The Prime Minister of Hungary has shared his one-word “secret” to achieving net zero migration in Britain amid the nation’s skyrocketing small boat crossings.
In a world exclusive interview with GB News, Viktor Orban explained his method behind his solution to the crippling 2015 migration crisis, of which he was “very proud”.
In response to the crisis engulfing the continent more than a decade ago, Mr Orban’s administration constructed razor-wire border fences along its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia to block illegal immigration into the land-locked country.
Additionally, armed police constantly patrol the fences on the hunt for any suspicious activity around the area.
Asked what the “secret” is to his success, Mr Orban simply responded: “Determination.
“So if you decide that you stop them, stop them.
“It’s sometimes not the nicest job, but if you decide that this is our borderline and nobody can cross it without our permission, you have to keep the line and you have to do so.
“So in Hungary, it’s very simple. If somebody is crossing the border line without getting a permission prior to that from the authorities, it’s a crime and we treat them as crime makers.
“So if you’re not tough enough… You can’t be half tough, you know. Yes or no? There is no between.”
In the interview, Mr Orbán also discusses:
- The impact of the growing global oil crisis
- President Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran
- Europe’s attitude towards strong leadership
- Hungary’s approach to solving the birth rate crisis and
- The future of Christian civilisation.
FULL TRANSCRIPT: Please credit and backlink GBNews:
Miriam Cates
I was at the peace march on Sunday. Amazing event. I think some of the mobile phone companies are saying 180,000 people came out in support of Fidesz, in support of Hungary itself. It was a March for Peace. And yet, one of your closest allies, Donald Trump, has just started a war in Iran. Do you think he was wrong to bomb Iran?
Viktor Orbán
The question is whether he has started a war or a peace. It hasn’t been decided yet. Historians will make a decision on that, because if I understood clearly his intention which, based on my conversation with him several weeks ago in Washington, his understanding is that Iran is a source of a war. I think we need some time to understand whether we are moving to peace by these strikes or just the opposite. It’s too early to say.
MC
Did you advise him not to start the bombing?
VO
He never authorised me to review what we have discussed anyway. But I’m a more cautious guy than the President is, especially because I had experiences with previous conflicts in this region. And the lesson I have got that you think it’s easy to destroy the army of a country, but then it turned to be very difficult to consolidate the power, and you finally will feel a temptation to do it by moving into boots on the ground, and then you can stuck into that, so the risk for the Americans, for President Trump, and for the whole peace loving community of the West, is now high.
MC
And one of the reasons that you were the first European leader to come out in support of Trump was his agenda of peace as well as his view that he shares with you that essentially, nations should act in their own national interests and not generally interfere in other people’s wars, in other people’s politics. Do you think that Trump has let you down? Has let European patriots down in that sense?
VO
Okay, so, that was one reason. You have just mentioned why I was always positive with him and to him and publicly saying that, it was in 2015 or something like that. But that was only one reason. But there was another one which is more about leadership, because my understanding of the leadership capacity of the West is rather bad. So that kind of attitude that we have, an old elite, academic based, intellectually based, ideologically bias, routine, trust. More trust in institutions than the capacity of a leader. You know, that’s paralysed the whole Western world. So my point was that we need something new, somebody who is different, something who is coming from a different place. I was not aware who is he, but I realised that this person, I mean, Donald Trump, could be a maverick, probably, but he is a person who will shake up the whole thing of the Western leadership concept, because we need personal leadership, personal responsibility, and [bravery]. So that was the reason why the very first one was that could be good for the West. He could break the deadlock and create a new kind of character of leader.
You know what’s going on in Europe? I’m not an expert in the American politics, but in Europe, I’m living among the leaders. And in Europe, the general conviction is that a strong leader is a bad thing, because a strong leader represents danger. The good thing is institutions, because institutions can run the countries and the job of a leader and politicians, nothing else, just to manage the institutions, which is totally mistaken. So it’s bad. So that’s the concept of leadership which must be changed, and he did so.
MC
One potential crisis that could be coming up is another migration crisis. In 2015 of course, hundreds of thousands of migrants made their way across Europe after the fallout in Syria and the Middle East. And do you fear that one of the possible outcomes of this war in Iran is another flood of people making their way across Europe?
VO
Yes, I do. I think now we have two difficulties approaching us from that conflict. One is migration, exactly as you have elaborated, and the other one is energy and impact of this war on the energy supply and the price of the energy. So these two crises or turmoil situation could come or could be created.
Our migration, especially, we are sensitive to that, because Hungary is a landlocked country, and we are just on the road of the migrants. They regularly used to be coming from Turkey to Europe, and hundreds of thousands appeared a decade ago on our borderline, and we were the only country in Europe who decided to stop them, and we even raised a fence and guarded the border by military forces. So we stopped them, no migration, no migration, and no migrants in Hungary. The number of migrants in Hungary today is zero. I’m very proud of it anyway. A lot of discussion erupted because of that, I was criticised. Hungary was criticised, but the time definitely shows that we were right. Now even, we have a nasty discussion with the European Union, because we still defend the Hungarian borderline, which means we defend the European Union borderline as well, but at the same time, we are punished. We are sanctioned one million euro per day because we do what we are doing. So instead of getting approval, we are punished. They’re not grateful.
It’s just crazy. So I visited the fence on the border with Serbia back in January. It is quite an amazing endeavour, and it’s cost a lot of money, I think, more than more than two billion euros together for the last several years to maintain the defence system at the borderline.
MC
From a British point of view, what seems very frustrating is that we left the European Union in part to control migration. And yet, last year, 40,000 people crossed the channel on small boats, even though we’re outside the EU, whereas you’ve managed to control the situation from within the EU. What’s the secret?
VO
Determination. So if you decide that you stop them, stop them. Sometimes it’s not the nicest job, but if you decide that this is our borderline and nobody can cross it without our permission, you have to keep the line, and you have to do so. So in Hungary, it’s very simple, if somebody is crossing the borderline without getting a permission prior to that from the authorities, it’s a crime, and we treat them as crime makers. So if you’re not tough enough, you can’t be half tough. Yes or no, there is no between.
MC
So do you think Sir Keir Starmer, then, for example, and Rishi Sunak before him, are just weak leaders for not changing the law to make it…
VO
I’m not as brave to criticise any leader of the UK.
MC
You were one of the first leaders to warn about the consequences of mass migration. Very few other leaders spoke about it at the time. Yet that is what we’ve seen across Western Europe. But is it immigration that’s the problem for you, or is it Islam? Is it this dilution of Western culture?
VO
I’m a man who is in favour of freedom always. So if you let somebody to get into your country, and you are a freedom loving person as I am, you cannot say what they should believe in or not. Are they Christian or Muslims…because you accept them as part of your community, and now freedom is the principle. So if you would not like to live with somebody, you don’t share the value, you have to stop them at the border and say, ‘Guys or girls, we love you. But you know this is not your place’. We Hungarians simply think that we are a Christian country. We would like to maintain our identity, and we would not like to mix up our civilisation pattern and fabric with something else. We have many good neighbours, central Europeans, culturally representing similarities with us. So we don’t need foreigners coming from other far distant civilisations. So I have nothing against with the Muslim civilisation. I think it’s a great achievement of human beings. And definitely they have their own place, and this place is definitely not Hungary.
MC
But even though you, at the moment, have the ability to stop immigration into Hungary, it does affect you indirectly, mass immigration in Europe. The fact that you said mass migration, countries can choose mass migration if they want to. Well, the British people have voted against mass migration over a number of years. Many, many people in Europe now are opposed to mass migration, and yet it has happened. Do you think that represents a failure of European democracy?
VO
Democracy is a good thing. I turned to the people, and I said, migration is the issue. It’s not an issue of the political elite. It’s about the future of Hungary, your kids, your grandkids. So why don’t we have a common decision on that? Let’s discuss it. And we had a referendum. They said no. So democracy helps. But unfortunately, Hungary is the only country, as far as I know, to organise a referendum on migration in the Western European countries.
