Brussels, EU, Ukraine, West criticised by politicians at CPAC Hungary 2025

The issue of sovereignty is also one of democracy, Miklós Szánthó, the head of Hungary’s Centre for Fundamental Rights, said in his opening address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest on Thursday.

“Another regime change is underway, but this time it does not involve our region but the whole world,” Szánthó said. “This trend coincides with a cultural crisis, which … we usually call woke madness,” he added.

The focal question, Szánthó said, was the same as in earlier times: whether decision-making was “contracted out to a federal organisation, with international networks having the final say” or left to citizens at the national level.

“If the final decisions on the rules concerning migration, child protection, war, or … the EU accession of a state that has been attacked and become the victim of aggression are made in advance, in a deep-state system, the complex but democratic election procedures will become totally redundant,” Szánthó said.

Szánthó suggested that an unprecedented “international game of secret services” was underway in Hungary with “foreign power centres and their compradors in Hungary” working to “undermine the country’s sovereignty”. “They’re launching disinformation campaigns, selling out Hungary in Brussels … and rejoice when EU funds for Hungary are frozen,” he said.

“We, however, seriously promote the ideal of God, Homeland, and Family; we seriously think that the goal of the EU is peace and that war should not be imported to the bloc under the motto of accession,” Szánthó said.

Meanwhile, he said that “although it may seem that we are in government in this or that country, in terms of the Western zeitgeist, the overall system is globalism, open society is the elite, Brussels is the deep state and we are the opposition, rebellion, and we are the counterrevolution.”

“We are Trumpism’s natural ally, not the Brussels elite, not the European People’s Party, that is almost worse than Washington’s RINOs,” Szánthó said.

Matt Schlapp, the head of the CPAC Foundation, spoke about the need to control immigration, saying that US President Donald Trump had made Hungarian Primer Minister Viktor Orban’s position the norm in the US, putting America first. He said Hungary’s and America’s success was a mutual interest for the two countries.

Schlapp praised Orban as a courageous leader with a strategic and critical mind, suggesting that the new tendencies could make a huge impact on the world. When Orban rejected woke ideology, his was a lonely voice, Schlapp said and called for collective support for similar leaders, their families, and supporters.

Defence minister at CPAC: Future belongs to patriots

The globalist world model has failed, and the future belongs to patriots, Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said at the CPAC Hungary 2025 on Thursday.

Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that after the Cold War, “rather than becoming stronger, the West turned upon itself and started questioning its own history … and forgot that freedom is not a legacy but something we have to protect every day.”

“While others grapple with their past, we patriots see increasingly clearly that identity is not a burden but a stance, that the nation is not an outdated concept but a force that shapes the law, and sovereignty is not a hindrance to cooperation but a requirement,” he said.

The minister said that patriots believed that the future of the nation was written “not in imperial centres but at home”, building on its own traditions, culture and community. Patriots, he added, were unapologetic about their national identity because “we are not a multinational company or a global corporation but people of flesh and blood…” he said.

In the 21st century, wars were not only fought with weapons, he said. “The front lines are in our heads: they are attacking our culture, faith and way of thinking, because they know they can win without weapons if they can take away the truth and re-shape our identity.”

The current government has “rebuilt” the Hungarian Armed Forces, “not as a threat but out of respect, because we know that … we must protect the country,” the defence minister added.

Bóka at CPAC: Brussels orchestrating ‘silent coup’ in Europe

Brussels is orchestrating a “silent coup” in Europe, János Bóka, the EU affairs minister, said in a speech at the CPAC Hungary 2025 conference in Budapest on Friday.

In the past two decades, the European Union “transformed from a community of values into a centre of power, from inner market into a burgeoning federal state,” he said. “Those developments took place without the authorisation of member states or European citizens, contrary to the letter and spirit of European treaties, and by undermining the constitutional order and institutions of member states.”

According to federalists, a stronger European unity would also mean that European nations would no longer be masters of Europe’s future, he said. “Patriots, on the other hand, see nations as valuable and worth strengthening rather than leaving behind.”

Patriots also see sovereignty as a value, Bóka said. “European integration is only possible between sovereign nations — otherwise, it is called empire-building.” Further, patriots count on people in the face of “the elitism of federalists and the bureaucracy of European institutions,” he said.

Bóka said democracy was not possible without freedom of speech and tolerance. “Today Brussels finds freedom of speech abhorrent and has forgotten the meaning of tolerance. It discriminates against those inside Europe who contradict them and ignores them outside the bloc,” he said.

On the other hand, patriots believe that the European civilisation and its values with Judeo-Christian and humanist roots must be preserved and passed on, he said. “When Brussels tries to replace [those roots] with others, they are actually dismantling European civilisation.”

Patriots draw their strength from a mandate from European citizens to represent them, “rather than funding from Brussels and the approval of the global elite,” he said. “We are strong together and will become stronger by the day,” he added.

Economy minister at CPAC: Turnaround in economic policy only possible with political change

The European Union’s current leadership is incapable of turning the bloc’s competitiveness around, the national economy minister said in a speech at the CPAC Hungary 2025 conference in Budapest on Friday, adding that such a shift could only be achieved with political change.

Márton Nagy said the EU had “destroyed” European competitiveness through “a series of misguided economic policy measures”. These, he said, included the EU’s pursuit of a tighter fiscal policy than its competitors, which he said restricted development, overregulation, a misguided energy policy and sanctions he said were harming the bloc itself.

Nagy said the EU was also harming its two leading industries, the auto sector and machine manufacturing, arguing that the bloc had “failed to align ideological matters with industry policy” in the green transition. He said the EU had also failed to consult industry players on the planned phase-out of internal combustion engines by 2035.

Also, Nagy said, the EU had “forgotten to invest in the technologies of the future” like AI, the space industry and semiconductor manufacturing, adding that only one European defence industry concern was in the top ten.

Meanwhile, he said Ukraine’s accession to the EU would come with costs that would make it difficult to restore member states’ competitiveness.

Hankó at CPAC: Brussels ‘wants to erase our Judeo-Christian culture’

Brussels “wants to erase Europe’s roots, our Judeo-Christian culture”, Balázs Hankó, the minister for culture and innovation, said in a speech at the CPAC Hungary 2025 conference in Budapest on Friday.

Hungarian culture provides a national identity that transcends borders, and higher and vocational education guarantee knowledge, work and “a mission in service of our communities”, the minister said. He added that science and innovation were “what determine our sovereignty”, and families were the future.

“It is these cornerstones of our Christian national identity that Brussels is attacking and wants to distort,” Hankó said, adding that Brussels wanted to “make the discriminatory world of abnormality dominant over normality and order”.

He said this was the explanation for Brussels’s exclusion of university students and researchers that pushed back against its influence from international cooperation programmes, and this was why Hungary was being punished for banning “gender propaganda” from schools.

But Hankó said those who were fighting for their nation and justice would never waver, adding that “this is how we patriots are.”

Govt official at CPAC: Time for common sense to return to Europe

It is time for common sense to return to Europe, “as it has done in the US”, the state secretary for international communication and relations said during a panel discussion held at the CPAC Hungary 2025 conference on Friday.

In the discussion with influencer Jack Posobiec, editor-in-chief of the Human Events portal, Zoltán Kovács said the past 15 years had seen “absurd” instances of the US Democratic administration circumvent democratic institutions “in the name of democracy”.

Kovács highlighted the importance of stricter regulations and greater transparency regarding the financing of NGOs, even if the Hungarian government’s attempts to push for transparency had provoked a “squealing” reaction.

Gulyás at CPAC: ‘We have always represented peace’

Hungary has always represented peace and “we stood in support of peace during the Russia-Ukraine war even when European liberals and members of the US Democratic Party clearly stood in support of war”, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Friday.

Gergely Gulyás told CPAC Hungary that Hungary was currently the representative of normality in Europe.

“Actually we are the centre, but in the Western world they have been trying to push the centre, common sense, to the sideline for several decades. It also required a betrayal by the western European right, too,” he said.

“Change is needed and there is currently a chance for it,” he said. “The joining of forces that has developed thanks to CPAC since the foundation of the Patriots party alliance between conservative right-wing European parties and the US gives us a chance to return traditional European values to the focus of politics, also in western government policies.”

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