Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban pledged on Saturday to crack down on politicians and journalists who receive foreign funding and again ruled out EU membership for Ukraine, stepping up his campaign for elections due in a year.

"There is always an empire that is trying to take away the freedom of the Hungarians, and right now it is the one in Brussels," Viktor Orban said in a speech on Saturday. View on euronews

In a conspiracy theory-laden address, which coincided with a national holiday commemorating Hungary’s 1848 revolution against Habsburg rule, Viktor Orbán told a group of several thousand select supporters that Hungary in the coming weeks will uproot media outlets and other organizations that have received funding from abroad,

Hungary's populist prime minister Saturday vowed to rid his country of those he claims work for the interests of foreign powers, saying in a conspiracy theory-laden speech that his right-wing government will eliminate a global “shadow army” that serves the European Union and a “liberal American empire.