Hungarian farmers are being warned by Hungary’s opposition party in a very instructive tone to prepare for Ukraine’s EU membership. Orbán’s top electoral rival, Péter Magyar, featured his party’s agricultural expert, Lőrinc Varga, at a forum.
On Friday, June 20, a Tisza forum was held in Bonyhád, at which the party’s vice-chairman Márk Radnai, the party’s law enforcement expert Ruthenian-Szendi Romulus, and Lőrinc Varga also spoke.
“What is very important from a policy perspective is that this kind of Ukrainian influence can only be overcome from an efficiency of scale perspective,” said Lőrinc Varga in Bonyhád. The Tisza expert was barely veiledly criticizing Hungarian farmers with this, and spoke in an instructive tone about how they would change their operations in the event of Ukraine’s accession. Meanwhile, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi laughed, causing some to question why he would be laughing over what will clearly be a struggle for Hungarian farmers.
At Friday’s forum, Lőrinc Varga discussed at length what Hungarian farmers should do if Ukraine joins the EU:
“What is very important from a policy perspective is that this kind of Ukrainian influence can only be overcome from an efficiency of scale perspective. Imagine, we are talking about 500 hectares of fields in Ukraine, on average, not a farm, a field that the machine pulls out to collect, does the operation lines and goes on to the next one. In Hungary, the average farm size at the moment – if I remember correctly – is 22 hectares, a farm, not a field. Let’s compare. We can only compete with Ukrainian agricultural production capacity if we think in terms of added value,” he said.
Varga, in his delivery, appeared to practically treat Ukraine’s EU accession as a fait accompli, and neither Ruszin-Szendi nor Radnai contradicted him on this issue. This is not surprising, because Vice President Márk Radnai himself announced the results of the Tisza Party’s opinion poll, according to which 58 percent of the participants were in favor of Ukrainian membership.
It is true that the turnout at the Tisza consultation did not reach half of the votes cast in the government’s opinion referendum, but it still serves as a reference point in Zelensky’s circles.
Moreover, Lőrinc Varga and his family are not far from public appearances and scandal. The agricultural expert’s mother, Zsuzsanna László-Varga, was the director general of the Tolna County Government Office. The former director general made headlines in 2015 when he assaulted Kálmán Horváth, the then government commissioner of Tolna County, at a gas station. The case was covered in the press, and the county daily newspaper also reported on it:
According to information, Zsuzsanna László-Varga got into a conflict with the Tolna County government commissioner at a gas station in Paks. A fight and shouting match occurred, which an eyewitness recalled, Teol.hu wrote.
Lőrinc Varga first appeared in the Tisza Party this year, as an agricultural expert in addition to organizing events. For example, at the first congress of the Tisza Party, agricultural engineer Szabolcs Bóna, soil renewal consultant Attila Kökény, and farmer Lőrinc Varga from Bonyhád sat next to Péter Magyar at the agricultural policy roundtable.
It is worth noting that another advisor to Péter Magyar, György Raskó, previously argued in favor of Ukraine joining the EU. According to the Tisza Party agricultural expert, “Ukraine’s successful resistance against the barbaric eastern hordes represents the hope, future, and renaissance of Europe.”
In his post, György Raskó directly wrote, “Ukraine will be Europe’s eastern bulwark.”
If Ukraine does indeed join the EU, it poses a significant challenge not just for Hungarian farmers, but also for all of the bloc’s farmers. Ukraine has tremendously larger plots of land, which has led it to traditionally be called the “breadbasket of Europe.” That includes 41.3 million hectares of land being used for farm production, including 32.7 million hectares of arable land.
There are massive economies of scale in Ukraine that are not available, for instance, in Hungary, which features more family farms and smaller plots of land.
If Ukraine obtains EU membership, it will also dramatically alter its market and allow for international institutions to buy up farmland. These corporations could consolidate farmland and create even more efficient operations, which would harm EU farmers further due to a glut of exports.
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