Orbán Denounces EU as Creating a New ‘Empire’ Against Sovereign States

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán compared the EU integration plan with those of previous empire seekers. Speaking in the city of Veszprem on May 12 Orbán said that since the end of the Roman Empire, efforts have been made to create new empires: “Byzantium, Charlemagne, [German emperor] Otto, Napoleon, Hitler: they all dreamed, each on a different basis, of European unity,” Orbán was quoted as saying in the Greek daily Hellas, as he pointed out that the European Union is doing the same thing. “The existence of independent nations and the idea of ​​empire are present at the same time. National culture, European values. National sovereignty and—as they put it in Brussels—an ever more complete union.”