Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held his annual international press conference on Monday, the main opportunity for journalists from independent media to question him directly.
Orbán addressed global issues, emphasising pragmatism over moral posturing.
He reported that he attended 82 meetings with world leaders and 25 summits last year, a year that he said marks the end of the “liberal world order” and the beginning of the “era of nations”, dominated by war, energy, and mi-
gration.
He again stressed the importance to Hungary of staying out of armed conflicts, achieving energy self-sufficiency, and managing migration without creating migrant camps.
Orbán said Hungary’s sovereign foreign policy means maintaining EU membership but also fostering relations with the US, China, Russia, and the Arab world.
He said Hungary still needs a “financial protective shield” from the US, something he
failed to obtain on his last visit to Donald
Trump, and said the Foreign Minister is working on this. He dismissed the EU as unreliable in such a matter.
Orbán said he does not quite understand the dispute in Slovakia over the law outlawing
criticism of the Benes Decrees. Many say the decrees are bad, but he does not see the con-
sequences of this.
He continued: “I see that there are specific cases where the Benes decrees are used as a tool in property disputes over a thousand hectares. Then, when I understand the issue in sufficient depth, I will talk to the Slovak presi-
dent and prime minister”.
He evaded a question on how the US incursion into Venezuela differs from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
President Trump’s expressed desire to annex Greenland would be a different issue, he said, as Denmark is a NATO member. Orbán did not take a stand on Greenland, but said Hungary will take a position on this issue when
it becomes relevant.
He declared that the US action in Venezuela is a manifestation of the new world order, adding “this is a new language, we will speak this in the future”.