For 10 years, the Hungarian government has used billboards to proclaim a city that continually wants to harm Hungary

At first we had to message it, then we were told to stop it because it had to do with something we had a right to know about, and it was doing something annoying anyway – all through its humble servants, while a sing a tune. According to the billboards of the Hungarian government and Fidesz, these are all things that the EU has done or is currently doing. For more than half of the twenty years that Hungary has been part of the European Union, the government has repeatedly pushed it into people’s faces that Brussels is equivalent to Soros, the evil one, that it is always something we have to send a message to them about that it should be stopped or that people should know everything about it. This is all done on blue billboards and most of it is paid for with public funds.

Although the government only started sending messages directly addressed to ‘Brussels’ on billboards in 2016, there have already been a few stabbings. In 2015, a national consultation on the EU’s immigration policy was launched. At the time, blue billboards with messages starting with “If you come to Hungary…” flowed through the streets. The complete turnaround in anti-Brussels and anti-EU rhetoric took place with the 2016 immigration referendum: “Let’s send a message to Brussels so they understand!” was the slogan. The Rogán-led propaganda ministry clearly determined that the message had worked, so in 2017 they no longer sent a message to Brussels, but wanted to put an end to it outright: ‘Stop Brussels!’ shouted the billboards across the country.

This was followed by another national consultation, as there were two in 2017: this one asked people about “the Soros plan”. Here, the blue campaign poster did not directly mention the EU, but the questions did say that Brussels was working hand in hand with Soros to ‘settle a million immigrants in the EU’. The link between George Soros and the European Union did not disappear from the communications of Fidesz and the government, but continued to play an increasingly important role. In February 2019, shortly before that year’s EP elections, the Hungarian streets were flooded with the faces of Soros and Jean-Claude Juncker. “You too have the right to know what Brussels is planning!” the message read, as George Soros smiled behind Juncker’s shoulder.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in early 2020 led to a pause in the attack on Brussels on billboards until 2021. Subsequently, a national consultation was held again in 2021, but this time on different topics, ranging from increasing the minimum wage , to immigration in general, to the question of whether the borders should be closed before the migrants due to the epidemic, as “they could introduce new mutations of the virus” (“Brussels was of course against this). The government promoted this national consultation on the streets with the emoji campaign. The EU was among those smeared again: “Does Brussels make you angry?” – was one of the questions asked alongside the angry, scolding emojis.

By 2022 there was a new enemy, and it also came from Brussels. The ‘Brussels Sanctions Bombs’ arrived, which the government claimed would destroy us. This billboard campaign was also accompanied by a national consultation in which the government asked people about the European Union’s sanctions policy against Russia. When the consultations were completed, a special campaign was also launched to announce the results: ’97 percent said no to sanctions’.

Like Juncker, the next president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was not exempt from appearing in one of the Hungarian government’s billboard campaigns. Von der Leyen – who was actually supported by Fidesz in 2019 – shared a billboard with George Soros’ son Alex Soros. “Let’s not dance to their tune!” read the billboard, which was also related to a national consultation. In this questionnaire, all statements in the questionnaire started with “Brussels…”. Here too, the results were proudly proclaimed on posters: ‘We do not dance to the tune of Brussels!’.

The most recent Fidesz poster campaign also included Von der Leyen. In it, the President of the Commission sits in a red leather armchair and is surrounded by ‘the humble servants of Brussels’, which, according to the ruling party, includes Hungarian opposition politicians Klára Dobrev, Ferenc Gyurcsány, Gergely Karácsony and Péter Magyar. Fidesz presents them as the ones who will jump as soon as Ursula von der Leyen rings the doorbell and carry out her demands.

The brief economic history of Hungary’s twenty years of EU membership is as follows: between 2004 and 2022, Hungary received over €83 billion (over 32,000 billion forints at current exchange rates), while it received approximately €20 billion (7.7 billion forints ) contributed. in the common budget. On the other hand, it is a striking figure that the state spent 30 billion Hungarian forints on communications in just three months last year, two-thirds of which was on propaganda.