The Orbán government also regards the EU Green Deal proposal as "unacceptable," because it would involve an indirect tax on homeowners and car owners, the Prime Minister said.Continue reading
Hungary must defend the achievements of its public utility cost reduction scheme, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.
In a regular interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio, the prime minister said Brussels wanted to raise electricity and fuel prices on the grounds of fighting climate change.
Brussels wants to introduce “a complex system” to tax families with cars and homes but the Visegrad Group countries are resisting such a step and will not approve at next week’s European Union summit any decision that would raise electricity and gas prices, he said.
Orbán said that though it was important to fight climate change, its costs should be borne by the world’s top emitting companies rather than households.
This, he said, required an energy price regulatory framework and the elimination of speculative elements, and warned that “when we allow money into areas where it has no place . there will always be a problem.”
Orbán said households in Vienna and Berlin today were paying two to three times more for electricity and gas than in Budapest, adding that gas prices were eight times as high in Sweden as in Hungary.
The prime minister noted that the “years-long fight” to cut utility prices was one of his government’s first battles with Brussels. If utility prices in Hungary were set by the market, an average Hungarian family would be paying 380,000-400,000 forints (EUR 1,060-1,110) more in utility costs annually, he added.
Orbán said the previous Socialist-liberal governments had given multinational energy companies permission to raise prices about 15 times, adding that the leftist opposition in parliament “is again demanding that the government introduce market prices for gas and electricity”.
Concerning the issue of migration, Orbán said western European countries had “given up hope that their own women and men” could solve their countries’ demographic woes. “They’ve said that if they aren’t bearing enough German, Belgian or French children, they need to be substituted,” Orbán explained. “They say a German child can be substituted with an African or an Asian one.” Orbán said this kind of attitude was “shocking” to Hungarians. Hungary, on the other hand, is fighting to clear the obstacles that have led to the decline in the birth rate, he said.
Orbán said the West’s intention of “forcing their migration policies onto Hungary” could be chalked up to “Western arrogance”.
“The West isn’t happy just being successful, they also insist that they are correct,” the prime minister said. “It’s not enough for them that they’re free and get to live how they want and enact decisions their peoples want; they also want everyone else to acknowledge that their decision is the only right one and to adopt it. So they want to tell us how to live.”
Orbán said that though Germany was a friend of Hungary, when it came to the issue of migration it wanted to put in place a “German Europe where they get to say what Europe should be like”.
But Hungary is resisting this, the prime minister said, noting that 12 countries had written a joint letter on steps Europe should take to protect its external borders instead of introducing mandatory migrant resettlement quotas, he said.
“The borders can’t be protected with flower bouquets, teddy bears and welcoming committees,” Orbán said. “Migrants who storm the border and try to breach the border fence must be stopped.”
Featured photo by Vivien Cher Benko/PM’s Press Office/MTI
