Hungary’s far-right government is looking west. From Budapest to Buenos Aires, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is building alliances in Latin America through a growing network of political allies, think tanks, and conservative conferences. Driving this push is the Center for Fundamental Rights (CFR), a propaganda arm of Orbán’s regime, that opened its first foreign office in Madrid in March 2024.
On its website, the CFR emphasizes that Spain serves not only as “a key part of that strategy in itself, but also an invaluable bridge and a gateway towards Latin America.” Its stated goal is to “become a key actor in fully bringing the nations of Latin America, a vital component of our shared Western civilization, into the struggle against our neo-Marxist common enemies.”
Since the establishment of the Madrid delegation, Vajk Farkas, who heads the CFR’s office in Spain and previously served as director of communications at the Office of the President of Hungary, has been actively involved in the region. He has participated in events in Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, including several Conservative Political Action Conferences (CPAC) held throughout the continent. These gatherings have also featured American speakers such as Melissa Ford, a member of the America First Policy Institute —a think tank created to promote Trump’s agenda— and former Trump administration staffer, and Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany who now serves as Trump’s special envoy.
Farkas attended an event organized by Foro Madrid in Paraguay. (Source:X)
The CFR offices in Budapest and Madrid are working to expand their network and strengthen ties with international far-right organizations by hosting visits, meetings, and workshops. Politicians and activists from Peru, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia have visited Orbán’s think tank in Spain and Hungary. The Madrid office has also hosted figures such as American Matt Schlapp, a prominent Trump ally and chairman of CPAC.
In an interview, Farkas said that although Hungary has traditionally sought alliances with Europe and the United States, it has long overlooked Latin America. He described the region as a “reserve of Western civilization and culture,” claiming that its societies still uphold values “that the left is now trying to destroy.”
The CFR positions itself against what it calls “gender propaganda and immigration,” criticizes diversity, and states on its website that “postmodern leftist ideology” has the “ultimate goal of replacing Western Civilization with something radically different.”
Farkas emphasized that this kind of transnational alliance is a reaction by “patriotic conservative forces” against the narratives of the international left, particularly on social and issues such as migration and gender and LGTBQ+ rights. The director of the CFR’s Spain office believes their “adversaries” share “a single mindset” and “try to implement the same agenda” in every country they operate in, whether it’s Hungary, France, the United States, or Chile.”
A post from CFR’s Spain office reads “A meeting of @CPAC #wokebusters from both sides of the Atlantic 🇭🇺🇺🇸 at our office in Spain 🇪🇸. Thanks to @MSchlapp and @MercedesSchlapp!” (Source:X)
Spain’s far-right party Vox has been instrumental in advancing this strategy, helping Orbán build political alliances across the region. Farkas acknowledged the role of Disenso, Vox’s think tank, as well as the Center for Studies, Training and Social Analysis (CEFAS), a Spanish far-right institute linked to the CEU private university and founded by the Catholic Association of Propagandists (ACdP, by its Spanish acronym). Founded in 1908 by individuals connected to the Catholic Church, the ACdP describes its mission as “bringing Catholicism into public life,” a goal it pursues in Spain through the CEU University and El Debate, the newspaper it manages.
A few days after the CFR’s Spain office was inaugurated in March, representatives from the center, Vox, and the CEFAS think tanks took part in a panel discussion in Madrid about the future of the Atlantic community, meaning European, North American and Latin American countries. The Heritage Foundation, which is behind the authoritarian Project 2025 plan Trump is now enacting, co-hosted the event.
Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, was one of the speakers. In his speech, he claimed that the enemies of the Atlantic community did not disappear with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, he said, communism has imposed cancel culture over freedom and infiltrated universities through “woke engineering.” After the event, the Center for Fundamental Rights posted on X: “We must continue our fight for the soul of the #West everywhere in our civilization, very much including #Spain and the #Iberosphere, if we hope to save what made us great from the Cult of #Woke!”.
Seeking to expand its footprint in the region, the CFR in July 2025, released a report that continued their criticism of “woke” ideology and promoted an anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ+ narrative. The report condemned what it called the “Pink Tide” of European Union aid and accused Brussels of funding “woke” Latin American NGOs.
The report claimed that over €939 million in EU funds, distributed to around 800 NGOs over ten years, had been decisive in creating a favorable climate for what it called “left-radical politicians and their discourse.” The document further alleged that “far-left activist groups” had received “multimillion sums” under thematic areas including LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, sexual and reproductive health, indigenism, migration, and “antidisinformation.”
The CFR’s Spain office concluded that much of the intended development aid had been “diverted toward a predetermined ideological agenda.” The report also highlighted Donald Trump’s recent slashing of multiple programs and grants as an example of how to reshape funding priorities. It noted that the closure of USAID left “the EU as the major public funder of the selfsame neo-Marxist NGOs in the region.”
The CFR’s Spain office post about a meeting with José Antonio Kast, Chile’s far-right Republican Party leader. (Source: X)
Allies of Orbán’s regime were the first to circulate the report’s claims online. Among them was Spanish Vox parliamentarian Herman Tersch, who is part of Patriots, a political group in the European Parliament that includes MEPs from Orban’s political party, Fidesz. In posts on X, Tersch claimed that the EU provided nearly one thousand million euros “to destroy democratic, national, and conservative forces in Ibero-American countries.”
Vox’s important role in networking not only includes its think tank, Disenso, but also the transnational advocacy network Foro Madrid. Just two months ago, Farkas publicly acknowledged their work at a Foro Madrid event in Paraguay, describing it as a “good example” of a political hub.
Launched by Vox in 2020, Foro Madrid presents itself as “a great international alliance of leaders, entities, and parties that defend freedom, democracy, and the rule of law against the advance of communism in countries on both sides of the Atlantic.” The party and its allies promote the network as a conservative counterweight to the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, two political platforms that bring together Latin American left-wing parties and leaders—ranging from social democrats to communists—such as Brazil’s Lula da Silva, former Uruguayan president José Mujica, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.
Announcement of a 2022 event organized by Vox, featuring far-right politicians from Latin America, Europe, and the United States. (Source: X)
An academic investigation by Stefano Palestini and Cristóbal Rovira, published in Global Challenges to Democracy, highlights Foro Madrid’s role in connecting far-right political parties across the region. Prior to Foro Madrid, the authors note that such links were “at best weak, if not entirely absent,” as parties were primarily focused on their domestic electoral agendas.
They point out that many of Foro Madrid’s members are relatively new political parties, including Chile’s Republican Party, founded in 2019, and Argentina’s La Libertad Avanza, led by Javier Milei and established in 2021. Palestini and Rovira also underscore Tersch’s involvement during the period when Vox was part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament. In this context, Tersch organized two encounters between the ECR and Foro Madrid.
Beyond Vox, other Spanish far-right organizations, such as the anti-LGBTQ+ group CitizenGO, have attempted to influence the region. For example, during the 55th Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in Antigua and Barbuda, CitizenGO launched an advertising campaign at the airport with posters and banners bearing messages such as “OAS: Say No to Woke Indoctrination.” However, the campaign was swiftly removed.
Rocío D’Angelo, a global campaigner at CitizenGO, posted a photo showing a banner addressed to the OAS. (Source: X).
CPAC Hungary has actively promoted Latin American participation. At the 2024 event, 13 of 60 attendees were from the region. Reflecting this presence, one panel, titled “Resisting the Awakening of the Iberosphere,” was conducted entirely in Spanish and included participants such as Jorge Martín Frías (MEP from Vox and Disenso director), Colombian Senator María Fernanda Cabal, and Paraguayan Ambassador Gustavo Leite, among others.
After traveling to Hungary, José Antonio Kast, Chile’s far-right Republican Party leader, came home with a proposal for his supporters: to build a border fence with Bolivia, similar to the one Orbán built along Serbia’s border, supposedly to stop irregular migration. The idea made headlines across Chile, highlighting how gatherings like CPAC serve as platforms for exchanging strategies across the Atlantic.
With Jair Bolsonaro’s political decline in Brazil, Argentina’s Javier Milei has emerged as Orbán’s most prominent Latin American ally. The Hungarian prime minister has praised Milei as an “outstanding figure” in contemporary politics. This outreach by the Hungarian government reflects a deeper shift: Latin America has become a new battleground in the far right’s transnational strategy.
