Get to know Gergely Karácsony, a politician stronger than Orbán! This is not Orbán, but the real Hungary - Yevropejszka Pravda advertises the mayor's interview.
"A politician who is stronger than Orbán! Get to know Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest who supports Ukraine" - a ten-minute video interview with Mayor Gergely Karácsony of Budapest published by Yevropejszka Pravda, one of Ukraine's most read news portals, the European supplement of Ukrainszka Pravda. (Incidentally, the paper is owned by Dragon Capital, the company of Czech businessman Tomáš Fiala, which jointly carries out real estate investments in Kyiv with György Soros.) In his editorial, the interviewing journalist emphasizes that the mayor of Budapest supports Ukraine and fights with Orbán - so
he is "not Orbán, but the real Hungary".
The interview is conducted with an interpreter, the journalist asks in English, Gergely Karácsony answers in Hungarian, and Ukrainian readers can get to know his answers in Ukrainian dubbing - in some cases through opinionated translation techniques.
Is Hungary pro-Russian?
In the conversation, many exciting topics are discussed between the journalist and the mayor. They ask Karácsony, for example, whether Hungary is pro-Russian. To this, Karácsony replies that Hungarian society is very divided and is influenced by government propaganda spreading Russian fake news, but the majority of Hungarians support the Ukrainian people. He emphasizes that the Hungarian government positions itself as a friend of Russia, "and the vast majority of people sympathize with the Ukrainian people." (In the Ukrainian dub, the paper translates this as saying that the majority of Hungarians are pro-Ukrainian.)
Hearing Karácsony's answer, the journalist can hardly believe his ears, he does not understand how Hungarian society can be so divided, working from the same information. Karácsony explains this by saying that there are some Fidesz voters who really believe the Russian propaganda, but according to him, the majority of Fidesz voters are not pro-Russian either. In fact, it is the Hungarian government that hides its pro-Russian bias by being pro-peace, and portrays the opposition, which supports Ukraine, as pro-war.
The author of the interview - despite the fact that even according to Karácsony they are not the majority in Hungary - is particularly interested in the minority that, in their opinion, disputes Ukraine's sovereignty and invades Ukrainian territories. Karácsony reacts to this by not disparaging these thoughts that make him sad - at the same time, he prefers to see that
the Hungarian government puts short-term economic interests before morality and humanism,
this puts us on the wrong side of war and history. The mayor complains that Russia sells energy carriers to us more expensively than the world market price. (This is an old opposition panel, but it is factually not true: the Russian Urals oil purchased by Hungary is, to varying degrees, 20-30 dollars cheaper per barrel than Brent, and our long-term Russian gas contract is adjusted to the European gas exchange price, whether this price increases or decreases (in fact, it protects us from larger daily and weekly fluctuations by paying on the basis of a monthly average price.) In addition, he accuses the government of not asking for Putin's declaration that Poland, Romania and Hungary have territorial claims against Ukraine .
Subcarpathians are "Hungarian-speaking"
According to Karácsony, the majority of Hungarian voters want the Transcarpathians to be Hungarian - the Ukrainian interpreter successfully translates this as "Hungarian speakers", but
this is certainly not part of Ukrainian ethnic homogenizing nationalism, it is just a slip of the tongue
– live in peace and prosperity, and know that this is more important than changing the borders.
The Ukrainian journalist was also interested in what, according to Karácsony, made Orbán so dependent on Russia. In his answer, Karácsony mentions economic reasons and theorizes that Orbán is trying to improve his position in the rule of law struggles with the EU by building strong external alliances, while Putin is using Orbán to block decisions in the EU that are unpleasant for him.
To the question whether Ukrainian-Hungarian relations can be normalized while Viktor Orbán is in power, Karácsony gave an evasive answer, but stated that
Orbán treated Volodymyr Zelenskiy as an enemy because he always needs an enemy image.
The author of the interview was also interested in whether Viktor Orbán would lead Hungary out of the European Union. The mayor stated that since Viktor Orbán is only motivated by short-term economic interests, as long as he receives EU money, he would not do such a thing.
You can watch the interview in Ukrainian here:
Featured image: MTI/Árpád Földházi
