LIVE: Hungarian PM Peter Magyar Meets EU Chief Ursula von der Leyen | AC1Z

I am really grateful to you personally and to all of your teams for this work. Just a few weeks ago, a new Hungarian government was formed, and we have already achieved a historic breakthrough agreement — really, really important for the Hungarian people, for my beloved country, Hungary, and for all European citizens. I would also like to thank my colleagues, all of the Hungarian ministers and colleagues in the government, who have been working very, very hard, all the days, all the nights. There were some moments when I thought it was hopeless, but we succeeded.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear Hungarian compatriots! One of our most important commitments during the election campaign was that we would bring home and unfreeze 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 sphere. 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 government lied about the European institutions, and they lied about the real reason the EU funds were frozen. They claimed that the Union would not release the thousands of billions of forints owed to Hungarians simply because Hungary, under a different government, held a different position on illegal migration, on the Russian-Ukrainian war, or on certain human rights issues. We — and I personally, clearly stated during the campaign — that the real reason the European institutions, the European Union, was not in a position to release these thousands of billions of forints was corruption. It was a level of corruption that had long been unimaginable in the European Union and in Hungary. 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, and 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 mentioned by the President. And that was enough — just a few weeks were enough — for us to reach 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 — there are better and more beautiful parts of history. Perhaps in a few decades it will become clear where he belongs. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached an agreement with the President and with the European Commission on every issue raised here, which 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 authorized us to bring these funds home and finally to restart the Hungarian economy — 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 struggle to keep public services from collapsing. We will bring these funds home, as we promised, for the reconstruction of Hungary, for restarting the economy, for restoring and developing public services, and for strengthening the competitiveness of Hungarian companies, small and medium-sized enterprises. Our goal was always clear, both in the informal and in the official negotiations. We negotiated very hard — the President can perhaps confirm that. We fought for every euro cent, as I indicated at the beginning: we need the whole amount.

So we negotiated hard, even last night, and then we started again in the early morning, and we succeeded. I believe this is our joint success — the success of Hungary and the European Union, of the European institutions. We held detailed negotiations, and I can say that, as the President also said, overall, based on 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 you can grasp 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 long ago. If the Orbán government had truly governed in the interest of the Hungarian people, if it had truly wanted to restart the economy, 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 issues or expectations here in Brussels, but simply that corruption must be fought 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 that are even stricter than what was requested. And I truly had the honor of handing the President Hungary's official application to join the European Public Prosecutor's Office. We hope the accession process will be completed as quickly as possible; it will not be up to us to delay it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President has already partly described what we have transformed, 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 the fact emerged that one of Viktor Orbán's ministers — who claimed to be an inventor and thereby to earn enormous revenues every year — could not even add two plus 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 of our compatriots performing public duties. We are ready with the legislative drafts — quite a substantial package. And there is one point in it, just so you know: anyone who deliberately reports false data in their asset declaration can be punished with up to two years in prison. As I said, we are joining the European Public Prosecutor's Office. We declare zero tolerance towards corruption. We will eliminate the opportunities for public assets to be taken out of the hands of the people by those in power, or by 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 describe a few of them. Of this, 4.4 billion euros are cohesion funds, which are 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. Another 2.2 billion euros are earmarked for education, primarily for the development of higher education and research and development. In addition, several billion euros can be accounted for projects and investments that have already been completed or are underway. 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 maneuver of the Hungarian budget increases. And 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 almost 4 billion euros here. In addition, we can direct 1.5 billion euros — nearly 600 billion forints — to electricity network development, grid development. This is important because we can continue installing solar panels, wind farms can be built, and we can create storage capacity and balancing capacity, which will ultimately help Hungarian companies — whether small and medium-sized enterprises or large companies — and the Hungarian population to access energy, primarily electricity, more cheaply. This is important because currently Hungarian companies pay the most expensive electricity, most of the time, in all of Europe. We must change this, and with this we will also be able to increase the competitiveness of Hungarian companies.

If I look at Minister Dávid Vitézy, the Minister for Transport, the biggest smile appears on his face when he sees that we will be able to spend nearly 2 billion euros on the procurement of new railway rolling stock, new trains, and local-interest railway carriages. This will be a huge step forward, especially compared to the previous government and to János Lázár, who destroyed Hungarian transport — instead of procuring new railway carriages, he leased 30-year-old ones, which are the ones catching fire now. We decided instead to buy new railway carriages with the help of the European Union. This will be visible within a few years, dear Minister, on the Hungarian intercity lines and in the public transport around Budapest. I think this is very, very good news. We have also agreed on digital technology developments and on launching support programs for small and medium-sized enterprises worth several billion euros. These include both grants and loans. Overall, I say it once more, we are talking about 16.4 billion euros, which is more than 10% — approximately 13% — of the current Hungarian budget.

I believe this is truly a historic day — certainly for Hungary. If so much money can be obtained here, I would be happy to 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 joy. 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 European Council. Ladies and gentlemen: economic growth, competitiveness, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, investments, encouragement of job creation, and easing of the housing crisis — I forgot to mention that we will be able to spend huge sums from these funds on easing the housing crisis in Hungary, on building a rental housing program. This means not only the money we receive here — some 600, 700, or 800 million euros for this — but thanks to the multiplier effect and the inflow of private money, 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 honest, there will surely 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 Hungarian EU funds and the bringing home of EU money. Today there was no other topic between us. Regarding these funds, certainly not. We know exactly that this is a political agreement, a very strong signal, and that we have a great deal of work ahead. We must adopt a great many laws, but the good news is that today Hungary has the most stable government in the entire European Union. I believe we hold 71% of the seats in the Hungarian 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 latest opinion polls, if elections were held today, perhaps we would already have too many seats, and people would suspect that there is not so much rule of law after all. So we will not hold elections in Hungary for a while, because an opposition is needed. Thank you very much for being here, and for being able to reach such a truly historic agreement. We will work together with great joy for the future and competitiveness of Hungary and the European Union. Thank you very much, Madam President.

Thank you very much. I will also answer quickly. The President has already stated the figures, so I will not repeat them. Obviously there is a breakdown of these figures, which I also tried to explain, but I think we will have time to discuss the details later. What I can say is that the failed, ousted government talks a great deal about this migration pact. The President can confirm that Viktor Orbán sat here in Brussels for quite a long time — he participated in the meetings of the European Councils for 16 years. Sometimes he was sent out for coffee, but basically he participated. Sometimes he delegated another prime minister, but basically he was here, and I think it was noticeable when he was here. Now he and his government had every opportunity to prevent the adoption of the migration pact, if he did not like it, if he did not consider it useful. He did not succeed. In recent years Viktor Orbán has essentially achieved nothing, because he vetoed for the sake of vetoing, and as a result he was left with very few allies. And when legislative dossiers arrived at the Union where unanimity was not required, he could not find enough allies beside him, and he could not meaningfully influence the legislation — even when he was perhaps right. But let us not forget one thing: this migration pact, which the President also mentioned, was adopted during Viktor Orbán's government, during his Brussels tours. It was his responsibility to prevent its adoption. It was adopted, and it is a directly applicable legislative package. And what the Orbán propaganda forgets to mention at home — while their already collapsing propaganda still struggles, like the old guard of hard titans fighting as an underground movement — is that this legislative package contains many tightening measures. Because Viktor Orbán was right around 2015 regarding illegal migration, and the Union's position, and the position of many capitals, has changed a great deal regarding illegal migration. And precisely for this reason, the migration pact contains tightening measures in many areas, including more effective protection of the European external borders. And what the propaganda of the Orbán government usually talks about regarding this pact — by the way, the name is not very fortunate; when I also participate in the legislation, I will give advice on how to name legislative packages in a less frightening way for people — but that is a detail. What I can say is that this is about what happens if there is again a mass migration, a migration wave similar to 2015, and how the member states respond. There are several options for how they respond: those who want to can take in migrants; those who do not can pay. And those who cannot even do that — whether because of their constitutional setup or because of political will — can help member states protect the EU's external borders. That is what this is about, and about which Viktor Orbán's vote and the Orbán government's vote also decided, and which they now talk about as if it were the devil. I can confirm here in Brussels, as we have said many times, that under the new Hungarian government there will be equally clear and strict rules in Hungary regarding the protection of our external borders, because these are not only Hungary's borders but also the Union's external borders, the external borders of the Schengen zone. There will be no migrant camps in Hungary. The Orbán government had planned such camps, by the way, with secret decrees, but they no longer had time to implement them. And unlike Viktor Orbán — I do not know how well this is known here in Brussels — during his government, Viktor Orbán released 2,200 convicted human traffickers from Hungarian prisons. Viktor Orbán released from Hungarian prisons human traffickers who had attempted, or even succeeded, in bringing masses of illegal migrants into the territory of the European Union. That is how committed a fighter he was against illegal migration. The failed prime minister cited prison overcrowding in Hungary as the reason. I also send him a message from here in Brussels: he does not need to worry, because under the new Hungarian government there will be no prison overcrowding in Hungary. If necessary, we will build new prisons. And we will not release either political criminals or human traffickers from Hungarian prisons. That is what I can say. Thank you very much.