Hungarian PM Viktor Orban Warns EU of “Self-Destruction,” Backs Trump and New Asia-Centric World Order

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warns the EU is on a path to “self-destruction” as a far-right leader talks of a new world order focused on Asia and backs Donald Trump.

Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that the EU was sliding into oblivion in what the Associated Press called a “rambling, anti-Western speech” in which he warned of a new, Asia-centric “world order” while endorsing Donald Trump for US president.

“Europe has given up defending its own interests,” Orbán said in Baile Tusnad, a majority-ethnic Hungarian town in central Romania. “All Europe is doing today is following the U.S.’s pro-Democrat foreign policy unconditionally … even at the cost of self-destruction.”

“There are changes coming that haven’t happened in 500 years. In fact, we are facing a change in the world order,” he added, naming China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as the “dominant centers” of the world.

Orban claimed the US was behind the 2022 explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipeline built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, calling it “an act of terrorism carried out at the obvious direction of the Americans.”

The Hungarian far-right leader’s comments come amid growing criticism from his European partners after he embarked on what the Brussels establishment called illegal “peace mission” trips to Moscow and Beijing this month to broker an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Orban is considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin of any EU leader, the Associated Press notes.

As for Ukraine, Orban expressed doubt that the conflict-torn country would become a member of NATO or the EU. “We Europeans do not have the money for it. Ukraine will revert to the position of a buffer state,” he said, adding that international security guarantees “will be enshrined in an agreement between the US and Russia.”

Throughout Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Orban has clashed with other EU leaders, refusing to provide Kyiv with weapons to defend itself from Russian forces and regularly delaying, weakening or blocking efforts to send financial aid to the country and impose sanctions on Moscow, the Associated Press reports.

Orban typically uses the annual Tusvanesh Summer University platform in Romania to outline the ideological direction of his national government and ridicule the standards of the European Union, which Hungary joined in 2004.

Hungary currently holds the rotating EU presidency, during which Orban has promised to “Make Europe Great Again” and endorsed Trump in this year’s US presidential election. Orban has visited Trump twice this year at the former US president’s seaside retreat, Mar-a-Lago, wrote the Guardian.

Orban said on Saturday that Trump’s re-election bid is aimed “to pull the American people back from a post-nationalist liberal state to a nation-state,” and he rehashed many conservative arguments that Trump was unfairly punished to hamper his campaign.

“That is why they want to put him in prison. That’s why they want to take away his assets. And if that doesn’t work, that’s why they want to kill him,” Orban said, referring to the assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally this month.

US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman responded to Orban’s comments on Saturday in a post on X, saying such rhetoric “risks changing Hungary’s relationship with America.”

“We have no other ally or partner … that similarly, overtly, and tirelessly campaigns for a specific candidate in an election in the United States of America, seemingly convinced that no matter, it only helps Hungary — or at least helps him personally,” Pressman said, and went on to accuse Orbán of peddling “Kremlin conspiracy theories about the United States. Hardly what we expect from an Ally.”

Orban’s comments on Saturday are not the first time he has used the Transylvanian festival to stir controversy. In 2014, Orban first declared his intention to build an “illiberal state” in Hungary, and in 2022 he sparked international outrage by speaking out against turning Europe into a “mixed race” society.

On Saturday, he doubled down on his long-standing anti-immigration stance, saying it was not the answer to his country’s aging population.

“There can be no question of a shrinking population supplemented by migration,” he said in his Saturday address. “The Western experience is that if there are more guests than owners, then home is no longer home. This is a risk that should not be taken.”

Orban, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has become a symbol for some conservative populists for his staunch opposition to immigration and gay rights, the Associated Press reports. He has also railed against the press and the judiciary in Hungary and has been accused by the EU of violating the rule of law and democratic standards.