Hungarian PM warns EU is 'self-destructing'
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that the EU is on a path to «self-destruction». The far-right leader talks about a new world order focused on Asia and supports Donald Trump.
Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that the EU was sliding toward oblivion in what the Associated Press called an “incoherent” anti-Western speech in which he warned of a new, Asia-centric “world order” while endorsing Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency.
“Europe has given up defending its own interests,” Orban said in Baile Tusnad, a city in central Romania where most Hungarians live. “All Europe is doing today is unconditionally following the pro-democracy foreign policy of the United States… even at the cost of self-destruction.”
“There is a change coming that hasn’t happened in 500 years. In fact, we are facing a change in the world order,” he added, naming China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as emerging as the “dominant centers” of the world.
Orban claimed that the US was behind the 2022 explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipeline built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, calling it “an act of terrorism committed on the obvious instructions of the Americans.”
The Hungarian far-right leader's comments come amid growing criticism from his European partners after he embarked on what the Brussels establishment called illegal «peace mission» trips to Moscow and Beijing this month to broker an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Orban is considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin of any EU leader, the Associated Press notes.
As for Ukraine, Orban expressed doubts that the conflict-torn country would become a member of NATO or the EU. “We Europeans don’t have the money for this. Ukraine will return to the position of a buffer state,” he said, adding that international security guarantees “will be enshrined in the agreement between the United States and Russia.”
Throughout Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, Orban has clashed with other EU leaders, refusing to provide Kyiv with weapons to defend itself from Russian forces and regularly delaying, weakening or blocking efforts to send financial aid to the country and impose sanctions on Moscow, the Associated Press reports.
Orban typically uses the annual platform of the Tusvanes Summer University in Romania to outline the ideological direction of his national government and mock the standards of the European Union, which Hungary joined in 2004.
Hungary currently holds the rotating EU presidency, during which Orban has pledged to “make Europe great again” and endorsed Trump in this year’s US presidential election. Orban has visited Trump twice this year at the former US president’s seaside Mar-a-Lago retreat.
Orban said Saturday that Trump’s reelection bid is aimed at “bringing the American people back from a post-nationalist liberal state to a nation state,” and he rehashed a slew of conservative arguments that Trump has been unfairly punished to hamper his campaign.
“That’s why they want to put him in jail. That’s why they want to take away his assets. And if that doesn’t work, that’s why they want to kill him,” Orban said, referring to an assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally this month.
The U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, responded to Orban’s comments Saturday in a post on X, saying the rhetoric “risks changing Hungary’s relationship with America.”
“We have no other ally or partner… that would campaign so openly and relentlessly for a particular candidate in the United States of America, apparently convinced that it doesn’t matter, it only helps Hungary – or at least helps him personally,” Pressman said, and went on to accuse Orban of promoting “Kremlin conspiracy theories about the United States.” Hardly what we expect from an ally.
Orban’s comments Saturday are not the first time he has used the Transylvanian festival to stir controversy. In 2014, Orban first declared his intention to build an “illiberal state” in Hungary, and in 2022, he sparked international outrage by railing against turning Europe into a “mixed-race” society.
On Saturday, he doubled down on his long-standing anti-immigration stance, saying it was not the answer to his country’s aging population.
“There can be no question of a population decline caused by migration,” he said in his address Saturday. “Western experience shows that if there are more guests than hosts, a home ceases to be a home. That’s a risk that should not be taken.”
Orban, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has become a symbol for some conservative populists for his staunch opposition to immigration and gay rights, The Associated Press reported. He has also spoken out against the press and the judiciary in Hungary and has been accused by the EU of violating the rule of law and democratic standards.