Unlike what we witnessed in Great Britain, Hungarians will not be able to vote in a referendum on whether to leave the European Union–often referred to as Huxit–following a decision this week by the National Election Commission (Nemzeti Választási Bizottság – NVB). A populist, right-wing former mayor from the town of Monok submitted a proposed referendum to the NVB, demanding that Hungarians […]
Tibor Navracsics, one of Fidesz’s most prominent politicians and currently the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, spoke this weekend at a symposium organized by a foundation affiliated with the Politics Can Be Different green party (Lehet Más a Politika – LMP). Mr. Navracsics, who is considered a dove within Fidesz, especially now that he works for the European […]
Antal Rogán, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office, gave an interview Sunday morning to state-run Kossuth Radio. Speaking about the impact of the terrorist attack in Nice, he warned Hungarians about travelling to western European countries with significant immigrant populations, as he believes that the integration of immigrants has failed and therefore the risk of terrorism is high. “Europe […]
Nándor Csepreghy, Deputy Minister in the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, disagrees with his boss, János Lázár, who recently toyed with the hypothetical idea of a Hungarian referendum on European Union membership and said that in such a plebiscite, he would vote for Huxit. It is quite widely believed that Mr. Lázár’s suggestion of Hungary’s departure from the EU was a […]
Hungary has already left the European Union, at least in terms of the Orbán government’s overt rejection of the ties that have bound the country to the Transatlantic community since 1990, including the system of checks and balances, judicial independence (however flawed this may have been, at times), parliamentary democracy and media freedom. But a growing number of analysts believe that […]
Writing in Saturday’s printed edition of the Népszava daily, journalist and author Paul Lendvai suggested that Brexit “strengthened Viktor Orbán’s position, almost as much as the recent soccer victories” during the UEFA European Championship. While Mr. Orbán may benefit on the surface, and in the very short-term, I would argue that Brexit will pose a very serious challenge to his […]
Júlia Mira Lévai is a liberal journalist and author, who was a regular contributor to the now folded Galamus Csoport online news site. On Monday, she wrote a column for the hvg.hu news magazine, in which she referred to recent comments by Tibor Navracsics, a Fidesz politician and currently the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, as a “bombshell.” Mr. […]
On Friday night, Fidesz vice president Szilárd Németh debated Viktor Szigetvári, president of the centre-left Együtt (Together) party on ATV, Hungary’s only centre-left cable news channel. Within minutes, the Fidesz politician was demonizing the refugees and migrants arriving in Europe, suggesting that “ordinary” Hungarians cannot co-exist with refugees in Hungary and implied that Hungarian opposition politicians were traitors allied to […]
Zsuzsanna Szelényi is a foreign policy analyst and Member of Parliament affiliated with the centre-left Együtt (Together) Party. Ms. Szelényi argues that through Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s war against the West and Moscow’s highly effective use of 21st century hybrid warfare, Hungary is being turned into a colony of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. We are translating Ms. Szelényi’s insightful analysis from the […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán certainly found his groove in the last few months, since the refugee crisis and the election in Poland of the populist Law and Justice Party, headed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his ally, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło. The ruling Fidesz party went from an increasingly tired clique that had been in power too long and one which […]
