{"id":432980,"date":"2026-04-13T08:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/432980\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T08:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:21:09","slug":"eu-needs-to-rein-in-hungary-expectations-after-viktor-orbans-election-defeat-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/432980\/","title":{"rendered":"EU needs to rein in Hungary expectations after Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s election defeat \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scale of Peter Magyar\u2019s victory over Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a> gives him a chance to undo much of the damage of the past 16 years. But Brussels should rein in its expectations.<\/p>\n

Hope and change in Budapest<\/b><\/p>\n

Last night\u2019s landslide victory for Magyar\u2019s Tisza party in Hungary<\/a> was a cause for celebration in most European capitals, and above all in Brussels. The departure of Orb\u00e1n after 16 years in power removes from the stage, for now, a figure whose success has inspired and nurtured the rise of the new right across Europe.<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s EU<\/a> partners hope that Magyar will return his country to the European political mainstream without delay, using his two-thirds majority in parliament to reverse Orb\u00e1n\u2019s constitutional changes. But they should expect some continuity, particularly in Budapest\u2019s approach to migration, Ukraine\u2019s ambition to join the EU, and relations with China.<\/p>\n

The EU has blocked the disbursement of about \u20ac18 billion in cohesion and post-Covid recovery funds to Hungary in response to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s breaches of rule of law principles. These include undermining judicial independence and media pluralism through political control and economic pressure, allowing his cronies to capture parts of the economy and trying to use electoral law to favour his Fidesz party.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople celebrate in Budapest after Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n conceded defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary election, Photograph: Ferenc ISZA\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Magyar put the fight against corruption and state capture at the centre of his election campaign, along with promises to boost economic growth, improve public services and increase wages and pensions. Accessing the blocked EU funds is essential to the success of his economic programme, which could in turn determine whether he retains the support of the public and of his ideologically diverse party.<\/p>\n

When Donald Tusk became Poland\u2019s prime minister in 2023, the European Commission unblocked \u20ac137 billion in frozen funds after he agreed an action plan to undo rule of law breaches by his right-wing predecessors. But Tusk shares power with a conservative president and lacks a super-majority in parliament and the action plan has not yet been fully implemented.<\/p>\n

Before Sunday\u2019s election, influential voices in Brussels were calling for a more cautious approach towards Hungary so that the frozen funds would be released in stages and made conditional on compliance with a rule of law plan. Other European actors could be tempted to use the funds as leverage to shift the new Hungarian government\u2019s position on other issues.<\/p>\n

Magyar is likely to unblock a \u20ac90 billion EU loan to Ukraine that Orb\u00e1n was vetoing but he is opposed to accelerating Kyiv\u2019s admission as a member state and rejects the migration and asylum pact. And although he has agreed to phase out energy imports from Russia, he says he will do so by 2035, eight years after the EU target of 2027.<\/p>\n

Hungary is the biggest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe, attracting almost a third of the total so that Chinese companies are the biggest investors in the country after German firms. Chinese battery manufacturers and electric car makers have established big production facilities in Hungary, often with state support.<\/p>\n

Although Magyar\u2019s party has complained that Chinese investment has not brought enough benefits to Hungary, he is likely to maintain Budapest\u2019s friendly relations with Beijing. <\/p>\n

Other EU member states are also wooing Chinese investment, with Spain\u2019s Pedro S\u00e1nchez in Beijing this week for the fourth time in as many years.<\/p>\n

Please let me know what you think and send your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scale of Peter Magyar\u2019s victory over Viktor Orb\u00e1n gives him a chance to undo much of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,2219,13,14,137837,6,25126,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,26163,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-432980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-european-union","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-global-briefing","tag-headlines","tag-hungary","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-viktor-orban","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116396430868682743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}