‘Europe now stands at a crossroads,’ Director General Miklós Szánthó of the Budapest-based think tank Center for Fundamental Rights, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday, 20 December. ‘One path leads toward a Brussels-led war coalition; the other follows Hungary’s logic of peace. The strategic question for next year is how Hungary can stay out of a war if Europe truly gets itself into one. The answer is a single sentence that begins with Orbán and ends with Viktor—this is the lesson of the largest anti-war rally held in the Hungarian countryside to date.’
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary is currently campaigning across the country ahead of the 2026 parliamentary elections. On the same day Szánthó published his post, Orbán attended another in a series of anti-war rallies organized by the Digital Civic Circles (Digitális Polgári Körök, DPK), this time in the city of Szeged, Hungary.
According to Szánthó, the path chosen by the ‘Brussels war coalition’ is one defined by prolonging the conflict through sanctions, mounting debt, and the continued financing of war with additional hundreds of billions of Euros. ‘All this comes as the European economy weakens, energy prices soar, and migration pressure intensifies,’ he argued.
Director Szánthó added that this political line is also represented in Hungary by the Tisza Party, which he said aligns itself with the direction of the European People’s Party under figures such as Manfred Weber, Ursula von der Leyen, and Friedrich Merz. ‘German-led Brussels,’ Szánthó went on to claim, ‘is steering the European Union toward war with all its strength.’
‘The alternative is the path of the Hungarian logic of peace,’ he continued. This approach, he opined, focuses on ensuring that Hungary stays out of the war even if Europe becomes directly involved—not through money, weapons, or soldiers, but through sovereign decision-making, secure energy supplies, and social stability. Szánthó described this as the course represented by Hungary’s right wing.
Referring to Orbán’s speech in Szeged, Szánthó argued that it made clear what is at stake: if pro-peace forces are excluded from positions of power, there will be nothing to slow the push toward war. ‘Without the right wing,’ he warned, ‘there will be war, migration, and austerity.’ The coming period, he concluded, will determine whether Hungary remains on a path of peace or drifts in a direction whose costs will ultimately be borne by the Hungarian people.
‘So if the question is who can keep Hungary out of the war zone, the answer is Viktor Orbán and the pro-peace Hungarian right wing,’ Director Szánthó concluded his message on social media.
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