Less than a week after Viktor Orbán’s smackdown defeat in Hungary’s April 12 election, European Commission officials will arrive in Budapest today for their first meeting with the victorious opposition Tisza party. On the table: €17 billion in EU funds that have been frozen since 2022 over rule-of-law concerns.
The meeting comes as early, breathless claims that Hungary is the starter shot for a broader democratic wave has already cooled amid growing skepticism over the politics of the incoming government. But much of this recalibration misses the point.
That the ascent of Tisza leader Péter Magyar doesn’t represent a liberal victory in the Anglo-Saxon sense is clear enough: he leads a center-right party that is firmly anti-migration, Hungary-first and skeptical of Ukraine.
But very little turns on this. Magyar’s stance on migration only means his politics fits more or less with the prevailing mood of the European People's Party. His caution on Ukraine simply suggests that Hungary is unlikely to contribute financially, while not keeping others from doing so.
The liberal win is rather that Magyar, unlike Orbán, isn’t committed to illiberalism. His campaign was centered on restoring the rule of law, distancing Budapest from Moscow and mending ties with the EU. And there is, for now, little reason to doubt his intent: reneging on his promises would mean testing the patience of an electorate that, as of five days ago, knows it can unseat even the most entrenched leader.
What matters more is delivery — and resuscitating the economy will likely be a crucial test.
As several analysts told me in the week leading up to Sunday’s vote, the conventional wisdom among political scientists was that Hungarians couldn’t be mobilized by anti-corruption narratives. That changed when the graft and nepotism under Orbán’s Fidesz party began to bleed into household finances.
My conversations with voters in Budapest last weekend bore this out. Many, including long-time Fidesz supporters, were turning to the opposition simply because homeownership and upward mobility seemed an increasingly distant prospect.
As for those still backing Fidesz, some had inevitably bought into Orbán’s fear campaign — viewing the EU and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as a gateway into war, chaos and loss of national sovereignty. But many more spoke about gas prices and the benefits of cheap Russian energy, while viewing Orbán as the safer bet to secure state-backed family benefits.
The durability of Magyar’s sprawling coalition will likely hinge on whether he can quickly reverse the economic decline. Unlocking the frozen EU funds — equivalent to roughly one-twelfth of Hungary’s annual GDP — will be an early test of credibility.
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