Viktor Orbán is the Prime Minister of Hungary. You may follow him on X @PM_ViktorOrban. This essay is an edited transcript of the speech that the Prime Minister delivered at the 34th Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp in late July 2025.

Hungary will face a parliamentary election in 2026. Democracy means that every election is open: this is both the beauty and the danger of it. There are never any guarantees—anyone who wants a guarantee of victory has come to the wrong place. It will be as the people decide. Today, according to our own internal polling, we would win 80 of the 106 individual constituencies. That would be a resounding victory and constitute an overwhelming majority, with which I am not satisfied: in 2022, we won 87 constituencies; so why should we settle for less in 2026? We will not settle for less! Every Hungarian election poses the greatest risk to Hungarians outside the borders. There are always two possible outcomes. The credo of the Hungarian opposition, controlled from Brussels, was already obvious when they came to Nagyvárad/Oradea, and simply said that it is Romanian land. Anyone with ears to hear knows what this means. We represent the opposite: we say that the state has borders, but the nation does not. This is why Hungarians can always count on the national government; we stand up for Hungarians and we will fight for them. I only ask the people to also stand up for their own future. 

Prime Minister Orbán, moments before his speech at the 34^th Bálványos Free Summer University | Hungarytoday.hu

 

Staying Out of War

There is ongoing debate in Hungary about what Hungarians have gained from Donald Trump’s victory in 2024. First of all, his victory has enabled us to avoid a world war—for now. Political discrimination against Hungary has come to an end. Economic sanctions against the Paks Nuclear Power Plant have been lifted, so we can complete it. And American investments in Hungary have begun. So far, there have been four major investments in research and development, and three more are expected in September 2025.

Now let’s dive headfirst into the gravely serious matters. Will there be a world war? There is no definite answer. With President Trump taking office, the chances of this happening have decreased, but have not disappeared altogether. What I am seeing in international politics is that the whole world is feeling the first cool breeze of the winds of war. I will share the results of a recent European survey. Asked whether World War III would break out within five to ten years, 55 percent of the French respondents said yes. Similarly, 50 percent of the Spaniards responded positively, and so did 46 percent of Italians, 45 percent of Americans, and 41 percent of the Brits and Germans. Meanwhile, dozens of studies, books, and analyses are being published on the prospect of World War III. I would like to be able to say that a breeze signifying an approaching storm is not always followed by a storm—but there is an ominous darkness.

I have compiled a list of the portents that were identified before the previous world war, because world wars rarely break out unexpectedly—there are preliminary indicators and processes that lead us towards war. I have identified the following preliminary signs. Before world wars begin, there is always an intensification of rivalry between great powers. Speaking about this very topic two years ago, I said that there were two suns in the sky. Now I say that when it comes to war, there aren’t two but three suns in the sky: after the Russo-Ukrainian war, the Russians have returned to the world map. There are now Russian, Chinese, and American suns. There are five members of the UN Security Council, among whom the French and British are in a lower category in terms of nuclear strike power. There are three serious military powers, all of which are featured prominently in the Security Council: the Russians, the Chinese, and the Americans.

Another sign is that before a world war the number of armed conflicts tends to increase. In 1990, there were 111 armed conflicts worldwide; in 2024, there were 184. Since 2010, the number of conflicts involving states—not just armed conflicts—has doubled. Before every major war there is an intensification of the arms race. Between 1990 and 2025, military expenditure increased by 1.5 times. The turnover of the world’s 100 largest arms manufacturers has also increased by one and a half times. What’s more, most arms procurement is financed by loans, which means that weapons must produce a return on investment. In the case of weapons, the return on investment is war itself.

A harbinger of great wars is the division of the global economy into economic blocs—at least that was the case on the first two occasions. In such cases, the major geopolitical blocs close their markets to one another. I have calculated that in the last ten years, the number of measures restricting free trade in the global economy has increased fivefold. Another sign of war is the intensification of mass population movement—what we call migration. Compared to 1990, global migration is twice as high today, affecting 300 million people. On perhaps the most important question—whether there will be a World War III—it is not irresponsible of me to say that the likelihood of a world war is continuously increasing.

What does this mean for Hungarians? The first consequence: “easy does it,” composure, strategic calm. For example, Ukraine should not be admitted to the European Union, bringing in the war with it—even if the whole of Brussels responds by throwing a fit.

The second consequence of this situation is that we must make efforts to achieve peace. The limits of Hungary’s diplomatic and political influence are obvious. I experienced this myself when I visited Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv in 2024 and tried to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire, or—perish the thought—to peace negotiations. I used the simple and obvious argument that in the Russo-Ukrainian war time was not on Ukraine’s side. Therefore, it would be better to have a ceasefire as soon as possible, because the longer the war continued, the greater the losses the Ukrainians would suffer, as time was not on his side. The limitations of our influence are demonstrated by his response: I was wrong, because time was on their side, the war had to continue, and they would win. This clearly shows that Hungary should, of course, make peace efforts in the world of great powers, but must first and foremost focus on regional peace, on our neighbors. We must form peace alliances with whomever we can. We have such alliances with the Serbs and the Slovaks, and I hope we will have one with the Romanians as well. Perhaps we will have one with the Czechs after the elections there too. Poland has already partly returned, and we should not give up on the Austrians either. Regional peace alliances—this is what we can do for peace.

The third consequence of this looming threat is that if war breaks out, we must prepare ourselves to stay out of it. I have been doing this for years; and at the highest level of abstraction, this is the guiding principle of Hungarian foreign policy. We must prepare to stay out of the war, as it is not enough just to declare it—we must know how to stay out of it, which is a skill. There are five pillars to this skill.

The first prerequisite is not to be vulnerable: to maintain good relations with all the centers of power in the world. Today, we maintain good relations with five of the six power centers in the world—with only one with which we do not. We are on good terms with the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Turkic world. And we are not on good terms with Brussels. When I say that we need to be on good terms with everyone, I do not mean that we need to clink glasses and assure one another of our mutual, theoretical friendship. Nor do I mean political sympathy. Instead, what I mean is that everyone, every major power, should have an economic and material interest in Hungary’s success; this means that no one should have an interest in destroying or weakening Hungary.

The next prerequisite for staying out is having the strength to defend ourselves. On this, there is still work to be done! This is despite the fact that defense spending already stands at 1.75 trillion forints (around €4.4 billion). We have created a chain of military-industrial centers. If you look at the map, you can see it: Győr, Zalaegerszeg, Kaposvár, Várpalota, Kiskunfélegyháza, Gyula. We have purchased combat helicopters and transport aircraft, and are also developing our land forces. In fact, we have even joined international military technology developments at the highest level. The Hungarian army must gain technological superiority: to defend ourselves we need a kind of precision army. A lot of work lies ahead. 

The third factor that allows a country to stay out of war is the development of crisis-resistant capabilities—or, put more simply, self-sufficiency. If one wants to stay out of war, there are four areas in which one needs to be self-sufficient: the military industry, energy, food, and digital capabilities.

Here are a few words about digital capabilities, where the emergence of artificial intelligence is changing everything. There is a global competition in progress. People try to imagine this as the United States and China tracking each other on a monthly basis and, based on specific metrics, determining who has the advantage in the use of artificial intelligence and how many months one is behind the other. The stakes are huge: we do not yet perceive this with the gravity it deserves, but artificial intelligence is transforming the world of work, the structure of the economy, health care, transport, the military, and public administration. This is regardless of whether we believe it. We can joke about not wanting the intelligence we acquire to be artificial but natural, yet the truth is that anything that can be made more efficient through computation, algorithms, and data analysis will be made more efficient through it. We must do this work at the national level, since the European Union is worthless in this competition. We will get nowhere if we wait for the EU in order to develop Hungarian artificial intelligence capabilities within its framework. We must therefore be prepared to enter this competition independently, become a key regional player, and work together with other countries in the region.

The fourth pillar and prerequisite for staying out of war is superiority in human resources. Hungarian Minister of Interior between two world wars Kuno von Klebelsberg and his colleagues used to call this “cultural superiority.” One needs to mention that, in terms of gross domestic product, Hungary is spending more on education than any other country in Europe today—certainly on higher education. We are among the European leaders in vocational training, with three Hungarian universities in the top 2 percent worldwide, and nine Hungarian universities ranking among the top 5 percent.

The fifth pillar of staying out: a long-term plan. This should be a plan that provides political stability that will enable us to stay out of war: in other words, a plan that spans political terms—and, if possible, generations. This plan lies at the heart of the matter. In Hungary, we need to build a complete national consensus around the proposition that we must not lock ourselves into any bloc. We are part of the Western alliance system, but we also need to be part of the Eastern economy. This is not openness, but balance. Hungarian foreign policy and national strategy must strive for balance if we want to live through the coming decades as a nation—as the Hungarian nation.

 

Europe Led Astray

After the world war, let us return to Europe. Will there be a European war? The threatening shadows of a world war are visible, and a European war is a reality. This is not a question of a future but a current European war, since the Russo-Ukrainian war is by every measure European. In fact, Europe has been playing with fire—or, I could say, with hell—since 2014 and the Crimean conflict. Western political narratives describe the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as a clash between democracy and authoritarianism. I do not know whether they genuinely believe this or if they are just saying it, but it certainly has nothing to do with reality—or if it has, it is completely irrelevant in this case, the case of war. In fact, democracy or no democracy, the idea that Ukraine belongs—or could belong—to the West actually means the breakdown of the power equilibrium between the West and Russia. And a breakdown in the power equilibrium—especially if it is military in nature and Ukraine’s NATO membership is at stake—will always be an existential crisis for those involved. This is how they will react. The West did not understand this, and therefore started a spiral of war by seeking to draw Ukraine closer—or, to put it more charitably, by accepting Ukraine’s aspiration for such closeness.

It is important to remind ourselves that it is natural for a nation to aspire to belong somewhere—for example, to the West. And then it would be natural for those who it wants to be among—NATO or the European Union, for example—to say, “Of course, come on in!” But only amateurs think this way. This is because every such move will upset the power equilibrium and inevitably trigger an immediate reaction from the opposing side—for whom this is a matter of existential importance, a matter of security. The lesson for the West is that even good intentions can trigger war, if they are misplaced or misguided. Let us pause here and recall the genius of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the matter of German reunification, which was the most significant event of the past 30 years. He was the one who presented the good cause of German reunification at the right time, the right place, and in the right way. By contrast, our approach to drawing Ukraine towards the West came at the wrong time, the wrong place, and in the wrong way, resulting in war.

In other words, the war in Europe was not a decision. If there is a world war, it will not be an identifiable decision either, but an outcome. The global system is fragile. In our profession, there is a humorous cliché that whoever invented the global order also invented global collapse—because whoever invents a train also invents train crashes. The same is true here. And if that happens, and there is no global order, then there will only be regional survival zones. Then the question will be what the European survival zone will look like—in other words, what the European Union will look like in five to ten years’ time, given that we have become involved in the war in Ukraine.

What I can say is based on the experience I have gathered at the last few summits of European prime ministers. The European Union has decided to go to war, having also decided that even if the United States withdraws, the EU will continue to support Ukraine. This is disappointing to me, as this means that the EU, which was founded as a peace project, has become a war project. Hungary has decided not to go to war. The European Union has decided that Hungary must also go to war. Furthermore, the EU has decided that in order for this to happen, there must be a pro-Ukrainian and pro-Brussels government in Hungary. This is the basic pattern of Hungarian domestic politics today. We have decided that, because we want Hungary to have a pro-peace and national government, we will not allow either the Tisza Party or the Democratic Coalition to form a government.

On a related note, the European Union has also published its seven-year budget plan. Reading it is heavy going. Still, if you work your way through it, you will see that it is a war budget. Everything in it is formulated according to the logic of war. Twenty percent of the money will go to Ukraine, and what remains will not be spent on development, agriculture, or farmers, but on preparations for war. This budget is about an EU that is at war with Russia and waging it on Ukrainian territory. This is the budget of an EU that wants to defeat Russia on Ukrainian territory in the hope that such a defeat would shake the Russian system of government and pave the way for a change of power—to parenthetically quote former U.S. President Joseph Biden, “Putin must fail.” This will then pave the way for liberal politics, the return of the Yeltsin era, and a Russia that will be open for “business.” Briefly, this is how I can sum up the answer to the question as to “why” Hungary has no interest in a war budget. We need a budget that supports peace and development, which is why we do not accept the draft that has been presented as a basis for negotiation. We need another one. Our task is being made easier by the fact that they do not really want to discuss it with us until after the election. We will see what happens, as such a negotiation period takes at least two years.

Let us turn to EU funds for a moment. Who will bring these home, and at what cost? We have already brought home half of the money we are entitled to: €12 billion. This sits in our account and is being used by the Hungarian economy. But the other half must also be brought home. That will also happen, because the adoption of the new seven-year budget requires unanimity. Until we receive the money we are owed, there will be no new European budget. We will bring it home, for we will not make any concessions on our sovereignty. The truth is that the Tisza Party and DK people will also bring it home. I think they have an agreement with Brussels: they will get the money in exchange for supporting the war in Ukraine, agreeing to Ukraine’s membership in the EU, implementing the migration pact, repealing the child protection act, abolishing taxes on multinationals, and abolishing reductions in household energy bills. In other words, money will be offered in exchange for our sovereignty. That is the option they are proposing. I suggest that we should be the ones who bring it home instead.

One must also understand what Europe is doing and why. Today, Europe is doing what was decided at successive summits of the prime ministers: the EU is assuming the role of supporter of an ideology—which we might call progressive or woke—that President Trump has been fighting against in the United States and is now in the process of dismantling. In other words, the EU has maneuvered itself into a position in which the U.S. presidential administration no longer views it as an international organization with which it has disagreements, but as a political opponent. Therefore—and I say this because of the ongoing tariff disputes—the current EU leadership will always be the last to reach agreements with the United States, and those agreements will always be the worst. The current leadership in Brussels has put the Union on a collision course with Washington, which will lead us to a trade war that we cannot win.

The EU needs a change of leadership. The Union’s existing leaders also thought that if we confronted the Chinese together with the United States, it would bring us closer to Washington. In this regard, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her colleagues have been disappointed, because relations between the EU and China have also deteriorated dramatically, alongside those with the United States. In addition, the United States is gradually and steadily withdrawing from the Russo-Ukrainian war. Its last generous offer was for Europeans to buy American weapons and give them to the Ukrainians. That is where we stand. This means that Brussels, unwilling to accept a ceasefire and peace, is seeking to fill the economic, financial, and military vacuum created by the American withdrawal. This rules out the possibility of normalizing our relations with Russia. In other words, the situation in Europe today is that Brussels is essentially preparing for a trade or cold war with the United States and China, and is already in a hot war with Russia, concurrently seeking to prolong and deepen its involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Any sane person must ask the question: “Why? What is the point of this?” Especially if it is our conviction that this is contrary to the interests of the EU member states and that the majority of European people are increasingly unwilling to support this policy. Why are they doing it? Of course, I can only offer my opinion: “the [Antal] Rogán Mill” has not yet managed to obtain the secret documentation related to this. Therefore, we can only rely on our intellectual resources, and to answer this question I can only offer some viewpoints.

The first viewpoint is that there is a federalist master plan. The European Commission in Brussels sees every crisis as another opportunity to build a federal Europe, a United States of Europe. Take a look: whatever crisis has emerged—whether financial, migratory, virological, COVID, or now war—each has been followed by a decision to further expand the powers of Brussels and take them away from the nation states. Every crisis is an opportunity, a launch vehicle, a platform. The war crisis is thus also an opportunity for further construction work on the Brussels federation.

The second consideration on which we can base our answer is that—due to its loss of competitiveness—the EU’s budgetary management can now only be sustained by a wartime economy and war loans.

And thirdly, it may be that Ukraine’s EU membership could protect the interests of certain economic actors there by creating a tightly controlled EU member state. This is clearly evident in the ongoing dispute between Zelenskyy and the European Commission. All I want to say about this is that in the past ten years we have allowed Britain to exit, and now we want to let Ukraine enter. This is economic madness, but there is a method in it. Britain is sovereigntist and would never agree to a federal United States of Europe, while Ukraine would.

 

Hungarian Grand Strategy

A few thoughts on two other matters. Firstly, on Hungarian grand strategy. What is Hungarian grand strategy? I could say this much more elegantly, and in the language of Brussels. The essence of Hungarian grand strategy stems from the fact that we were defeated in 1920, and at that time our defeat was finalized or blessed by the powers of the time. At that time, our enemies decided our fate. Our enemies decided that Hungary would be small and poor. That was our destiny. We are in politics, and the essence of our national strategy is to change that destiny so that Hungary becomes great and rich. This is the core of the Hungarian national strategy. Before the diplomatic protest notes start being drafted in neighboring countries, I advise that, when they come to the section entitled “Hungary will be great,” the translators should use the word “great” in the same way as it is used by the President of the United States when he says “Make America Great Again!” To avoid a misunderstanding, this should not be translated as “big.”

What questions must a Hungarian grand strategy answer? The first question is this: Where will we get the people from? Second: Where will we get raw materials and energy from? Third: Where will we get the capital from? Fourth: Where will we get the knowledge from? Fifth: How will we be able to defend ourselves? And sixth: How can we ensure that we are not left out of international decisions?

I will only say as much: we are not preparing to import people. We thus need a family-friendly nation, which—if we write family-friendly as one word—is, at least, two words. Another opportunity for linguists. For family and for nation. Do not believe any of the EU statistics that are now claiming that the Hungarian family support system is somehow in the lower half of the table among member states. They are only counting directly delivered financial support. The reality is that, when you add up all the tax breaks, including home creation schemes and all else, our spending on family support is the highest in the entire European Union. What’s more, something is happening in Hungary right now that is not only unheard of anywhere else in Europe, but also unimaginable. I sense this because when I tell them about it, I have to repeat myself—and not because of my slapdash English, but because they think they have misheard me: in Hungary, women who have given birth to at least two children do not pay personal income tax for the rest of their lives, regardless of the age of their children. Nowhere else in the world does this happen! And now we are going to implement this—or, rather, we are offering the possibility of a breakthrough for young people.

By now, most people have heard about the 3 percent fixed-rate home loan available in Hungary. Those that have not will surely hear about it when the publicity campaign starts. This means that when a young Hungarian reaches the age of 18 and decides that they want to be part of the nation not only culturally and in terms of traditions, but also as an owner, they will have the opportunity to have their own home, and the instalments they have to pay for their loan will be the same—or even less—than what they would pay in rent. So, we are opening up a huge opportunity for young people. In this way, we are strengthening families, young people, and the nation. This program is now getting underway, and I am very confident that it will be successful.

 

Christianity and the Survival of Nations

Finally, let’s address the reasons why Central Europe is the future. Well, because of migration! It is worth asking why the West has been unable to protect itself from migration, and why Central Europe has been able to do so. Here are a few facts to illustrate the seriousness of the situation. In Germany, 42 percent of schoolchildren come from a migrant background. In France, 40 percent of children under the age of four have a migrant background. In Vienna, 41.2 percent of schoolchildren are Muslim, while 34.5 percent are Christian. This is the situation in Vienna, a mere 230 kilometers from Budapest! From this and many other statistics, it follows that the countries to the west of us have irreversibly transformed into mixed societies with growing Muslim populations. Within the foreseeable future, large cities will become Muslim-majority areas, and the population in large cities will change. Europe will remain a destination for migration. Host communities are already established here. Those who set out for Europe do not arrive in a vacuum, but come to people who will take care of them. And when Africa really starts to move—something that lies ahead of us—such a large migrant population within its borders will mean that the West will be unable to defend itself. I have to say that in about ten years’ time one of the most important tasks of the Prime Minister, any government majority, and the country will be to protect our western borders from migration—not just the southern borders, but the western ones too! Let us not allow this question to pass us by: Why have they been unable to defend themselves? Perhaps this is the biggest lesson for us, in terms of what mistakes we should not make. The water in the pot is slowly reaching its boiling point, the frog is still blinking, but it is no longer able to jump out. Why did it not jump out earlier? 

On the Franco-German axis and the area north of it—leaving aside the Spanish and Italians for now—the last conflict deciding the existence of nations, where survival as a nation was linked to Christianity, took place at Poitiers in 732 AD. That was around 1,300 years ago. For 1,300 years, national survival in the Western world has not depended on the preservation of Christianity. We do not know how, but if you lose Christianity, sooner or later you will somehow lose your national existence as well. This realization is not part of their national system of instincts. By contrast, the Hungarian constitution is clear, saying the following: “We recognize the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood.” When I say this in the West—and I sometimes do—they do not understand, because this has not been the case in their history. Quite simply, until now this sentence has been meaningless to them. They are beginning to understand—but now it is too late! The alarm bells did not ring in their heads, this reflex is not part of their national instincts, and so their old, familiar homeland no longer exists. The question is whether Christianity will still hold us together in the face of this constantly present—and, incidentally, ever-increasing—migration pressure.

As previously mentioned, the world’s migrant population doubled to 300 million between 1990 and 2025. This is how many people are on the move. And if you look at Africa, you can see what is happening there and what challenges Europe will face. I think a lot about the relationship between Christianity and politics as it relates to migration. Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, there are basically three stages in the relationship between Christianity and politics.

There was a time in European history when the majority of European nations had a living faith. It was not only religious or cultural: it was a living faith, which we call Christianity of faith. Secularization steadily stifled this. We have slipped back to a point at which living faith is shrinking, but the culture that grew out of Christian faith still exists for people as a system of coordinates: what is good, what is bad, what to think about male-female relationships, family, children, parents, responsibility, our neighbors, ourselves, what sin is, and what virtue, punishment, and forgiveness are. We answer these questions in the context of Christian culture, which grew out of Christianity and living faith. This is what I call cultural Christianity. This is where Central Europe is today.

What comes next is the third stage, the stage of zero religion—which I might also call “zero Christianity.” This is the stage in which Christianity as a culture no longer serves as a code or coordinate system and is simply pushed out of the life of countries. There is a tipping point, a moment of cultural surrender, which comes, I believe, when same-sex marriage is accepted and made legal. This is the tipping point. This decision rejects the basic principles of Christian coexistence. This is where Westerners are today, and it is at this stage that mass migration has overtaken them, rendering them defenseless. I do not know the answers to the questions of whether they can sink any lower, whether we can stand our ground where we are, or climb back into the world of living faith. But I do know that this is up to us and the young people—the children we have raised. Have we taught them that if they are Hungarian, they have a duty? That duty is to preserve what we have, to acquire what we do not yet have but need, and to reject what we do not need. Now it will be decided what kind of parents we have been.

Back to Table of Contents