„We’re paying higher prices in shops … because of the war in Ukraine,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday, adding that the war was also dampening Hungary’s economic growth. „The government is putting the economy back on a growth path this year after an extremely difficult 2023” he said. „If we were not in a war environment, growth would not be 2.5% but twice as high.” Should the war continue next year, „Hungary’s defence spending budgeted for 2023-24 will not be enough … it must be increased, and we’ll have less money left for other things,” he said. „In the shadow of war, it’s harder to run the economy … than in peacetime.” Orbán said that memories of the second world war and its consequences had bestowed on Hungarians „an instinctive desire for peace”. While in France or Germany „it is a political position … for us it is our deepest life instinct to reject war and crave peace,” he added. The outcome of the European Parliament elections would determine whether pro-war or pro-peace forces prevailed, he said, adding that what was primarily at stake was the issue of war rather than the usual divisions of right and left and various other ideologies. Orbán said it was possible that anti-war MEPs would form a majority in the EP, adding that there was reason for confidence in this respect, since whereas a year ago the majority of Europeans backed the war, this was no longer the case and people were „shifting in the direction of peace”. In Hungary, „a vote for Fidesz is a vote for peace”, he said, insisting that left-wing voters would be casting their ballot for war. The prime minister said other key issues of dispute were „gender, family protection and migration”. He said Europe was at a historical crossroads and politicians who shaped European discourse felt that how they acted carried „far more weight than usual”, and this was also true of the outcome of the EP election.
Regarding the 20th anniversary of Hungary’s EU membership, Orbán said that „it’s better to be inside than on the outside”, but when the country joined in 2004 „it wasn’t about” millions of migrants flowing in or „retaliation if a country wrote in its constitution that the father is a man and the mother is a woman”. He said Hungary had joined the EU because „Europe meant peace and prosperity, but now we are in the midst of an economic crisis and instead of peace, European leaders are pushing the continent towards war.”