The latest attack by Brussels on conservative member state governments under a ‘rule-of-law’ pretext came on Monday, March 17th, when the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, a left-wing NGO funded by the European Commission and U.S. billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, released a report.
As with previous similar reports, the NGO claims that, in Hungary, “democratic standards have degraded to such a degree that it would not gain access to the EU today”; that Robert Fico’s nationalist cabinet in Slovakia ”intentionally dismantle[s] rule of law safeguards”; and that Giorgia Meloni’s conservative coalition in Italy “profoundly undermines the rule of law.”
On the other hand, the report praises left-liberals, such as Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, calling his relentless attacks on the opposition an “initiative” to “restore democratic standards.”
The Civil Liberties Union for Europe, despite a statement on its website claiming, “We do not accept funding from government entities, agencies, or other bodies owned or controlled by them,” receives 40% of its funding from the European Commission. Another 41% of its funding comes from the Soros Open Society Foundations, according to the NGO’s latest published annual report from 2023, .
In a speech on Saturday, March 15th, on the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and the start of the War of Independence against the Austrian Empire, Hungarian conservative prime minister Viktor Orbán denounced Brussels and the “Soros Empire” for wanting to take away the freedom and sovereignty of nation-states, and said “Brussels is abusing its power, just as Vienna did” when Hungarians revolted against the Habsburgs in 1848.
There is always an empire that seeks to take the freedom of the Hungarians. Right now it is one in Brussels. Brussels is abusing its power, just as Vienna did in its time.
The Orbán government has angered the ruling elites in Brussels by pursuing a sovereignist foreign policy, closing its borders to illegal migrants, protecting families and children against woke-progressive ideologies, and advocating a pro-peace stance regarding the war in Ukraine.
What we are facing is more than Hungary's fight for freedom: it is a fight for Europe's future. The Brusselian empire seeks to replace Europe’s peoples and erase our Christian values. Despite their best efforts, at Hungary’s borders, we’ve held them back. Still, holding the line… pic.twitter.com/agWXwN6ghB
— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) March 16, 2025
In his speech, Orbán talked about how his government would dismantle “the financial machine that has used corrupt dollars to buy politicians, judges, journalists, bogus civil society organisations, and political activists.”
Following the USAID scandal in the United States, which revealed how the main U.S. aid agency had spread globalist progressivism abroad and worked to undermine elected governments not favoured by the liberals in Washington, the Hungarian government has vowed to dismantle the “deeply embedded international corruption network” that interferes in the country’s domestic affairs.
As Orbán said:
They have not succeeded with blackmail, money, threats, mercenaries, or Brusselites. We have won four elections in a row and for fifteen years our defences have remained undamaged. We have endured, we have persevered, because we always believed that one day the wind would change.
The prime minister referred to the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and election victories by patriotic forces in countries such as Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands. “The future belongs not to empires, but to patriots and independent nations,” he stressed.
