Hungary

Populist parties raise important questions but offer terrible answers, a weakness others should exploit. Populism is by no means a new phenomenon, but recent years have seen a clear rise in parties turning to a more authoritarian, populist strategy of winning over voters. Now, the populist movement has managed to establish a strong position in Europe, and although its popularity is not currently rising, it is not diminishing either.

The 2024 EP and municipal elections in Hungary, held on the same day, provide a complex and illuminating study of how financial resources, legal frameworks, and media control shape electoral outcomes. The Fidesz party\'s overwhelming dominance in campaign spending, both directly and indirectly, highlights significant imbalances in the democratic process.

For most of us, it becomes a frequent, increasingly common, everyday experience that causes anxiety, tension, or simply a bad feeling when a politically charged public topic is discussed during a conversation. We can also say that this phenomenon has become an integral part of Hungarian reality. In most cases, this sentiment is triggered by the fact that we find it increasingly difficult to contrast our opinions or narratives with other points of view.

On June 9, Hungary held the elections for the European Parliament along with its local elections to choose mayors and councilors. The elections saw a record turnout of 58.1 %, but the most interesting election, the Budapest mayoral election with a turnout of 60.51%, resulted in a very high number of spoiled ballots, at 2.98%.

Hungary has been fined an unprecedentedly large amount for the severe violation of EU law over the rights of asylum seekers. However, this is not about Hungary\'s stance against the oppressive EU as the Hungarian governing party Fidesz wants to depict but about the party coming at odds with its ever-swaying populist positions. Yet the Hungarian voters, rather than EU activists, should punish the Hungarian government.

2024 is a turbulent year in Hungarian politics, and this is especially true for the capital. New alliances have been formed, while at the same time, some previous cooperation has so broken down that the parties are running against each other.

In this article, I would like to present the importance of religion in the migrant integration process. I will get a closer look at the situation of Muslims in Hungary and France and see how they are trying to integrate religious Muslim immigrants. I chose these two countries because both countries have policies that are against migration.

After the rising number of immigrants in 2015, the implementation of the Common European Asylum System became a priority for EU member states. Nevertheless, it has been documented by many studies that the V4 group countries drifted away from these intentions. During 2016, the members of the Visegrad group worked together as a united bloc on migration issues in Brussels.

There is no doubt that the Kádár-era left a deep mark on Hungarian society, which is not surprising after more than 30 years of its existence. In this article, I will briefly discuss, through the concepts of political culture and political socialization, how and to what extent this period, which can be considered the basic experience of many Hungarian citizens, had a significant impact on Hungarian culture during and after the regime change, and still has today.

A recent scandal in Hungary led to the resignation of the President. The fiasco revealed what was already known by many: that the President, whose role is mostly ceremonial, is a figurehead used by the government to ratify bills.