Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00"I do understand the concerns and the need also to
00:00:04respond maybe from some member states, but internal
00:00:08border checks should
00:00:09of definitely of be, I would say the
00:00:11of in last resort measures where only where necessary and and
00:00:15where it's proportionate. In sports news, the
00:00:19former Liverpool star Muhammad Salah has signed two-year
00:00:22deal with the Turkish super league side traps on
00:00:25of sport. This is the biggest signing into the top football league this season
00:00:29and thousands of..." Fans are celebrating his arriv
00:00:32arrival. Traps on Sport is one of Turkey's top teams. They
00:00:36finished third last season and have won the Super League title
00:00:40seven times. The last couple of
00:00:44days, it's an experience I never had in my life. I
00:00:48just want to thank everyone of you for
00:00:50of being here today and yesterday. You shows me so much
00:00:54love and I never expect that
00:00:57reception. Um, I'm here. "i'm here to
00:01:00win, i want to win something with this club, because you guys show
00:01:04me so much love,
00:01:07of and um, i really, really appreciate that, i want to thank the
00:01:11president also for make that happen, and i'm very
00:01:14of happy to be here and i can't wait to see you
00:01:18in a picture again, w's footballing
00:01:22governing body UEFA says it will continue with its boycott
00:01:25of the men's and women's world cups as well as other tournaments
00:01:29organized." by FIFA and that's despite FIFA president Jenny Infantino publicly
00:01:33apologizing for his now abandoned plan to sell off
00:01:37a stake in the men's women in the men's world cup
00:01:41to
00:01:41a private enterprise. Several senior FIFA figures have now pledged
00:01:45support for Infantino in his re-election bid next year, but
00:01:49Efer says that means nothing. And
00:01:52in a statement, European Football's governing body has said
00:01:56UEFA's associations were very clear about the condition.
00:02:00attached to the non-participation in FIFA competitions.
00:02:04Yesterday's announcement that some people employed by the FIFA
00:02:08President and
00:02:08of whose careers depend on his favor, agree with him,
00:02:12changes
00:02:31in of
00:02:34in in
00:02:40Hungarian prime minister Peter Majar broke 16 years of rule under
00:02:44Victor Orban when he came to power in April,
00:02:47of now he's in the process of dismantling the system he inherited,
00:02:51calling it corrupt and illiberal. But
00:02:53of is Hungary's so-called purgatorium testing the limits
00:02:57of the rule of
00:02:59of law.
00:03:10of Hello and welcome
00:03:14to Round Table, I'm Ryan and Jones. After taking over from Victor
00:03:18Orban, Petter Madger promise to tear down the system he left
00:03:22brick by brick, and he's
00:03:24of started to do just that, changing the constitution, removing
00:03:28key officials and launch. corruption probes into
00:03:31of allbans in a circle. It's part of a drive to clean up
00:03:35Hungarian politics and to become more aligned with the EU, but
00:03:39critics are calling it power
00:03:41grab. Hungarian voters gave
00:03:45Peter Majar's Teaser party, two-thirds super
00:03:50of majority in April's election, allowing him to rewrite the
00:03:54country's
00:03:55of constitution. Majar says it's needed to undo what
00:03:58he calls the...
00:04:15of
00:04:30purgatory was the
00:04:32presidency. appointed under
00:04:35Orban resigned last month, parliamentary term
00:04:39limits have also been brought in, effectively barring most of
00:04:43Orban's MPs from re-election. with the chief
00:04:47a of prosecutor and head of the constitutional court being pushed out too. raid
00:04:51of data center linked to the party has led
00:04:54orban to speak
00:04:56of out. if a party's computer server is taken away.
00:05:00containing its membership register, communications, entire
00:05:04internet operation, databases, membership fees and
00:05:07support donations, and it's taken away by the government
00:05:11of the rival
00:05:11of political force.
00:05:13That is a problem, I do not think that this needs
00:05:15to be explained. The EU has been
00:05:19supportive of Majar since his election, and is moving to
00:05:23unlock billions in frozen funds, if Majar is
00:05:27able to deliver on his anti-corruption and transparency
00:05:31reforms. At home, Teaser's popularity has started
00:05:34to drop, dipping by 5% in opinion polls since
00:05:38coming to power. I don't like what's going
00:05:42on in.
00:05:59president was
00:06:01The a former character of no weight, he never said anything, he never took
00:06:04a position, he just signed everything in silence, he
00:06:08said what they told him to say, he really was puppet.
00:06:14"Peter Majar promised Hungarian's change and he is moving to
00:06:18deliver on that promise, but will it be the kind of change
00:06:22that people voted for?
00:06:26Well, let's meet our guests who are all joining us from the Hungarian capital,
00:06:29Budapest, Daniel Demmer, the editor and chief of Hungary
00:06:33today, Gerge Raini, chief analysts at the Center
00:06:37for fair political analysis and journalist Mark
00:06:41Luso. Welcome all!" to the program, Daniel, I'm going to start
00:06:45with you by asking, is this democratic
00:06:48transition that we're seeing here after 16 years of
00:06:52Fidet's rule, or is this replacement of one dominant
00:06:55political system after
00:06:57another? well, I think in my
00:07:01interpretation, and I'm not the only one, president
00:07:04Schwiok's removal from office was
00:07:07serious violation of democratic principles,
00:07:11not seen here. in the central European region since uh the end of
00:07:15communism and the former president's
00:07:18words uh when he said that uh his
00:07:22successor will not be legitimate or he
00:07:26said precisely he said um use the word illegitimate will
00:07:30reverberate in
00:07:31the in the in the minds of anyone who would want to or would
00:07:34consider uh actually
00:07:38accepting the presidency from from Peter Majar.
00:07:42forcing out the chief prosecutor uh is
00:07:46similarly interpreted as a political
00:07:49retribution, hence underbining public confidence in the
00:07:53prosecutor's office. um, unfortunately, what we
00:07:57see, what we have seen with the president is only the tip the iceberg,
00:08:01this is happening all across the Hungarian public
00:08:04life and and the political
00:08:07spectrum, high or low level public
00:08:10figures offosed that from their... offices, people who have
00:08:13never broken the law, only because they are not
00:08:17signaling their loyalty towards the new tissa government, and the
00:08:21president Shuok was one the victims of this
00:08:24retribution. Mark, we heard the Daniel's
00:08:27thoughts, what's your view of what's going on
00:08:31here? is this the kind of change that the
00:08:35Hungarian voters were looking
00:08:37for? well, these
00:08:40complaints from Fides partisans
00:08:44are really rich in hypocrisy given the fact that Victor Ordabon
00:08:48was in power for 16 years and he built the
00:08:51system that Peter is currently
00:08:55using to dismantle uh
00:08:58the really truly not democratic but rather
00:09:02authoritarian system that uh Ortaban
00:09:06built during his you know more than uh
00:09:0916 years in power uh the complaints
00:09:13and the the winging and the belly aching from from fetus
00:09:17partisans is also just very strange. if you look at
00:09:20ordaban and his top lieutenants, they resigned their
00:09:23seats from parliament. they're not trying to
00:09:27make any contributions to public life, to policy
00:09:31making, to uh improving
00:09:34actual services that the government provides to
00:09:38Hungarians on the ground. they're just sitting on the sidelines and
00:09:42throwing... verbal bombs and and rhetorical attacks, so
00:09:45it's hard to take these complaints very seriously, and gerg, I did want to ask,
00:09:49do many Hungarian Hungarians simply see these moves
00:09:53uh by major as necessary after 16 years of
00:09:57majoritarian politics? I
00:10:01think most of Tisa voters do and the Tisa party
00:10:05enjoys roughly a 60-70% support in the among
00:10:08waters now, so they have such majority and there's such a...
00:10:12public demand for this kind of changes, now the the funny
00:10:16thing is really is that Peter is employing
00:10:19similar technics or similar style of governance as
00:10:23Fides did, as Victor.
00:10:25did as in the majority can do pretty much whatever they can, he
00:10:29says that it's a temporary thing that he's doing uh until they adopt
00:10:33a new very different constitution eventually probably a year or
00:10:37so um we'll see whether that is the case but currently you
00:10:41can see that this is uh according to what the voters demanded that
00:10:45they wanted to get rid of feidas this is what unites thesus camp
00:10:48obviously 70% the electorate
00:10:52doesn't agree on every ideological position. but what they agree on is that
00:10:56they wanted
00:10:56to get rid of everything that fides created and Peter
00:11:00is uh from a political standpoint very wise to
00:11:03emphasize this and take measures on doing this,
00:11:07even sort of extreme measures or measures that seem extreme
00:11:11from a western European perspective, because
00:11:15this is what unites his camp, this is what unites his
00:11:18political electorate and that's what keeps him popular, so he
00:11:22will continue to do this as long as
00:11:25as uh he can, so that the focus of Hungarian politics is on fighting
00:11:29against Urban, which is very popular fight among most the voters.
00:11:33Mark, I do want to just bring you in briefly, because Daniel mentioned the
00:11:37removal of president Siliok as being one the most
00:11:40controversial reforms, so there is
00:11:43concern here over just how far
00:11:46and fast Peters moving, why is it
00:11:50necessary to pursue these reforms at such
00:11:53speed? "I think we
00:11:56shouldn't overstate the drama of
00:12:00what's going on in Hungarian public life, certainly President
00:12:04Shuyok had his defenders and he
00:12:08voiced his complaints
00:12:11publicly when Peter and the Tisa government moved
00:12:15to uh push him out of office through vote in
00:12:19parliament, it's not like these were any sort of extra legal measures that
00:12:22Madiard took, it was just matter..." the representatives who were
00:12:26duly elected by the Hungarian populist taking a decision
00:12:30that the Hungarian populist supported. A lot these
00:12:34moves to me feel like well relatively normal
00:12:37politics uh at least a a European
00:12:40level when uh proposes
00:12:43action or a policy people complain if they don't like it
00:12:47or they say yes if they do like it or they stay quiet if they
00:12:51do like it uh and if people don't like it well then he changes
00:12:55his tag as he has for instance in several instances
00:12:59of um removing nominations for top cabinet
00:13:02officials, so to me it seems like
00:13:05responsiveness, transparency, public
00:13:08accountability, that's what part is trying
00:13:12to return to Hungarian public life, and it's certainly what was
00:13:15absent uh during the 16 years of Victor Ordabon's regime and
00:13:19rule. Daniel, if I can put that question to you, because
00:13:22Hungary, let's not forget, has billions of... burs in frozen
00:13:26EU funds at stake here, so to what
00:13:29extent is the pace of Majar's reforms being
00:13:33driven by this August deadline
00:13:35here? well, the thing is, um,
00:13:39I would uh, I would say that the, I wouldn't
00:13:43use the word reforms uh, that you have used
00:13:46earlier, um, this is, this is retribution and the t
00:13:50government is is a government of avengers, the
00:13:54Peter is using the dismantling
00:13:56the what he calls the urban regime as
00:14:00smoke screen to actually destroy the entire
00:14:04Hungarian conservative national network and and
00:14:08sphere and this is exactly what is expected of
00:14:11him to do
00:14:13and what is what is happening with
00:14:17the with what you asking about the speed of the
00:14:20reforms um we all wanted reforms and
00:14:24and "I think this was Victor Orban's mistake that he
00:14:28didn't listen to the independent Hungarian
00:14:31Conservative network that was asking for reform and there was a
00:14:35bubble around Fedes, but what we got is is is basically
00:14:39the destruction the rule of law in Hungary and the
00:14:43neostalinist cult of personality against around
00:14:47Peter, this is this is not reform and it should not be
00:14:51should not be called that
00:14:53and all these comparisons well this" is exactly what
00:14:56what Victor Orban did earlier
00:15:00for 16 years, I don't think they stand the the
00:15:04test of reality, we did not have political prisoners as we
00:15:07do, the offices and and the servers
00:15:11the opposition party have not been raided by Victor
00:15:15Orban, the president was not forced
00:15:18out, etc., etc., so these comparisons
00:15:22of of any sort of existing parallels are, are limping in my
00:15:26view, gergay, daniel there calling it
00:15:29retribution, Mark calling it normal
00:15:33politics, where's the line
00:15:36between transition? justice and political
00:15:39revenge? it's hard to say really,
00:15:42because obviously retribution or writing the wrongs
00:15:46the ansian regime was one the major things that the
00:15:50electorate has requested, and well the
00:15:54Hungarian public is used to this majoritarian politics partly because
00:15:58of what the Orban regime has done, that basically whatever the majority be
00:16:01the majority offorders or the majority in parliament requires will
00:16:05happen regardless of whether... that violates any
00:16:09principle of rule of law, european standards or so and so on,
00:16:13but this has been a Hungarian staple in politics
00:16:17uh since the 90s. Hungary is the only country in the region that didn't have that
00:16:21hasn't had snap elections since 1990, every government in
00:16:25some way shape or form was there for four years, they were
00:16:28elected for four years, the parliament remained in place for four years, which is unusual
00:16:32in European politics. European politics is usually about lot of coalition
00:16:36disputes, lot of... government's just dissolving, early elections being
00:16:40called, Hungary has not been subject to that, the Hungarian public is used
00:16:43to having a stable majority, and whatever the majority says
00:16:47pretty much goes. Mark, regular transition or not,
00:16:51recent polling does suggest that teaser remains
00:16:55comfortably ahead, but support has slipped, so are
00:16:59you surprised that the government has has seen a drop in support so
00:17:03soon? not
00:17:05especially ' you know, once
00:17:08governments actually move implementing the
00:17:11promises uh that they make, and this applies not just to Hungary, but
00:17:15really anywhere you have democratic system, uh,
00:17:19the, some people in the populist will
00:17:23be, you know, not as happy, they the promises and the way that
00:17:27they're kept, the concrete programmatic uh,
00:17:30implementations will disappoint some people, and so you have,
00:17:34you know, people who express their
00:17:37disappointment by ' responding to polls and poll numbers drop
00:17:40uh,
00:17:41you know, the question, I think for Peter will be to pay attention
00:17:45to how low his pull numbers go
00:17:48um
00:17:49uh and how uh and to
00:17:51you know do course corrections uh if in fact it seems
00:17:54like uh the way that he's implementing these
00:17:57policies are is impacting negatively his
00:18:01popularity uh in Hungary as a whole and so far uh there
00:18:05hasn't really been a lot of uh to the needle a
00:18:09a strongly negative direction, it's it seems to me like it's just
00:18:12you know some people who are
00:18:14you know not exactly happy with the way that certain policies
00:18:18have been implemented and and that's for
00:18:21pet madiard to to address if it becomes serious
00:18:24problem. let's talk about Europe's role in all this
00:18:28or or reaction to all this: the European Commission has
00:18:31broadly welcomed Majar's reforms, what's
00:18:35your view on the reaction? from the EU
00:18:38so far? um,
00:18:42many have been, especially if you listen to the
00:18:45reactions from the European right, from the
00:18:49patriots of for Europe group in the
00:18:53European Parliament and and the party itself, Marine Lepen and
00:18:57and and others have pointed out
00:19:00that the silence the European Union's leadership is
00:19:04completely deathening and how come if "if Victor Orban
00:19:08were to do half as much as as as
00:19:11Peter's government, he he would have been ostracized and
00:19:15punished for for doing so, but
00:19:19when when we speak about the European Union, we have to understand it
00:19:22increasingly in terms of its German dominance, and
00:19:26many commentators call what is happening
00:19:30now in in Hungary, the Polish
00:19:33model, obviously they refer to the example of Donald Tusk's.
00:19:37government when they came to power, they raided the
00:19:41public broadcast, they've released
00:19:45lawfair, a judicial overreach against their opponents,
00:19:48etc. etc., but I think this is a misconception. this isn't the Polish
00:19:52model, this is a German model, only,
00:19:55it has only been um employed
00:19:58in in Poland for the first time, but
00:20:02if you see Uz on the lion immediately committing to
00:20:05releasing all the funds and the... Erasmus program for
00:20:08students that have been withheld for many many years
00:20:12in from Hungary because they we had a
00:20:15conservative national government and without any
00:20:19policy changes except for firing people and jailing
00:20:22people uh that then you understand where the EU stands in
00:20:26this and you understand that this is in fact a proxy government
00:20:30sponsored by the EU. Manfred verber the the leader
00:20:34the European People's party has also when when as about
00:20:38the serious violations of human rights and the rule of law, he
00:20:42said, well, it's nothing to see, he has full commitment
00:20:45towards Peter, and we had of course Marcus.
00:20:50serder here in Budapest
00:20:52recently, the leader the
00:20:56Bavarian CSU and he was baning and was happy and
00:21:00cooing Peter saying how - for the urban government when
00:21:04he's he's glad to see the back and he's welcoming the
00:21:08the new Maj government here, so I think many have the
00:21:11feeling
00:21:12in in Hungary now that although we may at one
00:21:16point be able to restore democracy in Hungary, but we will not...
00:21:20be able to fully do so until German
00:21:23citizens, germans voter, voters do the same at
00:21:26home. Mark, what do
00:21:28you make of Daniel's comments there? is the EU judging hungry on on
00:21:32democratic principles here, or is it still simply welcoming a
00:21:36more pro-european government
00:21:38here? it, I'm not
00:21:41entirely sure that it's a a wise move to uh get in
00:21:45bed with Marine Lepen and to claim her support
00:21:48as - a mark in one's favor, Marine Lepen is not
00:21:52exactly uh the kind of politician uh
00:21:56whose views are mainstream or even morally
00:21:59palatable uh especially when it comes to race and racism in
00:22:03Europe. um the thing I would say is that there have
00:22:07been substantive policy changes uh for
00:22:11the better uh in the area of foreign
00:22:14policy uh Victor Ordban uh and especially his
00:22:18for his foreign minister. Stearto uh were
00:22:22uh very very close uh with uh
00:22:25Russian uh the Russian government with Vladimir Putin, we're
00:22:29supporting Vladimir Putin and in fact we're aiding Vladimir Putin
00:22:32in disrupting uh the uh
00:22:36democratic uh rule of law in Europe as
00:22:39a whole uh and that the removal of Russian
00:22:42influence in Hungarian life, the removal of Russian
00:22:46influence more broadly in or putting an extra barrier.
00:22:50uh say against Russian influence more broadly uh in
00:22:53Europe is major shift and I think that is actually what the
00:22:57European Union is rewarding uh and
00:23:01acknowledging uh by releasing funds and returning Hungary to
00:23:05the Erasmus program and the other thing is that it's
00:23:09not like uh you know giving money to Hungary is
00:23:13somehow a punishment for Hungarian citizens. It's what they wanted. Who's gonna
00:23:17who's well
00:23:19gonna no thanks? Well... 'well we don't want those billions of
00:23:22euros uh and no thanks, we don't want a world
00:23:25renowned scholarship and educational program uh, so it
00:23:29seems to me as if the complaints that somehow uh
00:23:33this is harming uh Hungarian citizens is is
00:23:37really sort of unrealistic. Gargy, I did want to talk to you
00:23:40about these media reforms, because one the most
00:23:44contentious issues uh is specifically that Maja
00:23:47argues that state television became proper'. scander and
00:23:51the public media must be rebuilt from
00:23:54scratch. now how do you
00:23:57de-politicized state media without
00:24:00appearing to politicize it all over again? is it
00:24:04possible? well, he's having a hard time to
00:24:08do so, because state media, at least the public
00:24:11television, has not gotten its new leadership uh, and
00:24:15it's not actually doing its job because it doesn't have the right
00:24:18people, and it's very hard to find. people who weren't associated with
00:24:22the ansian regime, so Urban's people, and
00:24:25also are not considered very political uh on the
00:24:29left-wing liberal uh, whatever side you want to call it, and just
00:24:32recently uh Peter basically
00:24:35stopped the appointment of two uh
00:24:39leaders the Hungarian state television because they're
00:24:43former association with uh Orban's media,
00:24:47so he will have very hard time to do this, "and obviously he's also
00:24:51calling this very transitionary and this is going to get to some sort
00:24:55of normal, but Hungary is a small country, it has a small elite
00:24:59and because of that uh there will be issues of
00:25:02finding personnel, the right personnel who actually know what they do, but haven't
00:25:06been haven't had the experience of working for Urban, at least not for an extended
00:25:10period of time, but they can do the job, that's going to be very difficult
00:25:14in media and in other uh aspects as well, and Peter
00:25:18has had trouble. uh finding certain people for certain
00:25:21positions, and obviously until the fall or even
00:25:25later, this is going to be an ongoing process of just finding the right people,
00:25:29trying to find people
00:25:30who who the tiSA voters approve of, who can do the job and who are not
00:25:34associated with the ansin regime, and this is going to be difficult thing
00:25:38that Peter are continuing to try to do. let's get
00:25:42your final thoughts if you will, now Daniel, let me start with you, what
00:25:45does Hungary's political future look like from
00:25:49here? do do you expect Peter
00:25:53to um, we could
00:25:56argue abuse his majority or do you think he will use it for the
00:26:00good the people and Europe, what, what's the political
00:26:04future look like here? Well, I'm,
00:26:08I'm not very optimistic. I think um, the
00:26:12precedence that he set in the last three months are are a course for
00:26:16worry, and it's not just some sort of a right-wing or conservative of Fides
00:26:20propaganda, the
00:26:22international human rights organizations have
00:26:26criticized left-wing organizations, Peter's removal of
00:26:30President Shuok and and of all places
00:26:33the German left-wing establishment press
00:26:37have have criticized him, but I think
00:26:41there's one thing that that captured me in
00:26:45Victor Orban's recent speech in in Romania is when he
00:26:49said that we are not only defending the legacy
00:26:53the last 16 years of conservative national
00:26:56governance, we are defending what we have built up
00:27:00since the end of communism in the last 36 years and
00:27:04that is exactly how I feel about this, this is what is
00:27:08happening now is an existential uh threat
00:27:11to a Hungarian democracy and I
00:27:14think at the whole thing will change and the
00:27:18balance will changed the first day the Americans
00:27:22actively start to criticize
00:27:24the the Peter government because um
00:27:28he is already becoming a liability and an embarrassment.
00:27:32to his sponsors in in Germany and and Brussels, but the the
00:27:36American administration's criticism will change uh the balance to some
00:27:40extent. And Mark, your final thoughts, looking at Maj's first few months
00:27:44in office, it's early days still, but has he broadly delivered on the
00:27:47mandate that voters gave him?
00:27:51Well, it remains to be seen, and I think the speech that Danielle
00:27:55was referring to was by Victor Ordabon, did you say, I think you might have said it was by
00:27:59Peter, but those words certainly sound. like they were Victor
00:28:03Ortiban's words in Romania. Um,
00:28:06the, uh, it remains to be seen, and and actually, I agree with Daniel,
00:28:10that that NGOs, civil society groups in Hungary, it's going to
00:28:14be their job to criticize the government when it
00:28:18does wrong, to uh, hold the government
00:28:22accountable to uh, principles like the rule
00:28:26of law, freedom of speech, um, transparency and
00:28:30democracy, that's certainly going to... the job the European Union
00:28:34as well ideally uh and the international
00:28:37community uh that's what is happening right now
00:28:41and uh I would certainly like to see more of that going on into the
00:30:09Donald Trump denies the US military is running low on munitions and
00:30:13claims the war with Iran will end soon.
00:30:17Hello and welcome to TRT World Live from Istanbul, I'm Hazim Sea, also head
00:30:21on the
00:30:21program.
00:30:26In Yemen, at least 58 government troops are reported to have been killed in
00:30:30Houti attacks on military. Israeli
00:30:34forces launch wave of air strikes on southern Lebanon despite a fresh
00:30:38round of peace talks in Rome, and
00:30:41Ukraine hits two oil refineries in several strikes inside
00:30:45Russia. Zelenski says the aim is limiting Moscow's oil
00:30:49revenues to finance the
00:30:51war.
00:30:58Hello, President Donald Trump has...