Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned of liberal billionaire George Soros’s “trans-border empire” in his annual state of the nation speech on Friday, the Associated Press is reporting.
Orban claimed that groups funded by Soros, which he referred to as “large-bodied predators,” are trying to influence Hungarian politics, according to the AP.
“Large-bodied predators are swimming here in the waters. This is the trans-border empire of George Soros, with tons of money and international heavy artillery,” Orban said.
The nationalist prime minister has been a fierce critic of the Hungarian-born Soros, who uses his Open Society Foundations network to influence politics around the world. As originally reported by The Daily Caller last August, OSF secretly paid the salaries of staffers working for the Moldovan prime minister from July 2013 to February 2015.
“In every country, they will want to displace Soros,” Orban said back in December. “In the coming year, Soros and his forces will be squeezed out.”
Orban and Hungary have been reluctant to take in Islamic refugees, which the prime minister believes are a threat to Europe’s cultural existence. Hungary erected a border fence in October, which has been largely successful in keeping refugees out of the country.
Soros is a staunch advocate of open-borders policies.
As first reported by TheDC, a leaked OSF memo said Europe’s refugee crisis provides “new opportunities” for Soros to exert global influence. (RELATED: Leaked Soros Memo: Refugee Crisis ‘New Normal,’ Provides ‘New Opportunities’ For Global Influence)