They want to force Hungary into war and are not choosy when it comes to the means to achieve this, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban told the Swiss weekly Weltwoche newspaper, emphasizing that "Hungary's political leadership is strong enough to keep our country out of the war."

In response to the question how Hungary endures the war in Ukraine, Hungary’s prime minister said that „we are the hardest hit by the EU sanctions against Russia,” which have driven up oil and gas prices, the paper quoted him as saying in its Thursday edition. Hungary has made huge progress in the field of industry recently, but the energy needed for this must be imported, Viktor Orban pointed out, explaining that this cost the country 7 billion euros in 2021, an expense that soared to 17 billion euros in 2022.

The war „puts a strain on us mentally and emotionally”, the Hungarian premier said.

„Ukraine is a neighbouring country with Hungarians living there. They are conscripted and die by the hundreds on the front,” he added, pointing out that everyone in Hungary wants peace because this war „is not happening far from us”.

„We pray and trust in God that he will force the warring sides into reckoning. We are under constant pressure. They want to force us into war and they are not choosy when it comes to the means to achieve this. So far we have managed to resist, which gives me hope. Hungary’s political leadership is strong enough to keep our country out of the war. I say this with due humbleness, but at the same time with confidence,” PM Orban said, emphasizing that he believes that Christian teaching also applies in politics.

In response to a question, Mr Orban called it the most important revelation of the Ukraine war that „today, Europe has withdrawn from debates. In the decisions made in Brussels, I recognise American interests more often than European ones,” he added, remarking that „today, the Americans have the last word” in the war taking place in Europe.

„We know no European identity, either emotionally or intellectually,” he continued. „Had we conducted a earnest debate on the future of Europe, without any taboos (…), we would probably have possessed a solid self-image at the beginning of the war,” he explained. At the same time, PM Orban described Donald Trump’s defeat at the last US presidential race as bad luck, arguing that „there would have been no war” if the former Republican president had won. At this point, Viktor Orban noted that the change of government in Germany has also „played a part”.

PM Orban agreed with the journalist’s comment that the deeper reason for Europe’s weakness lies in the European Union, because it „breaks up nation states without putting anything viable in their place.”

„I see it the same way,” Viktor Orban said, adding that „The EU wants ‘ever closer union’. We disagree about the goal but agree about the path. This is the cause of Europe’s illness”.

Speaking about the outcome of the war, the prime minister stressed that „no one can be a winner.” „The Ukrainians are facing a nuclear power with a population of 140 million, and the Russians are facing the whole of NATO. That’s what makes it so dangerous. It’s a stalemate that could easily degenerate into a world war,” he said.

PM Orban recalled that two weeks before the war broke out, when he last met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the Russian president told him that Hungary’s NATO membership was not an issue, but that of Ukraine and Georgia was.

„Putin’s problem – as he told me – is the US missile bases established in Romania and Poland, as well as NATO’s possible expansion with Ukraine and Georgia in order to deploy weapons there. In addition, the US has withdrawn from important disarmament treaties. This caused Putin sleepless nights,” PM Orban said, noting that „I can understand what Putin said. But I don’t accept what he did.”

In the interview, Hungary’s prime minister also explained that „Russia is another civilization” where European political norms do not work. „It doesn’t matter whether we like it or not,” he noted, adding that we have to find a way to live together with a large, dangerous power like Russia next door.

Mr Orban said it’s tough to imagine what would happen if Russia lost the war. „Russia is a nuclear power. That would be a geopolitical shock, a potentially devastating earthquake on a global scale, far worse than the collapse of Yugoslavia. The fact itself that the West takes such scenarios lightly, suggests a disconcerting, even frightening detachment from reality and blindness to the risks of its own individual policy”, he emphasized.

Europe must be capable of defending herself, PM Orban said. “The creation of a European NATO would provide a solution. I already proposed it back in 2012,” he recalled.

In terms of peace-making, Mr Orban said “peace begins in the heart, and then it must reach the head which then leads the hand… This is the order of events: first we have to wish for peace, then want it, then make it. Today, the willpower is missing, at least in the West,” he said, adding that the Chinese, the Indians, the Arabs, the Turks and the Brazilians all want peace.

“The West has lost its ability to unify the world under a cause. Its basic philosophical tenets are spatially limited. This is a new phenomenon,” he pointed out.

Talking about Hungary’s role in the peace-making efforts, he said that in order for “our friends and allies to give up their pro-war position, they have to see an alternative.”

Responding to the interviewer’s question as to what should happen in the US and whether the country’s policies can change, Viktor Orban stressed that the Hungarian experience was clear. “When the Democrats are in power in Washington, we flee to cover. They always want to change us, just like the politicians in Brussels. They want to prescribe us how to handle migration and how to teach our children. This is disrespectful,” he said.

“We are a successful country, and we do what we have to for Europe,” he added. “We are the defenders of forts at the edge of the continent. They don’t recognise this work. That is why we are waiting for our Republican friends to get back into power.”

Donald Trump is not the last hope of the world for peace, Mr Orban said, adding however that “he is a hope.” Donald Trump would “probably succeed in making peace in a matter of weeks,” he stressed.

Responding to the interviewer’s suggestion – that “the preachers of globalisation and free trade who meet every year at the Davos World Economic Forum” have a new gospel: “the reversion of globalisation,” in which “we are the good guys and they are the bad guys” – PM Orban underlined that this was indeed “a serious threat to Hungary. We are an export-oriented country, as 85 per cent of our gross domestic product comes from export. We have important cultural and economic relations in the East. Any reversal would be fatal for Hungary. But also for Germany, I think,” he said.

Touching on Switzerland, Mr Orban described the country in the Alps important, which “exists just how it wants to, yet it’s not isolated. This means that preserving one’s identity does not necessarily lead to provincialism. Switzerland is a key positive example,” Viktor Orban said, adding that if Hungary was where Switzerland is, then “we would also be neutral. This is a luxury that Switzerland enjoys, but we are not entitled to it.”

Responding to a question, the premier said the largest short-term threats of uncontrolled migration were terrorism, and a worsening of public security. “In the mid-run, the greatest risk is economic losses, whereas in the long run, it is that people will fail to recognise their own nations, effectively losing their homeland,” he said.

On the subject of gender ideology, PM Orban said the biggest threat was that young people aged between 14 and 18 “have to grow into the world… Their identity must be strengthened, and not weakened or destabilised during this period, something that gender ideologues are doing. Because this ruins our children, irrevocably and irreversibly. They have no right to do that,” he underlined.

Answering the journalist’s question about what he would do if he were “the dictator of the EU” for a day, as former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker once called him, Viktor Orban said: “I would do what Mr Juncker also liked to do: I would get drunk. Fortunately, there is no such possibility.”

He continued by pointing out that there is a good manual, written by former Bavarian Minister President Edmund Stoiber, in which he describes how the EU could be reorganised based on subsidiarity.

“What is missing is not the knowledge, but the intention,” Mr Orban said, adding that “all powers that have been taken away by the EU without the approval of the member states must be given back to the member states.”