Regardless of one’s sympathies or antipathies towards Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, it cannot be denied that this veteran in the premier league of European politics (having been prime minister of Hungary for 17 years) has very clear and articulated views, or some kind of crystallized ideology and vision that surpasses the average European politician. This applies both to the interpretation of world events and particularly to the situation in Europe and the EU, which is much more important, given the fact that Orbán is a prominent representative of political tendencies that are becoming increasingly present in Europe. Although often in the minority with his views and on the margins of daily political influence – considering that his often extreme but clear views have led to the withdrawal/exclusion of his party Fidesz from the moderate right European People’s Party – Orbán’s views should not be ignored. As all predictions for the upcoming June elections for the European Parliament indicate, there is a real surge when it comes to the participation and increasing influence of the conservative or extreme right in European and national politics of member states: the London-based ECFR predicts that in nine EU member states, extreme right-wing parties (from Marine Le Pen’s party in France to the Italian “Brothers of Italy” and Hungary’s Fidesz) will win the most votes, with them being in second or third place in another nine countries.
Orbán often points out in his speeches the rapid changes in global political and economic relations, or the relative decline in the economic, technological, and demographic importance of the West (the USA and the EU) compared to Asia, and especially to China. In 2010, the USA and the EU accounted for about 22% and 23% of the total world production, respectively, whereas today the USA is at 25% but the EU has dropped to 17%. Quoting Huntington (“Clash of Civilizations”), Orbán claims that we are witnessing the rise of non-Western blocs and states that view the USA and the EU with resentment and a desire for revenge, even when it comes to cultures – continents that are not a priori anti-Western (e.g., South America).
According to Orbán, the European Union is increasingly becoming a kind of besieged fortress that “no longer controls and is not capable of controlling its future.” This applies primarily to its alarming image of economic backwardness (information technology), ideological confusion (the rule of “progressive liberals” or liberal hegemony, introducing “woke” and gender ideology as dominant, and even “sexualizing children,” i.e., broadly understood LGBT doctrine, which includes abolishing parental authority, etc.) and the inability to resist immigration waves that drastically threaten the cohesion of “old European nations.” Forecasts for the list of the top 10 economies in 2030 indicate that only Germany among European countries will remain among the top ten. Orbán particularly criticizes the European bureaucracy in Brussels, which seeks to take over the political functions of the European Council but lacks political consciousness (especially during Juncker’s and later times), as well as the general lack of leadership in Europe today, which is drastically different from the former political leaders in European countries after World War II.
Orbán’s warning is perhaps more concrete, that due to the war in Ukraine and sanctions, the EU economy is forced to pay €653 billion for gas and energy imports instead of €300 billion before the war. Orbán points to an increasingly sharp general conflict between European federalists, led by the leaderships of France and Germany, and sovereignists, most of whom are in Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland).
Furthermore, says Orbán, the EU is anchored to the fate and policies of the USA, which is not good at all because the USA has its own interests and orientation that are not necessarily in European interests. Orbán positively evaluates the relations between the USA and the EU until the time of R. Reagan when there was a “conservative” consensus, which was later replaced by the rule of “progressive liberals” whose symbol is Soros and his influence through NGOs with all the effects on ideology and the dissolution of national cohesion as we see today.
Orbán associates the revival of the conservative movement with the policy of promoting national cohesion, family, Christian values, and fighting against immigration, which are mostly the basic slogans of the extreme right today. He points to Hungary’s success during his rule and the attempt to replace the “welfare state” with the “work ethic state” and the restoration of Christian values.
It seems that the main problem of the extreme right-wing ideology is the contradiction between criticism of the EU on the one hand and the lack of original proposals for EU reform. The basic stance of sovereigntists is, in fact, the need for a gradual dismantling of the EU and the return of competences from the quasi-federal level to the national level. The question remains open as to how an organization of Europe similar to that before World War II, when the influence of nation-states was unquestionable, would help overcome the major international and technological challenges to which Orbán rightly points.
Author: Duško Lopandić