U.S. Vice President JD Vance has accused Eurocrats in Brussels of meddling against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a bid to topple the MAGA ally in Budapest at this week’s parliamentary elections.
In a press conference from the Hungarian capital just days before voters will head to the polls to select the next parliament, and therefore the next prime minister, Vice President Vance said that he was not there to tell citizens who to vote for, but merely to show support for Prime Minister Orbán, whom he described as the “rare exception” among leaders in Europe willing to stand up in defence of Western and Christian civilization.
For defending such values, Orbán has faced the wrath of the unelected leadership of the European Union, with Brussels imposing extortionate financial sanctions on Hungary for its domestic policies, such as restricting LGBTQ+ content on children’s television programmes and refusing to take in illegal migrants seeking to claim asylum.
Brussels has also come into conflict with Orbán over Ukraine, with the Hungarian leader opposing EU or NATO membership for the former Soviet state and consistently arguing for a peace settlement rather than continued military funding for Kyiv.
So outraged by this stance, some Eurocrats have even called for the end of veto powers for member states, a key holdout of national sovereignty within the bloc. Orbán and his allies have also claimed that their messages have been suppressed on Facebook in favour of his opponent, Péter Magyar, a claim Meta has denied.
Commenting on the apparent efforts to undermine the longtime Trump ally, Vice President Vance said, “What has happened in this country, what has happened in the midst of this election campaign, is one of the worst. examples of foreign and election interference that I’ve ever seen or ever even read about.”
“The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried to make Hungary less energy independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers. And they’ve done it all because they hate this guy,” he said of Prime Minister Orbán.
Vance urged Hungarian voters to “ask themselves the question, not who’s pro or anti- Europe, not who’s pro or anti- the United States of America, but who is pro- you? Who is pro-the people of Hungary?”
“Why are bureaucrats in Brussels telling social media companies what information they’re giving to Hungarian voters? I think the voters of Hungary are adults. They are sovereign in their own country, and they should be able to look at whatever information they would like to about the election without somebody in a faraway capital treating them like children,” he continued.
“Sovereignty and democracy are fundamentally about the people choosing. And part of the reason why we’re here. And part of the reason why the President of the United States sent me here is because we think the amount of interference that’s come from the bureaucracy in Brussels has been truly disgraceful. I won’t tell the people of Hungary how to vote. I would encourage the bureaucrats in Brussels to do the exact same thing.”
Vance’s trip to Budapest follows visits from fellow European populist allies, including France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, all of whom descended upon Hungary last month to show support for the elder statesman of the movement.
The race, which will conclude this weekend, has been the most challenging for Orbán in over a decade, with the rival Tisza party holding a lead in most national polls. It remains to be seen if national polls will translate to the local constituencies where the election will actually be decided. According to a recent survey from the Nézőpont Institute of individual constituencies, Orbán’s Fidesz holds the advantage.
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