On contemporary Hungarian, European politics
"With the opposition split between a discredited post-Communist party, a disreputable fascist party, and a new party called Politics Can Be Different that is green in every sense of the word, Hungary is unlikely to produce an alternative to Fidesz in the near term. Orbán, therefore, has more power than any conservative leader has had in the West since Margaret Thatcher ruled Britain in the mid-1980s. Hungary is the clearest example we have of how a 21st-century conservative government behaves when it rules untrammeled...
"Orbán himself has a different explanation. 'A chapter of European history is closed,' he says. 'We are not competitive any more. We cannot live as we once lived. What we need is a deep transformation of European life. The only question is, which governments are strong enough, and have enough of a majority in parliament, to lead such a transformation, and which are not.'”
On the Nagy Imre Reburial, June 1989 Speech
"Orbán became a political celebrity one day in the early summer of 1989...Orbán’s speech was of a shocking brusqueness. He told the Soviets they should get out of Hungary, lock, stock, and barrel. Later, when Communists were negotiating a transition arrangement that would have allowed the party to maintain 'workers’ combat groups' and party representatives in workplaces, Orbán was among those who blocked it."
On Goulash Communism
"But Goulash communism had an important political consequence when the Wall came down. In the 1990s, there was not, as happened elsewhere, a purge of Communists by new elites with ties to international business. In Hungary, Communists were the elites with ties to international business. That gave the country an economic jump on its neighbors—in the early 1990s it was getting more direct foreign investment than the rest of the East Bloc countries combined—but this proved a political liability."
On the Balatonőszöd speech
"But it was in 2006 that politics in Hungary really fell to pieces. By then, the Hungarian economy was hurtling towards disaster. The charismatic socialist Ferenc Gyurcsány, a millionaire businessman married to a Politburo member’s granddaughter, defeated Orbán in a close-fought race. A few weeks later he gave a speech to a closed meeting of MSzP leaders. It was secretly recorded, and the bits leaked to the press over the coming days changed the course of Hungarian history."
On the October 2006 police actions
"On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 rising, police—many wearing masks and not wearing the badges that bore their identification numbers—attacked crowds in Budapest...[N]eutral observers have criticized police conduct. 'They did not beat the violent demonstrators but the ones they could catch,' says Tamás Bodoky, the publisher of an investigative blog, who wrote a book on the subject."
On the new constitution
"'That is the reason why, in Europe, the constitution is so fiercely attacked, especially by the generation of 1968,' [the prime minister] told me in his office. 'It is not just a constitution, it is the antithesis of their understanding of European history.' There are points to be made on both sides, but on balance, Orbán has the stronger case."
On Prime Minister Orban's speech in the European Parliament, January 2012
"Last winter Orbán went to Strasbourg to defend his constitution before the European Union’s parliament, which had considered censuring him for it. 'I went there and I defended the constitution,' he recalls. 'Successfully—as I understood it, anyway. I said I understand that in European intellectual circles there is an understanding of European history, that there is a trend from religious to secular, from nations to internationalism, and from the family to the individual. That is what you call progress. I don’t know whether you are right or not. But I don’t think this is the only possible interpretation of European history. I think God and religion, family and nation, do not belong only to the past. They belong to the future as well. So I’m ready to start the discussion. It’s a believer-based, family-based, nation-based constitution. What is the problem with that?'"
On ethnic Hungarians beyond the borders
"Orbán insists that there is no nationalism, revanchism, or ethnic exclusivity in such moves. On the contrary, he says during our interview, the ability to make contact with their cousins after years of being cut off from them leads Hungarians to value their integration into wider Europe. 'This is the reason why a majority of Hungarians'—84 percent at the referendum—'supported EU membership. The EU means no borders.' Orbán may be right, but this is very hard for non-Hungarians to grasp."
On Jobbik
"Fidesz is not Jobbik. But non-Hungarians grasp that only with difficulty—'despite the Fidesz leadership stating practically every day for eight years that they will have nothing to do with Jobbik,' as the Anglo-Hungarian writer Tibor Fischer puts it."
On the economic policy of the government
“'We are looking for some kind of equitable burden-sharing,' he said at the opening session of parliament in early September, 'trying to involve others besides normal taxpayers.' He raised the minimum wage. Controversially, he nationalized part of the public pension system in order to spare Hungary from being subjected to an IMF austerity program. Whether you consider this mix of programs an admirable syncretism or a contemptible amateurism, it is unconventional. 'We cannot get out of this crisis with the same policies that led us into the crisis,' Orbán says."
On Hungary and the West
"Last spring in Washington, I heard one of Orbán’s oldest Fidesz associates, member of the European parliament József Szájer, plead for a bit more understanding and a bit more time for Hungary. 'Hungary is a test case,' Szájer said. 'We are dealing with problems everyone is dealing with, and we are giving some answers. Let this be a debate between equals. Even the United States can learn from us.' It is a good point, one that may be at the heart of the clash between Orbán and his neighbors. The financial crisis has revealed Western countries as fiscally irresponsible, intellectually exhausted, and out of economic-policy tricks, yet the scope for giving different programs a try keeps narrowing. The West has much to gain from letting nations follow any peaceful inclination that would allow them to serve as laboratories of policy. To judge from their reaction to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, never have Western leaders been less willing to countenance any such thing."
