Steven N.“It would take a great effort to find something true in what the Prime Minister said in his interview on Kossuth Rádió this morning,” stated Democratic Coalition (DK) politician Csaba Molnár.
“Viktor Orbán claimed that our gas reservoirs were full, but that others failed to do so because of the sanctions, and that the sanctions are also responsible for inflation,” said the Hungarian MEP.
During his radio interview, Prime Minister Orbán claimed that, “Hungary can now supply itself with gas, but the Western countries cannot. Why should we work with them to obtain it together? That would only make us worse off.”
But Molnár pointed out that the truth was in fact the very opposite:
Gas reservoirs in the EU are 92% full, while Hungary’s reservoirs are 79% full. It is precisely gas reservoir capacity where Hungary is lower than Europe as a whole.
The price of food items in Hungary has gotten out of control due to the weak forint and Orbán’s inflation. It is no coincidence that nowhere in the EU have food prices become as expensive as they have in Hungary. This is a Hungarian specialty that we can “thank” Viktor Orbán for.
– wrote the DK politician, who believes that the sanctions Viktor Orbán voted for are the Prime Minister’s last hope to place the blame onto someone else. Otherwise, he would have to admit that the Orbán regime and the past 12 years have ruined Hungary and caused a cost-of-living crisis.
The Momentum Movement also put out a statement claiming that Viktor Orbán was lying about the sanctions. The Prime Minister argues that the price of gas is high because of the sanctions, which has increased production costs to such an extent that Hungary’s inflation on food products is the highest in Europe. However, as the party states:
It is clearly visible from the data that Putin had already started raising the price of gas before the sanctions were imposed, and even before the war began. In fact, the price of gas has been decreasing on international markets since the end of September, but prices and inflation in Hungary are still not abating.
-writes Momentum, providing relevant data to back up their assertions. According to the opposition party, it is not the sanctions that are driving up prices, but the price of bad governance, a “Fidesz surcharge.” This is why Hungary is experiencing a cost-of-living crisis, the party alleges. [Telex]
The bald-faced lies regarding energy (not to speak of the decline of the West) have a long tradition in the Fidesz regime. Sadly, so does its manipulation of public opinion in such a way that the population still supports the government even if its decisions makes them worse off!
As an example, the famous “price reductions” of utilities, meaning fixed prices for gas, electricity and water, made Hungarian consumers pay prices *above market* in the periods in the last decade when prices went down. And still, happy in their information bubble, Hungarians thanked Orbán for their good luck!
Once you have built an information system where you have successfully isolated yourself from the political consequences of your actions, you can actively destroy people’s lives (as during the pandemic) or livelihood (as now) and still remain popular because most people will believe you are doing a great job! Therefore, you haven’t any good reason to work to actually improve the life of the population.
That’s the sliding slope of ever-decreasing perspectives where Hungary finds itself now.