Good Friday morning. Carl here, en route to Budapest for Europe’s highest-stakes election this year.
Flying from Belgium to Hungary is a journey between two small countries with outsized political weight. One hosts the institutional heart of the European project; the other, its most effective internal antagonist and lodestar for would-be autocrats everywhere.
Viktor Orbán’s standing in strongman circles is well-deserved. Since returning to power 16 years ago — propelled by the Hungarian left’s failure to deliver economic convergence with Western Europe — the prime minister has made good on his promise to build an illiberal state. What’s more, he’s done so less through brute force than through legal engineering and political cunning.
After his landslide victory in 2010, Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz party — once a liberal youth movement — used its parliamentary supermajority to erase checks and balances. It rewrote the constitution and co-opted much of the judiciary. It hijacked the media, of which it now controls some 80%. It reshaped academia by transforming public universities into private foundations aligned with the regime. And it wielded legal and economic tools to recast civil society in its own image.
“These are the four dimensions of this illiberal or semi-authoritarian regime,” said Daniel Hegedüs, deputy director of the Institute for European Politics. “They have a full circle.”
But just like Orbán rode decades of economic frustration to power, the conservative opposition party, Tisza, has gained ground amid stagnant growth, rising living costs and dwindling opportunity.
One of the key achievements of opposition leader Péter Magyar, Hegedüs said, has been to clearly communicate the link between the regime’s kleptocracy and the country’s economic woes. “That economic growth is low because they steal,” he said, “[that] public services are in this desolate state because they have stolen their money and funneled it into their corruption networks.”
If polls are to be believed, they suggest the message has landed: the opposition currently holds a double-digit lead ahead of Sunday's vote.
Still, expectations should be tempered. Orbán has built a system designed not only to make him unaccountable but unsackable, redrawing electoral boundaries and rules to amplify his rural base. It was that warped and gerrymandered system that in 2014 handed Fidesz close to 70% of parliamentary seats with just 45% of the vote.
For Hungarians hoping for a better future, and for an EU hoping for a more cooperative member, the question is also whether a new government would be successful in the Herculean de-Orbánization effort needed to revitalize Hungary. By stacking key institutions with loyalists, Orbán has set tripwires across the whole political landscape.
“The biggest package he leaves behind are those leaders — members of the Constitutional Court, the leader of the Court of Auditors,” said Krisztina Arató, a political scientist at Eötvös Loránd University. “And there is a huge question how these people are going to behave after a potential government change.”
Stay tuned for our post-election analysis on Monday.
What we're writing
Margherita Dalla Vecchia: What are the long-term risks of the EU's return hubs?
Plans to send migrants to non-EU states could leave them stranded in fragile regions, while giving third countries new leverage over Europe.
Paula Soler: War has reached space, and Europe isn’t ready
The EU’s space ambitions are undermined by patchy coordination and foreign dependence.
Federica Di Sario: Could Iranian-linked terrorism pull Europe into war?
In this Q+A, Thomas Renard, director of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, explains why a string of suspected pro-Iranian bombings could force European capitals to confront Tehran more directly.
Peder Schaefer: EU member states pursue social media bans, outpacing Brussels
National governments are moving fast on restrictions for minors, putting pressure on the European Commission to avoid a patchwork of rules and legal collisions.
Federica Di Sario: The €30-billion bid to link Finland to the wider EU
A bridge to Sweden once seemed like fantasy. Now, for Finland, it may be a necessity.
What we're reading
The Atlantic: A new geopolitical reality is here
America’s adversaries are uniting as its own coalition falls apart.
The Wall Street Journal: Extent of damage to Middle East energy facilities key to economic impact, OECD says
"What worries us is the damage to infrastructure," Stefano Scarpetta noted.
Economist: Why a big country like Italy acts as if it were small
Equivocating between Trump and Europe suits a history of switching sides.
Foreign Policy: How Ukraine benefited from Trump’s Iran war
Countries are lining up for military deals with Kyiv.
What we're following
The Parliament's April print edition is out now.
This issue explores Europe's need for more female soldiers, the impending energy crisis as a result of the war in the Middle East, how the EU is falling behind in space, and much more.
Read a preview here and subscribe to receive a hard copy.
Sign up to The Parliament's weekly newsletter
Every Friday our editorial team goes behind the headlines to offer insight and analysis on the key stories driving the EU agenda. Subscribe for free here.