TUSNAD, Romania -- For Hungary's controversial national-conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the annual jamboree in the Romanian region of Transylvania for supporters of his ruling Fidesz party is clearly a place where he feels at home.
Dressed casually in a blue-and white striped shirt, the cuffs rolled up to reveal an orange wristband, Orban had the appearance and tenor of a man holding forth at dinner in an all-inclusive hotel in Greece.
The five-day Balvanyosi Free Summer University and Student Camp in the spa town of Tusnad, which began on July 23 and is colloquially known as Tusvanyos, hosts concerts, cultural activities, and sporting events.
But the camp, which is held in a region with a large ethnic Hungarian population, is mostly famous for Orban's controversial speeches, which in previous years have been used to rally his base, communicate his political vision, and provoke and challenge his critics.
This year, surrounded by lush green forests in the shadows of the Eastern Carpathians, the Hungarian prime minister hit on many of his usual themes, criticizing the European Union and praising Donald Trump, the former U.S. president and Republican presidential nominee.
Trump, he said, was trying "to pull the American people back from a post-nationalist liberal state to a nation state" and said he was being penalized unfairly to prevent his electoral bid.
The warm words for the Republican nominee were unsurprising given that Orban had endorsed Trump at the Tusvanyos gathering eight years earlier, in the 2016 presidential race.
Orban, an icon for many conservative populists around the world, is one of Trump's strongest allies in Europe, with the two leaders seeing eye to eye on a variety of issues, including on immigration and the war in Ukraine.
Orban has criticized EU sanctions on Russia and opposed the bloc’s military aid to Ukraine. According to the Hungarian prime minister, the EU's position could change if Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November.
"Trump is at the gates. If Europe hasn't switched to a policy of peace by then, it will have to do so after Trump's victory," Orban said.
In his July 27 speech, Orban also condemned the levels of immigration to Central and Eastern Europe and repeated his claims that the West was in decline. He advocated for what he said were Christian ideals and denounced laws in various Western nations that supported or protected the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
Since coming into power in 2010, Orban's detractors have accused him of dismantling Hungary's democratic institutions, capturing the media, and manipulating the nation's electoral system. Due to claims of democratic backsliding, the misappropriation of EU funds, and a failure to protect the rights of minorities, the EU has withheld billions of euros in support from Budapest.
Ukraine 'Peace Mission'
Sitting at a table in front of a crowd, many of whom were wearing white and straw hats, Orban defended his recent self-described "peace mission" to end the war in Ukraine. The Hungarian leader suggested that the brutal losses on both sides of the conflict, which started after Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, highlighted the importance of external intervention for peace.
The Hungarian leader's trips to Beijing and Moscow have been widely criticized by EU leaders as well as the leaders of other member nations of the bloc.
Orban also compared the war in Ukraine to the "red pill" in The Matrix movie, a meme that has been popularized in recent years and embraced by alt-right and far-right groups.
In the 1999 film, the protagonist, Neo, is given the option of taking a red pill, which would enable him to see the world as it was, or a blue pill that would allow him to remain in blissful ignorance of a reality concealed by sinister forces.
Taking the "red pill" introduced "a vantage point and gives us a completely different perspective," Orban said, asserting that both Ukraine and Russia are driven by their own perceived truths and ambitions. "If it is up to the two parties, there will be no peace. It must be brought from outside," he emphasized.
'Illiberal State'
The gathering in Tusvanyos began after the anti-communist revolutions of 1989. At first, the camp was a venue for Romanian and Hungarian liberal elites to compare notes on the tricky business of democratic transition. But by 2010, the year Orban returned to power in Hungary, Romanians were no longer invited and the event turned into a "summer camp" for Fidesz.
"Tusnad is a place of memory for Orban: He has participated in every [camp] since...1990. For him, it is a place of symbolic importance, even on a personal level," historian Stefano Bottoni told RFE/RL's Romanian Service.
For Orban, Tusvanyos is not a place for diplomatic civility, but a place where he speaks more freely. In 2014, Orban proclaimed his intention to establish an "illiberal state" in Hungary, citing countries such as Russia and Turkey as examples. Then in 2022, Orban delivered a scathing diatribe against the acceptance of immigrants from other continents into Europe, in which he criticized the idea of "race mixing."
That speech was widely criticized across the EU with the late sociologist Zsuzsa Hegedus, Orban's own adviser, resigning after 20 years and accusing Orban of Nazism. The leaders of the seven main political groups in the European Parliament issued a joint condemnation of Orban's speech.
Right-wing forces have strengthened in Europe over the last decade. Populists have whipped up concerns about the economy, immigration, and widespread disillusion with political elites, leading far-right parties to gain ground in national assemblies and in the European Parliament.
France's far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, won the first round of France's parliamentary elections, before being defeated by a left-wing alliance in the second round. Italy is currently run by a hard-right coalition government that has capitalized on widespread Euroskeptic and anti-migrant sentiments.
Orban is facing a challenge of a different sort, perhaps the most serious in his 15 years of power. Peter Magyar, a 43-year-old former Fidesz insider who turned against his own party and formed a rival party called Tisza, received around 30 percent of the vote in the June European Parliament elections.
Magyar has revived a lackluster political landscape, with many previously apathetic young Hungarians responding to his energetic message of change and flocking to support him and his party.
But in Tusnad, among the Fidesz faithful, Orban was king. In the imagination of Hungarian nationalists, historian Bottoni explained, Transylvania is a mythical place. "It's a green and wild territory with archaic touches, where romantic nationalism can be expressed far from the capitals," he said.
