Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said during his visit to the Vatican on Monday that he expects the camp of those opposing the war to expand steadily, ‘day by day’. Speaking to Hungary’s public television channel M1, he argued that while few Western leaders currently advocate for peace, this is merely an ‘illusion’, since the majority of the world stands on the side of peace.
Orbán cited the Arab world, as well as major Asian nations such as China and India, as examples, adding that ‘the stronger half of the Western world’, namely the United States, also supports peace. He noted a growing shift in Central Europe, where Hungary and Slovakia already have anti-war governments, peace-oriented sentiment is returning to the Czech Republic, and ‘the winds are turning’ in Poland as well.
‘As economic hardships deepen in Western Europe, more and more countries will admit that they simply cannot afford to finance this war,’ Orbán said, referring to the conflict in Ukraine.
Commenting on his talks with Pope Francis, Orbán described the existence of a ‘hidden global network’ of anti-war leaders with two centres of gravity: one political, centred around the US president, and one spiritual, located in the Vatican, where the Pope provides ‘energy, motivation, and blessing’ to those working for peace. He emphasized that whenever the pontiff engages either warring side, ‘it is always for peace, never against it.’
Discussing the planned Budapest peace summit, the prime minister said the event will take place once both sides formally agree. ‘It’s coming—it’s only a matter of time,’ he said, drawing a parallel to past peace summits that took years of preparation before being finalized.
Addressing last week’s EU summit, where 26 member states endorsed a unified stance on Ukraine’s EU future, Orbán noted that ‘several countries’ would never agree to exclude any member—such as Hungary—from such decisions. ‘Not because they love the Hungarians,’ he added, ‘but because they don’t want to face the same fate.’
Orbán also confirmed he would meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to discuss the war in Ukraine, economic challenges, and migration. He said Italy faces the consequences of ‘left-wing governments’ past mistakes’ in migration policy, while Hungary continues to resist EU pressure to accept migrants.
Despite being fined one million euros per day by Brussels for refusing to comply, Orbán maintained that ‘it’s still better to pay the fine than to let migrants in and face the same crisis Western Europe is struggling with—in public safety, in the economy, and in society.’
Related articles:
