Hungary

With the approaching 2022 general elections, Hungary will be given yet another chance to show its true colors and decide how much its citizens are committed to its European and American allies.

Six Hungarian opposition parties from across the political spectrum held the country’s first national primary contest in order to choose the joint candidates who will take on the country’s long-serving and increasingly autocratic prime minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in the next parliamentary elections in 2022. Andrea Virág, Director of strategy at Republikon Institute, presents key takeaways from the Hungarian opposition primaries.

Both euro-optimists and euro-critics agree that the European Union is facing critical challenges these days, it is not strong enough and the bloc must implement significant changes to fulfil its original aims and secure peace and progress for its citizens.

In the past few years, there have been significant changes over the Hungarian media market, more and more media outlets are owned by government-friendly companies, often spreading misinformation to serve political agendas. Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary led to the centralization of several public sectors in order to secure its power over the past decade.

If you look at the political map of Europe these days, you cannot miss the distinctive success of populist movements in Central Europe, not to mention the alliance of Hungarian and Polish governments. With a group of participants from the region, we discussed populism in the Visegrád (V4) countries and its relevance for political communication during the online workshop series \"The Story of Visegrád\".

The Hungarian Europe Society cordially invites you to its online international conference entitled \"Uncertain Times: The Future of Trans-Atlantic Relations from the Perspective of NGOs and Think Tanks in Central Europe and Hungary\", to be held on Monday, September 27, 2021.

What does populism mean? Why does populism spread across the world & across Europe. Why did populists come into power? Why does populism try to change the core of Europe and the European Union? And why is populism so strong in the Visegrád Group, especially in Poland and Hungary. There is no doubt, populism fueled a widespread crisis of democracy.

Orbán, Kaczyński, Babiš, Salvini, Le Pen, Farage. Politicians from different countries, with different political affiliations, but they definitely have one thing in common: they are all populists. But how come, that one “ideology” can connect these different politicians with different political views? Well, in this article I am going to synthetize and expound these connection points in order to have the ability to forge counter-narratives.

After some initial doubts about the real intentions of this endeavour, Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest incorporated the 3SI into their portfolios of Central European cooperation formats in which they participate. Strong U.S. support for the project makes the initiative more attractive for its reluctant members.

Today, the European Commission will publish its annual Rule of Law Report. The new report could now intensify the conflict between the EU and the two Central European member states. Given the continued undermining of democratic principles in Poland and Hungary, one would expect not only a retrospective analysis, but also concrete recommendations for action against violations of the rule of law. However, this does not seem to be the case.