“The 21st century will be the century of humiliation for Europe,” the Hungarian Prime Minister began his traditional annual assessment speech at Várkert Bazár, after his introduction. Orbán said that, for the first time since the invention of the steam engine, Europe is not part of the world’s transformation, but he believes Hungary has a chance to come out of it well.
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“They have done ‘half a job’ in ousting Brussels agents”
Referring back to his speech last year in which he predicted that the Hungarian government, as an ally of Donald Trump, would be on the “main street of history” while their political opponents “wander down muddy side streets,” Orbán said all that had come true.
He argued that the US president had carried out a revolution against the former liberal elites, and that Hungary had joined him and that this is why he had said a year earlier they would oust from Hungary those NGOs, opposition newspapers and judges who had been labelled “bugged” by Orbán, and who had been classified as foreign agents by the government.
“That was the plan, but I have to admit that we have only done half the job: the Brussels repressive machine is still at work in Hungary, and we will clean it up after the April elections. Disguised civil organisations, bought journalists, judges, politicians, algorithms, bureaucrats, rolling Euro-millions – that’s what Brussels means here in Hungary today.”
He did not mention from his last year’s speech that he promised an economic recovery and significant growth, the so-called “flight to recovery”, which turned out to be 0.3% growth in 2025, or that after promising to ban ‘Pride Day’, hundreds of thousands of people turned up and celebrated in Budapest, despite the ban.
However, Orbán highlighted welfare measures introduced immediately before the 2026 elections and those promised for later. He said the source for these measures will be a system of special taxes on big business.
Orbán introduced the phrase ‘Putining’
“We must come to terms with the idea that those who love freedom should fear Brussels and not the East, and cast their anxious eyes on Brussels,” the Hungarian prime minister underlined.
“Putining is primitive and frivolous,” Orbán said, by which he portrays the Western practice of framing Russia and Putin as a threat. “Brussels is a tangible reality and a direct threat,” he added.
The Hungarian prime minister deduced this from a US report stating that the European Commission had put pressure on social media providers to “censor” content, including during European Parliament elections, in Romania and Moldova.
Orbán said that America’s friendship should be appreciated because, in his view, the United States is currently exposing the European Commission’s “censorship”.
The adversary has been bought not only by Brussels but also by global big business
The prime minister said Hungarian domestic rivals are puppets, but not only in Brussels’ hands.
After the Tisza Party presented several of its leading experts who could play an important role in a possible Tisza government, Viktor Orbán also referred to their former employers in his speech.
“One of the main winners of the war is Shell”, Orbán referred to the former job of István Kapitány, Tisza’s candidate for economic leader. According to him, Shell made tens of billions of dollars from the war, and their aim is to cut Hungary off from Russian oil.
In fact, a sanctions regime of this kind was introduced by Donald Trump’s administration, and Hungary was given a one-year reprieve. Moreover, the two biggest winners in the Russia-Ukraine war are the Hungarian national oil company MOL, which has made significant profits from buying cheap Russian oil, as it is exempt from European and US sanctions for the time being.
The Hungarian prime minister also mentioned ERSTE Bank, where another Tisza economist, András Kármán, had worked. According to the prime minister, ERSTE wants to plant its agent in the Tisza government in order to get the special banking taxes out. Kármán was state secretary in the second Orbán government between 2010-14.
Europe is going to engage in war, Orbán claims
“Europe has decided to go to war by 2030. This will be the last election before war,” the Hungarian prime minister said. “Brussels has decided to defeat the Russians in Ukraine, and outside Hungary, war is being prepared everywhere in Europe.”
Orbán also said that Europe is arming itself and sending instructions to the population on what to do in the event of war, while sending Ukraine a lot of money on credit.
“Ukraine is just swallowing money,” the Hungarian prime minister said. “No one can answer the question of how to defeat a nuclear power without using its nuclear weapons.”
Orbán stressed that Hungary would not send money or weapons to Ukraine, and that Hungarian young people would not be taken to Ukraine, although NATO’s charter does not require member states to use military force in the event of a conflict.
