PM Orbán sets up his new campaign team, the ‘Fighters’ Club, saying Ukraine’s EU membership is the greatest danger
Ukraine’s EU membership is the greatest danger today, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the chairman of Fidesz, said in Budapest on Sunday, at an event called ‘Fighters’ Club – The Beginning’.
Meanwhile, the prime minister noted changes in politics and called for renewal, adding that “the club is aimed to make the ruling parties the strongest, also in the digital space.”
Speaking to an audience of several thousand, Orbán said it was no news that Hungary was under attack as the “Brussels bureaucrats”, “led by Soros”, had attacked Hungary before. He said the situation was more difficult now because “they had been joined by the Ukrainians”.
“Ukraine’s EU membership is the greatest danger today,” he said, adding that he understood them since “their country, which was already dysfunctional and bankrupt before the war, had been ruined”. He said the Ukrainians could not stand on their own feet, “they need other people’s money,” this is why they want to access the European Union “at once and at any cost”.
Orbán said the Ukrainians did not care that they would bring the war into the EU, that they would ruin the farmers and make Hungary a gateway for the Ukrainian mafia,” but “we, Hungarians, do care,” he added.
“We do not want them to drag us into the war, to ruin our farmers and turn Europe’s safest country into a mafia nest, and we do not want the Hungarians’ money to be sent to them through Brussels,” he said.
Orbán said this was what “the Ukrainian secret service smear campaign organised against Hungary and funded from abroad ” was about, and this is why Brussels wanted to see a “pro-Ukrainian Tisza-Dobrev coalition” in office in Hungary. He said maybe Ukraine’s EU membership would be a good thing for the West, but it would be bad for us, adding that we live here next door, “they will be storming our borders, take our jobs, and take our money away,” he said.
“We must and we will resist,” Orbán said. The prime minister said it would be “the greatest misfortune” if “Brussels and Ukraine took control over Hungary now that Hungary has at last pulled itself together … they would make Hungary a colony again and they would again ransack Hungarian families.”
“Truth is with Hungary, but that is not enough … truth must be backed by power,” Orbán said. Referring to “earlier victories” the prime minister said the government had won “the migration battle … and made Hungary a migrant-free country”. He also mentioned “the battle for the future of children, in which we protected parents’ right to make decisions concerning education for their children, and suppressed unnatural views and trends.”
Orbán called participants of the event “freedom fighters of the digital world … patriots that do not only love their country and work for it but who are also ready to fight.”
“We are still the largest and best organised political community in the whole of Europe, but we need to renew and move into the virtual space … we need to be the strongest in the digital space, too,” Orbán said. He said “the first 10,000 members of the club has set up the core of a digital army” and asked participants to “bring another person, another fighter each within a week”. “Next week there will be 20,000 of us. In autumn we will double again and there will be 100,000 of us in January … we will fight the 2026 election with 100,000 digital freedom fighters that love their homeland,” Orbán said.
While “the enemy is mean and faceless, fighting for money and out of a lust for power, club members will fight without hiding their faces, with a heart and out of enthusiasm … we need a lot of heart and then all Brussels’ money and all the secret agents of Ukraine will not be enough to defeat us,” he said.
Orbán called the government’s Voks 2025 referendum on Ukraine’s accession “the first battle” adding that “the stakes are huge and the adversary is well prepared. He suggested that the enemy has contracted their agent and warned that “it is time that we started (fighting) … on Facebook.”
“When we think of our homeland we are proud; when they think of Hungary, they are furious,” Orbán said referring to the opposition Tisza Party and Klara Dobrev’s Democratic Coalition. “For them Ukraine’s European Union accession is more important that Hungarians’ security and welfare … they are Zelensky’s friends not of Hungarians,” Orbán said.
“What person will fight against their homeland? What person will be proud of thwarting the renewal of 50 Hungarian hospitals and what person will have a master rather than a homeland, seeking favours from Kyiv and Brussels rather than the love of Hungarians,” Viktor Orbán asked in his address.
“What kind of thing is it when pseudo-civil organisations keep working against Hungarians? What kind of thing is it when a network of war propaganda is run against your own country,” Orbán asked. “All that has now been eliminated in America and it is time Hungary followed suit,” he said.
“Political debates: yes, freedom of speech: yes, foreign funds: no,” the prime minister said, concluding that those involved in politics should not receive funds from abroad.
Orbán said there could be no concession on this because the homeland was not for sale for any price, even if the Tisza party, DK, Brussels and Kyiv did everything they could.
Meanwhile, Orbán said Ferenc Gyurcsány’s withdrawal from the opposition Democratic Coalition was “patriotism’s victory over post-communism, over communism masked as the left wing”. The leftist leader “who pulled the wool over Hungarians’ eyes, lured the unsuspicious into taking out forex loans, who took away thirteenth-month pay and pensions, who forced the International Monetary Fund onto Hungary and who ordered peaceful demonstrators to be shot in the eye … has disapperaed,” Orbán said. The prime minister also hailed opposition Momentum’s announcement that it would not run in next year’s election, and said the party would become “a short footnote in Hungary’s political history”. Furthermore, Orbán said opposition Jobbik was “balancing on the brink of the grave”. He said Jobbik was “ready to do anything for power or money”, but added “traitors will be traitors and will get what they deserve.”
At the end of his address, Orbán asked the participants of the ‘Fighters Club’ event to remember that “they were serving a just cause and their fight was a good fight”. He told his audience that he was “ready to lead them in this digital fight as well”.
“Unity in important things, freedom in secondary matters, love in everything. We are big, we are many, we are strong and we will win,” Viktor Orbán declared.
‘Next 40 years at stake’ at 2026 election
“Hungary’s next 40 years, the future of the nation and of the homeland will be at stake at next year’s election,” János Lázár, the minister of construction and transport said in Budapest on Sunday, at an event dubbed “Fighters Club”. Lázár said in his address that the election would not be “about sentiments, but about gas bills, thirteenth month pension, tax exemption for mothers, subsidies for farmers and keeping migrants out of the country.” Referring to ruling Fidesz’s earlier slogan “Listen to your heart, vote Fidesz”, Lázár told participants “Listen to your brain, vote Fidesz!”.
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