Brussels, EU, Ukraine, West criticised by politicians at CPAC Hungary 2025

The issue of sovereignty is also one of democracy, Miklós Szánthó, the head of Hungary’s Centre for Fundamental Rights, said in his opening address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest on Thursday.

“Another regime change is underway, but this time it does not involve our region but the whole world,” Szánthó said. “This trend coincides with a cultural crisis, which … we usually call woke madness,” he added.

The focal question, Szánthó said, was the same as in earlier times: whether decision-making was “contracted out to a federal organisation, with international networks having the final say” or left to citizens at the national level.

“If the final decisions on the rules concerning migration, child protection, war, or … the EU accession of a state that has been attacked and become the victim of aggression are made in advance, in a deep-state system, the complex but democratic election procedures will become totally redundant,” Szánthó said.

Szánthó suggested that an unprecedented “international game of secret services” was underway in Hungary with “foreign power centres and their compradors in Hungary” working to “undermine the country’s sovereignty”. “They’re launching disinformation campaigns, selling out Hungary in Brussels … and rejoice when EU funds for Hungary are frozen,” he said.

“We, however, seriously promote the ideal of God, Homeland, and Family; we seriously think that the goal of the EU is peace and that war should not be imported to the bloc under the motto of accession,” Szánthó said.

Meanwhile, he said that “although it may seem that we are in government in this or that country, in terms of the Western zeitgeist, the overall system is globalism, open society is the elite, Brussels is the deep state and we are the opposition, rebellion, and we are the counterrevolution.”

“We are Trumpism’s natural ally, not the Brussels elite, not the European People’s Party, that is almost worse than Washington’s RINOs,” Szánthó said.

Matt Schlapp, the head of the CPAC Foundation, spoke about the need to control immigration, saying that US President Donald Trump had made Hungarian Primer Minister Viktor Orban’s position the norm in the US, putting America first. He said Hungary’s and America’s success was a mutual interest for the two countries.

Schlapp praised Orban as a courageous leader with a strategic and critical mind, suggesting that the new tendencies could make a huge impact on the world. When Orban rejected woke ideology, his was a lonely voice, Schlapp said and called for collective support for similar leaders, their families, and supporters.

Defence minister at CPAC: Future belongs to patriots

The globalist world model has failed, and the future belongs to patriots, Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said at the CPAC Hungary 2025 on Thursday.

Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that after the Cold War, “rather than becoming stronger, the West turned upon itself and started questioning its own history … and forgot that freedom is not a legacy but something we have to protect every day.”

“While others grapple with their past, we patriots see increasingly clearly that identity is not a burden but a stance, that the nation is not an outdated concept but a force that shapes the law, and sovereignty is not a hindrance to cooperation but a requirement,” he said.

The minister said that patriots believed that the future of the nation was written “not in imperial centres but at home”, building on its own traditions, culture and community. Patriots, he added, were unapologetic about their national identity because “we are not a multinational company or a global corporation but people of flesh and blood…” he said.

In the 21st century, wars were not only fought with weapons, he said. “The front lines are in our heads: they are attacking our culture, faith and way of thinking, because they know they can win without weapons if they can take away the truth and re-shape our identity.”

The current government has “rebuilt” the Hungarian Armed Forces, “not as a threat but out of respect, because we know that … we must protect the country,” the defence minister added.

Bóka at CPAC: Brussels orchestrating ‘silent coup’ in Europe

Brussels is orchestrating a “silent coup” in Europe, János Bóka, the EU affairs minister, said in a speech at the CPAC Hungary 2025 conference in Budapest on Friday.

In the past two decades, the European Union “transformed from a community of values into a centre of power, from inner market into a burgeoning federal state,” he said. “Those developments took place without the authorisation of member states or European citizens, contrary to the letter and spirit of European treaties, and by undermining the constitutional order and institutions of member states.”

According to federalists, a stronger European unity would also mean that European nations would no longer be masters of Europe’s future, he said. “Patriots, on the other hand, see nations as valuable and worth strengthening rather than leaving behind.”

Patriots also see sovereignty as a value, Bóka said. “European integration is only possible between sovereign nations — otherwise, it is called empire-building.” Further, patriots count on people in the face of “the elitism of federalists and the bureaucracy of European institutions,” he said.