Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 10/7/2024; Author: Irna Halilović
Statements by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about the country’s efforts to redefine the obligations of NATO membership are being incorrectly shared with claims that Hungary is leaving NATO.
On May 24, 2024, a clip from a news show on Russian Channel 1 was published on the Telegram account SLOVENSKI MEDVED with the following description:
Hungary leaving NATO?
The Hungarian Government is reconsidering its country’s role in NATO because it does not want to participate in the Alliance’s military mission in Ukraine, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The clip lasts 42 seconds and includes the statement of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The subtitles state the following:
Hungary is reconsidering its role in NATO because it does not want to participate in the military mission in Ukraine. Such a statement was made today by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Brussels. According to him, they are now thinking about how to enter the conflict and determine in what form the Alliance could participate in it. And the Western media is actively preparing the ground for this, frightening the population with a fabricated Russian threat. Hungary remains on the sidelines regarding the support of the Alliance’s auctions in Ukraine and does not intend to and seeks legal grounds for this. Serious efforts are being made to understand how Hungary can be a member of NATO and not participate in conflicts outside the territory of the Alliance. This is something that Hungarian diplomacy needs to solve.
The video was also published on two TikTok accounts, one of which is SLOVENSKI MEDVED (1, 2), and on Facebook, where it achieved 1,200 views. In these videos, it is stated that Orban said that Hungary is leaving NATO.
What are the facts?
In an article published on May 24, 2024, Politico wrote about Orbán’s statement that Hungary wants to redefine the obligations arising from NATO membership in such a way that the country does not participate in conflicts outside the territory of the Alliance countries. Orban made the statement in an interview with the Hungarian Kossuth Radio, in the show “Good morning, Hungary!”, which was broadcast on May 24, 2024. The clip from this interview was used in a Russian news program, a clip of which is shared with the claim that Hungary is leaving NATO. However, Orban did not say that.
According to Politico’s article, Orban said that the Hungarian legal team is working on a proposal according to which Hungary will be in NATO, but will not participate in the Alliance’s operations outside the territory of the member states. He made the statement in the context of the Alliance’s military aid to Ukraine.
Hungary’s attempts to redefine its membership in NATO were also reported by numerous media around the world (1, 2, 3, 4).
AP News reported in an article published on June 2, 2024, that Hungary has agreed not to veto NATO support for Ukraine as long as it is not obligated to send aid. Orban insisted that this includes financial aid as well as military personnel. After a conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that day, Orban told reporters the following: “Hungary made it clear at today’s meeting that it does not want to block any decisions in NATO (…) that are common and advocated by other member countries”.
NATO does not collectively send aid to Ukraine, but the aid sent bilaterally by individual members amounts to 90% of the total aid that Ukraine receives, according to AP News.
Therefore, Prime Minister Viktor Orban did not declare that Hungary was leaving NATO. He said that Hungary is trying to redefine the obligations of NATO membership in the context of operations outside the territory of member states.
According to the facts, we evaluate the claim from the Telegram post suggesting that Hungary is leaving NATO as fake news. The same rating is given to the claim that Orban said it, which was published on the TikTok account SLOVENSKI MEDVED. We rate other publications of these claims as a distribution of fake news.
