14 March 2014, Budapest, District XVII

Mónika Pölös: Hello everyone! Today you are watching an exclusive interview with Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. Welcome to the Rákosmente studio, Prime Minister, and thank you for accepting our invitation.

Viktor Orbán: Thank you for inviting me, good afternoon.

MP: This is not the first time that the Prime Minister has visited our District, you were last here with us in 2010, and I would like to provide a piece of joyous news with reference to the fact that the number of children and residents here in the District has been growing continuously for years: since 2006, 12 new kindergarten groups have increased the capacity of the District's kindergartens by more than 300 places, and last year 5 additional forms began their studies in our secondary schools. We have lots of large families and many people live in multiple-generation detached houses. In your opinion, to what extent have the measures introduced during the past four years succeeded in achieving the government's related goals?

VO: Yes, that's right; I was here in the studio in 2010 too. A was visiting the Mayor in his office at the time. To be honest, I must say that I was happy to come here today, but I was especially happy to do so then because until then things somehow didn't want to work out for us here in the District. We worked hard and had excellent people here on the ground, but we somehow did not win the people's confidence. And I was very happy when things took a turn and I have always paid attention to what was happening here in this district, because it is one thing to win the people's confidence, but another thing entirely to preserve it. That is perhaps even more difficult that winning it. And so I kept an eye on how our people here were doing, whether they needed any help, whether I can perhaps add something, and in general, on how we can cooperate. And I am very happy, particularly proud and very happy, because not only have they done a good job – our honour has been preserve, it would seem – but they have created a dynamic District, or rather have made it clear that this is a dynamic district. Things are going on and have been going on here, as I can see from simply looking at the requests for funding I keep receiving, that paint a picture of a vigorous District. Vigour comes primarily from life itself, from our children. And as you mentioned, there are very few settlements in Hungary in which there are more christenings that funerals. Your District is one such locality. Of course children are born here and some move here too, this is a modern suburb after all – it would like to be one, or perhaps it already is – and that is attractive to people. But unfortunately, I wouldn't say that our family support measures have succeeded in achieving our hopes just yet, because people's thinking on caring for life doesn't change over just four years, but if we don't begin somewhere then it will never change. And so we have started something, which we actually did prior to 2002, but then there came a different era and it was stopped and family benefits were taken away. At the time, the home purchasing scheme we funded was also terminated and was replaced by these foreign currency loans, which ended very badly, as we know; and then they also reduced the period of parental and childcare leave, so lots of bad things happened as far as families go. It wasn't a family-friendly period for Hungary. And so after 2010, when we again received the country's vote of confidence, we attempted to re-launch our family-friendly policies. And we have done a lot of work. Of the things you didn't mention, I would like to bring up two, if you will allow me. One is that women can now retire after 40 years of registered employment. This, in addition to the fact that they obviously deserve it, is also an opportunity for them to spend more time with their families, and especially with their children and grandchildren. And so I think that this enables an important opportunity to strengthen family ties. And the other is the Job Protection Action Plan, within the framework of which we have tried to help those women who would like to clamber their way back onto the job market after being at home with their small children. And employers think hard about whether to employ a mother with small children or a man, who is less likely to ask for time off because of their children, for the same job. And so we have introduced a tax benefit for those employers who are prepared to re-hire or employ mothers with small children. So we have attempted to view all of life in Hungary through the glasses of the family, and it wasn't too difficult, because there are many of us in the government and around the government, who have large families with lots of children, and this is what we wanted to order life around somehow. I think that a lot has happened as a result, but to say that it has achieved the awaited results would be too much. The results will be achieved if we are able to continue what we have been doing. And of course there are also always new elements, such as the childcare allowance extra scheme, but these need time, eight, ten, twelve years, to have the desired effect. This is one of the reasons why during the current election campaign I am asking that the country's voters give us another four years so that the programmes we have launched can begin to have a significant effect. And then, if we can sit here again in four years' time, I may be able to state that the measures have achieved the desired results. Today, we are simply proud and hopeful of them.

MP: Another thing that is important to families is the cost of living and how much they have to pay for their public utilities, and one of the Government's priority tasks is precisely to reduce the price of utilities. The process itself began in 2010, if I am correct, when you froze these utility prices. And then in 2013 they began to be reduced. And, in your own words, you view the defence and continuation of the reduction of public utility prices as the most important task of the upcoming years.

VO: Let me tell you something that I don't usually mention, because governing is not a personal matter, it only requires personal effort; yes, in 2010 it was I who ordered public utility prices to be frozen. I gave the minister the task, as things go, to enforce this political decision. A year later I took a look at the figures, and although pro forma the prices were frozen, people were still paying more. And then I said, dang it! You can't have a state of affairs in which the Government has made a clear decision but the service providers, the bureaucrats or lord knows who, pretend to conform to the Government's decision while in fact doing exactly the opposite. And then I said, let's talk to each other seriously and honestly, let's get out the profit reports and have a look at what happened in recent years. The price of utilities was increased fifteen times during the eight years of socialist government. And so I said that the time has come for us to decrease them. And they said: not even Kádár did that, to which I said: we are not János Kádár, so we will go ahead and do it. And this is how we embarked on the reduction in public utility prices – something that also required the failure of the price freeze, by the way. We felt that we had been cheated, that the Hungarian people were being cheated, and through them the Hungarian Government, and then we said, let's start using a different tone of voice. This is how the reduction in public utility prices began.

MP: How do you evaluate this period, either from all they way back in 2010, or from 2013, when slightly more important, significant and visible measures were introduced in this field?

VO: Look, the most important argument is always life itself. I have arrived here today from Miskolc where I was visiting some pensioners. We have a pilot programme called Digital Hungary, Digital Miskolc. We are trying to give both young people and the older generation the tools with which to build a digital community. I took one of these gadgets along with me and I sat down and spoke to this elderly couple. And the wife, who also handles the money in that family, told me that they had saved 60 thousand forints last year thanks to the reduction in utility prices, and since they had managed to get by so far she had deposited those surplus 60 thousand forints into the state treasury in the name of their grandchild – there is a programme that provides a favourable interest rate – and she had added up that since there would be further cuts this year she would be able to save even more than 60 thousand forints this year and would be depositing that too. I don't think a Prime Minister can find any more convincing proof than when someone explains to him exactly what the cuts mean with relation to their own lives. After that, it doesn't require great courage to state that this is a significant, big, common success.

MP: How will the third phase of cuts, which are just around the corner and very tangible now, take place? What do you expect from it, what are your hopes?

VO: We are of course going ahead with the April cut, when the price of gas will be reduced again. The price of electricity will be next and then district heating. The level of cuts will vary from 3.7 to 6 point something percent. We will take a look at how the financial indices of the companies affected change, because we don't want to see anyone go bankrupt of course, and then we will decide on the next step. Since we have embarked on this course, I have some clear ideas about how to take things further. I would like a publicly owned public service provider to be established in Hungary that provides people with gas, electricity and everything they need while otherwise not wanting to achieve a profit and only collecting enough utility payments to cover the cost of operation and the actual cost of the product – gas, water, electricity – sold. So we would like to establish a non-profit national organisation, as the first ever non-profit Hungarian service provider, and once this is up and running then I think we can continue the process following this next, third phase of public utility price cuts.

MP: We could continue talking about this topic in even greater detail, but our airtime is flying, so I need to move on to the next subject. Another significant element of government policy is increasing public safety. Has making public safety policy stricter and increasing the number of police officers on the streets led to the expected results within the field of public safety?

VO: It has achieved results; I would prefer to reply to your question with suitable moderation. The situation is still not good, but we are performing better than before. Sometimes, a simple sentence can help a lot with regard to difficult issues like public safety. And the sentence goes like this: law-abiding citizens must be protected. And this means that criminals belong in prison. This may sound simple, but for many long years this was not the approach of the administration in Hungary. Criminals were always excused: poor things, they have no other choice, and the notion of subsistence crime was invented. If we look at the criminal policy of the, lets not beat around the bush, socialist governments that preceded us, then at its essence was the absolving of criminals. The state didn't stand on the side of the victim, but one instead got the feeling that they were to all intents and purposes acting against them. And this is why the criminal system was neither exemplary, nor fair, nor strict not a deterrent. But it is not good to talk about such things, because we would all like to live in a law-abiding manner and this is also our wish for our fellow citizens, nobody should wish the other any harm, but it must be stated: if there are no fair, but strict and clear sanctions, then those who have a tendency to do such things will perpetrate such acts against us again and again; and not just against us, but perhaps against our children or our ageing parents. This cannot be allowed! And so it is the responsibility of a state to protect its own citizens. This is the path we have set out on and so there is a new wind blowing. A criminal must think not twice, but at least five times on whether it isn't perhaps worth changing lifestyle if there is an opportunity to do so; especially in the case of the three strikes law, according to which the third violent crime results in practically a life sentence. Now that is a very strict punishment. I can see the improvement and of course the figures speak for themselves – and we need to build a new prison – but we are not yet at the point when we can say with the utmost certainly that Hungary is the safest country in Europe. We still have a lot of work to do to achieve that.

MP: To work our way back a little to issues that affect the District, the inauguration of the eastern section of the M0 ring motorway has made life easier for many of the District's inhabitants, there's less traffic and of course freight traffic now avoids the District. But then again, at least as many people now complain that the area has become noisier. Can we hope that that certain noise barrier will be constructed in the near future, let's say?

VO: Let us perhaps begin by saying that what I have learned in the profession, if you don't mind me calling it that, is that there are good problems and there are bad problems. For instance, there aren't enough kindergartens and schools in this District, and we have to build some new ones; that's a good problem. And if not enough children are born, well that's a bad problem. And so we are now talking about a good problem. Parliamentary candidate Mónika Dunai came to see me and she complained about the situation, telling me she feels that the inhabitants of the District have been played around with for a long time because of supposed bureaucratic issues – the cases were being sent back and forth from one agency to another – and she specifically asked us to put a stop to this. As far as I know, we have succeeded in doing that and we have put a stop to it. Decisions have been made and the Government has voted to earmark funds for this purpose. So the noise barrier will be built, perhaps there is already a deadline within which the work must be completed, and it is according to this deadline that your local MP and the government should be called to account.

MP: Several new development projects have been realised in and around the district in recent years, with the help of European Union, state and local government funding, that provide help to those who like active leisure time and would like to do more sports, and which make our situation a little easier. The construction of the bicycle lanes for instance, or the inauguration of the renewed Népkert city park. Mr. Prime Minister, do you see any opportunities for further development projects of this nature being realised here in the near future?

VO: Well, let us first look at this issue from a much wider perspective. In my view, what we will need here in Hungary in the upcoming period is to feel more at home in our own homeland than we do now. We have taken important steps in this area. Because first, we declared that we would not allow others to push their noses into issues that are the business of the Hungarians, and we defended the country from the Brussels bureaucrats, and then we made is absolutely clear that we shall not be the victims of financial speculation, and so the banks should be so kind as to behave properly and take us seriously, and we also told the public utility providers that this is no longer the period of the socialist government, the time of extra profits is over, a new wind is blowing. With this, we have already taken a few steps in the direction of allowing people to feel a little more that this is after all their country. And the Government is creating unity to successfully put forward the strength of Hungary against sometimes huge odds. But there are still too few jobs, there are a lot of existential fears and people often give me the impression of having a permanent blood pressure of 180. Because there is a lot of uncertainty, stress, haste, impatience and rushing about, so we need to somehow create a world in which this blood pressure of 200 or 180 can fall back to its normal value of 120-130. And the other thing is that this also requires that we make ourselves at home here. We have fantastic opportunities and the government only needs to be a little more prudent and work together with local government, more prudent than it has been already, I mean, and then we would be capable of great things. You Mayor, Levente Riz, has been tugging at my sleeve for some time asking us to construct the bicycle route so people can cycle from here to, say, Gödöllő. And why not? It is the lungs of Budapest, and you're building a modern green suburb, so it would be right that you should be able to cycle all along the two banks of the Rákos stream, something that the Mayor has also been asking me for some time, and he is right in saying that we should also make this happen. Perhaps the concrete should also be removed from the stream – the Mayor will decide on that himself – but the banks should be made into a bicycle path; that would work. Or with regard to traffic, he tells me that the underground should have been connected to the local rail system here a long time ago, and then people could get into the centre of Budapest in 25-30 minutes. And so the Mayor and Mónika Dunai are softening me up and they have recommendations – and these are not small projects – that could be realised. But what I told them both is that of all these ideas that they have put on the table, let us put in first place that certain sports and recreation centre that we would like to build here. Because health is the most important thing and we must do our utmost to preserve it. If we have lost it, it is also important that we have a way to regain it, meaning that there is a way to cure us, but it is better not to lose it at all if possible. And for this we need to do sports, we need community spaces and our children need to grow up healthy. And in a city of this size with 80 thousand inhabitants – and some County centres are smaller than your District, or at least a good many of them – well I think that in a city of this size a large community space such as a sports arena is more than justified. And we have come to an agreement and we have the figures, but it has recently transpired that we also need to include a space for bowling in the plans, because it turns out that bowling has great traditions here, and then we can realise this project. And I am sure that it can be realised within the next term, and in fact we would like to come to a decision on the project before the elections at the next cabinet meeting so that we can begin the public procurement process, and then the District will have a truly comfortable, big city – at once big city and suburban – image.

MP: The next government term – and as we approach the end of the show – what is your message to the people of the 17th District?

VO: That they should under no circumstances allow others to decide in their place! Here's your chance, the elections are on 6 April. We have behind us these four years, as everyone has seen; people have been informed of these issues, battles and struggles day and night by the media – battles with Brussels, setting the banks straight here at home, reducing public utility prices – so everyone has been able to follow what has been happening in the country. The time for assessment has arrived, and what I would also ask of the people who live here is that you take account of everything that has happened honestly and seriously, as befits the Hungarians, and that you weight up the possibilities we have before us, and what I would like to ask you, the viewers, is that you be sure to go out and vote! And if you feel that it is worth continuing what we have begun – and this is what I am in favour of, this is what I am campaigning for – then please be so kind as to support our candidates and please support Mónika Dunai. And later, at the elections for the post of Mayor, please stand up for your Mayor, who I think has done a fantastic job here in the District. Not alone, of course, but together with the people of the District; he has achieved these excellent results with the help and cooperation of the good-willed people of the District. Why shouldn't we continue along this path if after many many years we finally have the opportunity to make Hungary successful?

MP: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much for the conversation and we would be happy to welcome you again at any time here in the 17th District and in the Rákosmente TV studio!

VO: Thank you!

MP: And thank you for watching, dear viewers. Good afternoon and see you soon!

(Prime Minister’s Office)