hello, my name is yuriy fizar, and this is an espresso interview. as always, we have serious guests and serious topics with today's interlocutor. we will talk about pain points, about

hungarian-ukrainian relations, ultimately about hungary and about the hungarian leader viktor orban. and my guest today is a hungarian security analyst, an expert of the german council on international relations, a professor at corvina university andrás rats. mr. ratz, welcome and thank you for joining me today. congratulations, and thank you very much. thank you very much for joining us. thank you very much joined today we will talk about hungary, about the prime minister of hungary viktor orbán and about the very sensitive topic of ukrainian-hungarian relations. if you don't mind, i'll start with that. consequently, ukraine blocked the transit of russian oil to slovakia and hungary. the governments of those countries even turned to the european union. how far do you

think the hungarian government will go to convince ukraine to allow oil through this pipeline. thank you, this is a very sensitive issue. in fact, details matter a lot here. as of today, oil transit... has not stopped fully. russian look-oil has been sanctioned by ukraine, but other russian companies can still use this pipeline , such as rosneft, tatneft, bash-neft and other companies. so this story does not mean that the flow of oil has stopped completely. also because ukraine needs oil transit. ukraine needs the incoming transit fee. if we talk about

hungary's reaction, then we have to start from the events that took place two years earlier. european union at the end of may 22 , about three months after full-scale invasion, imposed sanctions on the import of oil from russia through pipelines. the eu asked for a postponement: the czech republic, slovakia and hungary. they claimed that they did not have the funds to immediately diversify imports of russian oil, and for technological reasons they had to continue using it. the czech republic has since resolved this problem, but hungary and slovakia still use russian oil. the postponement granted by the european union has no deadline, there is an appeal.

bratislava and budapest, as soon as possible to diversify the supply of russian oil, however, the text of the document does not specify any deadline. since then, budapest and bratislava will continue to import russian oil, this is not the only source of imports, but a significant one. so, if the flow of oil were to stop completely, and it hasn't, that would be a major blow to the energy security of both countries, but again, we're not there yet . as for hungary's reaction, it should be noted that budapest's immediate reaction was the announcement of its intention to block the european peace fund. this fund, this amount of money is about 6.5 billion euros, which should compensate those eu countries that provide military aid to ukraine. so, budapest initially blocks the payment of these 6.5 billion euros. in fact, it does not harm ukraine directly, it harms the europeans. quite a long time,

citing various reasons, so it will definitely happen, budapest will continue to block the european peace fund, but this block has been going on for years. in addition, hungary asked the european commission to put pressure on ukraine, but the european commission replied, that for now more information, more investigations are needed, so there will be no direct intervention by the european commission, well at least for now. currently, because hungary has already chosen essentially the maximum escalation. that is, the blocking of the european peace fund for 6.5 billion euros. i don't expect that budapest can do much more. yes, you hear from hungarian officials that hungary can block the prospects of ukraine joining the eu, but joining the eu is a long way. we are several years

before ukraine can join of the european union. it will definitely happen, but it won't be a quick process. so, in the short-term... perspective, budapest has no way to put pressure on ukraine, but blocking the european peace fund, blocking 6.5 billion is definitely one of the ways, it will continue. you have already started talking about relations between hungary and the european union. let's talk about them too. so. president of the european council charles michel called viktor orbán's trip not only to moscow, but also to beijing and washington a political mistake. he also stated that the european union reacted to this with a yellow card. does brussels have the power to finally show viktor orbán a red card. we need

to define what red is. it won't happen, no one can be kicked out of the european union, so unlike football here he can have a few yellow cards and still stay in the game for now. the trip to moscow, as well as the trip to beijing, and the way those trips were conducted, is a serious violation. both written and unwritten rules of how an eu country should conduct foreign policy. so it caused a big scandal and publicity within the european union. certain political countermeasures have already been applied. for example, some eu member states

are boycotting high-level meetings of the hungarian eu presidency. viktor orban was invited to the european parliament to present his presidential program. the head of the european commission, ursula fondeen, is not going to come to budapest, which is a very strong diplomatic signal. however, when it comes to practical countermeasures, punitive measures of sorts, the eu can do nothing. unlike football, a player who breaks the rules will not be sent off the field of play, but he will have much less opportunity to achieve something in the game, and this is what will happen to hungary, it is already happening to them, it is already clear that the trip to moscow has caused hungary serious

reputational losses with from the point of view of prestige and trust of allies. meanwhile, it is not at all clear that hungary benefited from this trip, so the minuses are clear, but no one noted the pluses. the organization of the moscow trip, the things that orbán and putin discussed, and the purpose of all this remains somehow a mystery, some kind of mystery, it is simply not clear that hungary gained from this, but it is clear that it lost. can we say that mr. orbán is somehow dependent on putin, based on what we saw during his trip to russia and what he said when he returned. this is very difficult to assess, the last time they met in beijing, already then during the beijing meeting , orbán openly said that the previous meeting in beijing was initiated by putin, and orbán

could not say no. it was actually very telling, it's very difficult for the prime minister eu or nato. if putin called them to go. then they had to go, that was the previous meeting. regarding the current meeting, which took place two days after the trip to kyiv, the hungarian narrative is that it was budapest that initiated it, but again, it is not clear what hungary actually gained from it. instead, it is quite clear what russia got. it was very interesting to watch how russian state media covered this visit. when putin and orban started the discussion, literally in the fifth sentence putin called orbán an envoy of the european union, which is technically not true of course. but all the russian media covered orban's visit as if the president had come to moscow. union, showing how important a player russia is and that it is not isolated at all. over the course

of several days, all russian state officials virtually celebrated this meeting, noting how important a player putin is to the president of the european union. so, from the point of view of domestic politics, russia won a lot, which was very beneficial for it. why was it good for hungary? i honestly don't know. mr. orbán also said that he has. there is some kind of peace plan for ukraine, you know the details of this peace plan, i tried to find it on the internet, but i couldn't find anything, ugh, it's not your fault, there is no plan, this narrative about the plan is actually very interesting because orbán doesn't have three things necessary for mediation. firstly, he has no plan, secondly, he has no mandate, no one else can provide it, thirdly,

he has no legitimacy, so it is interesting to imagine, why did orbán say that he was going to promote peace in ukraine? also, let's not forget that in order to achieve peace, a cease-fire is needed first, so the peace plan must be preceded by a cease-fire, this is a technical detail. as for the plan itself, there is no orbán plan, when he met with president zelensky, he called for some strange form of segmented ceasefire, but it was not detailed, and i am not aware of any such document that elaborates on this the idea of ​​segmented termination fire when he went to moscow, he couldn't even say a word because putin

almost immediately said that russia was not ready to accept any external peace plan. and that the war should end according to the russian position. this is the ultimatum that russia announced just a day before the peace summit regarding ukraine and switzerland. the same ultimatum, which you know very well, ukraine must completely abandon the donetsk, luhansk, zaporizhia and kherson regions and crimea. the ukrainian army must completely withdraw its troops from these regions, ukraine should forget about the intention to join nato and so on. so basically , putin didn't even let orbán explain his own ideas. instead, he issued the usual russian ultimatums. when orbán went to beijing, he did the third thing, he praised

the chinese peace plan, the same chinese peace plan or settlement plan that china offered on the first anniversary of the war. so, in kyiv, moscow and beijing, orbán basically voiced three different plans, so i don't see him having his own plan, it's the lack of a plan. as for the absence mandate, no one asked hungary to mediate in this war, no one asked hungary to do anything in the war. in order to be successful in mediation efforts, one must have a mandate to do so. this leads to the third point: lack of trust. currently , hungary does not have the confidence within the eu and nato necessary for any mediation efforts. relations between hungary and ukraine have long been strained. so, if ukraine were to ask any country to become a mediator, it would most likely be him. right, that's putting it mildly, and speaking of russia, from their point of view, hungary

is still primarily an eu and nato country, a member of two alliances that moscow perceives as hostile, so it would be very unusual if russia decided to trust orbán. yes, orbán is a useful tool for moscow, and hungarian foreign policy for russian diplomacy, but this does not mean that there is trust between them, so even three basic requirements are necessary for any kind of peace mediation - mandate, trust. will continue to provide humanitarian aid to ukraine, but not weapons, because that could bring them closer orbán always says that the hungarian government will fight to the hungarian borders, is he really afraid of that? as far as i know, not already,

in the first days or in the first weeks of a full-scale war, when it was not yet clear whether ukraine would be able to withstand and how many territories the russians actually occupy, maybe so. but after ukraine won at kiev, after ukraine managed to push the russians out of mykolaiv oblast, then to liberate part of kherson oblast, then to liberate kharkiv oblast, and after the front was largely stabilized in october, 22 year, since then no one could have thought that the russian army would ever come much closer to hungary. this is not something that anyone would seriously fear from the hungarian side. i mean, you can think or say a lot of bad things about hungarian diplomacy or

foreign policy, but the people involved in it are professionals. at a certain level , hungary exchanges information with the eu and nato, so budapest has data to correctly assess the situation. so the argument or sort of argument that budapest doesn't give weapons because those weapons will bring the front line closer to hungary, it makes no sense. it's more like an excuse. i thought so too. let's talk a little more about the relationship between hungary and the european union. the biggest question i have is why prime minister orbán is fighting so intensely with the eu leadership. what does he want to achieve with this? in hungary, there are problems

related to the rule of law, because of this , several billion euros of eu financial support for hungary have been frozen, so budapest does not have access to them. my assessment is that hungary's interest is to normalize relations with the european union, to solve the problems related to the rule of law and at the same time ensure that the blocked eu funds start flowing to hungary. this is what the new polish government immediately did, after which the european commission immediately reacted and began to direct previously suspended funds to poland. hungary clearly follows a different approach, the highly confrontational policies

pursued by orbán seem to serve almost exclusively domestic political interests. in the field of rule of law, the european union requires hungary to dismantle some key institutional components of the orbán regime, control over the mass media, suppression of civil society, influence over the judicial system, and some other things. without these changes, hungary will not have access to frozen eu assets. viktor orban needs to be elected. between the security interests of his regime and the financial interests of the country, as they conflict with each other. as in every authoritarian system, he chooses the security interests of his own regime, because if orbán decides to comply with the eu's demands, it will mean that he himself will need to deconstruct the key elements of the regime that

guarantee his own power. it is very unlikely that he will go for it, so instead he chooses open confrontation and tries to create a situation where in domestic politics, for a domestic audience, he can try to present the whole story so that hungary is not getting eu money because of the fault of the eu, because the eu hates hungary because the eu discriminates against hungary, for example, because hungary pursues a certain peace policy that is against the eu's interests. so, it's mostly inside. still believes in the possibility of receiving this money from the european union, there is an opinion that this money is essentially lost. and

when they no longer expect to get that money back, they can afford to continue the confrontation because they have nothing left to lose. i am quite pessimistic about, unfortunately, i expect this confrontational relationship between orbán and the european union to continue and the hungarian eu presidency will not help it much. mr. ratz, let's talk a little bit about the hungarian minority in ukraine. orbán always says that he is going to protect this

minority and will do everything possible to do so. what can he do to protect the minority, and is he just saying this to push his political agenda. i'm afraid it's more likely the second. there were several cases when hungary's foreign policy actually harmed the interests of the hungarian minority living in ukraine. for example, military support is one such case. hundreds of ukrainian citizens of hungarian origin live in ukraine, hundreds of them are fighting in ukrainian army for the freedom and sovereignty of ukraine. dozens of them have already died, the exact number is classified, but it is quite large.

so, there are ethnic hungarians who are actively fighting for ukraine, if hungary really cared about the fate of the hungarian minority in zakarpattia oblast, it would be interested in helping ukraine as much as possible, to help the hungarian minority as well, to help ukraine win. moreover, imagine the situation that might develop in the first weeks of a full-scale invasion, imagine that ukraine would then suffer a serious defeat, does anyone seriously believe that if russia dominated ukraine, if there was a russian puppet government in ukraine, something like yanukovych number two, that would be good for the hungarian ethnic minority. does anyone seriously think that russia would not suppress all ethnic minorities belonging to eu and nato countries.

no one will say so, and yet budapest refrained from providing military aid. even more so in conditional issues, educational rights, in what was a key source of disagreements.

we hope that this will become a catalyst for the normalization of bilateral relations. recently, there have been certain gestures, both from the hungarian side and from the ukrainian side. when it comes to technical details about languages, education systems, educational rights, cultural rights and all these things. in the long term, i am optimistic, also because after this meeting, the head of zakarpattia oblast, viktor mykyta, announced that there is a plan to organize a ukrainian-hungarian business forum to discuss. hungary's contribution to the recovery of ukraine and hungarian investments. and when money is on the table, they usually have

restraint. influencing the debate when we 're talking about economics, when we're talking about money, it's always a more rational thing than when we're talking about more symbolic political issues. despite the fact that orban's visit to moscow obviously came as a surprise to kyiv, the ukrainian reaction was very restrained, moderate, wise and not escalating at all. this is again some indication that there is a chance for the relationship to improve, despite the fact that several years have been lost. i hope the future will to look a little better, and one more thing: the meeting between zelenskyi and orban was organized in literally 5 days. organizing a meeting of such a high level, in such a short time, is possible only when both parties really want it to take place. in this case, both sides really wanted the meeting to take place, and this is again a good sign that ukraine and hungary are now ready to overcome some difficult issues and move forward.

hungary's viktor orbán constantly praises the potential future president of the united states donald trump, and donald trump speaks well of orbán. two weeks ago , during his visit to the nato summit in washington , orbán even visited florida and met with donald trump in maralago. how dangerous can this tandem be if donald trump wins the election in november. this tandem expression is actually

interesting. calling them a tandem. we're pointing out that they're of equal strength, but that's not exactly the case, but okay, let's call them a tandem, whatever you want to call them, it's kind of like a one-sided love, or something also, i'm not very good at soap bars, but i'm sure we can come up with a name. it is interesting that hungarian diplomacy 100% supported donald trump. hungary's ambassador to washington, sabulc takacs, said that budapest has no plan b. he pledged to support trump. if trump does not win, then hungary does not count on any good

relations with its united states. for smaller countries, the usual strategy is to have good relations with both parties. even for medium-sized countries size, medium-sized countries such as ukraine, the ukrainian in washington, led by ambassador oksana markarova, has excellent connections with the democratic camp and with several republican politicians. sic strategy for how countries feel about the current presidential race. you have good relations with both sides, and you delegate very trained professional diplomats as ambassadors, such as ambassador markarov from the ukrainian side, or ambassador takacs from the hungarian side. however, hungary fully supports the republicans this time, that's a lot unusual budapest won't get much if trump wins, don't overestimate

hungary's importance to... also, hungary's close relationship with china will be a problem for the incoming trump administration. i consider it a serious problem. even hungary's close relations with russia will not necessarily be beneficial. so, even if trump wins, even if the hungarian bid wins, i'm not sure that it can bring any strategic benefits to hungary. in the meantime, if a democratic president emerges from the race, hungarian-american relations,... even more will get worse, of course, i said this would be the last question, but if you don't mind, i 'll ask one more: how strong is viktor orbán's position in hungary, and how long is he going to stay as prime minister of hungary?