Months before next year’s EU elections, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán offered the Hungarian “counter model” of national conservatism as an alternative for ailing European nations at the annual congress of the ruling Fidesz party in Budapest on Friday, November 17th .
In his annual party address, Orbán pointed to France, Germany, Italy and Austria as countries that secretly wanted to “give half their lives for having a migrant-free country.” The Hungarian premier also lashed out at “Ukraine’s ill-prepared EU membership” a month before exploratory accession talks are set to begin in Brussels. Hungary is due to assume the presidency of the European Council in the second half of 2024.
One theme of the conference was the link between mass migration and recent terror attacks in Western Europe. Several government ministers finished their speeches with the phrase “Hungary for the Hungarians.”
Orbán, who has presided over Fidesz since 1993, reassured delegates that he and his government had “plenty of steam left” after cruising to victory against the EU-backed opposition last year despite incessant ‘rule of law’ attacks from the EU Commission.
His administration has earned praise from right wingers on both sides of the Atlantic for its opposition to mass migration and promotion of traditional family values. Orbán described the impending European Parliament elections as a last chance for conservatives to make institutional change in Brussels. Highlighting the gap between the ‘publicity machine’ of the EU elites and the opinions of millions of European voters, he declared that “Today, Hungary is the voice of the European people.”
Speaking on foreign policy, Orbán defended his nation’s position on the ongoing Ukrainian war, saying that his government had successfully protected Hungary’s energy future despite EU and American pressure to sever ties with Moscow.
While supportive of Serbian EU membership, Budapest has made Ukrainian EU accession a red-line issue, saying that economic, geopolitical, and logistical considerations made it unfair for Kyiv to skip the queue on joining the bloc.
Orbán hinted that Budapest could potentially be willing to leave the bloc if Brussels continued on its current ideological trajectory, referring to the increasingly “communistic or even Jacobin” tendencies within EU policy making .
“The Brussels Europe model has grown old and stale, while the world has become rejuvenated and refreshed” he added.
Also on stage was Hungarian finance minister Mihály Varga, who lauded Hungary’s decade-long emergence from a 2008 IMF bailout programme. Fidesz’s leading EU parliamentary candidate and former justice minister Judit Varga also spoke, hitting out at EU family policy.
Fidesz has long been supportive of populist parties across Europe while at the same time forging a transatlantic alliance with American conservatives. Budapest hosted its own CPAC conference this year in the hope of a second Trump term after 2024.
Expected to win a majority of Hungarian MEP seats next year, Fidesz is currently scouting for a parliamentary faction to join—either the conservative ECR or the more nationalist ID group—after leaving the centrist EPP group.
Orbán concluded his speech by stating that Hungarians merely want a “clean, healthy, and natural world according to the order of creation.” His government, he added, rejects biological racism, communism, and gender ideology.
