Make Europe Great Again

Viktor Orbán’s framing of Europe

Abstract

This paper examines the framing Viktor Orbán uses to mobilize his supporters by depicting the European Union as an adversary, despite recognizing the strong domestic support for EU membership. To address this, a frame analysis was conducted on Orbán’s radio interviews from 2020 to 2022. Over this period, 85 interviews were reviewed, identifying 128 instances of framing, which were categorized into eight distinct groups. Similarly to Trump’s framing of decline in the USA, Orbán’s discourse portrays Europe as being in retreat, both culturally and in policy areas such as pandemic management and the economy, while presenting Hungary as having outperformed the EU in these domains. He characterizes the European Commission as biased against Hungary, serving foreign financial interests by promoting migration into the EU rather than supporting families. Orbán distances his voters from the EU and disassociates the values of economic development, freedom and security from Europe while offering an alternative modernization based on Christianity, traditional family and sovereignty.