Viktor Orbán

For the second time in two years, we are naming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as our Hero of the Week for his incisive remarks about sovereignty, “Brusselian bureaucrats,” the contrived conflict in Ukraine, and perpetual war as a centralization strategy.

Orbán used the occasion of an informal EU summit in Copenhagen earlier this month to suggest that the EU’s “horrifying” plans to ramp up the Ukraine war have a hidden agenda unfriendly to national sovereignty. That agenda, he suggests, is to “centralize power, take further competences away from the member states, and raise huge amounts of money in their name, creating a common debt.”

He continued,

“If a common debt is created, then the independent nation-states are finished. Thus, they [the bureaucrats] think that war gives a push, a boost, momentum on the road leading toward a long-term United States of Europe.”

A few days earlier, Orbán scolded Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on social media for taking part in the EU bureaucrats’ game:

“You may think that you are at war with Russia, but Hungary is not. Neither is the European Union. You are playing a dangerous game with the lives and security of millions of Europeans. This is very bad!”

Orbán also scandalized some journalists by matter-of-factly stating that Ukraine is not sovereign. When pressed to explain his statement, he replied, “If you are paid by somebody else, you’re not a sovereign country. It’s not a moral statement. It’s just a financial fact.”

Hungary’s position, as Orbán has steadily emphasized, is clear: “Hungary will continue to stand for peace and sovereignty.”