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Orbán: ceasefire is more important than winning the war in Ukraine
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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in an interview on Friday, called for ceasefire and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Orbán also said that he had asked the governor of the central bank and the finance minister to take measures to reduce inflation “by half at the least” before the end of 2023.
The prime minister told public radio that a ceasefire and peace talks would result in economic relief. As long as the war continues and the West responds by employing sanctions, neither inflation nor energy prices will fall, he added. Orbán insisted that Brussels had “messed up” sanctions and they were not coupled with proposals for price cuts, resulting in sanctions-fuelled inflation, with Hungary having to pay extra for energy as a result of the sanctions.
Hungary has achieved exemption from all sanctions that affect its energy market negatively but the problem remains that since the country is part of a common European market, it is still affected by the high energy prices, Orbán said. The ultimate solution to combatting high energy prices would be if the European Union dropped its sanctions policy, Orbán said. However, “a great struggle” would be needed for this to happen, he added. “There are those who talk about having to win the war but others, including Hungary, say that what’s needed is an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks,” he said.
Read also Orbán: ceasefire is more important than winning the war in Ukraine
Orbán said some had questioned how Hungary “as a nation of freedom fighters … now stands on the side of peace”, adding that the country understood “the brutality of the Soviet army” and what fighting the Russians meant, but in 1956 “the reason we fought was not because we thought we could defeat the Soviet Union … We mounted a revolution and freedom fight to force a ceasefire and peace talks” with the ultimate aim of getting the Russians to enter into an agreement with the West on how Hungary could become “a neutral state, like Austria”. Orbán added that demands for a ceasefire and peace talks were growing in strength.
The prime minister said that
sanctions were causing “increasing dissatisfaction”,
and Hungary was no longer alone in asking “what’s going on here and whose interests are being served”. “We must ask the same questions of our American friends” concerning who benefits from the current situation “because we Europeans are certainly losing” and “you are winning, while the Russians are hardly being defeated”. “The entire situation has been put together in a way that we Europeans can only lose out,” Orbán said.
Let’s just throw the Ukrainians under the bus then, shall we?
And Hungary will not become a refugee camp. Nobody wants to stay or settle, here. They want to go to the rest of the EU or the UK. Much like the Ukrainian refugees. Unless someone forces them – immigrants or refugees will go, elsewhere.
The difference between President Biden and EU leaders and Prime Minister Orban, Mr. Orban cares about human lives.