According to the Swiss star journalist, calling Orbán a Putinist is outrageous.
Roger Köppel of the Swiss Weltwoche, gave an interview to one of Austria's most read news portals and online television, oe24, about the peace summit held in Vienna this afternoon, at which the journalist will moderate the conversation between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. (The journalist who accompanied Orbán to the peace mission at the beginning of July was also with Köpp.)
Köppel said at the beginning of the conversation:
"I am concerned with the topic of peace in Europe, and I watch with great concern how a kind of cancel culture creeps in, that certain people are excluded from the discourse, while they have something to say based on their experience - be it Mr. Schröder or Mr. Orbán, who fulfills a very important function with his peace initiatives before the summer holidays as since".
It is obscene to make a Hungarian pro-Russian
In response to the host's intervention that "Viktor Orbán seems to have already forgotten 1956 and approached Putin" , Köppel made it clear:
The concept of "Putin's friends" represents, for me, this whole deranged debate culture of ours today.
If you deviate half a millimeter from the mainstream, from these official narratives about good and evil, suddenly you're his friend.” He also said that "In the case of Hungary, I consider it almost obscene that someone would accuse a Hungarian of being Russian-friendly, especially someone like Viktor Orbán." "Even I remember Viktor Orbán standing on the barricades to throw the Soviet invaders out of Hungary. Now all kinds of people come here, sorry, left brakes, and they determine with remote diagnosis that this is a Putin friend, only because Orbán has been advocating since the beginning that this war in Ukraine should be limited and not escalated" . According to the Swiss star journalist
"the fact that he is being disparaged in this way today shows the misery of our debating culture that no longer even exists".
Russians and Americans also speak the language of power, even if they don't smell the same
Both Trump and the FPÖ are symptoms of dissatisfaction
The statement of Beate Meinl-Reisinger, the president of the liberal NEOS, who will probably be the smallest member of the next three-party Austrian government, was also discussed, who severely criticized the newly appointed Austrian Speaker Walter Rosenkranz, a politician from the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), for having Orbán as his first foreign guest. He received Viktor. "If we were to ask a Hungarian about this today, even an Orbán critic, he would probably say that this is a somewhat exaggerated description of Hungarian conditions. It must be acknowledged that Viktor Orbán is a democratically elected prime minister" , who, moreover,
"perhaps he has better democratic credentials than certain governments or certain parties that are criticizing him now."
He explained with a spit: he sees it as one of the problems of our time
"we no longer take democracy, the decision of the citizens, the voters seriously, and now some people are moralizing that this is the mourning of everything that is sacred to us".
Regarding the victory of the FPÖ at the end of September, he expressed the opinion that the question must now be asked: "why was the FPÖ, which was buried just a few years ago after the Ibiza scandal, able to gain so much strength now?" According to him, party chairman Herbert Kickl was able to achieve such success because "apparently a lot of Austrians in Austria - who I think are very pragmatic people, I have a lot of respect for Austrian voters - said: no matter what all the newspapers, our well-wishers and everyone, the church circles tell us that don't vote for the FPÖ, we still vote for the FPÖ" . In his eyes, this indicates that "there must be a great dissatisfaction here, which must be taken seriously" . According to him, this kind of dissatisfaction exists in America as well, there
Trump is a symptom of discontent, a talking Molotov cocktail, so to speak, against a certain establishment".
Schröder would not enter every war
Regarding the other guest of the evening, Gerhard Schröder, he said: he greatly appreciates that during the Iraq war, together with his French colleague, Jacques Chirac, he had enough courage to "tell American friends that he is sorry, we are not against America, but everything we don't have to go to war." Regarding the war in Ukraine, he sees it as: "we notice that
what the strategists of the West believed, that they could bring Putin to his knees in no time with sanctions, is not working. But Putin also notices that his plans, as he envisioned them, are also not working.
In such a situation - because people die all the time! – we have to start talking to each other”.
Referring to Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election, he also predicted:
"If there are elections in America now, the geopolitical situation can change relatively quickly. And then I wonder how these moralists and 150 percent believers will position themselves in this new line-up. It's better if you keep some distance and talk to everyone."
Featured image: Mandiner/Márton Ficsor
