For ten years, the Hungarian government has used billboards to proclaim that a city constantly wants to harm Hungary

At first, we were supposed to send it a message, then we were told to stop it, because it was up to something we had the right to know about, and it was doing something infuriating anyway – all this through its humble servants, while singing a tune. According to the billboards of the Hungarian government and Fidesz, these are all things that the EU has been doing, or is currently doing. For more than half of Hungary's 20 years in the European Union, the government has repeatedly shoved it into people's faces that Brussels equals Soros, the evil one, that it's always up to something we need to send them a message about, that it needs to be stopped or that people need to know about it all. This is all done on blue billboards, and most of it is paid for with public funds.

Although the government only started sending messages directly addressed to "Brussels" on billboards in 2016, there were a few stabs before too. A national consultation on the EU's immigration policy was launched in 2015. At the time, blue billboards with messages beginning with "If you come to Hungary..." flooded the streets. The complete turnaround in the anti-Brussels and anti-EU rhetoric happened with the 2016 referendum on immigration: "Let's send a message to Brussels so they understand!", the slogan said. The Rogán-led propaganda ministry clearly found that the message had worked, so by 2017 they were no longer sending a message to Brussels, but wanted to stop it outright: 'Stop Brussels!' the billboards across the country proclaimed.

This was followed by another national consultation, as there were two of them in 2017: this one asked people about "the Soros plan". Here, the blue poster accompanying the campaign did not directly mention the EU, but the questions did say that Brussels was working hand in hand with Soros to "settle a million immigrants in the EU''. The link between George Soros and the European Union did not disappear from Fidesz' and the government's communication after this, in fact it continued to play an increasingly important role. In February 2019, shortly before the EP elections that year, Hungarian streets were flooded with the faces of Soros and Jean-Claude Juncker, the former President of the European Commission. "You too have the right to know what Brussels is up to!" the message said, with George Soros smiling behind Juncker's shoulder.

Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in early 2020, there followed a pause in attacking Brussels on billboards until 2021.Then in 2021, a national consultation was held again, but this time on several different subjects, ranging from increasing minimum wage, to immigration in general, to whether the borders should be closed before the migrants due to the epidemic, given that “they might bring in new mutations of the virus” (“Brussels”, of course, opposed this). The government promoted this national consultation on the streets with the emoji campaign. The EU was among those being smeared again: "Does Brussels make you angry?" – was one of the questions asked alongside the angry, swearing emojis.

By 2022, there was a new enemy, and it also came from Brussels. The "Sanctions bombs of Brussels" arrived, which the government claimed would destroy us. This billboard campaign also accompanied a national consultation in which the government was asking people about the European Union's sanctions policy against Russia. When the consultation concluded, a special campaign was also conducted to proclaim the results: '97 per cent said no to sanctions'.

Just like Juncker, the next President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was not exempt from appearing in one of the billboard campaigns of the Hungarian government either. Von der Leyen – who was actually endorsed by Fidesz in 2019 – shared a billboard with George Soros' son Alex Soros. "Let's not dance to their tune!", the billboard proclaimed, which was also connected to a national consultation. In this one, all the statements in the questionnaire began with "Brussels...". Here too, the results were proudly proclaimed on posters: 'We won't dance to the tune of Brussels!'.

The most recent Fidesz poster campaign also included von der Leyen. In it, the Commission President is seated in a red leather armchair and is surrounded by "the humble servants of Brussels", who, according to the governing party include Hungarian opposition politicians Klára Dobrev, Ferenc Gyurcsány, Gergely Karácsony and Péter Magyar. Fidesz presents them as ones who will jump as soon as Ursula von der Leyen rings the bell and will carry out her demands.

The brief economic history of Hungary's 20 years of EU membership is as follows: between 2004 and 2022, Hungary received more than €83 billion (over 32,000 billion forints at today's exchange rates), while contributing approximately €20 billion (7.7 thousand billion forints) into the common budget. By contrast, it is a striking figure that in only three months last year the state spent 30 billion Hungarian forints on communication, two thirds of which was spent on propaganda.