Ciprian Demeter: When a Prime Minister Becomes History and Is the Only One Who Doesn’t Understand: Viktor Orbán, the European Union, and the Illusion of Lost Grandeur

In history, there are moments when someone speaks a lot, but in reality, no longer says anything. Viktor Orbán, at Băile Tușnad in 2026, was exactly like that: noise without destiny, a smoke screen without fire, the exhausted speech of a leader who has nothing new to say but cannot accept that his time has passed.

For years, Viktor Orbán was viewed as a sort of prophet of the „alternative”: for some, the hero of „sovereigntism,” for others, the rebellious child of the European Union, the loud neighbor who fights with everyone and poses smilingly with Putin. He bet on the fatigue of liberal democracies, on the cynicism of a part of the European electorate, and on the fragilities of the European Union. He believed, sincerely or tactically, that the European project would collapse and that he, with his small rhetorical victories, would be able to say „I told you so.”

However, in the face of an aggressive Russia, a war on the continent, and an increasingly polarized world, history chose to contradict him. The European Union did not disintegrate, NATO did not break, Hungary’s neighbors did not give in to blackmail, and Viktor Orbán slowly became an increasingly lonely man in a project he can no longer control.

At Băile Tușnad, instead of facing reality, he chose the same repertoire: insinuations aimed at Romania, ambiguous messages about the European Union, smoke screens about the „multipolar world” and the „need for peace” where, of course, the aggressor is merely one geopolitical force among others. This time, the speech sounded dull, pale, like a recycling of clichés. It wasn’t even creatively scandalous anymore. It was, quite simply, predictable.

Viktor Orbán built a part of his recent career on the deliberate misunderstanding of the European Union. For him, the EU is not a community of law and values. It is more of an ideological ATM: you take money from there, but you don’t want to assume the rules of the house. You want structural funds, a common market, NATO protection, but without the rule of law, without a free press, and without an independent judiciary.

His friendship with Vladimir Putin is both a moral error and a strategic blindness. In the name of a „geopolitical realism,” Orbán chose which side to stand on at a time when Russia trampled international law, massacred civilians, and transformed military aggression into an instrument of foreign policy, believing he could afford to play both sides: with Europe’s money and Russia’s gas.

What Viktor Orbán failed to understand is that the world after February 24, 2022, is no longer the world in which he imagined he could dance between Brussels and Moscow. When Russian tanks cross borders, when bombardments hit Ukrainian cities, flirting with Putin is no longer „strategy,” it is moral complicity. And here the rupture from reality is visible: while the EU, with all its imperfections, tries to rethink its role, to secure its eastern flank, and to support its attacked neighbors, Viktor Orbán played the role of a provincial prime minister with the ambitions of a geopolitician, but without a moral compass.

History has no mercy for such figures: for a while, it puts them in the foreground, then it places them where they deserve, in the „miscellaneous” chapter.

Băile Tușnad has been, for years, Viktor Orbán’s favorite stage for launching harsh messages at Brussels, „decadent liberalism,” and the „dictatorship of political correctness.” With each year, he tried to play the same role: tribune of the Hungarian people, visionary leader of Central Europe, the „brave” voice of a different kind of West.

In 2026, however, the theatricality turned into a caricature. The world has changed, but the speech remained stationary. The smoke screens, the insinuations, the allusions, the reheating of themes about the „danger of immigration,” about „oppressive Brussels,” and about „minority rights” used as a geopolitical tool, no longer fool almost anyone.

The Romanians and Hungarians listening to him today are no longer those of 2010. They have seen what Russia is doing in Ukraine, they have seen what dependence on cheap energy from an aggressive regime means, and they have seen their own governments rotate in power with the same Balkan habits. They have learned, firsthand, that whoever sows discord between neighbors does not do it for the sake of one or the other, but for the sake of their own power.

When Viktor Orbán throws small arrows from Tușnad at Romania, insinuating inferiorities, emphasizing the „suffering of Hungarians,” but ignoring the real context of collaboration in the EU and NATO, he no longer seems like a brave leader. He seems, increasingly, like a worn-out politician looking for an external enemy to cover internal failures.

Under Viktor Orbán, Hungary did not become the „center of Central Europe,” as his rhetoric promised, becoming instead an increasingly isolated state. He quarreled with Brussels, strained relations with neighbors, and turned the internationalization of his own internal conflicts into an obsession. He blocked essential European decisions and placed himself in the position of the one who says „no” just to be noticed.

The result? Blocked or conditioned European funds, an increasingly poor international image, a political future for Hungary riskily tied to the whims of a single man, and finally, a mistrust—including among Hungarians—who no longer find themselves in this provincial-flavored self-isolation.

Instead of being a bridge between Romania and Hungary, between the European Union and the East, between our complicated histories, Viktor Orbán chose the role of a cave: a place from which he shouts, from time to time, at others, but where the light of real dialogue does not enter.

Paradoxically, while Viktor Orbán periodically tries to ignite sparks between Hungarians and Romanians, reality contradicts him. Romanians living in mixed communities, Hungarians living alongside Romanians, people who work, raise their children, pay taxes and loans, and go through the same bureaucracy and the same hospitals, can no longer afford the luxury of hate. They know, instinctively, that we, the simple people, are not enemies to each other. They know we are, rather, victims of the same games. A Romanian from Harghita or Covasna and a Hungarian from Cluj have much more in common with each other than either has in common with a politician who comes once a year, gives an inflammatory speech, and then returns to his office in Budapest or Bucharest.

Orbanism, as a political line, is economically, geopolitically, and humanly bankrupt. It proposes a world where identity is used as a weapon, not as a bridge. In this world, Hungarians are permanently kept in the logic of „us vs. them,” Romanians are suspected, Roma are ignored, and the real world is sacrificed on the altar of a parade nationalism.

What Viktor Orbán perhaps did not understand is that a leader becomes history not when they die, but by being overtaken by the present when they can no longer speak honestly to it. When you address a world that has already seen what Russian imperialism can do, what internal corruption can do, what the social abyss can do, with a speech recycled from the early 2010s, you are nothing but a tired voice.

Orbán is no longer a symbol of a European current today. He has turned into the symbol of a dangerous deviation that missed the train of history.

The question „Romanian-Hungarian relations, whither?” can no longer receive an answer only at Băile Tușnad or in rigid ministry communiqués. It needs real, calm, and courageous debate, in which we clearly state a few things: Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania do not need incendiary politicians; they need good administration, decent schools, functional hospitals, and infrastructure. Minority rights are not „favors” of either Bucharest or Budapest; they are part of a civilized European contract to which both states have adhered. Our past is complicated, with injustices and suffering on both sides, but our future can only be built together, within a European and Euro-Atlantic normative framework.

It is time for political discourse to escape the captivity of Viktor Orbán’s obsessions and revanchist reflexes. Let us ask ourselves honestly: how can we collaborate in concrete fields—infrastructure, education, health, environment—for the real benefit of mixed communities? How do we ensure that a young Hungarian from Romania feels a stranger neither in Cluj nor in Budapest, and is at home in a common European space? How can we build common symbolic projects, not just annual ritual confrontations? Both Romania and Hungary deserve more than worn-out leaders who live by exploiting old fears. The two neighboring countries deserve leaders capable of saying: „Yes, we have historical wounds. But we also have a historical chance—that of being, together, part of a Europe where cultural differences are not an occasion for war, but represent an opportunity for mutual enrichment.”

In the year 1775, Samuel Johnson stated that: „Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” or translated for 2026: „Nationalism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”

When a leader builds his entire political identity on the idea that „we are besieged,” „others are guilty,” and „Brussels, Romanians, migrants, globalists” are the problem—and not his own inability to build a strong, free, respected Hungary—it is time to remember this quote. Healthy nationalism means loving your people, not hating your neighbors. It means wanting the Hungarian, the Romanian, the Slovak, or the Serb to be able to live with dignity in their own language, not using those languages as electoral ammunition. Viktor Orbán chose, too often, the easy path: refuge in noisy nationalism, dangerous friendships with autocrats, and sterile conflicts with a European Union that, despite all its flaws, funded his projects for years.

History, however, will not remember the noise, but will instead preserve in memory the result: a more isolated Hungary, a more tense region, and a missed chance to be a bridge, not a chasm.

For us, as Romanians, the lesson is twofold: not to fall into the trap of responding to hate with hate, and to be lucid enough to say: „we no longer believe in leaders who live by setting us against each other.”

Romanian-Hungarian relations do not have to wait for the next speech from Tușnad to set themselves in motion, as they are written every day in our cities and villages, in schools, hospitals, companies, and mixed families. And there, fortunately, people are already wiser than the politicians who try to divide them.

Orbán will become, sooner or later, a page in a manual. The question is: will we have the maturity so that, when he and we are spoken of, it can be said that we chose to be greater than his small smoke screens?

Warning: Attempt to read property "ID" on bool in /home/fluxinfo/monitorulzileimaramures.ro/wp-content/themes/jannah/framework/functions/post-actions.php on line 114