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Hungary has a decisive say on Ukraine’s EU membership, and now is the time to make it clear whether we want to take on the financial burden or not, the Prime Minister stressed at the Economic Policy Forum of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday.
Viktor Orbán said that “the EU wants to keep Ukraine alive, because – without Hungary’s participation, but in a way that also affects us – a decision has been made that Europe will finance the Ukrainian army.” In addition, he continued, the EU is financing the functioning of the Ukrainian state, at the same time as it wants to rearm itself and wants to fast-track Ukraine’s admission to the EU to compensate for not being admitted to NATO.
He stated that he is sure that
this decision by Brussels will crush the European economy and must not happen.
He pointed out that Hungary has a decisive say on Ukraine’s EU membership, but that the other financial arrangements can be put in place without us. Mr. Orbán warned that this was a matter of such gravity that it could determine Hungary’s fate in the medium and long term.
Speaking about the government’s financial responsibility, he said that whatever happens in the world, the budget must be balanced after the debt service is deducted, “because if the primary deficit also goes into negative territory, it could cause financial instability in the country, which we cannot afford.”
The Prime Minister pointed out that
during the past three years of the war, the Hungarian economy lost €20 billion, hence if there is any country that truly has a interest in ending the war as soon as possible, it is Hungary.
Mr. Orbán said that the European Union needs a change of scale that has not been seen for 20-30 years: instead of fiscal conservatism, the EU must shift to the logic of a developmental state. He added that it is legitimate to criticize the EU leadership, but it is important to bear in mind that the EU has to do something that goes against the logic of how it has operated so far. “And it is not at all certain that it will be able to make this change,” he noted.
The crux of the problem, he said, was that the European Union’s most important rule so far has been that Member States’ budget deficits must be below three percent, even though its competitors have not been doing that for decades. The moment has come for the EU to face the consequences of this, he warned.
He stressed that Germany, as the EU’s most powerful state, is a decisive factor in determining the economic philosophy of the European Union. “Germans are facing a tough decision: they are abandoning classic German fiscal discipline. What will happen is that they will create an 800 billion euro national economic package that will be used to develop infrastructure and increase military capabilities,” he indicated.
Orbán pointed out the political implications of the decision, saying: “This will mark the beginning of the rearmament of Germany in the middle of Europe. There will be a German army, the largest in Europe. And the industrial base behind it, which they want to build with this money, will also be far bigger than any other. We have not seen anything like this since the Second World War.”
Turning to the €800 billion German package, he stressed that Germany is abandoning the debt brake rule, because it does not have the money, and now it has to be taken out as a loan. In his assessment, it is too early to say whether this will be good for Hungary in the medium term because there are opportunities and threats on the table, but
it could not be better news for the Hungarian economy in the short term.”
After all, if money is injected into the German economy and economic growth and a corresponding economic upturn is triggered, this will be reflected almost immediately in the Hungarian economy through a rapid transmission system and will boost the performance of the Hungarian economy, he indicated.
Mr. Orbán confirmed that he believes that this year is the year of the breakthrough. He spoke about maintaining economic neutrality as one of the elements of Hungary’s strategy for the coming period, stressing that Hungary must not undertake any isolationist measures.
He said that
today the European Union is an isolated player in the world economy, but Hungary is not part of it.
He argued that the EU is at war, or at least in a serious political dispute, with the United States. He warned that the EU has entered into open conflict with the US over the war, has isolated itself from China by initiating tax and tariff initiatives, and has isolated itself from Russia from the beginning of the war by sanctions, especially energy sanctions.
In contrast, he stressed, Hungary has the best possible relations with the US, Russia, and China. “Therefore, if we are talking about isolation, it is true for the EU, not for Hungary,” he said.
Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Koszticsák Szilárd