The sanctions policy against Russia needs to be reconsidered, Balázs Orbán, the Prime Minister's political director, told reporters on Saturday in Kötcs, Somogy county, in front of the Dobozy mansion, the venue for the Civil Picnic event of the Civic Foundation for Hungary.
Balázs Orbán indicated: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's speech this year will be determined by the Russian-Ukrainian war and its impact on Europe.
He added that the sanctions "did not bring the Russians to their knees, but Europe is increasingly forced to its knees"; runaway energy prices and unprecedented inflation plague all European countries.
He recalled: when "the Russian aggression started, the decision was made in Brussels that Europe plans to stop them by introducing sanctions, and the sanctions will hurt Europe less than Russia."
Half a year has passed, the sanctions were set for this time by the EU, so the autumn political season will also be about evaluating them, he said.
If we look around the world, we see that the sanctions have not lived up to the expectations placed on them, the war has not ended
he underlined.
He considered it an absurd idea that it is possible to effectively introduce sanctions against Russia in the field of energy, because according to the literature, sanctions are introduced by a large actor against a small actor.
"The situation is the opposite: Russia is a giant in terms of energy, and Europe is a dwarf"
he said.
The sanctions policy must therefore be reconsidered, he said, and confirmed that
the Hungarian government insists that it wants to protect "the most vulnerable social groups, low earners, pensioners, and large families in the coming period."
Balázs Orbán, when asked whether the Hungarian state values teachers sufficiently, said: they are working to value teachers as much as possible "in a financial sense" depending on the country's carrying capacity.
"We are constantly working to ensure that most social groups performing important work have higher and higher incomes. In the past, public and higher education had wage increases"
he noted.
He called it a matter of labor law whether teachers who demonstrate civil disobedience should be fired. "The state can ask teachers to comply with the legislation; there is no such intention, but if the legislation does not allow otherwise, then it is inevitable," he said.
He answered another question: the discussions on the sources of the European Recovery Fund are taking place in a constructive atmosphere. "We managed to separate the existing ideological differences from the negotiations, we remain optimistic," he added.
In response to another question, he stated: the European gas price maximization plan looks like a disguised energy sanction. It may happen that people who have imported energy into Europe until now will not do so after this, which will drive prices even higher.
"We support all European solutions that point in the direction of an effective and meaningful reduction of European gas and energy prices"
he underlined.
He answered the question about the establishment of the corruption office as follows: Brussels and the Hungarian government are constantly investigating the functioning of the distribution of European Union funds. We cannot argue with Brussels about this, we are also interested in the use of EU funds being as transparent as possible - he emphasized.
He indicated: the Hungarian government will accept the related proposals.
Fidesz member of the European Parliament Tamás Deutsch told journalists,
Hungary and the European Commission are conducting negotiations towards an agreement on the use of the resources of the recovery fund.
He said: the commission's representatives did not consider Hungary joining the European Public Prosecutor's Office.
"We never had anything to hide regarding the use of EU funds," he declared, adding that the proportion of public procurement procedures conducted with one offer in Hungary is below the European Union average.
Featured image: Balázs Orbán, the Parliamentary and Strategic State Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office, speaking at the Dobozy mansion in Kötcs on September 4, 2021. MTI/MTI / Zoltán Máthé.
