For the past year, Viktor Orban has refrained from inflicting further democratic setbacks on Hungary while he negotiated with the European Commission, which in late 2022 froze almost €28 billion in EU funds due to the country's backsliding rule of law. But now, six months before the June 2024 European elections, and still without access to these funds, the Hungarian prime minister has clearly decided to resume use of his usual playbook.
On Sunday, November 19, his government launched a campaign "for national sovereignty" that echoed the customary rhetoric of the nationalist leader, in power since 2010. Orban had posters put up across the country attacking European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Alexander Soros, heir to billionaire George Soros, who had been Orban's favorite target until the Hungarian-born American transferred his business activities to his son a few months ago.
"Let's not dance to their tune," proclaim the posters, which reuse the graphic style of a similar campaign launched just before the 2019 European elections against Jean-Claude Juncker, Von der Leyen's predecessor. "The Soros empire is determined to interfere in Hungarian politics," a government spokesman said on Wednesday, responding to those who called the new campaign anti-Semitic by calling that argument "worn out and baseless".
The government also launched one of its customary national consultations by mail, asking Hungarians to answer 11 biased questions designed to validate its policies. Among them was whether they approved of the fact that "Brussels wants to create migrant ghettos in Hungary" or "wants more money to support Ukraine while our country still has not received the long-awaited EU money it is entitled to".
On Tuesday, November 21, the Hungarian executive presented a bill creating a "Sovereignty Protection Office," which will be responsible for publishing reports on "foreign interference in elections". It accused the opposition of having been funded by an American organization during the 2022 legislative elections, labelling all opposition parties, the last of the country's remaining independent media and NGOs "dollar leftists".
The bill, which provides for up to three years' imprisonment in the event of foreign funding, appears to have been copied from laws passed in recent years elsewhere in Europe, including France, to counter Russian influence. Orban, however, is targeting American influence – despite being adept at interfering in other people's elections. He has previously launched advertising campaigns on Facebook to support his ultra-conservative Polish allies in the October parliamentary elections and helped finance media close to his political friends in the Balkans, and a Hungarian bank close to the government granted a loan to Marine Le Pen to finance her 2022 presidential campaign.
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