Orban lashes out at EU as he marks 1956 anti-Soviet revolt

By AP 23 October 2022, 3:31 pm

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses the media during a press conference in Vienna, Austria, July 28, 2022. (Theresa Wey/AP)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban makes veiled comparisons between the Soviet troops that attacked Hungary during the 1956 revolution and the institutions of the European Union today.

Marking the 66th anniversary of that crushed uprising, Orban suggests that the EU, which has sought to rein in democratic backsliding in Hungary, will end up like the Soviet Union, which dissolved more than three decades ago.

“Let’s not bother with those who shoot at Hungary from the shadows or from the heights of Brussels. They will end up where their predecessors did,” Orban says in a speech to a select group of guests in the rural city of Zalaegerszeg in western Hungary, breaking with a tradition of giving a speech in Budapest on the anniversary.