Orbán blasts the European Union on the anniversary of Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising

By JUSTIN SPIKE
Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has compared Hungary’s membership in the European Union to more than four decades of Soviet occupation. Orbán made the comments during a speech on Monday commemorating the anniversary of Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet revolution. Orbán accused the EU of seeking to strip Hungary of its identity by imposing a model of liberal democracy that he said Hungarians reject. He said that Brussels employs methods against Hungary that hearken back to the days of Soviet domination by Moscow. On Monday evening, several thousand demonstrators marched down a central avenue in Budapest in opposition to Orbán’s education policies, as well as Hungary’s continued relationship with Russia despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.