Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán criticized the European Union’s sanctions against Russia as having ‘backfired’ and announced that Hungary will be the first European country to launch a ‘National Consultation’ public survey to ask Hungarians about their stance on the existing sanctions on Russia, as well as trying to gauge whether they would support new ones.
“If it all goes on like this, Europe will succumb to the worst,” Orbán said to Parliament on Monday, September 26th. “We can safely say that as a result of the sanctions, European people have become poorer, while Russia has not fallen to its knees, yet an end to the war is not in sight.”
It is for this reason that the prime minister decided to consult Hungarians in an upcoming survey to find out where voters stand on the question of sanctions. “The EU often accuses Hungary of running afoul of European values, but the highest European value is democracy,” said Orbán during his speech. He continued to criticize the fact that sanctions weren’t adopted in a democratic process, but introduced by “bureaucrats in Brussels and the European elite,” saying that “the entire Europe is waiting for an answer from Brussels on how long we will keep doing this.”
In launching this survey, which also covers a variety of other issues such as minimum wage and family support measures, Hungary will be the first European country to officially launch a survey to consult its citizens on their stance with regards to the politics of sanctions against Russia. Earlier polls have shown that support for sanctions is waning in many European countries, which led Orbán to point out that “if citizens were to decide on sanctions, the result may not be the same as the decisions made by the European Union so far.”
The Hungarian prime minister also said that he expects the current war in Ukraine to continue throughout next year and criticized that what started as a “local conflict” has been turned into a “global economic war” through western sanctions. By delivering weapons and money into Ukraine, the West has shown itself to be pro-war, while Hungary’s position is to work towards peace, Orbán said.
“We demand an immediate ceasefire and peace talks rather than prolonging and deepening the war,” said the prime minister, while hinting also at rising unrest in Europe. “The bureaucrats in Brussels must understand that it is irresponsible to gamble the fate of entire national economies and millions of people.”
