By Edit Zgut-Przybylska
In Central and Eastern Europe, democracy has been deliberately eroded by disinformation. There has been a troubling surge of pro-Kremlin messaging since 2021, with Hungary serving as a regional epicenter of state-sponsored mistruths.
Edit Zgut-Przybylska is an Assistant Professor at IFIS in the Polish Academy of Sciences and a visiting fellow at the CEU Democracy Institute.
The scale and sophistication of this disinformation is new. Viktor Orbán’s government has seized control of media outlets through hostile takeovers, political appointments to editorial boards, and the creation of a pro-government media network. It has introduced a bogus “Sovereignty Protection Act” to impose a chilling effect on civil society organizations (CSOs), funded billboard campaigns to attack the EU as “warmongers” in the context of the Ukraine war, and harnessed the state to intimidate those who challenge its narratives. This has muffled critical voices – as evidenced by the limited airtime given to the country’s political opposition – and created a potent mix of disinformation that is now spilling over into neighboring countries.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister, Robert Fico, has already deployed the Orbán playbook. He plans to replace the existing state media company with a new public TV and radio company under more day-to-day political control. Pressure is being put on private media outlets to promote pro-government positions. Fico has been recognized as a skilled manipulator of disinformation himself, sharing inaccurate narratives on social media that serve his purposes.
The notion of “sovereignty” has been widely deployed in these campaigns in Hungary and Slovakia.
For example, the Orbán and Fico governments claim that refusing to support Ukraine is an act of national sovereignty that will prevent Hungary and Slovakia from becoming colonies of the EU and NATO.
Moreover, they perpetuate the false claim that, by receiving funds for CSOs from abroad, the opposition and the media are undermining national sovereignty. Such narratives provide a scapegoat for Hungary’s poor economic performance and collapsing public services. It also helps them evade responsibility for the EU’s decision to withhold funds in response to repeated breaches of the rule of law.
This stream of propaganda has impacted the public’s understanding of geopolitics.
According to GLOBSEC TRENDS, half of Slovakian respondents perceive the United States as a security threat. Slovakians and Hungarians are the least likely within Central and Eastern Europe to blame Russia for invading Ukraine.
This has emboldened governments to become closer to Moscow, opt out of Western sanctions on Ukraine, and, increasingly, diverge from the position of their EU and NATO partners on the international stage. In the case of Hungary, the shift in public opinion is such that Balázs Orbán, one of the prime minister’s closest aides, saw no issue in stating that Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an “irresponsible” decision to defend his country militarily after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion. Hungary, he said, has learned that “precious Hungarian lives” must be treated with caution rather than “offering them up” for defense. This statement, which effectively indicated that Hungarian forces would surrender to Russia if attacked, is one that would ordinarily lead to the immediate dismissal of a government official – however, such is the scale of pro-Kremlin messaging in Hungary today that the Fidesz government only sought to offer a “clarification” on his choice of words.
The relentless churn of state-sponsored disinformation in recent years has given Orbán political space to take on the EU.
A billboard and media campaign, which intimated that Ursula von der Leyen had ‘nefarious’ plans for Hungary, was shrugged off by Brussels in 2023, and all calls for the Commission President to clamp down on Orbán’s behavior have been consistently kicked into the long grass. This has emboldened Orbán; he is now likely to use the current Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union to seed the ambitions of Moscow in other Member States, and to exact revenge on the EU for withholding billions in structural funds as a punishment for repeated rule of law violations.
Already there are signs that he is prepared to disturb the status quo. For example, by opening up Hungary’s National Card visa scheme to Russian and Belarussian nationals, he threatens the security of the Schengen zone.
Action to stop this behavior is urgently needed.
The EU must address media capture and support independent outlets and civil society organizations in Hungary and the wider region. The Brussels institutions should also consider implementing sanctions or other punitive measures against Member States that promote state sponsored disinformation.
Bottom-up solutions would also build resilience. Civil society organizations must develop innovative marketing tools to overcome toxic polarization and counter disinformation campaigns. Social media platforms, such as X and Facebook, through which disinformation is being disseminated, must take a more active and coordinated approach to moderating their content. Given the hysterical reaction of the tech companies to any form of regulation, this will require a willingness by European leaders to expend political capital taking them on.
While there are some signs of resilience among Hungarian voters, disinformation will continue to corrode public opinion in the long-term if it is left unchecked.
If the EU, under the promised ‘geopolitical’ leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, fails to take decisive action then there will be far-reaching consequences not only for Hungary, Slovakia, and the other Visegrad nations, but for the entire European project.
