Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán urged his fellow citizens on Wednesday to "resist Brussels" as they did against Soviet forces in 1956, using the anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising to launch a new attack on the European Union.
"Should we succumb to a foreign power – this time Brussels – or resist? That is the grave decision Hungary faces: I propose that our answer be as clear and unequivocal as it was in 1956,” Orban told a crowd of several thousand in a park in Budapest.
Since his second rise to power in 2010, Orban has increasingly tightened his grip on the country, curbing all democratic oversight bodies. This authoritarian approach has led to multiple condemnations by the European Commission and sanctions from the European Court of Justice.
Tensions have escalated in recent months. At the start of Hungary’s presidency of the EU Council, a "peace mission" took Orban to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, earning him a rebuke from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other EU member states, who had not been consulted beforehand.
Orbán claimed with no evidence that the EU aims to turn Hungary into a "puppet state" and a "vassal state." But unlike the "heroes of 1956," whose uprising was crushed by the Soviets, "we will win," he declared in Budapest.
"We know they want to drag us into a war," he said, referring to the conflict in Ukraine. "We know they want to impose their migrants on us. We know they want to entrust our children to gender ideologists."
This is far from the first time Orbán has criticised Western support for Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia for more than two and a half years. Last week, he also attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan.”
