Ursula von der Leyen has accused Viktor Orbán of a historic failure to support Ukraine, economic mismanagement and making his country a “back door for foreign interference” in her sharpest public rebuke yet to Hungary’s strongman leader.
Standing a few metres away from Orbán in the European parliament in Strasbourg, the European Commission president pointedly criticised Orbán’s stance on Ukraine by contrasting his record with that of Hungarian freedom fighters of 1956, who rose against Soviet oppression but were ultimately defeated by the Red Army.
Without naming Orbán directly, she said: “There are still some who blame this war not on Putin’s lust for power but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom, so I want to ask them: would they ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956?”
She added: “There is no European language where peace is synonymous with surrender and sovereignty is synonymous with occupation.”
Von der Leyen was speaking after Orbán set out the priorities for Hungary’s six-month EU presidency, in an address where he sometimes offered a fairly conventional script calling for less regulation and efforts to bolster the EU’s single market.
This usually routine moment in the EU calendar became a boisterous session, with singing and personal insults. Orbán’s MEPs in the far-right Patriots for Europe group applauded him, while the mainstream pro-European parties clapped for von der Leyen. The Hungarian leader also had to listen to a rowdy rendition of the anti-fascist song Bella Ciao from a small group, prompting the speaker, Roberta Metsola, to intervene to bring order: “This is not Eurovision.”
After Orbán lamented Europe’s declining share of global trade, von der Leyen took him to task for Hungary’s economic policies such as taxes that target foreign companies, export restrictions, “arbitrary inspections” and public contracts awarded to a small group of beneficiaries.
While Orbán attempted to cast himself as a strong defender of European borders, she said Hungarian authorities had released convicted people smugglers and traffickers early from prison, adding: “This is not fighting illegal migration in Europe, this is not protecting our union, this is just throwing problems over your neighbour’s fence.”
Referring to an agreement that allows Chinese police to patrol with their local counterparts in Hungary, she said: “This is not defending Europe’s sovereignty, this is a back door for foreign interference.”
And she criticised Orbán for failing to follow through on an EU pledge made in 2022 to end dependency on Russian fossil fuels. “Instead of looking for alternative sources [of energy], in particular, one member state just looked for alternative ways to buy fossil fuels from Russia.”
The Hungarian leader said he was surprised by what he had heard from von der Leyen and accused her of turning the commission into “a political weapon”. He rejected any comparison between the events of 1956 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while reiterating that the EU, he believed, had a “losing strategy” over the war.
“We are never going to accept that European unity means that you tell us what to do and that we should keep quiet,” he said.
Orbán also had to hear his domestic record lambasted by the man widely seen as his most dangerous rival, the centre-right MEP Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza party, which made a political breakthrough in recent European elections.
Magyar, a former member of the ruling Fidesz party’s inner circle, became a household name after openly breaking with the government, alleging corruption at the highest levels. Orbán, Magyar said, had turned Hungary from a bright star into “the poorest and most corrupt country in the EU”, in a speech that accused the government of presiding over emigration of Hungarians, dilapidated trains and declining standards in hospitals.
Hungary has a higher GDP per capita than Slovakia, Greece, Latvia and Bulgaria according to Eurostat; it is the lowest ranked EU member state in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index.
Lawmakers from across the EU also lined up to criticise Orbán, with the Green group co-leader Terry Reintke summing up the mood: “You are not welcome here.” But the Hungarian leader was also praised: the far-right German MEP René Aust approved of his “decisive action” on migration.
The commission president, who has faced criticism for not being tough enough on Hungary, drew praise for her forceful speech from mainstream pro-EU MEPs, who secured her a second term a few months ago.
“At last! @vonderleyen shows her claws in response to Viktor Orbán and denounces his double talk when he defends European sovereignty while he welcomes with open arms Russia and China in Hungary,” the French centrist MEP Laurence Farreng wrote on X.
“Viktor Orbán was just roasted by Ursula von der Leyen in the European parliament,” wrote one long-term critic, the German Green MEP Daniel Freund.
Inside the parliament in Strasbourg, Freund and Transparency International Hungary organised an exhibition to showcase what they called “some of the most absurd and wasteful projects funded by Hungarian and EU taxpayers’ money”.
Highlights included a village with 11 EU-funded observation towers, many of which were either inaccessible or dismantled because they were dangerous; a €1m cycling track that has been officially declared dangerous and can only be used on request at the cyclist’s own risk; a beach minus planned sun loungers, cafe and benches, where visitors are greeted with a sign “bathing at your own risk”. Beneficiaries of the public contracts are frequently powerful business people with close links to the ruling party, according to the exhibition material.
The Hungarian government’s use of EU funds has long concerned lawmakers and the bloc’s anti-fraud body has previously found “serious irregularities, fraud and possible corruption” in the construction of a Budapest railway line.
Around €19bn (£16bn) of EU funds have been frozen over concerns about the government’s control over judges, academic freedom and its failure to tackle corruption.
