Brussels – Despite the confrontational rhetoric adopted by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán towards Brussels, 77 per cent of Hungarian citizens believe that their country should remain within the European Union and still hold a positive view of the EU institutions. This is the finding of the recent survey by the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which polled Hungarian voters ahead of the upcoming elections on a range of issues related to their views on the EU and Budapest’s international standing.
According to the survey, remaining in the EU is “strongly” supported by 52 per cent of respondents, while a further 25 per cent support it “fairly“. Only 12 per cent of the sample would favour a Hungarian-style Brexit, with 4 per cent being strongly opposed to remaining in the Union and 8 per cent being somewhat opposed.
Looking at the percentages of voters for each party, 83 per cent of those who say they will vote for TISZA—the pro-European centre-right party led by
Péter Magyar—describe themselves as strong supporters of Budapest’s membership of the EU institutions, alongside 11 per cent who somewhat support this choice. Only 4 per cent of Magyar’s supporters, however, say they do not approve of remaining in the EU (2 per cent are somewhat opposed, whilst another 2 per cent are strongly opposed). Among Orbán’s voters, pro-European sentiment is predictably less widespread, but does not mirror the Prime Minister’s openly hostile attitude towards Brussels. 65 per cent of Fidesz voters, the political party founded by Orbán, are in favour of Budapest’s membership of the EU, with those who somewhat support this decision (34 per cent) narrowly outnumbering those who strongly support it (31 per cent). Eurosceptics, therefore, are a minority even among the Hungarian leader’s loyalists, accounting for only 28 per cent of his electorate (19 per cent are somewhat opposed to remaining in Europe and 8 per cent are strongly opposed).
