The Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, has denounced this Tuesday from Budapest that the current electoral process in Hungary, which holds legislative elections this April 12, is being subjected to "one of the worst cases of foreign interference" that he knows of, by holding the European Union responsible for trying to damage the Hungarian economy and for making the country more dependent on foreign sources for energy.
"The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy Hungary's economy. They have tried to make Hungary less energy independent. They have tried and done everything because they hate this guy," Vance said at a press conference in the Hungarian capital, accompanied by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, just days before the election.
"What has occurred in this country, what has happened in the midst of this electoral campaign, is one of the worst examples of foreign interference and electoral interference that I have seen or even of those I have read about," the US vice president has stated in the final stretch of the campaign.
In this context of accusations about external pressures in Hungarian internal politics, Vance has explained that his trip to Budapest aims to support Orbán in this electoral cycle. "In my experience, I have seen a man who has fiercely defended the interests of Hungary," he said, presenting the prime minister as a guarantor of national sovereignty.
"Why are the bureaucrats of Brussels telling social media companies what information they should give to Hungarian voters?" Vance has asked, resorting to the same expression with which Orbán usually refers disparagingly to community leaders.
Along these lines, he/she has insisted that Hungarian citizens "are adults." "They are sovereign in their own country and should be able to see any information they wish about the elections without someone in a distant capital treating them like children," he/she pointed out, remarking that democracy is "fundamentally" based on the people "choosing."
"Part of the reason we are here, and why the president of the United States sent me, is because we believe that the amount of interference coming from the bureaucracy in Brussels has been truly shameful," he stressed, raising the tone against the European institutions.
Even so, Vance wanted to clarify that he does not intend to tell the Hungarian electorate how to vote and has admitted that he also does not expect his words to be decisive. "I would encourage Brussels bureaucrats to do exactly the same," he added, reproaching again that from the EU "they have done everything possible to stop the people of Hungary."
Defense of Orbán's role in energy
"They don't like the leader who has truly defended Hungarians, and I think it's important to say it (...) Viktor Orbán has been Europe's most prominent leader on security and energy independence," opined the Vice President of the United States, who took advantage of his intervention to praise the energy policy of the Hungarian head of government.
According to Vance, European leaders "should have copied" Orbán's approach in this area so as not to face the energy crisis so harshly now. "What is happening in Hungary right now is that, while energy prices are high, they are much lower here than almost anywhere else in Europe, and that is due to the leadership of the man next to me. And I believe that leadership can serve as a model for the continent," concluded Trump's 'number two', presenting Hungary as an example to the rest of Europe.