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Hungary on Saturday urged the European Union to follow the United States in designating Antifa as a terrorist organization, citing a series of violent incidents allegedly linked to the far-left movement across Europe.
The call came days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would designate Antifa — a loose network of far-left groups with no central leadership — as “a major terrorist organisation” following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a letter to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas that Antifa poses a “grave threat to the security of the citizens of the European Union and its Member States.”
“Individuals and groups linked to the so-called Antifa ideology have carried out numerous terrorist attacks across the European Union, including in Germany, France, and Italy,” he wrote.
Szijjarto pointed to February 2023, when affiliates of Antifa allegedly carried out five “brutal assaults” in Budapest in broad daylight. He lamented that several suspects later avoided justice by seeking refuge in EU countries that declined to extradite them, while another — Italian activist Ilaria Salis — gained immunity after being elected to the European Parliament.
“These appalling acts illustrate beyond doubt that the Antifa movement constitutes a grave threat,” Szijjarto said, calling for a stronger EU-wide response.
Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a close ally of Trump in Europe, and Szijjarto said the government was “convinced that on such a crucial matter Europe must align its steps with the US, the leading force in the global fight against terrorism.”
Szijjarto urged the EU to add Antifa to its list of terrorist organizations and impose restrictive measures on individuals and groups connected to it. “This violent far-left network has carried out brutal attacks across Europe, including in Budapest. To our great regret, suspects later avoided justice by finding refuge in EU states,” he said.
The Antifa movement emerged in the United States during Trump’s first term in 2016. It has no central leadership and consists of “independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals,” according to a 2020 Congressional Research Service analysis.
The name traces back to socialist groups in 1930s Germany that opposed Adolf Hitler. Members, often dressed in black, have a record of confronting right-wing groups and say violent tactics are sometimes justified as self-defense.
During Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, Antifa-aligned protesters smashed windows and set a car on fire in Washington. Later that year, Antifa activists took part in counterprotests against white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In June 2020, Trump vowed to designate Antifa as terrorists “on the same level as al-Qaeda and Islamic State.” But FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress the movement was “a movement or an ideology” rather than an organization.
Critics of Trump’s latest move say it could be used to quash dissent and target political rivals.
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