Now in its fourth year, CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary unites conservatives who fear a process is underway to transfer sovereignty from nations to supranational organizations run by globalist elites.
The two-day conference runs from May 29-30 in Budapest.
CPAC Hungary is the most successful of the regional CPAC conferences affiliated with CPAC in the United States. (CPACs have taken place in Japan, Australia, Israel and elsewhere.) Matt Schlapp, chairman of America’s CPAC, spoke at this year’s CPAC Hungary.
The conference is organized and hosted by the Budapest-based Center for Fundamental Rights, perhaps the most prominent conservative group in Hungary.
Well-known in Europe’s conservative landscape, the center is working to extend its reach to Latin America. It also has a strong focus on Israel, which it views as a natural ally, having twice organized the International Pro-Israel Summit, which brings together European politicians supportive of the Jewish state.
JNS spoke with Miklós Szánthó, director general of the Center for Fundamental Rights, on the first day of the conference.
Q: CPAC Hungary’s goal is to help build a global coalition of conservatives. Why has it become important for conservative movements to build ties internationally?
Miklós Szánthó: Because the left—the globalists—are very well-organized. Our most cherished values, the three values of God, homeland and family, are under heavy attack by globalists, who are well-prepared at the international level.
That’s why they are so successful when it comes to undermining the sovereignty of different states, like the political, legal attacks against Hungarian conservatives, or against President [Donald] Trump and Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu.
So the commonsense answer, not conservative right-wing, but the answer from people with common sense is to organize internationally as well. To form a global, anti-globalist platform, and a symbol for that is, I hope, CPAC Hungary.
A: You think the left is worried about this—the formation of a conservative coalition?
Q: Yes, when I see the coverage of CPAC Hungary in leftist media, they are very frustrated. And that’s a sign of success. I’m always happy when I read fake news articles about CPAC Hungary in the leftist media, both domestically and internationally.
The Brussels elite, the Brussels swamp, does everything to cast doubt on those sovereigntist, commonsense, right-wing, conservative patriotic forces in every country that try to be part of this international cooperation.
And there is an ongoing, well-organized globalist campaign against the Hungarian right because we oppose migration. We stick to our Judeo-Christian heritage. We want to protect our children from the woke insanity.
Q: No matter the country, conservatives find themselves battling the same opponents: international NGOs, supranational organizations, deep states, politicized media, academia. Which of these is the most difficult to overcome?
A: The problem we face is that this globalist network is like a hydra with 100 heads. If you cut off one, two, three, or 10, it regenerates.
I can give you an example. USAID was heavily financing Hungarian leftist media and leftist political activists with tens of millions of dollars. Trump came to the White House. He cut the funding of USAID, and they published all of the documents revealing that American taxpayers’ money went to leftist, globalist forces.
But then what happened? The E.U., the Brussels deep state, responded by establishing new so-called, “directly accessible funds” for civil [society] groups, for media, for NGOs. Normally E.U. money, which is the money from different states, including Hungarian money is channeled back to the different member states. The money finds its way via the member state system to the grantees—to companies, to individuals, etc. Directly accessible funds is a special method invented recently. You apply for money not on the member state level, but directly to Brussels.
The whole idea behind this directly accessible E.U. funding is to replace the money which was lost from USAID in America. If you look at different statements from the European Commission, or from the European Parliament, you will find they openly say the reason is because there won’t be any more USAID money so the E.U. should help those independent organizations.
Q: What are the most significant threats facing conservatism in Hungary?
A: Globalism. There is a cultural threat and there is a political threat.
The cultural threat is visible in Europe, the U.S., South America, and Israel as well. It’s about lifestyle—TV series, movies, popular music, theatre—everything that influences people in their everyday life, habits, and tastes. Hungary tries to protect its national culture from this “wokism” with legal and political tools, like with the constitution. There is an Office for the Protection of Sovereignty that was established last year, more or less successfully. Of course, you cannot stop a Netflix series at the border. That’s part of the globalists’ soft power; how they brainwash people.
The political problem is that before every election, there is a seemingly new, leftist group, a party, and a new face, a new brand, leading this leftist coalition. But the whole idea, the issues and the mechanism, have been the same for more than 15 years: how to undermine sovereignty, how to undermine the stability of the conservative movement in Hungary, and how to kick Prime Minister [Viktor] Orbán out of power, in order to do what Brussels tells them to do: agree to mass migration, adopt gender ideology, and agree to support the Ukraine war.
Q: The left seems to take the long view. In the U.S., they were focused on academia where they could shape the minds of the next generation, and they were largely successful. Do conservatives have something to learn from their opponents in terms of strategy?
A: I highlighted this in several interviews and public speeches, saying we should not be shy to learn from the professionals. The only difference is that we are fighting for a good cause. They are fighting for a bad cause.
Roughly 100 years ago, there was a more or less well-known Italian Marxist philosopher, Antonio Gramsci. He wrote a lot about the importance of culture. He wrote not about a culture war but about a war for the culture. Should the left, the socialists, win the war for the culture, for the souls, for the minds, then it will be very easy to win the political campaign. That’s one thing that we should learn from the left: how to influence culture, and by culture, I mean popular culture, not only theaters and museums, but in general.
A: Is blocking illegal immigration Prime Minister Orbán’s greatest achievement? Does the Hungarian public view it that way?
If you take a look at the poll numbers, it’s above 80% or 90% of support for Orbán’s migration policies.
Q: Is rampant illegal immigration more than any other issue what has led to a conservative backlash among voters in Hungary and Europe?
A: Migration is part of it. Mass illegal migration made very visible the goal of the globalists: to create a Europe with a mixed ethnicity, from Lisbon to Tallinn. And when they will have achieved this European people of mixed ethnicity, it will be much easier for them to create a federal state, a United States, if you will.
Q: At the JNS conference in April, you said that Western Europe is lost. Could you expand on that?
A: I usually say that at least the urbanized areas of Western Europe are lost, but maybe all Western Europe, because even if you stop illegal migration now, there are already tens of millions of illegal and legal migrants in European countries, most from a totally different culture, mainly an Arab and Muslim culture.
Europe has become rootless. If a migrant comes here, there is no stable culture into which to be integrated. The official policy of the E.U. is neutrality. By neutrality, they mean there shouldn’t be a cross on the wall, because it’s a Christian symbol and Europe is neutral. When a migrant arrives, he sees that. He says: “I would like to assimilate, but to what? It’s empty here. So, OK, I will stick to my original culture.”
