BUDAPEST, Hungary\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Hungarian government\u2019s new Cabinet was sworn into office on Tuesday, marking the final transfer of power from the former administration of Viktor Orb\u00e1n to a new center-right government led by Prime Minister P\u00e9ter Magyar. <\/p>\n
The swearing-in of the 16 ministers came after only two days of parliamentary committee hearings, a sign that Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer who took office on Saturday, is seeking the quickest possible end to the political system Orb\u00e1n led for 16 years. <\/p>\n
Magyar\u2019s pro-European Tisza party defeated Orb\u00e1n\u2019s nationalist-populist Fidesz in a stunning blow last month, gaining more votes and seats in Parliament than any other party in Hungary\u2019s post-Communist history.<\/p>\n
The win, which gave Tisza a two-thirds majority, will allow it to roll back many of the policies that gave Orb\u00e1n a reputation among his critics as a far-right authoritarian.<\/p>\n
During comments following the swearing-in of his new ministers in Hungary\u2019s Parliament, Magyar said \u201cthe government now being formed will be the government of all Hungarians\u201d and \u201ca servant of the nation and not of the prime minister,\u201d in a direct critique of his predecessor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must repair the destruction, division, backwardness and loss of trust over the past two decades by making Hungary a functioning, livable and self-reliant country again,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Magyar\u2019s voters expect action on corruption<\/p>\n
Tisza gained 141 seats out of 199 in parliament, while Orb\u00e1n\u2019s euroskeptic Fidesz party now controls 52 seats, down from 135 before the election. The far-right Mi Haz\u00e1nk (Our Homeland) holds six seats. <\/p>\n
Many of the nearly 3.4 million Hungarians that voted for Tisza expect Magyar to hold Fidesz officials and their business allies accountable for the perceived misconduct and corruption of the outgoing administration.<\/p>\n
Magyar plans to form a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an authority tasked with investigating and seeking to recover public funds misused during Orb\u00e1n\u2019s tenure. He has also said Hungary will join the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office, allowing EU officials to investigate fraud cases and the way money from the bloc was spent. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s also vowed to suspend the news services of Hungary\u2019s public broadcaster \u2014 widely seen as a mouthpiece of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s party \u2014 until objectivity can be restored.<\/p>\n
In his inauguration speech, Magyar again called on many of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s appointees, who are in their roles for lengthy terms, to step down no later than May 31, including the president, the attorney general, the head of the media authority and the chief justice of the Constitutional Court. <\/p>\n
Hungary\u2019s new government has 16 ministries, up from 12 under Orb\u00e1n\u2019s last administration. Magyar has vowed to conduct a major overhaul of much of the governmental structure, and there are now separate ministries for health, environmental protection and education that did not exist under Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also said he will prioritize restoring democratic institutions and the rule of law which eroded under Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rule, and to hold accountable those who he says were responsible for overseeing and benefiting from widespread official corruption.<\/p>\n
New government wants to unblock frozen EU funds<\/p>\n
Magyar\u2019s administration is expected to transform political dynamics within the European Union, where the former prime minister had upended the bloc by frequently vetoing key decisions, most recently concerning support for neighboring Ukraine.<\/p>\n
As part of those efforts, Magyar\u2019s government has signaled it will prioritize the unblocking of about 17 billion euros ($20 billion) of EU funds frozen during Orb\u00e1n\u2019s time in office over rule-of-law and corruption concerns. The money is sorely needed to jump-start Hungary\u2019s struggling economy, which has stagnated for the past four years.<\/p>\n
In a video posted to Facebook on Monday, the new foreign minister, diplomat and foreign policy expert Anita Orb\u00e1n, said her ministry\u2019s primary task will be to \u201cbring EU funds home,\u201d and to \u201cconsolidate Hungary\u2019s place in Europe and in the EU.\u201d <\/p>\n
Among other cabinet members who took office Tuesday were Minister of Economy and Energy Istv\u00e1n Kapit\u00e1ny, a former Shell executive, and Minister of Finance Andr\u00e1s K\u00e1rm\u00e1n, an economist and former executive at Erste Bank. <\/p>\n
Spike and McNeil write for the Associated Press. McNeil reported from Brussels. AP writer B\u00e9la Szandelszky in Budapest contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, Hungary\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Hungarian government\u2019s new Cabinet was sworn into office on Tuesday, marking the final transfer of power…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16416],"tags":[489,39738,942,422,14660,7101,21226,39739,888,39740,388,934,28302,14587,350,512],"class_list":{"0":"post-68174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-peter-magyar","8":"tag-corruption","9":"tag-eu-fund","10":"tag-hungarian-government","11":"tag-hungary","12":"tag-magyar","13":"tag-minister","14":"tag-ministry","15":"tag-new-minister","16":"tag-office","17":"tag-other-party","18":"tag-parliament","19":"tag-peter-magyar","20":"tag-seat","21":"tag-tisza","22":"tag-viktor-orban","23":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116563134568456407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}