The transformative impact of Péter Magyar’s historic election victory over Viktor Orbán is already being felt in Brussels. On Monday, two days after Mr Magyar was sworn in as Hungary’s new prime minister, his new pro-EU government lifted the veto which for over a year has prevented the EU imposing sanctions on violent Israeli settlers. This followed a similar breakthrough on a long-delayed £78bn loan to Ukraine, which Mr Orbán had also blocked. At a critical geopolitical moment, the end of an era in Budapest is freeing the EU to act in defence of its interests and values.
Mr Magyar, who inherits a struggling economy stifled by years of cronyism and corruption, will hope and expect that the benefits of rapprochement cut both ways. In total, around £17bn of EU development funds to Hungary remain off-limits, following Mr Orbán’s refusal to address multiple transgressions of EU law. Agreement on the disbursement of around £10bn needs to be reached by the end of August.
Brussels will want evidence of concrete progress in areas such as judicial reform and anti-corruption measures. The signs are that it won’t have to wait long. Hungary’s prime minister, a disillusioned former Fidesz member, gives every impression of being a man in a hurry. In his first speech in office, he asked the Orbán-appointed president, Tamás Sulyok, to step down by the end of May.
Dismantling the insidious structures of what had become a soft autocracy will not be easy. Over the course of 16 years, Mr Orbán and his Fidesz party overrode the rule of law to embed a formidable clientelist network throughout civil society. But the wind has changed. The unexpectedly decisive nature of Mr Magyar’s victory – and the fact that a two-thirds majority gives him the power to change Hungary’s constitution – appears to be draining power away from those associated with the ancien regime, many of whom are now under investigation.
Over the weekend one of Hungary’s richest businessmen, whose companies had monopolised the government budget for official information campaigns, announced that he was offering to hand them over to the state. Other beneficiaries of the Orbán era are reportedly scrambling to shield their assets from public scrutiny. Lőrinc Mészáros, a close friend of Mr Orbán who also accrued extraordinary wealth through government patronage, is rumoured to be planning to leave the country.
Mr Magyar has rightly demanded that those attempting to protect ill-gotten gains and escape public scrutiny be pursued by the law. As the aura of invincibility that sustained Mr Orbán and his circle shatters, he has also pledged that the new Hungary will be a nation where liberal views and causes can be expressed and promoted without fear of harassment and intimidation.
Progressive voters – who were crucial to the united front which gave his Tisza party a landslide – will demand action on issues such as Mr Orbán’s rolling back of LGBTQ+ rights. The new government has a duty to ensure that liberal voices count, in a parliament where the left is unrepresented for the first time since the fall of communism. In his inaugural speech as prime minister last weekend, Mr Magyar promised a “Hungary which will be home for every Hungarian.” He has made a fast start. For the sake of his country and Europe as a whole, the early momentum needs to be maintained.