Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said on Friday that a decision will have to be made on the issue of war and peace in this year’s European Parliament elections and “the color of peace is orange, the name of peace is Fidesz."
Minister Szijjártó told an event presenting the election manifesto of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats that Hungary had been in the shadow of war for two years and “feeling the consequences directly on its skin”. Hungary has undertaken the largest humanitarian operation in its history while it had to pay for war-time energy prices which resulted in ten billion euros in extra costs, equalling 5% of GDP while having to fight against skyrocketing inflation, he said. “It was not easy, but we were able to protect Hungarian people’s jobs, protect our energy supplies and help those in trouble,” he said. At the same time, the most important and difficult task was for the government to keep Hungary out of the war despite the pressure and attempts of blackmail, he added. “We have not been dragged into the war, we have been able to preserve the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people, despite all the pressure having been placed on us and still being placed on us, from the outside and also inside,” he said.
The foreign minister welcomed that the government had not taken any steps that would have taken Hungary closer to war, that would have made the losses more severe or would have carried the risk of the armed conflict expanding. “Often we were the only ones in the transatlantic community that stood up for peace,” he said. At the same time, he warned that the pressure for war would not decrease, but quite the opposite, for two main reasons. The first reason, he said, was that the majority of European political leaders suffered from “war psychosis” and felt that they were also at war. He added that the latter was not true, arguing that Europe was not at war and nobody had attacked Europe. He said the second reason was that the majority of leaders had made a mistake and chosen the wrong strategy, causing severe damage to the continent and its citizens, for instance in terms of the sanctions. “The question is why nobody admits to the mistakes, looking back after two years, and seeing all the evidence,” he said, adding that the reason was that if they were to admit to it, then they would have to take responsibility for the bad decisions.
He said European leaders instead followed the principle of “the best defence is a good offence” and were putting Europeans in ever greater danger “only to prevent the question of who is responsible for bad decisions being brought up”. Many transatlantic leaders today “are fanning up a world war atmosphere” whereas NATO had previously clearly stated that it was not part of the conflict and every effort must be made to prevent direct confrontation with Russia, he said. He also said that the North-Atlantic alliance had made preparations to strengthen its coordinator role in Ukraine's arms supplies and the training of Ukrainian soldiers, which Hungary would not participate in under any circumstances. “The next few months will be about this. We will be under constant pressure to participate in weapons supplies and the training of Ukrainian soldiers. As a result, the stakes are high for the coming period,” he said.