Viktor Orban on Wednesday October 23 called on Hungarians to “resist Brussels” as they did in 1956 against the Soviet army, in a new attack against the EU on the occasion of the commemoration of the uprising. “Should we yield to the will of a foreign power, this time from Brussels, or should we resist it? This is the serious decision that now awaits Hungary: I propose that our response be as clear and unequivocal as possible than in 1956”, declared the Hungarian Prime Minister in front of thousands of people gathered in a park in Budapest.
Since his return to the head of the country in 2010, Viktor Orban has strengthened his grip while bringing the counter-powers into line, an authoritarian drift condemned on several occasions by the European Commission and sanctioned by the courts. Tensions have increased in recent months, after a “peace mission” in Russia decided without consultation with other European countries, even though Hungary holds the rotating presidency of the EU.
“They want to force us into war”
According to the sovereignist leader, Brussels wants to make his country “a puppet state, a vassal”. But if the “heroes of 1956” could not succeed, victims of bloody repression by the Soviet Union, “we will win” today, he insisted. “We know that they want to force us to go to war. We know that they want to impose their migrants on us. We know that they want to entrust our children to ideologues of this kind,” continued Viktor Orban, castigating “a pressure stronger and stronger.”
Viktor Orban, the only EU leader to maintain close ties with the Kremlin, regularly criticizes Western support for his Ukrainian neighbor. He went further on Wednesday by raising the specter of a Ukrainian offensive on Hungarian soil. Criticizing the plan “for victory” presented last week by President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Prime Minister warned: “We, Hungarians, will wake up one morning to find East Slavic soldiers on our soil.”