The expansion of the Hungarian Village program includes support for small shops in settlements with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants.Continue reading
Viktor Orbán was a guest on Kossuth Radio on Friday morning, where he spoke about the main political and economic issues of the past week. The Prime Minister touched on the scandalous statements made by opposition Tisza party MEP Kinga Kollár, the tariff war, and Ukraine’s EU membership.
The Prime Minister recalled that U.S. President Donald Trump said before the election that he would reset world trade and improve America’s position vis-à-vis all countries. Especially with countries where he believes the U.S. is losing ground. In the end, the Americans will come to an agreement with each one of them and a new balance, a new situation will emerge, he stated.
It will take a month or two. I do not see this as something that is going to be with us for a long time,”
Mr. Orbán underlined, adding that we must leave the issue of the customs war to the experts.
He stressed that we are in an era of high inflation, and the main reason for this is the Russian-Ukrainian war. The best way to bring inflation down in the long term is peace, he said, adding that the European Union’s only task is to support the U.S. President in his peace efforts. The Prime Minister recalled that prices had soared in the run-up to the conflict and then after the outbreak of war. He recounted that the government introduced price caps at the beginning of the war, and now they are regulating margins.
Viktor Orbán added that the government has successfully negotiated with telecom companies as well, so that they will not raise their prices until next July, and will bring them back to the level they were at the beginning of the year. It seems that we are very close or have already reached an agreement with the banks that the cost of banking should not be raised – not even on the grounds of inflation – in the period ahead, the Prime Minister said, stressing that a similar agreement had been sought with food retailers, but had not been successful there.
He emphasized that
these steps made it clear to everyone that “the era of ripping off Hungarians on the grounds of war or inflation is over,” and that the state would intervene in the price-setting system “if abnormal situations arise.”
Mr. Orbán talked about the statement made by Tisza Party MEP Kinga Kollár recently, when she said in the European Parliament that the positive side of withholding EU funds and economic damage was that it strengthens the opposition. The Prime Minister said that as government leader, he himself was fighting for the interests of the Hungarian people, and he had already managed to get half of the EU funds Hungary was entitled to.
At the same time,
the Tisza party members “are not ashamed of working against their own country, they are proud of it, and that is their goal, and they are even happy when things go badly in Hungary, because (…) they say that it is good for the opposition,”
he pointed out. He added that opposition politicians are doing this in collusion with a foreign power, the Brussels bureaucrats. Orbán said that this reminds him of former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s scandalous speech at Balatonőszöd, which was said to be a speech of truth. Now the Tisza Party is trying to explain that it is the right thing for a representative in Brussels to work against his own country. “I think this is the moment when the ground opens up under your feet and you disappear into the abyss,” he stated.
@PM_ViktorOrban slammed the Tisza Party for betraying Hungary’s interests. “They’re not ashamed of working against their own country—they’re proud of it,” he said on Kossuth Radio, accusing them of rooting for failure at home to help the opposition.
⚖️He emphasized that MEPs… pic.twitter.com/8P1ww4PYJe
— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) April 11, 2025
The Prime Minister said it was important that everyone in Hungary should be able to express their opinion on issues that determine the future of the country. He stressed that if we look back, we can see that this was also the case on the issue of migration. Hungary is the only European country to have held a referendum on migration, he recalled. He pointed out that this was also the case on child protection, which is a big challenge for the whole of Europe, how we imagine our future, the life of our society, our families, our communities. Here again, Hungary was the only country where people could express their views, he stressed.
The third major issue on the table is the one that will fundamentally determine Hungary’s fate in the coming decades. This is whether Ukraine will be admitted to the European Union. If it is, there will be consequences, and if it is averted, there will also be consequences; this is a crucial issue, he emphasized.
Mr. Orbán stressed that he personally is convinced that the admission of Ukraine will destroy Hungary and Hungarian families, and will wipe out the economic achievements of the past 15 years.
He highlighted that every Hungarian may have a different opinion on this, or even one that coincides with his own. What is important is that there should be a common opinion, and that it should be clear what the Hungarian position is on this important issue, which has been at the center of European debates for years, and that this position should then be represented in Brussels.
Mr. Orbán said that we must fight for the opportunity not to lose everything we have worked for, and to keep economic opportunities open for Hungary. We must fight to ensure that no one has to jeopardize economic results, that Hungarians do not have to take the risks associated with agriculture and the many risks to public security and public order that Ukraine’s membership of the European Union would otherwise entail. This is the battle that is taking place in Brussels, and it will be the most important and ongoing battle of the next few years, not just a few months, he stressed.
Speaking about the war in Ukraine, Orbán said Europe is apparently preparing to continue the war, they say that Ukraine can win this war and that membership of the European Union can help Ukraine to win it. This is the worst possible idea, Ukraine cannot win this war, the Prime Minister underlined, adding that EU membership cannot be an instrument of war.
Mr. Orbán also remarked that liberal economists regularly write that it is not sensible to live in villages, to organize services on a village scale, and that everything would be much more practical and cheaper if everyone moved to the big cities. “This is a far cry from the way we think, because we think that living in a village is good, and that a really quality life is probably best lived in a village,” he emphasized. He recalled that the communist system had managed to create a feeling that the village was underdeveloped and the town developed, that the townspeople were educated and the villagers were not. “I come from a village of 1,800 people. I hope I am a living example of this refutation,” he noted.
He stressed that villages are also home to many people who are born and live with good skills, a willingness to work, and a forward-looking outlook. We are close to having almost full access to urban services in villages, and where this is not yet the case, the government is working on it, he declared.
There should be shops, taverns, ATMs, a motorway, a road that everyone can reach within 20-30 minutes, a good school – if not in the village, then the school center should be within reach and then a school bus – a health service, a district commissioner available in the village 24 hours a day,” he listed.
He added that a lot of energy is being invested to make villagers equal citizens of the country, to strengthen their faith in their environment and in the future; the Hungarian Village Program is successful in this respect.
Speaking about the importance of families, Mr. Orbán stressed that when people start a family, they not only serve their own personal happiness, but also the future of the community to which they belong. In this regard, mothers should therefore be honored not only because they are undertaking a very difficult task, but also because they are undertaking something that is important for the whole community. If this is the case, then it is not fair that those who have children are worse off than those who do not, he pointed out.
“I think it is the government’s job to play a role in righting the justice here.
For me, this is also a personal issue. I came back to Hungarian politics in 2010, with a commitment to eliminate this difference, that is, that the life of families who have children would not be more difficult than that of families who do not have children,”
he underlined.
He called it a matter of honor to support mothers and to ensure that those who have children pay no personal income tax for the rest of their lives. He recalled that a tax benefit after children had been introduced earlier, and now a lifelong tax exemption for mothers would be added. For mothers with more than three children, the tax relief will be available from October this year, mothers of two children under 40 from January 1, 2026, and mothers of two children under 50 in 2026.
This will create a family-centered economic system in Hungary that puts the family and children first,”
he concluded. Orbán continued: the recognition of the merits of raising children should also be linked to work. Therefore, the best policy for the country and for families is to give families, especially mothers, the opportunity to decide whether they want to stay at home to raise children or to work while raising children, he explained. It is good for the country if mothers decide to work, he said, adding that is why the government has set up a family support system that rewards or recognizes everyone who raises a child, but especially those who are in the labor market while raising a child. That is why a large part of family support reaches families through work. Not only through mothers, but also through fathers, because they can pool their income and deduct the tax credits, he concluded.
Featured photo via MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher
