{"id":11727,"date":"2025-08-05T09:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=11727"},"modified":"2025-10-02T10:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T09:03:14","slug":"hungarys-national-consultations-on-ukraines-eu-membership-were-not-a-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2025\/08\/05\/hungarys-national-consultations-on-ukraines-eu-membership-were-not-a-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary\u2019s \u201cNational Consultations\u201d on Ukraine\u2019s EU Membership Were Not a Referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Original article<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(in Bosnian) was published on 4\/8\/2025; Author:\u00a0<\/em>Marija \u0106osi\u0107<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Numerous media outlets reported on a \u201creferendum\u201d in which Hungarians said \u201cno\u201d to Ukraine\u2019s potential entry into the EU. This is a manipulation; Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government conducted a non-binding (and a suggestive) survey on this issue, in which less than one-third of voters participated.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several regional media outlets claimed that 95% of Hungary\u2019s citizens voted in a referendum against Ukraine joining the European Union. On June 26, 2025, the website of Radio Television of Republika Srpska published an article<\/a> with the following headline:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Published referendum results: 95 percent of Hungarians said \u201cno\u201d to Ukraine in the EU<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The article stated that the results of the \u201creferendum\u201d were announced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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According to the results of the referendum on Ukraine\u2019s accession to the European Union, more than two million Hungarian citizens, that is, 95 percent of participants, voted against it, Orb\u00e1n said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Other media<\/a> also reported on a \u201creferendum\u201d in Hungary. Some, such as the News Agency of Republika Srpska<\/a>, Sputnik<\/a>, and the portal Banjaluka (.net)<\/a>, highlighted in their headlines Orb\u00e1n\u2019s statement that \u201c95 percent of Hungarians\u201d had \u201csaid \u2018no\u2019 to Ukraine in the EU,\u201d while in the articles they also referred to this vote as a referendum. These articles further stated that \u201cthe Hungarian prime minister emphasized that such referendum results give him a \u2018strong mandate\u2019 to defend Budapest\u2019s position at the summit in Brussels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Articles referring to the vote in Hungary as a referendum appeared on a large number of regional portals (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>, 4<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the Facts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hungarians did not vote on Ukraine\u2019s EU membership in a referendum. This vote was organized through a process called \u201cnational consultations\u201d, and its results are not binding. Fact-checking platforms Raskrinkavanje<\/a> from Montenegro, Faktograf<\/a> from Croatia, and Istinomer<\/a> from Serbia analyzed the false claims made by domestic media about this vote. However, despite their analyses pointing out the inaccuracies, media outlets did not correct their articles, and these disinformation narratives continued to spread in Bosnia and Herzegovina and across our language area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote, whose results Orb\u00e1n announced to journalists<\/a> upon his arrival at the EU leaders\u2019 summit in Brussels<\/a> on June 26, 2025, was called Voks 2025<\/a>.<\/em> It was a \u201cnational consultation\u201d in which citizens were asked: \u201cDo you support Ukraine\u2019s membership in the European Union?\u201d According to Faktograf<\/a>, the question was sent to households in envelopes that featured \u201cthe risks of Ukraine\u2019s EU accession.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This vote lasted from mid-April until June 21<\/a>. Citizens were able to vote online or by sending printed ballots via post. According to results announced by the Hungarian authorities<\/a>, just over 2.284.000 votes were received. \u201cNo\u201d was the answer on more than 2.168.000 ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Faktograf explained in its analysis<\/a>, \u201cnational consultations\u201d in Hungary are not the same as a referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in 2017, <\/em>Eszter Nova<\/em><\/a>, then a fellow at the Institute for Financial Studies in Budapest, author of the blog <\/em>Meanwhile in Budapest<\/em><\/a>, and now a lecturer at the CEVRO Institute in Prague and a political commentator, wrote about what \u201cnational consultations\u201d are and what they are used for in an article for Germany\u2019s Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.<\/em>
\u201cThe so-called \u2018national consultations\u2019 in Hungary are actually direct marketing campaigns in the form of letters sent to every Hungarian household in the name of the \u2018Government of Hungary.\u2019 They are accompanied by billboard campaigns across the country, with full support from state-controlled media, that is, media dominated by Fidesz (Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s <\/em>political party<\/em><\/a>), as well as ads in almost all local newspapers,\u201d Nova wrote <\/em>in the 2017 article<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Still, it is not possible to fully and independently verify<\/a> the results Orb\u00e1n announced. According to the Hungarian portal Telex<\/a>,<\/em> numerous irregularities were observed during the consultations. For example, citizens could vote multiple times online by using different email addresses. The government did not allow independent monitoring of the voting process or of the vote counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hungarian government, however, told Telex it was not assumed that citizens would deliberately falsify the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn response to doubts about the credibility and reliability of the survey, the Government Information Center told Telex that the Government does not assume that people want to cheat, but that they want to express their opinion, as demonstrated by the number of voters\u201d, the Telex article<\/a> stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same article also highlighted that the Hungarian government made great efforts to encourage as many people as possible to participate in these \u201cconsultations\u201d. Still, only about 30% of registered voters took part. More than five million Hungarians did not participate, Telex<\/a> stressed. Since this was not an official referendum<\/a> and such consultations are not legally binding, it is unsurprising that the majority of citizens did not take part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNational consultations\u201d in Hungary are held relatively often<\/a>, and according to the announced results, voter turnout varies<\/a>. However, a majority turnout has never been recorded in any of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hungary prescribes a specific legal procedure<\/a> for holding referendums, and the decision reached by referendum is binding for the country\u2019s parliament. Voting in a referendum, unlike in \u201cnational consultations\u201d, must be held on a Sunday, lasts one day, is carefully monitored, and voter eligibility is precisely defined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for the European Commission also emphasized that in this case it was a matter of \u201cnon-binding consultations<\/a>\u201d, noting that it was up to the Hungarian authorities to decide whether to act on the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, although the Hungarian government may or may not use the findings of such \u201cconsultations\u201d when forming its policies, they are not legally binding. This context was absent from the aforementioned media articles. In them, \u201cnational consultations\u201d were incorrectly called a referendum, which implied that the results were binding. Readers were not informed about what these \u201cconsultations\u201d actually are, nor about how many citizens actually participated. Potential manipulations of the results were also omitted in these articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Orb\u00e1n announced the results of these \u201cconsultations\u201d in Hungarian, and some of the video clips of his response to journalists\u2019 questions about these \u201cconsultations\u201d are incomplete and unclear, we cannot reliably claim whether he himself called them a \u201creferendum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hungarian government, led by Orb\u00e1n, officially opposes Ukraine joining the European Union<\/a>, with Orb\u00e1n emphasizing that such a move could destabilize this bloc.According to the aforementioned facts, we rate the claim that Hungarians voted in a referendum overwhelmingly against Ukraine\u2019s EU membership, while omitting a series of relevant facts about the vote and its results as manipulation of facts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article\u00a0(in Bosnian) was published on 4\/8\/2025; Author:\u00a0Marija \u0106osi\u0107 Numerous media outlets reported on a \u201creferendum\u201d in which Hungarians said \u201cno\u201d to Ukraine\u2019s potential entry into the EU. This is a manipulation; Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government conducted a non-binding (and a suggestive) survey on this issue, in which less than one-third of voters participated. Several regional media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-checks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11729,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11727\/revisions\/11729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}