Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Hungary serves as an example for European citizens in opposition to their own governments on issues such as migration, energy policy, economic policy and the approach to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Speaking to Kossuth Radio on Friday, PM Orbán said in an interview that the EU was currently facing the biggest challenges in areas that Hungary had found answers to, pointing to migration, the utility price caps and the war in Ukraine as examples. "What we are doing in Hungary is more or less what the European people would like to see at home, but their governments are doing the opposite."
Hungary was therefore "unwittingly posing a challenge to EU countries with bad policies"; this also increased Hungary's weight in the bloc, he said. Noting that he had met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week and is scheduled to meet French President Emmanuel Macron the next, PM Orbán said "Hungary's way of doing things and its success clearly increases its weight in foreign affairs."
"I think our influence is greater than what the country's size and actual economic and military strength would warrant," he said.