Prime Minister Orbán Accuses EU of Plotting Regime Change in Hungary

Following the verbal assault against him at the European Parliament on Oct. 9 (cf. below), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused EU leaders of plotting a regime change in his country. “The EU Commission and EPP (European People’s Party) Group leaders, von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, are attempting to oust Hungary’s sovereign government,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs reported Orban as saying in his appearance on Kossuth Radio’s “Good Morning, Hungary!” program.

According to Orbán, Brussels and their allies want to replace his government with a coalition involving Klara Dobrev of the Progressives and Péter Magyar of the Tisza Party, which, he noted, had already formed an alliance behind the scenes. Indeed, the two politicians, both members of the European Parliament, took the floor to attack the Prime Minister after the latter’s reply to the speeches by Ursula von der Leyen and the faction leaders during the debate in Strasbourg. Orbán “warned that this coalition is prepared to carry out Brussels’ demands”, that is, to involve Hungary in the war with Ukraine, to support the EU’s migration policies, which would open Hungary’s borders to migrants, and to repeal family and child protection laws. Furthermore, according to his spokesman, he mentioned “the economic and trade conflicts that Brussels aims to drag Hungary into”.

The Hungarian government has been targeted and sabotaged by the European Commission and EU leaders since it took over the rotating presidency of the European Council in July. Eurocrats immediately blasted Viktor Orbán for traveling to Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Washington to discuss the potential for a ceasefire in Ukraine, and then sabotaged the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers which was supposed to take place in Budapest, holding it in Brussels. And then, when he went before the plenary of the new European Parliament on Oct. 9 to discuss the program of the Hungarian presidency, as is customary, Ursula von der Leyen and representatives of her majority launched an assault against him rather than debating that program. But they could not prevent Orbán from answering tit for tat, and often turning the allegations against his critics.