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Márton Ugrósdy is the Deputy State Secretary at the Office of the Political Director of the Prime Minister. He holds an MA in Political Science from Eötvös Loránd University and a PhD from the Doctoral School of Political Science and International Relations at Corvinus University of Budapest. From 2009 to 2016, he served as Senior Editor of Kitekintő.hu. From 2016 to 2022, he worked at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as a researcher, later as Deputy Director for Strategy, and finally as Director. Since 2022, he has served as Deputy State Secretary heading the Political Directorate Office at the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office.
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Viktor Orbán is set to meet Donald Trump on 7 November at the White House. Will it mainly be about energy policy, Ukraine, or Hungarian–American relations?
This will be a great overhaul of the bilateral relationship altogether. Obviously, the most important part of this is energy cooperation, at least for two reasons. The first reason is, of course, how the United States is trying to position itself within Europe and what this means for European energy security in general—especially with the recent announcement on American sanctions and some kind of secondary sanctions on Russian energy companies, which have a significant impact on Europe.
The other is, of course, the bilateral relationship itself, which has had its ups and downs over the last 35 years since we became independent once again. Now, we might be entering a new golden age of bilateral relations, mostly because the political layer of the relationship has changed significantly since the Biden administration. What we saw before was a kind of ideological disagreement on where we were headed, and this difference was very visible in the activities of the last American Ambassador to Budapest, who occasionally became something like the spokesperson for the Hungarian opposition, too. When the new chargé d’affaires took over at the US Embassy here, he changed the attitude—he became more conversational.
There is a friendly relationship between the two countries, I would say.
It’s a friendly relationship, of course. And in a very short time frame—six or seven months—we’ve reached a point where it’s not only going to be a White House visit by the Hungarian Prime Minister, but also the signing of substantial documents on tangible cooperation.
One may very well ask: if we have so many common interests, if there’s so much economic value in facilitating and strengthening these ties, why would anyone want to jeopardize that with political disagreements—especially when the job of the Hungarian government is to represent the Hungarian people and work for their interests?
‘The last American Ambassador to Budapest…occasionally became something like the spokesperson of the Hungarian opposition, too’
One area of contradiction between the Orbán and Trump administrations is energy policy. The United States wants its allies to stop buying Russian energy—to stop financing Russia’s war machine. Is there any chance that Prime Minister Orbán could secure an opt-out for Hungary from the sanctions against Russia?
We don’t know what the future holds. But what we saw is that since the sanctions were announced, three German refineries were exempted from the sanctions, which constitutes around 12 to 15 per cent of German refining capacity. So it’s not completely unusual to get waivers from these kinds of sanctions. Obviously, this might be the subject of the talks between the two governments. But, you know, these are contracts, so lots of things are possible.
We do understand that the Americans are having a security dimension to this. For us, this is also a security issue, but from the other way around. The Hungarian government has to ensure that we have electricity, we have heating, we have gas in the gas stations, and so on. Talking about diversifying energy supplies is great, but we need solutions right now. We’ve been doing quite a lot of work in diversifying our energy supplies and natural gas. We’re linked up to other neighboring countries.
Then, of course, we realized back in 2006 and 2009, when the first and second Ukraine–Russia gas wars happened, that you cannot rely on one single source and transit route of supply, because that puts you at risks. We’ve worked together with Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia, and Austria in order to have multiple options, should something happen to the Ukrainian transit pipeline—which actually happened later on.
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó often uses the phrase that energy policy is a physical thing, not an ideological one. There’s the Druzhba pipeline and the Adria pipeline; Hungary is a landlocked country, so its situation is different from that of Croatia or Poland. But your critics say that you’ve had many years to diversify. Now, as American pressure is growing, can we expect quicker diversification?
Well, we’ve been diversifying in natural gas for more than 15 years now, so I don’t really understand this kind of criticism—why haven’t we done anything? We’ve done quite a lot of things, like linking up with neighbouring countries in natural gas. Oil, of course, is different, because there are different ways to transport it. I also have to underline that right now it’s not forbidden to trade with Russia in energy. Of course, there are certain requirements, certain rules you have to follow—there’s a price cap and a bunch of other things—but it’s not illegal. If certain people have a political point of view on whether this is good or bad, that’s their problem. Our problem is how we’re going to get the energy the country needs, and how we’re going to get it at an affordable price.
There is a technical part of this problem and a political one. About the technical part first: some media outlets have written that there would be a deal on the transfer of American nuclear technology to Hungary and on certain LNG projects. Can you confirm that?
I’m not able to share the details on that. But we’ve had very long conversations with our friends and allies on these topics for quite some time. The bottom line is always a business case. It’s great to talk about small modular reactors, for example, but nobody has seen any of these operating yet. Of course, if they become available—if they’re sustainable, safe, properly regulated, and can produce electricity at a competitive price—we’re more than happy to look at them.
So I think the logic is somewhat different when it comes to the government, because the main driving force for us is what serves the interests of the Hungarian people and the Hungarian economy. We’re going to pursue these goals no matter what, because we are responsible to the Hungarian people. We’re happy to work with our allies, but we’re not going to make deals just for the sake of doing business. We’ll do business if it’s mutually beneficial for both sides. If these conditions are met—if the financing is there, the technology is available, and the project is affordable—we’re more than happy to move ahead with new initiatives.
‘The main driving force for us is that what serves the interests of the Hungarian people and the Hungarian economy’
So you’re open to buying American LNG and cooperating on American nuclear technology as well?
We’re open to everything and everybody. I mean, if you look at the Prime Minister’s travels in the last few years, you can see that he’s been to Azerbaijan, talking about natural gas; he’s been to Qatar multiple times, talking about LNG. But it all comes down to whether there is any gas available, whether the shipping options are there, whether it’s affordable, whether you have a regasification terminal nearby, which is not really expensive, and whether the volumes are right. There are so many technical questions along the way, and you have to clear all of them before you can proceed.
About the political part of the same issue, which is sanction policy. The Trump administration is sanctioning Russian energy companies. Do the sanctions work or not? Because your government, for three years, has been saying that politically motivated sanctions don’t work.
There’s a fundamental difference between the American and the European approach. The European Union wants this war to continue for as long as it takes. The Trump administration’s approach to sanctions is different, because they use them as signalling, while the EU uses them as virtue signalling. My impression is that the European Union is sanctioning Russia for the sake of sanctioning Russia, so that it can show it’s on the right side of history, without any tangible results. What we see is that Russia is still fighting the war, still able to produce all the weapons and machinery it needs to strike Ukraine every night. They’re still advancing on the battlefield, and their economy has been doing well—they haven’t collapsed.
‘My impression is that the European Union is sanctioning Russia for the sake of sanctioning Russia’
But there’s a limit to a war economy.
But you know, we’re always being promised that Russia is going to collapse next year—and then next year comes, and Russia is still here. So let me just not believe that argument. On the other hand, I think it’s also a gross overstatement to say that Russia is able to finance this war because Slovakia and Hungary pay for oil and gas. Most of Russia’s energy exports go outside Europe, and this is basically the fundamental problem with the sanctions regime. It’s really hard to sanction a country if 80 per cent of the world economy is not participating in your sanctions regime. Even then, as the cases of Cuba or North Korea show, you can still stay alive, maintain a weapons development programme, and survive domestically—perhaps even remain a significant player in world politics—despite being sealed off from the world for years. And to be honest, most of the trade Russia has been doing in energy has been with Turkey, India, China, and a bunch of other countries. Russian energy has even reached Europe through Indian intermediaries—so we’re not only paying the Russians, but also the Indians, just to be able to say that we’re not buying anything from Russia.
I see. Robert Wilkie, a former Veterans Affairs Secretary under President Trump, told us that Trump would not let Ukraine fail in this war. Your Ukraine policy is a bit different. Isn’t that a problem in the bilateral American–Hungarian relations?
If you think about the war in Ukraine as a black-and-white issue—which has been the predominant narrative for the last three and a half years—then Secretary Wilkie might be right, but I don’t really believe that narrative, to be honest. You can stand with Ukraine and end the war at the same time, because once the war ends, Ukraine will still be here, and it will have to survive. It will have to have an economy; it will need reconstruction. So standing with Ukraine doesn’t mean that you have to destroy Russia, despite the fact that most of the mainstream media have been telling you this.
Our objective is to end the war as soon as possible, also to save Ukraine, because the longer the war goes on, the more casualties there will be, and the harder it will be to rebuild the country after the fighting stops. You actually have to end the war so that they will survive.
President Trump shares the same view. Of course, it’s not easy—there are many forces acting against him, one of them being the coalition of the willing, another being the government in Ukraine, which is clearly interested in fighting this war for as long as possible. And I cannot blame them, because they’re defending their homeland—that’s what they’re supposed to do, and I wish them all the best. But, at the end of the day, I think everybody has to realise that there is no solution to the war on the battlefield, and that negotiations must begin.
There was a chance, even in Budapest: there had been a plan for a summit here, but President Trump decided to cancel it because he didn’t see any chance of reaching a compromise with Putin. Do you think there could be a real Budapest summit in the near future?
If there’s one place in the West where such a meeting could take place, it’s Budapest. We’re the only country that remains on speaking terms with both of the major players—the United States and Russia. All the other European countries have forfeited the opportunity to be taken seriously by the Russians. And if you want to end the war, you will eventually have to talk to the Russians, because they are one of the parties to this conflict. Of course, what we see is that this process takes time—it’s a bit more complicated than President Trump had anticipated when he came to power—but we very much appreciate his efforts to engage in dialogue with Russia and to address the fundamental issues surrounding the war.
‘We’re the only country that remains on speaking terms with both of the major players—the United States and Russia’
We see that the talks are ongoing. There are many hard and complicated details to be sorted out, and we wish President Trump could work miracles when it comes to ending wars. We saw in the Middle East as well that it took quite some time—even for a country as close to the United States as Israel—to come to terms with the objectives of the US administration and with the political reality on the ground, both in Israel and in Gaza. After many months of negotiation and arm-wrestling, there was a compromise that ended the active fighting in the Middle East. If President Trump could achieve something similar in Ukraine, it would be a great opportunity for Europe to start thinking seriously about how we are going to coexist with both Russia and Ukraine at the same time—and how we are going to redefine our relationship with the United States.
But what if Trump realizes that the window for reaching an agreement between Ukraine and Russia is too narrow—so he decides to use force, sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? What would the Hungarian peace narrative be in that case?
Well, our peace narrative is not dependent on any other country, because it comes from a very deep conviction of this government that war is not a solution to anything, and our responsibility is to uphold the idea of peace—something that we have done from the first day of the war, and at times we were only joined in that by the Vatican. Now we have President Trump on our side as well, which is a welcome development, if I may say so.
On the other hand, this is part of the negotiating process—occasionally you have to raise the stakes in order to reach a compromise. And if I look at the Russian demands, I have the same impression—that everybody starts with a maximalist position, and they will eventually find middle ground somewhere in between.
Connectivity is the official Hungarian strategic narrative, which means Hungary seeks strategic cooperation with all the trading blocs of the world. But this strategy only works when there is an intention on both sides to make trade agreements and to cooperate. What if a trade war breaks out? What if there is a strategic arms race, or geopolitical and perhaps even military games between the great powers? What would Hungary—a keystone state between West and East—do in that case?
I disagree with the assumption. I disagree because there are so many countries, so many interests, so many businesses out there that you can always find a partner to work with. If you look at this anticipated new Cold War or great power games and everything else, that’s going to be focused on the Pacific, because that’s where the centre of the world economy is. We have to adapt to that situation. But I think diversification will remain the key.
To give you an example, a couple of weeks ago it was announced that a major investment from Asia would be coming to Hungary, which eventually came from Singapore—part of the Eastern Opening policy. So far, the Eastern Opening policy has often been framed as Hungary’s official rapprochement with China, which is true to some extent, because we have very good political relations with China. But we also have very good economic relations with South Korea, India, Japan, Singapore, and a number of other countries in the region.
‘If you look at this anticipated new Cold War or great power games and everything else, that’s going to be focused on the Pacific’
The Prime Minister has recently been to Azerbaijan for the official summit of the Organisation of Turkic States, which is another format we use to ensure that our economic interests are met. I remember back in the mid-2010s, when this format emerged and Hungary—though not a full member—became an observer to the OTS, everyone was asking these strange questions: ‘What about the history of the Hungarian people? What about the relationship with the Finns and the Estonians?’ Fast forward ten years, the war in Ukraine begins, and Ursula von der Leyen travels to Baku to meet President Aliyev, forgetting all the criticism she had directed at Azerbaijan before—because of economic interests.
At least we are honest with our partners. We don’t want to impose our political views on anyone. We don’t want to tell them how they should live or how they should organise their country. We are here to conduct mutually beneficial relations with anyone who is interested in that. And I think, as a small, open economy—as a keystone state—this is the only rational thing to do: to make everyone interested in your own success. And that’s not impossible.
Will Viktor Orbán use this visit to the White House to position himself to the Hungarian audience as an influential player on the international political scene?
You know, even our progressive opponents have to concede that our Prime Minister is a much more significant international player compared to others leading countries of similar size, which clearly shows his talent for understanding the world and shaping it in a way that serves his interests. I think this is a very important feature of statesmen—that they must have a vision of where the country is going and how we’re going to get there. Even the Prime Minister’s biggest critics concede that he has that vision. You may agree with it, or you may not, but the vision is clearly there.
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The post Now We Have President Trump on Our Side — An Interview with Márton Ugrósdy appeared first on Hungarian Conservative.
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