{"id":7649,"date":"2026-05-20T00:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/7649\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T00:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:44:14","slug":"hungarys-magyar-kicks-off-his-first-foreign-trip-as-prime-minister-to-ally-poland-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/7649\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary\u2019s Magyar kicks off his first foreign trip as prime minister to ally Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUDAPEST \u2013 Hungary\u2019s new prime minister arrived on Tuesday in Poland, a longtime ally whose recent political transformation has plenty of lessons to offer on how P\u00e9ter Magyar\u2019s government<\/a> can go about reversing his country\u2019s authoritarian drift<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Magyar, whose center-right Tisza party defeated Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n in an earthquake election<\/a> last month, is starting his Polish journey in the southern city of Krakow. He’s later expected to board a train to the capital, Warsaw, where on Wednesday he will meet with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Karol Nawrocki.<\/p>\n

The journey to Poland, Magyar’s first foreign trip since he took office on May 9, is a symbolic gesture both to the centuries-old affinity the Central European countries share and Magyar’s commitment to steering Hungary back onto a democratic, European path. <\/p>\n

His stunning defeat of Orb\u00e1n drew comparisons to Poland\u2019s 2023 election, when Tusk\u2019s center-right coalition defeated the national-conservative Law and Justice party after eight years in power.<\/p>\n

Like Tusk before him, Magyar aims to unlock billions in European Union funds that were frozen under Orb\u00e1n over rule-of-law and corruption concerns. <\/p>\n

Also like Tusk, he’s moved quickly to restore democratic institutions eroded during the previous autocratic government, including the judiciary and public media, while seeking accountability for officials accused of abuses of power. <\/p>\n

When the two leaders meet on Wednesday, they\u2019re expected to discuss restoring the bilateral relations that suffered deeply over Orb\u00e1n\u2019s adversarial approach to Ukraine<\/a> and his close ties to the Kremlin. <\/p>\n

Hungary’s new leader hit the ground running<\/p>\n

After taking office, Magyar called openly for many Orb\u00e1n appointees to step down or be removed<\/a> by constitutional amendment \u2014 a power available to him after Tisza won a two-thirds majority in Parliament.<\/p>\n

He’s targeted Hungary’s President Tam\u00e1s Sulyok, who has a mostly ceremonial role but with some key constitutional powers, as well as the country’s attorney general and the heads of the constitutional and supreme courts \u2014 all figures he has decried as \u201cOrb\u00e1n\u2019s puppets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrzej Sadecki, an analyst with the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, told The Associated Press that Magyar’s biggest challenge is that \u201csome key state institutions are still in the hands of people nominated by Fidesz,\u201d Orb\u00e1n’s party. <\/p>\n

Still, unlike in Poland after Tusk’s 2023 election win, \u201cthe situation is much easier for Magyar because he has a constitutional majority. This makes it much easier for him to introduce deep changes,\u201d Sadecki said.<\/p>\n

While Tusk took power through a coalition government, Magyar\u2019s Tisza won 53% of the vote, gaining more votes and seats in Parliament than any other party in Hungary\u2019s post-Communist history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a change of government, it\u2019s a watershed moment,\u201d Sadecki added.<\/p>\n

Magyar’s priorities include dismantling Orb\u00e1n\u2019s hold on the media<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rule was marked by a sprawling media ecosystem<\/a>, which for years served as a loyal mouthpiece for his Fidesz party while discrediting, defaming and intimidating his opponents.<\/p>\n

Fresh from election victory, Magyar slammed public broadcasters under Orb\u00e1n as \u201ca factory of lies,\u201d and said his government would suspend their news services until \u201cthe conditions for objectivity are restored.\u201d <\/p>\n

The approach mirrors steps taken by Tusk’s government, which less than a month after taking power revamped evening newscasts on state television. Poland’s new government argued its ownership of public media gave it the authority to replace executives at state outlets \u2014 though the process drew criticism even by some liberal groups.<\/p>\n

J\u00f3zsef P\u00e9ter Martin, executive director of Transparency International Hungary, said the degree to which Hungary’s public media had failed to fulfill its role means that \u201cit should be rebuilt, and it can be done within the framework of the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magyar goal to establish judicial independence is a tough task<\/p>\n

During its years in power, Poland’s Law and Justice party tightened control over the courts<\/a> by appointing loyalist judges to higher courts and punishing critics with disciplinary action. <\/p>\n

It also installed enough sympathetic judges to the Constitutional Tribunal to delay bills the party deemed unfavorable by referring them for constitutional review. Tusk government efforts to reverse those changes have repeatedly been blocked<\/a> by two subsequent Law and Justice-sympathetic presidents. <\/p>\n

While progress was made in some areas, judicial independence has not been fully restored in Poland, and Magyar’s government could face similar challenges. <\/p>\n

Despite Magyar’s calls for him to resign, Sulyok \u2014 an Orb\u00e1n ally whose term expires in 2029 \u2014 has indicated he does not intend to step down. Also, the head of Hungary’s Constitutional Court, P\u00e9ter Polt, widely regarded as a Fidesz loyalist, is to remain in office until 2037. <\/p>\n

Though many Hungarian judges and prosecutors faithfully carry out their duties, judicial leadership \u2014 including the heads of the constitutional and supreme courts \u2014 should be replaced to restore trust and impartiality, said Martin of Transparency International Hungary. <\/p>\n

And \u201cnot with (Magyar’s) Tisza loyalists, because then we would go from one problem to the other, but with someone who has full integrity and devotion to the Hungarian constitution and to the public interest, and not to the interest of the former autocratic regime,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

Holding former officials to account may be difficult <\/p>\n

Even without fully restoring judicial independence, Polish prosecutors have opened investigations and pursued cases against former Law and Justice officials they accuse of abusing their positions to benefit their political allies.<\/p>\n

In October, Polish prosecutors announced plans to charge former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro with diverting state money and using it for his own personal and political gain. <\/p>\n

Prosecution of Ziobro, however, stalled when he announced in January that he had been granted asylum in Orb\u00e1n’s Hungary<\/a>. Since Magyar’s election win, Ziobro has said he is now in the United States<\/a>, with Polish authorities seeking his return. <\/p>\n

Many of the nearly 3.4 million Hungarians that voted for Tisza expect the new government to hold Orb\u00e1n and his political and economic allies accountable.<\/p>\n

Magyar has pledged to create the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an authority tasked with investigating and seeking to recover public funds allegedly misused during Orb\u00e1n\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

According to Martin, restoring the rule of law and judicial independence would be \u201cthe initial and most essential step\u201d toward ensuring past abuses will be prosecuted. <\/p>\n

Hungary joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, something Magyar has promised to do, would be a step in the right direction, he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf all this is done, then I think there is a good chance that the corrupt perpetrators of the former regime, under an independent judiciary, can be held accountable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Spike reported from Budapest, Hungary. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST \u2013 Hungary\u2019s new prime minister arrived on Tuesday in Poland, a longtime ally whose recent political transformation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,362,366,371,331,1207],"class_list":["post-7649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-tusk","tag-donald-tusk","tag-elections","tag-peter-magyar","tag-viktor-orban","tag-world-news","tag-zbigniew-ziobro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}