Veszprem in Hungary is one of the European Union’s cities of culture this year, an initiative designed to foster cooperation and unity across the continent. On a visit there on Friday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban questioned whether there was a need for the EU at all.
In a speech in the western city, Orban hit out at the EU for an economic slowdown, which is affecting most of the globe, and for its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The modern form of European collaboration was driven by two missions: peace and welfare,” Orban said. “If it can’t fulfill its two original missions, then what’s the point of the EU?”
The Hungarian premier’s anti-EU rhetoric has intensified since Brussels stepped up financial pressure on his country. Clashes with the bloc over rule of law and corruption have led Brussels to withhold more than $30 billion of aid. Yet that’s also raised speculation about whether Orban intends to eventually lead Hungary out of the EU, something the government has repeatedly denied.
Orban has argued that the EU should lift sanctions imposed on Russia, measures he has blamed for a deepening a recession in Hungary. He has also urged the EU to consider cutting off aid to Ukraine as a way to end the war, something critics have said was effectively calling for the capitulation of Hungary’s eastern neighbor.
Meanwhile, the most recent semi-annual Eurobarometer poll conducted by the EU registered a 12 percentage-point decrease in support among Hungarians for the EU, the sharpest drop among any of its 27 members. It still remains higher, though, than in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
