Accountability proceedings have been launched in Hungary over assets allegedly misused unlawfully by the previous government, but the process must proceed in line with the rule of law, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said in an interview with the American news agency AP, published on Wednesday.
“The Hungarian people understandably want to see those responsible held accountable, punished, and the stolen assets recovered,” Péter Magyar stated, stressing at the same time that the process must take place within the framework of the very rule of law “that Viktor Orbán’s government so frequently disregarded.”
Although several former government officials have already been taken into custody on suspicion of corruption, the Prime Minister said he feels the pressure to deliver faster results. He pointed out, however, that the government wants to build a democratic country based on the rule of law, one that adheres to European Union law and fundamental rights, “and that takes time.”
“I try to explain to people that even in mafia and crime films, it’s not the first ten minutes that are the most exciting, but the middle and the end,” he added.
“During Orbán’s governance, Hungarians saw this wonderful country — which had performed so well at the time of EU accession in 2004 — become one of the EU’s poorest and most corrupt member states,” he added.
Regarding the one-time fine of 200 million euros and the daily fine of one million euros imposed on Hungary by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2024 over migration, Magyar underlined that since the ruling, “a completely new political environment” had emerged within the EU on the topic of immigration. He stressed that Hungary had already lost one billion euros as a result of the penalty.
“I do not think this is justified,” he declared. As he put it, he hopes an agreement will be reached in the matter by the end of the year, and he linked the issue to the EU’s next seven-year budget plan, which requires unanimous approval from member states to be adopted.
“I do not believe there can be a common EU budget without resolving this problem,” he stated.
Turning to relations between Hungary and Ukraine, the prime minister mentioned the language law passed by the Ukrainian parliament last week, which he said “provides an opportunity to open a new chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations, which have been extremely frosty for years.”
He also praised Kyiv for acknowledging the responsibility borne by Soviet Ukrainians in the deportation and torture of Hungarians between 1944 and 1946, describing the admission as an important step on the road to reconciliation. He nevertheless expressed doubts regarding Ukraine’s EU membership, emphasising that membership must be merit-based, and added that he does not consider it a good idea for a country at war to join the organisation.
“It would undermine the credibility of the European Union if we were to put certain future members on a fast track,” he said.
Regarding the billionaire wealth tax to be introduced from 1 January 2027, Magyar said his predecessor’s economic policy “divided Hungary into two groups: the well-off, the wealthy, the oligarchs and their circles, and everyone else.”
“(The wealth tax) does not make me a socialist. I will not become left-wing because of it. This is called humanity. This is called social justice,” he declared.
Magyar had previously told Parliament that the tax is expected to generate annual revenue of 200 billion forints, adding that the wealth tax on approximately 15,000 billionaires will cover almost the entire cost of the 250 billion forint personal income tax reduction, from which more than two and a half million people will benefit.
Artificial intelligence was used for the translation of parts of the original Hungarian text.