Der Spiegel: If PM Orbán stays, Hungary must be ejected from the European Union

Der Spiegel has even put the question to a public poll, where the current tally shows a staggering 92% of respondents voting to boot us out of the European Union.

Orbán wages anti-EU campaign, claims Spiegel

According to 444.hu, the German weekly posed this question to its readers: “Should Hungary be excluded from the EU?” The response was unequivocal.

The publication’s leading article goes further, accusing Viktor Orbán of effectively campaigning against the European Union itself in the run-up to the 2026 election. Hungary is presently plastered with giant billboards declaring that Péter Magyar, the opposition leader, is a puppet of the European Commission; that Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, have colluded to drag all of Europe into war; and that the extra burdens and borrowing imposed to defend against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine will bleed the country dry.

Government figures reiterate this narrative day after day. According to the Orbán administration, the European Commission has teamed up with the Ukrainians to oust the Hungarian government, simply because it champions peace in Ukraine. That, they claim, is why Budapest receives no funds from Brussels.

Experts counter that the money is withheld because the government fails to meet rule-of-law conditions, while scepticism towards Hungary grows in Brussels and EU institutions owing to the Orbán regime’s pro-Russian stance.

Corrupt autocracy or rule of law?

Der Spiegel also dwells on corruption. In its editorial, it warns that German taxpayers’ money, Berlin being the EU’s largest net contributor, cannot flow to a country whose politics align with Putin’s.

The author insists Hungarians must choose between Orbán and his corrupt autocracy, on one hand, and a liberal Hungary grounded in the rule of law, on the other. Their position is stark: if Orbán wins, Hungary should be expelled from the EU: a step without precedent in the bloc’s history. There have been exits via referendum (see Brexit) and rejected bids for membership (see Norway), but never an ejection from the club. For now, even the severest sanction short of that, stripping voting rights (often wielded as a veto by Orbán), has yet to be imposed by the European Council.

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• New poll: Orbán should brace for crushing defeat as Péter Magyar eyes constitutional rewrite