In a speech on Hungary’s National Day, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán attacked political opponents in the media and non-governmental organisations.
Orbán told several thousand supporters in Budapest on Saturday that in the coming weeks Hungary would liquidate media outlets and other organisations that had received money from abroad, writes Die Welt.
«The insects have gone into hibernation,» he said in a speech on Hungarian National Day on 15 March. Now the big clean-up begins.
– We are liquidating the financial machinery that has bought politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-community organisations and political activists with corrupt dollars.
Orbán has been in power since 2010. In recent years, he has repeatedly used the National Day celebrations to attack the EU, which he has often compared to the Soviet Union, which occupied Hungary for nearly five decades in the 20th century.
The EU, for its part, accuses Orbán of restricting media freedom and the rule of law in Hungary, and has therefore also frozen some EU aid funds. The Hungarian allegedly misused some of these funds to enrich oligarchs dependent on him and his own relatives, according to the EU.
Brussels is also critical of Hungary’s unwillingness to admit hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants and to introduce LGBTQ ideological education in kindergartens and primary schools.
In addition, Orbán is one of the few EU leaders allied with Donald Trump, and Hungary recently signed a protecting trade agreement with the US that will mean Hungary won’t be hit as hard by the US-EU tariff war.
A number of civil society organisations and media outlets in Hungary receive funding from state and private institutions in the West. This is something the Hungarian Prime Minister strongly disapproves of.
Let there be peace, freedom and unity! March 15 Speech Live https://t.co/LLYUMknmb3
– Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) March 15, 2025
«The future belongs to patriots and independent nations,» Orbán said, according to Magyar Nemzet. Donald Trump said something similar in a famous speech at the UN in 2019: «The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.»
– We have an American president who has a lack of perception that common solutions are good for everyone, Norway Prime Minister at the time, Erna Solberg, said after Trump’s speech at the time.
In his speech, Orbán said that many people showed great interest in Hungary.
– Why is half the world curious about us? It’s certainly not because of our economy or our military, he said.
– The element of Hungarians is freedom. The Hungarian people are in their element when they fight for their freedom.
He went on to say that the EU had been trying to crush Hungary for 15 years, without success. He added: «Our lines of defence are not dented.»
There is a wave of patriotism sweeping across both Europe and the US, Orbán believes. Once again, Hungarians are on the front line, just as they were in the 1848 revolution and the 1956 uprising.
The 1848 revolution broke out on 15 March and is the background to the national day.
– The secret of the Hungarian wars of independence is the same today as it was then. A Hungarian never fights only for himself, but also for his nation.
– Brussels wants vassal states and hereditary provinces, taxpayers and never free Hungarians.
Europe has jumped headlong into the Russian-Ukrainian war, with evil motives, says the prime minister.
– The empire doesn’t want to help Ukraine, it wants to colonise it.
Last week he said that Ukraine could bankrupt the EU.
Orbán went on to say that although Hungary’s economy has been hit hard by the war, the government will still implement the largest tax cuts in Europe. This will secure the future of Hungarian families.
Before the speech, Orbán launched 12 points of demands to the EU.
- We want a Europe of nations.
- We want equality before the law for all member states.
- Give back to the nations the power that has been illegally taken away from them.
- National sovereignty, a strong veto for national governments.
- Soros agents should be excluded from the committee, corrupt lobbyists should be removed from parliament.
- Our grandchildren’s future should not be mortgaged, and the union’s debts should be liquidated.
- Our National Guard should not be prevented from protecting our borders. Don’t take in migrants, remove those who arrived illegally.
- Corrupt dollars and euros should not be allowed to enter member states.
- Unnatural re-education of our children should be banned.
- We want to protect Europe’s Christian heritage.
- We demand European peace.
- Union, but without Ukraine.
