Péter Szijjártó said on Facebook that 2024 would be a crucial year, and “we know the pressure will be enormous”. Szijjártó called 2024 “the Super Bowl of politics”.

“Never before have 78 countries held elections in the span of one year, directly impacting nearly 4 billion people worldwide,” he added.

Hungarian citizens will vote in the European parliamentary elections, and hundreds of millions will go to vote in the US, Russia, India, Mexico and the UK, he said.

“From our point of view, the US and EU elections are particularly important, as they raise the hope of replacing war, weapon deliveries and senseless human sacrifice with brokering peace,” he said.

Hungary will fight “to open Brussels’s eyes” to give the EU an opportunity to correct its errors in leadership, he said, adding that “the international liberal mainstream has always exerted enormous pressure on us, but we have always prevailed…”

Fidesz MEP: EU Pursues 'Baseless Slander' Against Hungary

The European Union is pursuing “baseless slander” against Hungary in the new year, a Fidesz MEP said on Facebook.

Responding to Finnish MEP Petri Sarvamaa’s call on the EP to launch another rule-of-law procedure against Hungary and to suspend the country’s voting rights, Balázs Hidvéghi said the EP had no right to initiate such a procedure.

“Meanwhile, by disbursing 10 billion euros, the European Commission admitted in December that the rule of law was operational in Hungary,” Hidvéghi said, adding that a campaign of “baseless slander” was ongoing against Hungary.

“This will not change as long as EU institutions are packed with people like Sarvamaa. That’s why we must take political control this June,” he said, referring to the EP elections.

Govt Official: EP Elections to Be 'Eye-Opener for Brussels'

The European parliamentary elections this year will need to “open up the eyes of Brussels” where currently “it’s the blind leading the blind”, Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, told MTI.

“The Brussels elite has long turned a blind eye to the real, everyday problems of European people,” he said.

They failed to see the influx of illegal migrant masses, the need to protect children against “liberal indoctrination and the gender ideology”, the ramifications of the sanctions against Russia, the “forced green transition” leading to increased utility prices, as well as Europe’s dwindling competitiveness, he added.

Regarding migration, the official said the number of illegal entries along the community’s external borders reached 355,300 in 2023, up 17% from the previous year and the highest figure since 2015.

The number of entry attempts along Hungary’s southern border neared 171,000, he said.

The political director added that 217,070 illegal migrants had been ordered to leave the bloc in the first half of last year, but “only one fifth of them were actually expelled, all the rest remaining in Europe as illegal immigrants.”

“Illegal migration must be stopped at the border, and problems must be resolved where they occur rather than imported to Europe,” Orbán said.

“Rather than adopting a functional Hungarian model, Brussels forced upon the community a migration pact which does not contribute to resolving the problem but constitutes the problem itself … aimed at creating migrant ghettoes and introducing mandatory quotas,” the director said.