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- Written by Nick Thorpe
- BBC News, Budapest
image source, Reuters/Bernadette Szabo
Viktor Orbán has long been at odds with the EU, but now he is infuriating the Biden administration in the US.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told a cheering crowd that his government’s nationalist conservative policies would win this year in Europe and beyond.
“This year started with us alone, but by the end of the year we will be the majority of the world!” he said in Budapest.
He was confident that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election in November and that right-wing parties would win the European Parliament elections in June.
He then launched an attack on the EU.
“If we want to protect Hungary’s freedom and sovereignty, we have no choice but to occupy Brussels,” he said in a speech on Hungary’s National Day.
Mr Orbán, who has long been at odds with the EU, told supporters that the EU was undergoing a “sovereignty transformation” in the United States as well.
His comments are the latest salvo in a war of words in Washington with President Joe Biden’s administration over Hungary’s position on the Ukraine war, and international criticism of his centralization of power at home.
After meeting with Donald Trump in Florida last week, the Hungarian leader predicted that Russia’s war in Ukraine would end because the new US president “won’t give a dime” to Kiev.
President Biden quickly responded by saying that Orbán “does not believe democracy can work and is seeking a dictatorship.”
image source, Zoltan Fischer/Handout/EPA-EFE/REX
Orban has openly supported his longtime ally Donald Trump in the 2024 White House race.
David Pressman, the U.S. ambassador to Budapest, also slammed the Hungarian prime minister this week.
“Prime Minister Orbán has publicly called for the political defeat of the U.S. president and actively participated in partisan political events in the U.S., while baselessly claiming that the U.S. government is trying to overthrow his own government. ” said the US envoy. on Thursday.
Mr Orbán refrained from making the harshest remarks about the European Union in his speech on Friday, but later lashed out at one demonstrator, a young man carrying a blue European Union flag, as his supporters returned home. There were also people.
“We should protect Hungary’s sovereignty not from the European Union but from Donald Trump and Russia,” Peter Kurgo told the BBC.
The conflict between the United States and Hungary centers on the Hungarian government’s demand for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, its opposition to military aid to Kiev, and the meeting between Viktor Orbán and President Vladimir Putin in Beijing last October. These are regular meetings between Hungarian and Russian officials, including talks between the two countries.
Hungary’s approach to the Ukraine war “doesn’t stand up to reality,” the US ambassador said in Budapest on March 14.
“Hungarian policy is based on the illusion that disarming Ukraine will stop Putin. History shows that the opposite is true. This is not a peace offer, but a surrender. .”
Orbán’s conservative nationalist Fidesz party has been in power since 2010, and the Biden administration is at odds with the government over its understanding of democracy.
The ambassador said: “The systematic takeover of independent media, with oligarchies buying up news outlets solely to donate to government-controlled foundations, and the few that remain independent facing investigations, tax audits, and loss of advertising revenue.” We are facing this,” he emphasized.
image source, Ferenc Isa/AFP
Peter Magyar said his new movement seeks to fill a vacuum at the center of Hungarian politics.
Former Fidesz insider and businessman Peter Magyar, 43, launched a new political party at his rally in Budapest on Friday, which drew tens of thousands of people.
In contrast to the prime minister, he called for a constructive dialogue with the European Union and told his supporters, since the autumn of 1995, to “stand up” for all those who are tired of the wrongs of the past 30 years. He said he was launching a “Hungarian” movement. Communism.
“Every avalanche begins with a snowflake,” he previously wrote on Facebook, pledging to challenge the “corruption and cronyism” he said tainted Viktor Orbán’s government.
The new party will seek to claim the vacuum in the Hungarian political center left by the rise of the Fidesz right-wing and the failure of the current opposition.
Peter Magyar’s movement aims to emerge as a serious force against Fidesz in the next parliamentary elections in 2026.
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