so much for an invitation it's great to be here but i do have to say that you flew into the russian capital. at a time when still every day there was $1000.00 plus new cases in moscow of covert dine ting but in hungary there's only a total of $4000.00 a bit more than that aren't you worried and is it really time already to go back to business as usual when it comes to diplomatic trips look i never stop basically i didn't stop during the crisis at all if i had to travel abroad for example for humanitarian reasons bringing mosques or protective clothes for our friends in the vegetable canes or somewhere else i did travel i did travel i take care about the hygienic prescriptions and obligations you know washing cans not to go to clothes no shaking hands but to some time we did because now it's in our case it's it's over i mean from the crisis perspective but but during the peak of the crisis i really seriously tried to to respect the rules and regulations.

well i mentioned the words business as usual i would like to come back to something you've been talking about for a while with other people you've had interviews with. critics have said that your prime minister destroyed democracy as usual or democracy as we've noted in hungary you've called it fake news can you give us an update on that at this point right at this point what's going on with mr or bands powers to rule by decree. see we have been in office from 2 fours and then turn on their heads we walk on the free national elections with a big margin we are in the 2 for a majority in the parliament on our own government after all free elections we have on all of the european parliament elections since we won the hold the local elections. since generally our national is speaking. and this is something that the

liberal mainstream simply cannot digest and when i speak about liberal mainstream i mean politics and i mean media as well they just simply cannot digest that there is a government in the heart of europe which concentrates on the national interest a government which is based on christian democratic values a government which can see there is the real of the people as number one and the government which definitely and openly goes against the liberal mainstream and you know when i when i'm faced with these accusations i always tell the. partners and colleagues ok let's give me concrete issues why you think democracy is being in danger in hungary why you feel we are building a dictatorship which regulations you find not satisfying you know democratic

principles a rule of law and you know then there is no answer no answer just a perception is just the general accusations just bashing and this is something which we are really fed up with to be honest because this is this is not only criticism to the government this is this is basically a questioning the capacity and ability of the and the maturity of the hungary and people there they are able to made their own decision about their own future because this government has been in power for 10 years not because of winning at the lottery this government has been in office with a big margin because we won free continuous elections and this is the view of the people why and why should anybody question that i understand that but let me just make an example your key point during some of the conversations you've had was that swift decrees allowed by the these emergency powers should only be about covert 19 measures but then at the same time the fiber. up

a few reports in the european media they were saying for example that there was a decree correct me if i'm wrong that had to do with taxation in the regions where your party didn't do that well on the one hand you can say yes you have to save the economy which means that it how something do to do with the measures but on the other hand could that be a blow to the opposition yes then there was also a paragraph that threatened journalists in a sense like i've read in the media that they can end up in jail for 5 years because of spreading misinformation so you would say again that fake news about coronavirus is bad but there are worries about freedom of press so what can you say to that ok so if you allow we have to react on both of them because finally we got some concrete issues based on which we can. end up in a conversation which makes sense so on on the decrees yes state of emergency allowed us to make decrees like in every other e.u. member states every other e.u.

member states what was the problem of the opposition they said and liberal mainstream in europe they said that there is no concrete date of conclusion in the law which allowed us to govern by decrees we said of course there is not a concrete date because who knows when. allow us to come back to normality when it comes to decision making so what we have done now we seized we concluded the state of emergency less than 90 days opposition demanded 120 had the beginning now it took less than 90 days so this is number one number 2 when it comes to the special economy yes we made the decree but but in the meantime we submitted it to parliament so parliament can make a law on that because yes of course it 1030 to force quickly but parliament should approve it i think it's a very democracy way of of of managing things because you know a minute comes to the economy we need investment because in order to be stronger in the post-crisis period we need jobs we need people to. work and how you can create

jobs through investments and it cannot happen that a big company a leader of the global market in a special area would not to make an investment in hungary because some local offer it is cannot made their measures on time so you know some local. abilities and incapabilities cannot end up in harming the national economy on journalism you know i've been phase 3 of being phased with this criticism of. press freedom of press and journalism for 10 years again since we have been in office so this is nothing new what we have put into law was that if one circulates fake news which can end up in in troubling the protective measures which can end up in diminishing the success of the protection of the people against the pandemic then of course one has to face you know

punishment or sanctions court is right in that situation which which is normal i mean it is being taken and the case going to be taken into court and then court will make the ruling but you know i had many quarrels with. european colleagues on that and i asked them look do you think it's good do you think it should be supported that there are people who circulate fake news based on which people might die or people view or not be protected because some kind of fake news can end up in you know actions or events which diminish the success of the protection of the people against a pandemic so my question is who are you in line beat those who are spreading fake news or those who want to protect the people there so simple well it's just perhaps goes down to the understanding of what is fake news so my next question is it's a very recent thing by a leading hungary a news website index start ha. so they have

a thing that they call independence barometer and. their arrow used to point it independent and only a few days ago they switched to endanger are they just hyping it up because of what you've been saying are they trying to score points or there is actually something to be concerned about and also. as far as i understand your parliament voted to lift the emergency powers so what is the current status right now i didn't understand so that's why i asked you for an update so a state of emergency or as we call it in hungary a state of danger is over seized so we are now back to normal of course we have to be cautious because no one knows how this is going to be continued i mean but there does going to be a 2nd wave or not there it's going to continue after summer or not whether if you continue during summer or not so we are cautious on one hand but when it comes to regulation the state of danger. when it comes to this concrete issue which you

raised with this hungry a media outlet which is a website basically they don't have a problem in this case at least with this regulation was former regulation but they have a problem with their ownership structure so the editorial board is not very happy with the changes going on in their ownership structure which is which is a business issue i mean this is you know in a capitalistic market all parts of markets including media market is free so i mean how we're government could or should influence changes in a ownership structure between private you know persons or companies. ok i get your point could you please give me a short answer do you feel that has done a great job in its response all together. well look although there is hunger in saying which reads in the in the in hunger in the in like praising ourselves is so

important that we cannot leave it to others would be a little bit less credible if i started to praise ourselves no what i can say is the following that the hungary and people behaved. extraordinarily a disciplined during the crisis time so they respected the restrictive measures hungary and health care system made a very good job and we were able to build more construct a let's say an air bridge between china and hungary so more than 150 aircrafts have gone back and forth in order to deliver protective equipment mosques clothes when too late there's to hungary with which we could make sure that the capacity of the of the health care system not be let's say overlapped by the curve of the infected person so all in all we are fine food to all hunger and

citizens we are most fun food to 2 doctors nurses and all who worked has been have been working for the health care system and of course policemen and soldiers fire fighters to keep the country safe under under the circumstances mr c. r 2 a let's look outside hungary for a bit if we take let's put it this way team e.u. and the epidemic what kind of medal does the european union if any deserves for team work and team play and look. that was a totally new situation to be fair enough european union maybe never had maybe your opinion never had to face such kind of situation as a whole globe did not have to face such kind of a situation the 5 put into consideration the the recent decades. so we have to be fair on that on the other hand they have to tell you that all the answers which were the responses which were given to the. in europe were all made by the member

states or national answers of worked out because the situation every countries was different. number of infected persons was different. impacts are totally different so the responses have to be made the national level and they were made on national level so according nation from brussels remained on significant during the peak do you think getting the member of the club was led down i would say that what i say is that there was no coordination and we had this i'm not bashing any institutions in brussels because i cannot say whether it would have been possible or it was totally impossible but there was no coordination for sure for the 1st yeah pretty big part of the pandemic situation just to give you one idea when it comes to purchasing a protective equipment e.u. member states and the agents paid by the u. member states who are fighting with each other in china who come by what equipment

you know so there was no coordination and when it comes to repatriation the coordination was basically made by the member states as well so we formed each other hey i have to repress rating flights to contra you have citizens there i can take 20 i can take 50 whatever so that was made on the on the basis of the member states as well there i for for a role of the european union is the following on the economy you know currently it's very complicated if you as a state as a government one give so-called state aid incentive subsidy or whatever to a company to invest in your country it's possible but it falls under very strict regulations now what we want to urge european union the european commission for is to lift these regulations and the member states to finance subsidize. incentivize investments in their own countries from their own national budgets in order to be able to save jobs so far it is this is and has not been made but hopefully maybe

today or tomorrow it can be made but if it takes long we have been negotiating on that we do your opinion union for almost 2 months now and you know i mean having 2 months gone. a little bit too much under the current situation in the really sometimes hours but but mostly days that from. become a battleground in the u.s. government people are demanding the shutdown of a local plant from my yankee is right now my focus because it's a very dangerous. power plant the owner is attempting to run the reactor beyond its operational limit this case just sort of puts

a magnifying glass on where's the power in this country where's it going is it moving more towards corporate interests who or is it more in the idea of a traditional participatory democracy is or power lie with the people this case demonstrates that struggle in the very real ways a struggle. to have international memorial awards has extended its deadline for submissions. all media professionals are eligible whether you are a freelance journalist work for alternative media who are a part of the global news platform you can submit to your published works in either video format go to award go to r.t. dot com and it a no. what were your thoughts when the russian army flew over to italy to help because some in

europe were saying that this is just a lot of are putin showing off or that he's just playing the trick to have at least someone in the union vote against the sanctions next time look i mean i considered it as a bilateral issue between italy and russia if there was an agreement on russia being either leave well it's not my job to judge what i've seen is that italy was in the real trouble we tried to help as well i mean much more limited compared to capacities of the russian federation of course like 100000 masks which is not a big quantity but at least something or but look i mean all european union was totally defenseless to china. i mean you know i don't know but a big portion very big portion i contacted the exact figure but the very big portion of war protective equipment used in europe during the pandemic situation was delivered from china there was another question let me just read out a recent quote by your prime minister viktor orban i look at the countries telling

us how to live properly how to govern how to run a democracy and i don't know whether to laugh or cry and it's been reported that he was referring to the black lives matter or protests or the consequences of these protests would you agree with that i mean i am not quite sure he has said this sentence in the relationship or you clearly this protest is not what us yeah or. why he told it like why he said that is the following. and it's totally independent from any kind of international or domestic events and on the other countries since we have been in office we are always lectured all this by everybody so messed up in countries and nordics sometimes i have the feeling that they they feel that it is their homework for them or a sport or a hobby to lecture to hungary and to tell us how to live how to govern how to you know to behave how to act and you know to be honest we are really fed up with that

because we are a nation with a history of 1000 years and i can remember i mean from history books of course that event ever anybody would like to or want to save hungary areas from themselves that played out very well very badly at the very end of the story so i have even asked. the finnish the the dutch foreign minister during the crisis when they were you know complaining about some chapters of the hungary and the law that i wasn't so how it is possible that you have time for that i am working 24 hours a day in order to be hungary and people under hunger an economy we are working for . being able to purchase protective equipment so we try to save lives we buying ventilators helping the companies try to put together regulations which can lead the country out of this crisis and you have time to deal with the tongue in regulations i would have been able and i didn't want to of course i would have been

able to deal with that news finish dutch whether the regulations number one i don't care because i think they should be they should be left to be finished dutch and the danish people and let them decide whether it's fine with them and it's fine it's fine for us it's not find they would change the government so it's vell above my payroll to deal with that but but there are hundreds of thousands of people infected in europe tens of thousands dying millions losing their jobs and the most important issue for nordic investor in european political leadership was was the hungary and you've got to tell you when you're going to maybe or someone important gave them the homework or a word that i guess cannot imagine to i just cannot imagine how it was well i mean i told them look you need to have at least 26 hours a day because i mean i have 24 but i don't have time to deal with your issues but if we go back to black lives matter you always tend to go against the mainstream view on things does it correspond to what the western leadership say about this

right now do you have a take on what's gone on that well let's say specifically in the u.s. but we know that there has been trouble in some european countries as well in that regard look i mean we have never commented never comment and view never command domestic issues of other countries why should i comment these developments in the united states united states has a leadership it has a president it has an administration is their duty to overcome this situation who am i to comment on such kind of issues you know we base our foreign policy on a very simple principle which is mutual respect. we give respect to other countries we don't interfere into domestic issues don't judge don't comment but we expect the same unfortunately this way in the operate all the time but what it's not the reason for us to change our logic and and why should i comment on that the way i hope that the president of the united states and his administration can solve this issue. last month when you were talking about the consequences of

covert 19 you did say that you expect the pandemic to trigger a new wave of migration to europe even though europe was back then the epicenter can you follow up on that prediction please and also is this really the right time to put an emphasis on migration issues and to say pretty much that now is definitely the right time to lock the doors and what i see is the following. before the pandemic migratory vevo constitutive 2 types of risks security and cultural now such of wave can constitute free risks cultural security and health care and this is something that should be avoided and what we're seeing is that those countries are hit by the. even more who we countries

have already been in let's say tough for economy situation very health care system is not that developed there hygenic says not there so those countries have been suffering and be a suffer even more for sure. and that's why more or less we agree with some of their european colleagues that that this pandemic situation we'll be easily another push factor for migration and as i visited malta last week you see i never stopped and had a conversation with their foreign minister they are very much concerned about migrants boarding ships in the libya and intending to go either to more tory lead or other southern european sea shores in the mediterranean and they spurious numbers growing and to be honest it's logical so that's why i'm totally in line with the maltese when we say that we have to improve the abilities of the libyan coast guard for example we have to establish

a coordination center in malta and we have to help the countries in need on the spot so our principle here is bring very it is needed and don't bring problems where there are no problems yet so i really see the danger that dependent me situation will become another push factor because it's logical unfortunately but you've made that prediction more than a month ago have the numbers changed yet the numbers are growing the moment the colleagues in matar very much let's say concerned about that you see the growing number of ships. intending to go to solve the italian ports that's right thing that now now we really have to concentrate on tackling the root causes and the pandemic situation became another root cause next to poverty and next to other economy or military. issues. let me just switch the subject at something very important in this country i can remember that on may 8th

white house tweet. raised quite a few eyebrows here in russia when it said the following that it was saying to the u.s. and the u.k. . that nazi germany was a raised off the map and there was no mention of the soviet union whatsoever i'm not going to ask you whether that's unfair because hopefully you'd say it is unfair but. is there something to be done with that and is that a normal thing it's obvious that when it comes to issues and questions about history reveal never agree because we see the differently the experience of differently so this is this is my understanding with this i don't judge anybody ok who things differently it isn't my position. that respecting history is very important but we politicians i think it's better if we deal with the future issues and ensure to our people that that things like wars

we'll never take place again this is our duty this is our duty history should be left. more or less to historians. we politicians have the duty to respect history and then build the cooperation for the future even vetoes even to be doe's we to leave a deeply disagree on judging historic events given that you're in this country right now and you have such good relations with russian officials do you realize how how much personal they take it if you would have said that you accept pluralism on the results of world war 2 or on nazi germany because as far as i understand this is something that it's not just a sensitive issue for russia it's more than just that you know i totally understand and i respect the feelings but to be speak about the future of cooperation with all of my counterparts here we respect each other and we speak about how we can make

life better for our generation and for the next generations. well and moving on to my last question i just want to understand if there's anything that needs to be done in the next weeks or months to make sure we don't go back to something that some of called a disaster with cold what should be done not to go back to that what do you think you can talk about russia you can talk about europe you can talk about the whole world of whom better but what i can tell you is that. i really hope that this situation i mean to call it will 'd make it clear to everybody that we are more interdependent than ever. and you know we are an advocate or a promoter of east to west. for example so i hope that this situation will make it clear to everybody that worked together face successfully even the toughest

challenges but then we have to talk to each other and we have to work each other based on mutual respect and there i come back to what these are the principle of our foreign policy it was great to have you here at r.t. and again thanks for the opportunity and stay safe yeah thanks a lot. i think the biggest change that has come out and you cation to distrust is it's us highlighted issue inequality that exists and i think one of the things that education of the. changes access to the internet for educational purposes needs

to be out into this century our children runs. every single part of america pretty much just doesn't do what it says it does of good companies don't make food a cartel based on make cars the computers don't make computers they don't do what they say they're doing all they're doing is they're gaming the system by getting a free pass from the fed if you're part of the privileged class and then you know whipping that up to be cheered paydays for the executives. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe from. the isolation or community. are you going the right way or are you being

led so. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or remain in the shallows. nuclear become a battleground in the us in vermont people are demanding the shutdown of a local plant from my yankee is right now my focus because it's a very dangerous. power plant the owner is attempting to run the reactor beyond its operational limits this case just sort of puts a magnifying glass on where's the power in this country where's it going is it moving more towards corporate interests or is it more in the idea of

a traditional participatory democracy our live with the people this case demonstrates that struggle in the very real ways. a struggle. week of voting gets underway in russia on amendments to the country's constitution the 1st time people can vote online is a precaution against code 90. minutes on space and more charges in the united states over accusations he tried to hire hackers to access classified information. that the. national headquarters when it comes to. hungary is a sports loving foreign minister pays a visit to a not just for a game of table for but also an exclusive interview he claims of the death of democracy in this country.