PM says he will “collect the opinion of the people” in a mail-in campaign that critics have derided as a propaganda tool.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before the emergency EU summit on defense and support for Ukraine. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
March 7, 2025 5:07 am CET
Hungarians will have a say on whether they want Ukraine to join the European Union, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said early Friday — though the ballot is non-binding and will almost certainly be stacked against Kyiv.
Speaking to reporters after an emergency summit of all 27 EU leaders in Brussels — in which Hungary was the lone holdout refusing to endorse a joint statement in support of arming Ukraine — Orbán said his government would poll Hungarians on their support for Kyiv’s EU accession.
“We have the so-called national consultation scheme, which we use regularly to collect the opinion of the people, so we will use the same scheme just now,” he said.
Orbán’s government has launched over a dozen so-called national consultations since 2010 on a variety of matters, from migration to LGBTQ+ rights.
They are mail-in campaigns in which all voting-age Hungarians receive letters posing questions and inviting them to choose from a list of responses, sometimes a simple yes or no.
The questions are frequently phrased in a leading way, and the vast majority of responses tend to align with the government’s stance, according to Hungarian media, with the opposition and civil society slamming them as propaganda tools.
For example, a national consultation on the EU’s migration policies in 2023 asked Hungarians if they support Brussels creating “migrant ghettos” in Hungary. Fewer than 20 percent of Hungarians responded — but 99 percent of those who did said no.
The results are not legally binding, but are used to strengthen the Orbán government’s positions on divisive issues, which it says are backed by the majority of the electorate.
“For the first time, Hungarians have a chance in Europe to decide whether they support Ukraine’s EU membership or not,” Hungarian government spokesperson Balázs Orbán said early Friday.