An anti-European Union billboard campaign in Hungary turns up tensions with the Orbán government

BUDAPEST, Hungary — A countrywide billboard campaign that flooded the streets of Hungary this week takes aim at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the start of an election campaign that marks an escalation of tensions between the country’s nationalist conservative government and the European Union.

The government-funded ads depict von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive who has been critical of some of Hungary’s policies, alongside Alex Soros, the son of Hungarian-American financier George Soros, a figure whom Hungary has long vilified as seeking to undermine its power.

“Let’s not dance to their tune,” the billboards say.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long taken an adversarial approach to the 27-nation bloc. He has accused Brussels of seeking to impose unwanted policies on Hungary, and compared membership in the EU to the 40 years of Soviet domination Hungary experienced in the 20th century.

On the other hand, the European Parliament said last year that the Hungarian government had become “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” that could no longer be considered a democracy. For more than a decade, the European Commission has accused Orbán of dismantling democratic institutions, taking control of the media and infringing on minority rights since he came to power in 2010.

The billboard campaign targeting von der Leyen is part of a promotional effort to encourage participation in Hungary’s latest “national consultation,” an informal survey sent to every adult in Hungary on a number of divisive issues including migration, LGBTQ+ rights and support for Ukraine.

That survey, and the concurrent ad campaign, are an “escalation of the government’s anti-EU rhetoric” before European Parliament and municipal elections next June, said Peter Kreko, director of the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital.