Hungary’s
PM Viktor Orbán warns EU on path to ‘self-destruction’
Far-right
leader talks of new Asia-oriented world order and throws support behind Donald
Trump
Associated
Press
Sat 27 Jul
2024 12.50 EDT
Hungary’s
nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said on Saturday that the EU was
sliding toward oblivion, in a rambling anti-west speech in which he warned of a
new, Asia-oriented “world order” while throwing his support behind Donald
Trump’s US presidential bid.
“Europe has
given up defending its own interests,” Orbán said in Băile Tuşnad, a majority
ethnic Hungarian town in central Romania. “All Europe is doing today is
following the US’s pro-Democrat foreign policy unconditionally … even at the
cost of self-destruction.
“A change is
coming that has not been seen for 500 years. What we are facing is in fact a
world order change,” he added, naming China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as
becoming the “dominant centre” of the world.
Orbán
alleged that the US was behind the 2022 explosions that damaged the Nord Stream
gas pipelines built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, calling it “an act of
terrorism carried out at the obvious direction of the Americans”. He did not
offer any evidence to back up the claim.
The
far-right leader’s remarks come amid growing criticism from his European
partners after he embarked on rogue “peace mission” trips to Moscow and Beijing
this month aimed at brokering an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Orbán is
widely considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin among all EU
leaders.
On Ukraine,
Orbán cast doubt on the war-torn country becoming a member of Nato or the EU.
“We Europeans do not have the money for it. Ukraine will revert to the position
of a buffer state,” he said, adding that international security guarantees
“will be enshrined in an agreement between the US and Russia”.
Throughout
Russia’s war in Ukraine, Orbán has broken with other EU leaders by refusing to
provide Kyiv with weapons to defend against Russian forces and has routinely
delayed, watered down or blocked efforts to send financial aid to the country
and impose sanctions on Moscow.
Orbán
typically uses the annual Tusványos Summer University platform in Romania to
indicate the ideological direction of his national government and to deride the
standards of the EU bloc, which Hungary joined in 2004.
Hungary
currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, during which Orbán has vowed to
“make Europe great again” and has endorsed Trump’s candidacy in this year’s US
presidential election. Orbán visited Trump twice this year at the former
president’s beachside compound in Mar-a-Lago.
Orbán said
on Saturday that Trump’s bid for re-election aimed “to pull the American people
back from a post-nationalist liberal state to a nation state” and he rehashed a
slew of conservative tropes that Trump was being penalised unfairly to prevent
his electoral bid.
“That is why
they want to put him in prison. That’s why they want to take away his assets.
And if that doesn’t work, that’s why they want to kill him,” Orbán said,
referring to an assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally this
month.
The US
ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, responded to Orbán’s comments on
Saturday in a post on X, saying such rhetoric “risks changing Hungary’s
relationship with America”.
“We have no
other ally or partner … that similarly, overtly and tirelessly campaigns for a
specific candidate in an election in the United States of America, seemingly
convinced that no matter, it only helps Hungary – or at least helps him
personally,” Pressman said, and he went on to accuse Orbán of peddling “Kremlin
conspiracy theories about the United States. Hardly what we expect from an
ally.”
Orbán’s
remarks on Saturday are not the first time he has used the festival in
Transylvania to stir controversy. In 2014, Orban declared for the first time
his intention to build an “illiberal state” in Hungary, and in 2022 he sparked
international outrage after he railed against Europe becoming a “mixed-race”
society.
He doubled
down on his long-held anti-immigration stance on Saturday, saying it was not an
answer to his country’s ageing population.
“There can
be no question of a shrinking population supplemented by migration,” he said in
his Saturday address. “The western experience is that if there are more guests
than owners then home is no longer home. This is a risk that should not be
taken.”
The EU’s
longest-serving leader, Orbán has become an icon to some conservative populists
for his firm opposition to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. He has also cracked
down on the press and judiciary in Hungary and has been accused by the EU of
violating rule of law and democracy standards.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário