Hungarian PM Extols Catholicism, St. John Paul II at Conservative Conference

DeMuth began the interview by asking Orbán to react to the three major persons of the 1989 "political trinity": Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Pope St. John Paul II.

The EPP would like to be part of the power structure of the European Union by any means. And if the price of that is to give up certain values, in order to make a compromise with the Left, they do so. And then we are losing our identity step by step. We became a centrist and then liberal and leftist oriented political family. ... If we don't stand up and say: 'guys, we are losing our values, we are losing our profile, we don't know who we are anymore,' and the people who are our voters are not able to identify us. ...

I would not like to educate anybody because circumstances are so different in all countries. But the number one precondition to be successful in politics is braveness. Bravery to take the risk. If you don't stand up and don't say what you think whatever the consequences may be, you will never be a leader, and you will never have a big party.

We have to have very a sharp, always-on-the-alert attitude to politics, because anything can happen anytime. If you look at Hungarian history, we were occupied by the Muslims, by the Ottomans, I mean, by the Germans and by the Soviet Union and the Russians.

Small countries cannot afford not to have great leaders. Small ... countries cannot afford not to have smart leaders. That is a privilege of the great countries.

When the prime ministers of the European Union meet with each other regularly, I am the only prime minister who doesn't understand the languages of anybody else. The majority of the prime ministers understands the language of at least one or two other countries, but I am the only one who is alone always, because we Hungarians got here in a miracle way. We are an Eastern nation which moved to the West and survived 1,000 years ago.

Orbán gave a nod to the Catholic Church and its fit with the idea of a Christian democratic Europe:

The reason why we think that Christian democracy is a good description for us is that the universal Catholic approach is the only one — I am a Calvinist, anyway — the only one which appreciates and accepts national sovereignty. It ... considers sovereign states valuable.

"OK, I am not an expert in America, but if I understand American politics correctly, many people hate Donald Trump more than they love their own nation, but in Hungary, probably there are some people who hate me more than how much they like the nation," he said of a U.S.-Hungarian difference. "In Hungary, loving the nation is a must."