do and what we need to strive for. In my opinion, what we need to strive for and what we need to apply all of our strength to ensure is to enable everyone who is in the eurozone to stay in the eurozone, and this requires a different economic policy and it undoubtedly requires significant changes; and to try and make the euro a global currency. When the euro was invented, when the euro was established, one of the objectives was that the euro should become a global currency, succeed in competing with the dollar and begin chipping away at the dollar’s domination of the international money markets. Well, not only have we not succeeded, but at the moment we are fighting just to keep the euro alive. I would be glad if the original objective did not disappear from the horizon. But this requires the countries that are in the eurozone to coordinate their economic policies more forcefully and to a much deeper extent than they are currently doing. This is where the spheres of authority of the European Union should in fact be increased. While with regard to a myriad of other issues such as acacia, honey, pálinka distilling and the size and angle of curvature of cucumbers and other nonsensical questions it should return the right to decide to the relevant nation states.

GIK: Since you have mentioned these, let’s talk about them quickly one-by-one. In the case of acacia this is still a draft resolution, so there is a good chance that Hungary could succeed in defending Hungary’s acacia orchards and acacia trees in this respect. How are our chances?

VO: We are already over this partly, because when we last met – I believe – we came to an agreement with President Barroso. But the question isn’t whether we will succeed in defending anything; the question here is: how did we come to be in such a situation? How can anyone living in any corner of the world believe that it is any of their business and they can have a say in determining what species of trees should grow in Hungary and which shouldn’t? The whole situation is ridiculous, it’s absurd. This is the problem really.

GIK: But this isn’t only about Hungary. It isn’t specifically about Hungarian acacia trees but about so-called invasive species, species that have been brought in on purpose or by accident.

VO: Yes, but it is we Hungarians who live here. We know what should grow and what shouldn’t; what generates profit; what is useful and what isn’t. Why does someone want to take that away from us? Who can know better than we do how and in what manner it is worth organising Hungarian forest management?

GIK: Pálinka is a tougher issue. There we already have a final court ruling before us. Why are you saying that we must continue this battle in Europe’s institutions when a final court ruling has stated about these arguments that I have heard from you during the campaign, when the European Court of Justice has ruled about these arguments that making the home distillation of Pálinka free of excise duty is incompatible with European law?

VO: This is why we will be introducing a new solution, a new legal solution. We are working on it. It will to all intents and purposes continue to enable the home distillation of pálinka in Hungary, but in a way that respects the ruling of the European Court of Justice. They will attack the new legislation too, and that will lead to a renewed debate. And so although there is a court ruling the debate will not be about the current situation, but instead a new legal situation that we formulate and adopt will be the cause of renewed debate, and then we will need to fight to protect it.

GIK: Here’s a list of countries for you. Twelve countries.

VO: You’re being very strict this morning. Yes?

GIK: Bulgaria, France, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey, Iceland, Lithuania, Malta, Holland and Ukraine. What am I thinking of?

VO: Go ahead.

GIK: These are the countries that have life imprisonment without parole. In the final six, legal procedure doesn’t even include opportunities for the deferment, suspension or reduction of sentences. We have before us a decision the European Court of Human Rights, another court ruling. Why must we continue this battle?

VO: We must decide whether the strictness of punishments act as a deterrent in the modern world in which we live. Meaning whether there is a relationship between the strictness of sentences passed in relation to crimes and offences, and the number of crimes committed. In our view, there is. And so what we say is that the clearer and stricter the punishment, the less crimes will be committed by those who are thinking of committing such offences. The most important argument in favour of the death penalty in international debates is also that the death penalty has a significant deterrent effect. And this is of course a huge dilemma, that by taking someone’s life when the sentence is carried out you are also saving a few lives, because the deterrent effect of the death penalty means that there is a very high probability that fewer innocent people will fall victim to such crimes. Hungary falls within the framework of the European Union, because we have no death penalty here, and the European Union has banned the death penalty, although it would be worth a few debates too; we have in its place introduced life imprisonment without parole. It was undoubtedly not an easy decision, and we thought it through thoroughly and came to a decision while taking into account the interests of Hungarian society and questions of moral philosophy. By the way, according to the Hungarian system the President of the Republic has the right to grant a reprieve, and so life imprisonment without parole exists, but the road to it leads through a certain point, the route of a possible reprieve…

GIK: Yes, but with no grounds.

VO: There is a route through which it is possible for the sentence to include the possibility of parole.

GIK: Yes, but no grounds must be given for the request to be rejected.

VO: I am glad that no President has ever made use of this opportunity. That is something I agree with.

GIK: And we should also expect the Hungarian Constitutional Court to rule on the issue of life imprisonment without parole with relation to another Hungarian case. So you need to prepare for that case scenario too. More precisely, what legislative repercussions does this debate have here in Hungary, in your view?

VO: I have read through, or to be more elegant, I have examined the justification provided in the ruling of the Strasbourg court and as far as I can see – but that will be a job for the Minister of Justice, once there is a Minister of Justice; that will happen on 6 June – it does not follow from the ruling that Hungary should amend its legislative process.

GIK: In summary: Hungarian model – Hungarian debates. Are you counting – and I am asking for a concrete answer here – on further debates, or do you feel that the upcoming four-year government cycle, of which we do not as yet know the members of the cabinet, will generate conflicts of a similar magnitude in these institutions?

VO: We are up to our necks in such conflicts already, or at least up to our shoulders. So there will be arguments of this nature, but I must add that the number of issues that the EU has with Hungary puts us in the midfield within Europe. There is a misconception in Hungary. I don’t know exactly where it is derived from, where the root of it is, but many people think that our only job in Brussels is to behave like good little boys. The fewer conflicts there are and the less noise there is, the better. The reality is exactly the opposite: the less noise there is and the fewer conflicts there are the fewer of our interests we can successfully enforce. I repeat, if we take a look at the 28 European Union member states and at how many legally initiated arguments the EU has on important issues with the various member states, then Hungary is somewhere in the middle of the field. So those who do not face up to arguments and do not stand up for themselves are pushovers and losers, and are not qualified to fit their own nations. In this sense, conflict is not a bad thing, but is a necessary thing. We must fight these battles well, cleverly and according to the rules of common sense.

GIK: Two, or rather two-and-a-half questions to finish with, and these also involve the European Union. The Eurosceptic camp could have new additions thanks to Hungarian MEP Béla Kovács, representing the Jobbik party. Except I am not sure whether he also represents Hungarian interests. In an interview last week you said that you ‘know enough’ about this case. My question now is whether the case of Béla Kovács has also been investigated by foreign secret services?

VO: The secret services work within the framework of international cooperation, and I do know enough, but believe me, not all knowledge makes one happy.

GIK: Ukraine is one of the EUs greatest challenges. It has a prominent place on the invitation to the European Union’s every important meeting. People say that the question isn’t whether there will be a gas crisis; the only question is when, and in addition Central Europe must brace itself for serious consequences if so-called third round sanctions are imposed. What’s the solution? And don’t you think that your few short sentences on autonomy were a little premature?

VO: No, not at all. I formulated my thoughts at exactly the right moment and according to the best of my abilities. The new Ukraine is being formed now. We hope very much that it will be democratic, but we cannot know for sure. I think that the European Union, which has taken a stand in support of Ukraine, must make it clear now what requirements, expectations and standards it has with regard to Ukraine. If we do not present our requirements now, if we do not speak openly now, if we do not argue in Brussels now in favour of the fact that Ukraine should indeed be federal and that there should indeed be autonomies, that the monitories living there must be given rights and people cannot be prevented from having dual citizenship; if we do not make this clear now, then when will we?

GIK: Yes, except that these issues are superseded by the question of where the Ukrainian-Russian border will run. Right?

VO: It doesn’t supersede them; this issue, which is indeed a weighty and important decision, is present parallel to the issues I have just mentioned. In reality, a problem has become apparent with regard to Ukraine, and the question is, what can the international community do in the case of a huge country? That country is Russia, and it is not the first time that Russia has decided to disregard the regulations of international law. This is the issue that the whole world is grappling with today.

GIK: Do you expect the situation to reinforce NATO from a military perspective? And this question is also of interest to Hungary, since Hungary is currently one of the member states that spends the least on defence.

VO: We spend 0.9% of our gross national product on military expenditure.

GIK: And in comparison, that is less than the others. We can talk about whether this is a little or a lot, but in comparison it is less.

VO: Yes, but not less than everybody else. But of course this is not a sum that makes us a strong military power, that’s true. We do have an undertaking with NATO regarding how we will be increasing this sum. Today, the state of the Hungarian economy is such that this undertaking does not seem unrealistic, and during the upcoming years we will be increasing military expenditure somewhat, although of course only with prudence, because the economy isn’t standing on steel pillars just yet. And in reply to the question, I think that the current crisis in Ukraine will lead to an increase in NATO activity and in its level of technical preparedness and financial options.

GIK: And finally, in closing, within just under a minute: how are you doing with regard to forming the new government?

VO: I’m in the home straight.

GIK: Do you already know roughly who the members of the new Cabinet will be?

VO: I have a totally clear picture as far as the Ministers go, and the picture is perhaps 80% clear with regard to the Ministers of State.

GIK: We will leave figures and ministry politics for our next conversation. Our guest today has been Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

VO: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here.

(Prime Minister’s Office)