Judit Varga was Hungary’s minister of justice from July 2019 until July 31, 2023, when she resigned to announce her candidacy as head of the governing Fidesz party’s list for the 2024 European elections.
You have been minister of justice for the past four years and the most visible face of the Hungarian government in Brussels. Why did you decide to stand for the European elections and lead the EP electoral list of Fidesz in 2024?
The prime minister asked me why I wanted to leave my office if things were going well. The truth is that as a minister you run an office 24 hours a day; you can’t work on political issues. I want to focus on the European elections and the conservative movement. I want to have time to travel, spread our views, and show the European voter that there is an alternative. There is a Hungarian and also pro-European way to run the European institutions that can be successful. This is what I want to convey to voters so that the conservatives can win the majority next year.
After the massive arrivals of migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a press conference was held by Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen. The president of the European Commission showed her inability to face reality. More and more people are beginning to believe that the EU has no solution. Do you think it is possible to change the European Union?
I am an optimist and I think we have a chance, especially if we clearly show the consequences of mass illegal migration. For that, we need a strong media presence. However, at the moment, the mainstream media is appealing to feelings and not to rationality. Mediterranean countries are put under enormous emotional pressure when they are shown images of children dying at sea. But if you are a policy-maker, you have to send a different and responsible message. The problem with the migration package is its underlying philosophy; a philosophy of open borders complete with letters of invitation. The message that needs to be sent is that there is no allocation possible; please don’t come. If a country needs a workforce, it must be done through legal channels: embassies, consulates, and cooperation programmes with third countries.
The current policy of burdening countries that do not have any link, current or historical, to the third world is unfair and must stop. We were never part of those decisions, so why should we have any responsibility for it? This is a Central European and a Hungarian position. The EU has enough assets at its disposal to handle this problem, such as the financial instruments, to make agreements with countries outside the EU to stop, not to manage, migration. The attitude towards migration has to change completely. Policy makers must say: No, don’t come here. Everything else is hot air.
As you say, the emotional pressure is enormous. If you don’t accept open borders, you are held responsible for what happens to migrants.
Politicians who appeal to our emotions are responsible for the people who sit on those boats, because they have encouraged them to come to Europe. In migration policy, we do not need compromise, but respectful tolerance for each country’s choice. This should be the European way of dealing with problems: mutual respect.
There was a very good speech by a Greek MP on people smuggling and criminality in the Mediterranean, in which he argued that until we stop these activities, until we send the message to the NGOs that it is the member states who decide who enters and who does not, we will continue to have this problem. Hungary has shown on land, with strong protection, that illegal immigration can be stopped. It is also possible to stop it via the sea, as Salvini’s period as interior minister showed.
Recently, Salvini prevented 163 migrants rescued by Open Arms NGO from disembarking onto Italian soil for 20 days. He has a new trial in this case in early October, in which billionaire actor Richard Gere will appear as a witness against him.
In Hungary, we take legal measures to protect our borders, which have been denounced by the European Commission. We will soon suffer daily fines for not complying with certain rulings, basically several thousand euros a day. Despite the absurdity of this policy, it is a very good campaign issue: for protecting Europe, you have to pay a fine. We also introduced hot spots to avoid what is called secondary migration. If you want to enter Hungary from Serbia, you can’t file the asylum application at the border. You have to do it at the Belgrade consulate, where it will either be approved or denied. If a decision is not made quickly, asylum seekers are free to move within the Schengen area.
Our hot spot measure has also been denounced and is in the European Court. We will lose. The funniest thing is the hypocrisy. Even as Hungary is being criticized, Belgian mayors are complaining about the problems caused by this secondary migration and asking for solutions. The reality is that this should not be a problem in Europe. However, the EU migration package goes against European interests and it is a threat to our culture.
European voters must be told that economic migration is not a human right; asylum from a war zone is. A country neighboring a war zone should take in refugees, as Hungary has done with Ukraine (1.2 million asylum seekers have already been received since the start of the war). However, it is absurd, legally and morally, to make the same allowance for economic migrants who come from far away lands and have passed through many safe countries.
We have the recent examples of Belarus and Poland, where migration has been used as a weapon of destabilisation by the Lukashenko regime. In Spain, we regularly suffer pressure from Morocco, and the Italian case also seems to be premeditated. Don’t you also think that we need to put an end to this myth, this naïve mentality, that migration is always good?
Now is the time, with the European elections, for our citizens to make a free choice. We have to use all channels at our disposal to circumvent the mainstream media and show reality. Again, we must be united regardless of names, party leaders, or groups. There are different sensitivities in the European Right, but in my Hungarian romanticism, I would put a few words on the flag of Europe’s conservatives: no migration, no gender, no war, no European empire, only free nation states. They are very simple words. Let’s fight together to accomplish this mission. We have to generate the momentum so that Europeans understand that we are united on these principles, regardless of where anyone sits on the Right. Right-wing parties should include this in their message, to show voters that there is a choice; you can elect someone who speaks your mind. Fidesz has always named the problem. When we saw that migration was not good for our citizens, we said so, and we did not care about the consequences or the media pressure.
It is very important to have what we call the “centre power area.” All this means is that in the face of different challenges—like gender, family, migration, or other phenomena—our political movement looks for solutions that fit with our cultural identity. I will give you an example, if you ask Hungarians whether it is better to live on subsidies and have children, or to make your own living and have children with tax reductions, they will answer that it is best to live in a society based on family and work. We identify our political movement with this view. If we ask Hungarians whether the family is important, 99% will answer yes. Because of this, we have been placing the family at the center of our policies for many years. The same goes for migration. Even voters who do not like my party agree with these ideas. What can the opposition say? That it is good when the majority of Hungarians, including many of their voters, reject it?
A good example of this “centre power area” is the referendum against gender propaganda that was held in Hungary on the same day as the general election. I believe that the number of people who voted against this propaganda outnumbered those who voted for Fidesz.
That’s right. Three million Hungarians voted for Fidesz, but 3.7 million voted against gender propaganda. That means that there were 700,000 voters who did not elect us, but elected our policy against gender ideology. I think this is a good political strategy: to work towards what society needs. This is our recipe for successful conservative politics.
The different sensitivities and positions—for example on the war in Ukraine or national conflicts between countries—make it very unlikely that the European Right will unite in a single group. However, in view of the serious situation in Europe, do you think it is possible to overcome these differences and establish an effective collaboration on a few common points?
We have to put the important issues first and not worry about internal divisions. When it comes to forming groups, there are strict rules to follow and it is mostly a tactical and mathematical step. However, the first step is to get as many votes as possible, and this is the message I want to convey to every political leader. Overcoming differences is in our interest and will encourage citizens during the European campaign. Otherwise, nothing will change. If Europeans don’t want more migration and gender propaganda in schools, they have to go and vote. We have to talk about sovereignty, about European strategic interests, and about how to protect our way of life, because that is what is at stake. European citizens must be made aware that the way they live today is in danger. In 100 years, Europe will not be recognisable.
On the European Right we have internal differences of opinion regarding relations with Russia, although this was present before the war. For geopolitical and geographical reasons, we rely on their energy resources. While we want to be free of that dependence, we need more time and that is why we do not support energy sanctions. Poland has a different history and we respect it. Beyond these differences, the alliance between Poland and Hungary remains intact. We continue to have very good professional cooperation when it comes to the real problems. I’d like our opposition to know that they should not go to the funeral of the friendship between Hungary and Poland because it is flourishing and will remain very active.
In both cases, it is about defending national interests, which is what a government is supposed to do.
That’s what a government is supposed to do. If you don’t respect yourself, how can you expect others to respect you? For example, I don’t agree with many of Germany’s policies that impose its values through foreign policy, particularly considering the consequences that this will have on German business, but these are decisions of a democratically elected government. We believe that we have to be more pragmatic in our relations with third countries. What we can offer European citizens is a much more rational alternative with a more respectful use of the institutions. The European elections offer us the possibility of changing the balance of power in order to avoid continuing our mistakes. If not, Europe will be plagued by more migration, more Euro-federalism, more supranational structures. The EU will move towards disintegration, particularly if it continues to make decisions without considering member states’ interests. All this is working against European unity and interest, its Christian roots, and the spirit of partnership and consensus. The EU is looking more and more like a multinational company that relies on internationally funded NGOs and whose politicians behave like puppets because they are vulnerable to the media. Is this the world we want to live in?
Earlier you mentioned that the Right should avoid conflict within our ranks. Unfortunately, that is what happened in the last elections in Spain, where the Popular Party attacked its only possible ally, VOX. What advice would you give to the Spanish Right to counteract this?
My advice is to be honest. You must consider what Spanish society needs; maybe Spanish society is not like Hungarian society, which has its own mentality and traditions. You have to be loyal to your principles even if you are stigmatised and attacked, because in the long run it will show that you have an alternative that works. That requires politicians to have a certain mentality. The EPP shows us how not to do this. They have abandoned their own principles for short- and medium-term opportunism. They thought that because the liberals were dominant, they had to follow their narrative and reject all their principles to come out in favour of progressive ideas. Over time, their strategy has proved a failure. Look at what has happened in Germany. You cannot import the product they make in Brussels and force it down the throats of your citizens, which is what the liberals have always done in Hungary. The Hungarian spirit is that we are who we are, we create our own vision, and we take it to where the decisions are made. I encourage all conservatives to do the same.
