Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everybody. Let me start on a personal note. I'm really grateful to you personally and to all of your colleagues, who made a tremendous effort and did a tremendous job.
You know, we just started the negotiations weeks ago, and now we are here. After weeks, a new Hungarian government has formed and achieved a historic breakthrough agreement — really, really important for the Hungarian people, for my beloved country, Hungary. Many thanks. We are very grateful, and we are ready to continue cooperating.
The Hungarian ministers and colleagues in the government worked very hard, all the days, all the nights. There were some points when I thought it was hopeless and that it was not feasible so quickly and everything, but we are here, and we are very happy.
These messages are very, very important for my compatriots.
Ladies and gentlemen, my dear Hungarian compatriots! One of our most important commitments during the election campaign was that we would bring home and unlock the many thousands of billions of forints in EU funding that belongs to the Hungarian people, Hungarian companies, and Hungarian public services — healthcare, education, transport, and the social sector.
For a long time we listened to the previous government explain why things could not be done. They constantly lied to the Hungarian people, and they lied about the European Union. Viktor Orbán and his circle lied about the European institutions, and they lied about the real reason the EU funds were frozen.
They claimed that the Union would not hand over the many thousands of billions of forints owed to the Hungarian people because Hungary, the Hungarian government, holds a different position on illegal immigration, on the Russian-Ukrainian war, or on certain human rights issues.
We — and I myself, clearly stated during the election campaign as well — that the real reason the European institutions, the European Union, were not in a position to hand over these many thousands of billions of forints was corruption.
It was a level of corruption that was long unimaginable in the European Union and in Hungary as well. It was unimaginable that a prime minister and his family could be directly connected to hundreds of billions, or even thousands of billions, of forints in corruption.
From the very beginning I have said that if Hungary accepts the anti-corruption measures, if we establish the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, if we strengthen the powers of the integrity authority, if we adopt conflict-of-interest rules like other countries, then this money will come.
And lo and behold, we did nothing more. Together with the Commission we adopted the anti-corruption measures and the measures also mentioned by the President. And that was enough — a few weeks were enough — to reach an agreement, to conclude a political agreement on this enormous amount of EU funding.
Three weeks, three or four weeks were enough to achieve what Viktor Orbán and his outgoing government could not achieve in three or four years — or perhaps did not want to achieve; we cannot know. That is already part of history, just as Viktor Orbán is part of history — history has its better and more beautiful parts. In a few decades it will become clear where he belongs.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached an agreement with the President, we have reached an agreement with the European Commission on every issue raised there that will enable the Hungarian people to access the funds they are entitled to.
On April 12th, as the President also mentioned, the Hungarian people gave an unprecedented political mandate to the new Hungarian government, the Tisza government. Among other things, they also gave us a mandate to bring this money home and finally to get the Hungarian economy going — an economy that has been unable to grow for four years, an economy that had Europe's highest inflation, an economy where every day we now struggle to keep public services from collapsing.
We will bring this money home, as we promised, for the rebuilding of Hungary, for getting the economy going, for restoring and developing public services, and for strengthening the competitiveness of Hungarian companies, of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Our goal was always clear, both in the informal and in the official negotiations. We negotiated very hard — perhaps the President can confirm that. We fought for every euro, as I indicated at the beginning, because we need all of it.
So we negotiated hard, even last night, and then we started again in the early morning, and we succeeded. And I believe this is our joint success — it is the joint success of Hungary and the European Union, of the European institutions.
We held detailed negotiations. And I can say that, indeed, as the President also said, overall, on the basis of today's agreement, we have agreed on the release of 16.2 billion euros. I say this to my compatriots: even with the recently strengthening forint exchange rate, this is some 6,000 billion forints.
That is 13% of Hungary's annual budget — just so that I can convey the scale.
Of course, one eye is crying and the other is smiling, because it is very sad that what the European Commission and the President asked for, in the interest of European and Hungarian taxpayers, could have been fulfilled all along.
If the Orbán government had truly governed in the interest of the Hungarian people, if it had truly wanted to get the economy going, if it had truly wanted to develop the collapsing Hungarian healthcare system, if it had truly wanted to buy new railway carriages instead of the ones that keep catching fire, it could have done so — because today we have proven that there were no ideological questions or expectations here in Brussels.
It was simply a matter of combating corruption in the best possible way. And I can also say that perhaps we will even exceed the Commission's expectations in this regard. In several areas we will adopt anti-corruption measures stricter than what was requested.
And indeed, I had the honour of handing the President Hungary's official application to join the European Public Prosecutor's Office. We hope that the accession process will be completed as quickly as possible; it will not be up to us.
Ladies and gentlemen, what we have established — the President touched on it in part, and I do not want to repeat too much of it — but what is important is that we have adopted the reform of the asset declaration system, because the current asset declaration system was good for nothing.
From it, not even this emerged: that one of Viktor Orbán's ministers, who claimed to be an inventor and thereby to earn enormous revenues every year — even that could not be established, that he can add two and two.
So it is clearly in the interest of the Hungarian people that we create a very strict asset declaration system, and not only create it, but make these declarations verifiable. Moreover, there should even be consequences if someone deliberately reports false information — whether it is the President of the Republic, a Member of Parliament, another public dignitary, or any fellow citizen performing public duties.
We are ready with the legislative drafts — a rather substantial package. And there is one point in it, just so I mention it: anyone who deliberately reports false data in their asset declaration can be punished with up to two years in prison.
As I have said, we are joining the European Public Prosecutor's Office. We declare zero tolerance towards corruption. We are eliminating the opportunities for those in power to divert public assets into their own hands, or into the hands of their oligarchs or family members, at the expense of the Hungarian people.
Ladies and gentlemen, as the President also mentioned, this 16 billion — 16.4 billion euros — has several components. If you will allow me, I will outline a few of them. Of this, 4.4 billion euros is cohesion funding, which is spendable and which the Hungarian government can use for transport development, healthcare investment, social investments, environmental investments, and support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
2.2 billion euros is linked to education, primarily to the development of higher education and to research and development.
In addition, several billion euros can be claimed for projects and investments that have already been completed or are under way.
I look at the Minister of Finance, András Kármán, on whose face a smile immediately appears, because this means that with these several billion euros the room for manoeuvre of the Hungarian budget grows.
And of course I could look at the other ministers as well, because it means that from this released amount we will be able to make further investments in the interest of the Hungarian people and Hungarian companies. We are talking about nearly 4 billion euros here.
In addition, we can direct another 5.5 billion euros — nearly 600 billion forints — to electricity network development, to grid development. This is important because we can continue installing solar panels, wind farms can be established, and we can create storage capacity and balancing capacity.
At the end of the day, this will contribute to Hungarian companies — whether small and medium-sized enterprises or large companies — and Hungarian households obtaining energy, primarily electricity, more cheaply. This is important because at present Hungarian companies pay the most, and most often, for electricity in all of Europe.
We must change this in any case; with this too we will be able to increase the competitiveness of Hungarian companies.
If I look at Minister Dávid Vitézy, the Minister of Transport, the biggest smile appears on his face when he sees that we will be able to direct nearly 2 billion euros to the procurement of new railway rolling stock, new HÉV rolling stock, and local-interest railway rolling stock.
This will be an enormous step forward, especially when compared with the previous government and János Lázár, who destroyed Hungarian transport — instead of procuring new railway rolling stock, he leased 30-year-old carriages, which are the ones catching fire nowadays, leased by the previous government.
We decided that we would rather buy new railway rolling stock with the help of the European Union. This will be visible, dear Minister, within a few years on the Hungarian intercity lines and in the Budapest-area public transport. In my view, this is very, very good news.
We have also agreed on digital technology developments and on launching support programmes for small and medium-sized enterprises worth several billion euros. These include both grants and credit components.
Overall, once again, we are talking about 16.4 billion euros, which in total is more than 10% — about 13% — of the current Hungarian budget.
I believe this is truly a historic day — certainly for Hungary. If this much money can be obtained here, then I will gladly come to Brussels more often.
The truth is, many people are surprised, but I really love this city, because my family and my three wonderful sons spent nine years here, and I always return with pleasure.
Yesterday I had a successful meeting with the Secretary General of NATO and with the Prime Minister of Belgium, and I also discussed with the President that my first official Council participation will be on June 18th, at the session of the European Council.
Ladies and gentlemen: economic growth, competitiveness, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, investments, encouragement of job creation, easing of the housing crisis — I left that out — we will be able to spend enormous sums from this money on easing the housing crisis in Hungary, on building a rental housing programme.
This means not only the money we receive here — perhaps 600, 700, 800 million euros for this — but because of the multiplier effect, because of the inflow of private funds, this could be four or five times as much. So thousands of apartments, or even dormitory places, could be built from this.
Transport developments, a stable budget, and the fight against corruption.
I am very, very grateful — I will be frank, there will certainly be a question on this, so perhaps I will preempt it. The negotiations with the European Commission, with the Commission leadership, with the President, concerned exclusively the unfreezing of the Hungarian EU funds, the bringing home of the EU money. Today there was no other topic between us — certainly not with regard to these funds.
We know exactly that this is a political agreement, a very strong signal, and that we have a great deal of work to do. We have to adopt a great many laws, but I have good news: today Hungary has the most stable government in the entire European Union. I believe we hold 71% of the seats in the National Assembly.
So even if there were an influenza epidemic, we would still be able to adopt these laws. And if we look at the very latest opinion polls, if the election were held today, we might already have too many seats, and people here would suspect that perhaps there is not such a great rule of law after all.
So for a while we will not hold an election in Hungary, because an opposition is needed after all.
Thank you very much for being here, and for being able to reach such a truly historic agreement. And we will work together with great pleasure for the future and competitiveness of Hungary and the European Union. Thank you very much, Madam President.
