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Viktor Orbán

February 16, 2024

The native form of this personal name is Orbán Viktor Mihály. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Viktor Mihály Orbán[1] (Hungarian: [ˈviktor ˈorbaːn] ⓘ; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has led the Fidesz political party since 1993, with a break between 2000 and 2003.

Viktor Orbán
MP
Orbán in 2022
Prime Minister of Hungary
Assumed office
29 May 2010
President
Deputy
Preceded byGordon Bajnai
In office
6 July 1998 – 27 May 2002
President
Preceded byGyula Horn
Succeeded byPéter Medgyessy
President of the Fidesz
Assumed office
17 May 2003
Preceded byJános Áder
In office
18 April 1993 – 29 January 2000
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byLászló Kövér
Member of the National Assembly
Assumed office
2 May 1990
Personal details
Born
Viktor Mihály Orbán

(1963-05-31) 31 May 1963 (age 60)
Székesfehérvár, Hungary
Political partyFidesz (since 1988)
Spouse
Anikó Lévai
​
(m. 1986)​
Children5, including Gáspár
Parents
  • Erzsébet Sípos
  • Győző Bálint Orbán
Residence(s)Carmelite Monastery of Buda
5. Cinege út, Budapest
Alma mater
Profession
  • Politician
  • lawyer
Signature
WebsiteViktor Orbán website

Orbán studied law at Eötvös Loránd University before entering politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989. Orbán already headed the Hungarian dissident student movement and became nationally known after a 1989 speech in which he openly demanded that Soviet armed forces leave the People's Republic of Hungary. After the end of communism in Hungary in 1989 followed by transition to a multiparty democracy the following year, Orbán was elected to the National Assembly and led Fidesz's parliamentary caucus until 1993.

During Orbán's first term as prime minister, from 1998 to 2002 with him as the head of a conservative coalition government, inflation and the fiscal deficit shrank and Hungary joined NATO. Orbán was the Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2010. In 2010, Orbán was again elected prime minister. Central issues during Orbán's second premiership include controversial constitutional and legislative reforms, in particular the 2013 amendments to the Constitution of Hungary, as well as the European migrant crisis, the lex CEU, and the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. He was reelected in 2014, 2018, and 2022. On 29 November 2020, he became the country's longest-serving prime minister.[2]

Starting with the Second Orbán Government in 2010, during his uninterrupted stay in power, Orbán has curtailed press freedom, weakened judicial independence, and undermined multiparty democracy, amounting to democratic backsliding during Orbán's tenure.[3][4][5] For his own part, Orbán has issued harsh criticism of and has refused to implement multiple policies favored by the political leadership of the European Union in Brussels, which he alleges are anti-nationalist and anti-Christian. The E.U. has fired back by accusing Orbán of accepting their money anyway and of political corruption, by funneling it to his allies and relatives. It has further been alleged that Orbán's government is a kleptocracy.[6] His government has also been characterized as a hybrid regime and dominant-party system.[7][8][9][10]

Orbán defends his policies as "illiberal Christian democracy".[11][12] As a result, Fidesz was suspended from the European People's Party from March 2019;[13] in March 2021, Fidesz left the EPP over a dispute over new rule-of-law language in the latter's bylaws.[14] In a July 2022 speech, Orbán criticized the miscegenation of European and non-European races, saying: "We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race."[15][16] Two days later in Vienna, he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about race.[17] His tenure has seen Hungary's government shift towards what he has called "illiberal democracy", while simultaneously promoting Euroscepticism and opposition to liberal democracy and establishment of closer ties with China and Russia.[18][19][20]

Early life

Orbán was born on 31 May 1963 in Székesfehérvár into a rural middle-class family as the eldest son of the agronomist, mechanical engineer and later construction businessman Győző Orbán (born 1940)[21] and the special educator and speech therapist, Erzsébet Sípos (born 1944).[22] He has two younger brothers, both businessmen, Győző Jr. (born 1965) and Áron (born 1977). His paternal grandfather, Mihály Orbán, a former docker and a war veteran, farmed and worked as a veterinary assistant in Alcsútdoboz in Fejér County, where Orbán first grew up. The family moved in 1973 to the neighbouring Felcsút, where Orbán's father was head of the machinery department at the local farm collective.[23] Orbán attended school there and in Vértesacsa.[24][25] His parents and his grandfather completed further education as adults and pursued their careers within the framework of economic liberalisation under the Kádár regime.[26] In 1977, the family moved to Székesfehérvár, where Orbán had secured a place at the prestigious Blanka Teleki grammar school.[27] In his first two years at the school, he served as local secretary of the Hungarian Young Communist League (KISZ), membership of which was mandatory in order to matriculate to a university,[28][29] and of which his father was a patron.[30]

During his high school years, Orbán developed an interest in football, and befriended his future political associate Lajos Simicska.[27] After graduating in 1981, he completed his military service alongside Simicska. He was jailed several times for indiscipline, which included a failure to appear for duty during the 1982 FIFA World Cup and striking a non-commissioned officer during a personal altercation.[31] His time in the army also coincided with the declaration of martial law in Poland in December 1981, which his friend Simicska criticised;[31] Orbán recalled expecting to be mobilised to invade Poland.[32] He would later state that military service had shifted his political views radically from the previous position of a "naive and devoted supporter" of the Communist regime.[29] However, a state security report from May 1982, when his father was working on an engineering contract in Libya, still described him as "loyal to our social system".[30][33]

Next, in 1983, Orbán went to study law at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He joined an English-model residential college for law students from outside the capital, Jogász Társadalomtudományi Szakkollégium (Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences), established in 1983 by the young lecturer István Stumpf under the protection of the latter's father-in-law, the minister of the interior István Horváth.[34][35] Members of this college, which would be named after István Bibó in May 1989,[35] were permitted to explore social sciences beyond the socialist canon and the "new" field of "bourgeois" political science in particular.[36][37][38] It was there that Orbán met Gábor Fodor and László Kövér.[36][39] He became chairman of the executive committee of the college's sixty students in 1984.[39] He went on a series of trips to Poland with his classmates and lecturer Tamás Fellegi in 1984–1985 and again in 1987, during the third pastoral visit of John Paul II. Their Polish contacts all along were Małgorzata Tarasiewicz and Adam Jagusiak, members-to-be of the anti-Communist student movement Freedom and Peace from 1985.[40] Orbán submitted his Master's thesis on the Polish Solidarity movement, based on interviews with its leaders, in 1986.[32][41] In August 1986, shortly before Orbán's wedding with Dr Anikó Lévai in Szolnok in September of that year, a police source reported him to belong to an organisation whose members were lecturing in the USA or West Germany as "the country's expected future leaders" and receiving Western support, while also being privy to top-level government decisions through minister Horváth and enjoying full protection of the Budapest police (BRFK). The minister was expected to personally intervene to clear Orbán in particular of any sedition charges.[30][33] After obtaining the higher degree of Juris Doctor[42] in 1987,[43][44] Orbán lived in Szolnok for two years, commuting to his job in Budapest as a sociologist at the Management Training Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.[45] In November 1987, Orbán welcomed a group of 150 delegates from 17 countries to a two-day seminar on the Perestroika, conscientious objection and the prospects for a pan-European democratic movement, held at the Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences with the backing of the European Network for East–West Dialogue.[38]

In September 1989, Orbán took up a research fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford, funded by the Soros Foundation which had employed him part-time since April 1988.[46] He began work on the concept of civil society in European political thought under the guidance of Zbigniew Pełczyński.[25][47] During this time, he unsuccessfully contested the Fidesz leadership elections in Budapest, which he lost to Fodor. In January 1990, he abandoned his project at Oxford and returned to Hungary with his family to run for a seat in Hungary's first post-communist parliament.[48]

Early career (1988–1998)

 
Orbán and Gábor Fodor at the Szárszó meeting of 1993

On 30 March 1988, at the Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences, Orbán – alongside Stumpf, Fodor, Kövér and 32 other students and activists – founded the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, FIDESZ), a liberal-nationalist youth movement conceived as an overt political challenge to the Hungarian Young Communist League, whose members were banned from participation.[49][50] The college journal Századvég (End of the Century), established with Orbán's help and funded by George Soros since 1985, now became the press organ of Fidesz.[51][41][52][39]

On 16 June 1989, Orbán gave a speech in Heroes' Square, Budapest, on the occasion of the reburial of Imre Nagy and other national martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In his speech, he demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The speech brought him to national prominence and announced the existence of Fidesz to the wider public.[53] In the summer of 1989, he took part in the opposition round table talks, representing Fidesz alongside László Kövér.[54] Fidesz became a political party in October 1989.[55]

 
Orbán in 1997 as leader of the opposition

On returning home from Oxford, he secured the first spot on the Fidesz candidate list ahead of Fodor and was elected Member of Parliament from Pest County at the April 1990 election.[56] He was appointed leader of the Fidesz's parliamentary group, in this capacity until May 1993.[57]

On 18 April 1993, Orbán became the first president of Fidesz, replacing the national board that had served as a collective leadership since its founding. Under his leadership, Fidesz gradually transformed from a radical liberal student organization to a center-right people's party.[58]

The conservative turn caused a severe split in the membership. Several members left the party, including Péter Molnár, Gábor Fodor and Zsuzsanna Szelényi. Fodor and others later joined the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), initially a strong ally of Fidesz, but later a political opponent.[59]

During the 1994 parliamentary election, Fidesz barely reached the 5% threshold.[60] Orbán became MP from his party's Fejér County Regional List.[57] He was chairman of the Committee on European Integration Affairs between 1994 and 1998.[57] He was also a member of the Immunity, Incompatibility and Credentials Committee for a short time in 1995.[57] Under his presidency, Fidesz adopted "Hungarian Civic Party" (Magyar Polgári Párt) to its shortened name in 1995. His party gradually became dominant in the right-wing of the political spectrum, while the former ruling conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) had lost much of its support.[60] From April 1996, Orbán was chairman of the Hungarian National Committee of the New Atlantic Initiative (NAI).[61]

In September 1992, Orbán was elected vice chairman of the Liberal International.[62] In November 2000, however, Fidesz left the Liberal International and joined the European People's Party (EPP). During the time, Orbán worked hard to unite the center-right liberal conservative parties in Hungary. At the EPP's Congress in Estoril in October 2002, he was elected vice-president, an office he held until 2012.[63]

First premiership (1998–2002)

Main article: First Orbán Government

In 1998, Orbán formed a coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP). The coalition won the 1998 parliamentary elections with 42% of the national vote.[63] Orbán became the second youngest prime minister of Hungary at the age of 35 (after András Hegedüs)[64] and the first post-Cold War head of government in both eastern and central Europe who had not previously been a member of a communist party during the Soviet-era.[65]

The new government immediately launched a radical reform of state administration, reorganizing ministries and creating a superministry for the economy. In addition, the boards of the social security funds and centralized social security payments were dismissed. Following the German model, Orbán strengthened the prime minister's office and named a new minister to oversee the work of his cabinet.[citation needed]

 
Orbán with Tamás Deutsch in 2000

In February, the government decided that plenary sessions of the Hungarian Parliament would be held only every third week.[66] Opposition parties strongly opposed the change,[67][68][69] arguing that it would reduce parliament's legislative efficiency and ability to supervise the government.[70] In March, the government also tried to replace the National Assembly rule that requires a two-thirds majority vote with one of a simple majority, but the Constitutional Court ruled this unconstitutional.[71]

Two of Orbán's state secretaries in the prime minister's office had to resign in May, due to their implication in a bribery scandal involving the American military manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corporation. Before bids on a major jet-fighter contract, the two secretaries, along with 32 other deputies of Orbán's party, had sent a letter to two US senators to lobby for the appointment of a Budapest-based Lockheed manager to be the US ambassador to Hungary.[72] On 31 August, the head of the Tax Office also resigned after protracted criticism by the opposition on his earlier, allegedly suspicious, business dealings.[citation needed] The government was also involved in a lengthy dispute with Budapest City Council the national government's decision in late 1998 to cancel two major urban projects: the construction of a new national theatre[73] and of the fourth subway line.[citation needed]

Relations between the Fidesz-led coalition government and the opposition worsened in the National Assembly, where the two seemed to have abandoned all attempts at consensus-seeking politics. The government pushed to swiftly replace the heads of key institutions (such as the Hungarian National Bank chairman, the Budapest City Chief Prosecutor and the Hungarian Radio) with partisan figures. Although the opposition resisted, for example by delaying their appointing of members of the supervising boards, the government ran the institutions without the stipulated number of directors. In a similar vein, Orbán failed to show up for question time in parliament for periods of up to 10 months. His statements, such as "The parliament works without opposition too...", also contributed to the image of arrogant and aggressive governance.[74]

A later report in March by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists criticized the Hungarian government for improper political influence in the media, as the country's public service broadcaster teetered close to bankruptcy.[75] Numerous political scandals during 2001 led to a de facto, if not actual, breakup of the coalition that held power in Budapest. A bribery scandal in February triggered a wave of allegations and several prosecutions against the Independent Smallholders' Party. The affair resulted in the ousting of József Torgyán from both the FKGP presidency and the top post in the Ministry of Agriculture. The FKGP disintegrated and more than a dozen of its MPs joined the government faction.[76]

Economy

Orbán's economic policy was aimed at cutting taxes and social insurance contributions, while reducing inflation and unemployment. Among the new government's first measures was to abolish university tuition fees and reintroduce universal maternity benefits. The government announced its intention to continue the Socialist–Liberal stabilization program and pledged to narrow the budget deficit, which had grown to 4.5% of GDP.[77] The previous Socialist government had almost completed the privatization of government-run industries and had launched a comprehensive pension reform. However, the Socialists had avoided two major socioeconomic issues: reform of health care and agriculture; these remained to be tackled by Orbán's government.[citation needed]

Economic successes included a drop in inflation from 15% in 1998 to 7.8% in 2001. Annual GDP growth rates were fairly steady under Orbán's tenure, ranging from 3.8% to 5.2%. The fiscal deficit fell from 3.9% in 1999 to 3.4% in 2001 and the ratio of the national debt decreased to 54% of GDP.[77] Under the Orbán cabinet, there were realistic hopes that Hungary would be able to join the Eurozone by 2009. However, negotiations for entry into the European Union slowed in the fall of 1999, after the EU included six more countries (in addition to the original six) in the accession discussions. Orbán repeatedly criticized the EU for its delay.[citation needed]

 
Mikuláš Dzurinda, Orbán and Günter Verheugen during the opening of the Mária Valéria Bridge across the Danube, connecting the Slovak town of Štúrovo with Esztergom, in Hungary, in November 2001

Foreign policy

In March 1999, after Russian objections were overruled, Hungary joined NATO along with the Czech Republic and Poland.[78] The Hungarian membership to NATO demanded its involvement in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Kosovo crisis and modernization of its army. NATO membership also dealt a blow to the economy because of a trade embargo imposed on Yugoslavia.[79]

Hungary attracted international media attention in 1999 for passing the "status law" concerning estimated three-million ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The law aimed to provide education, health benefits and employment rights to members of those minorities, and was said to heal the negative effects of the disastrous 1920 Trianon Treaty.[80]

Governments in neighbouring states, particularly Romania, claimed to be insulted by the law, which they saw as interference in their domestic affairs. Proponents of the status law countered that several of the countries criticizing the law themselves had similar constructs to provide benefits for their own minorities. Romania acquiesced after amendments following a December 2001 agreement between Orbán and Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Năstase;[81] Slovakia accepted the law after further concessions made by the new government after the 2002 elections.[82]

 
Orbán with George W. Bush at the White House in 2001

Leader of the Opposition (2002–2010)

The level of public support for political parties generally stagnated, even with general elections coming in 2002. Fidesz and the main opposition Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) ran neck and neck in the opinion polls for most of the year, both attracting about 26% of the electorate. According to a September 2001 poll by the Gallup organization, however, support for a joint Fidesz – Hungarian Democratic Forum party list would run up to 33% of the voters, with the Socialists drawing 28% and other opposition parties 3% each.[83]

Meanwhile, public support for the FKGP plunged from 14% in 1998 to 1% in 2001. As many as 40% of the voters remained undecided, however. Although the Socialists had picked their candidate for prime minister—former finance minister Péter Medgyessy—the opposition largely remained unable to increase its political support.[citation needed] The dark horse of the election was the radical nationalist Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP), with its leader, István Csurka's radical rhetoric. MIÉP could not be ruled out as the key to a new term for Orbán and his party should they be forced into a coalition after the 2002 elections.[citation needed]

The elections of 2002 were the most heated Hungary had experienced in more than a decade, and an unprecedented cultural-political division formed in the country. In the event, Orbán's group lost the April parliamentary elections to the opposition Hungarian Socialist Party, which set up a coalition with its longtime ally, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats. Turnout was a record-high 70.5%. Beyond these parties, only deputies of the Hungarian Democratic Forum made it into the National Assembly. The populist Independent Smallholders' Party and the right Hungarian Justice and Life Party lost all their seats. Thus, the number of political parties in the new assembly was reduced from six to four.[84]

MIÉP challenged the government's legitimacy, demanded a recount, complained of election fraud, and generally kept the country in election mode until the October municipal elections. The socialist-controlled Central Elections Committee ruled that a recount was unnecessary, a position supported by observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, whose only substantive criticism of the election conduct was that the state television carried a consistent bias in favour of Fidesz.[85]

Orbán received the Freedom Award of the American Enterprise Institute and the New Atlantic Initiative (2001), the Polak Award (2001), the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2001), the "Förderpreis Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (Price for the Social Market Economy, 2002) and the Mérite Européen prize (2004). In April 2004, he received the Papal Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.

In the 2004 European Parliament election, the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party was heavily defeated by the opposition conservative Fidesz. Fidesz gained 47.4% of the vote and 12 of Hungary's 24 seats.[86][87]

 
Orbán and Hans-Gert Pöttering in 2006
 
Orbán and Romanian President Traian Băsescu in 2008

Orbán was the Fidesz candidate for the parliamentary election in 2006. Fidesz and its new-old candidate failed again to gain a majority in this election, which initially put Orbán's future political career as the leader of Fidesz in question.[88] However, after fighting with the Socialist-Liberal coalition, Orbán's position resolidified, and he was elected president of Fidesz for yet another term in May 2007.[89]

On 17 September 2006, an audio recording surfaced from a closed-door Hungarian Socialist Party meeting, which was held on 26 May 2006, in which Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány gave an obscenity-laden speech. The leak ignited mass protests.[citation needed] On 1 November, Orbán and his party announced their plans to stage several large-scale demonstrations across Hungary on the anniversary of the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Revolution. The events were intended to serve as a memorial to the victims of the Soviet invasion and a protest against police brutality during the 23 October unrest in Budapest. Planned events included a candlelight vigil march across Budapest. However, the demonstrations were small and petered out by the end of the year.[90] A new round of demonstrations expected in the spring of 2007 did not materialize.[citation needed]

On 1 October 2006, Fidesz won the municipal elections, which counterbalanced the MSZP-led government's power to some extent. Fidesz won 15 of 23 mayoralties in Hungary's largest cities—although it narrowly lost Budapest to the Liberal Party—and majorities in 18 of 20 regional assemblies.[91][92]

On 9 March 2008, a national referendum took place on revoking government reforms which introduced doctor fees per visit and medical fees paid per number of days spent in hospital as well as tuition fees in higher education. Fidesz initiated the referendum against the ruling MSZP.[93][94] The procedure for the referendum started on 23 October 2006, when Orbán announced they would hand in seven questions to the National Electorate Office, three of which (on abolishing copayments, daily fees and college tuition fees) were officially approved on 17 December 2007 and called on 24 January 2008. The referendum passed, a significant victory for Fidesz.[95]

In the 2009 European Parliament election, Fidesz won by a large margin, garnering 56.36% of votes and 14 of Hungary's 22 seats.[96]

Second premiership (2010–present)

Main articles: Second Orbán Government, Third Orbán Government, Fourth Orbán Government, and Fifth Orbán Government
 
Orbán at a press conference following the meeting of leaders of the Visegrád Group, Germany and France on 6 March 2013
 
"Hungarians won't live according to the commands of foreign powers", Orbán told the crowd at Kossuth square on 15 March 2012

In the 2010 parliamentary elections, Orbán's party won 52.73% of the popular vote but received a 68% majority of parliamentary seats due to the design of the post-communist electoral system.[97]: 139 [98] A two-third parliamentary majority is enough to change the constitution and in 2011 Orbán's government drafted a new constitution behind closed doors, debated it for only nine days in the parliament and passed it on a party line.[99]: 52 [100][101][102][103] Orbán would go on to amend the constitution twelve times in his first year in office.[99]: 52  Among other changes, it includes support for traditional values, nationalism, references to Christianity, and a controversial electoral reform, which decreased the number of seats in the Parliament of Hungary from 386 to 199.[104][105] The new constitution entered into force on 1 January 2012 and was later amended further.

Orbán held a now famous speech in July 2014 in Băile Tușnad, a remote village in Romania, at the Bálványos Free Summer University and Student Camp.[106] In his speech he articulated his vision of forging an illiberal democracy in Hungary and described the Western 2007–2008 financial crisis as a paradigm shift of the international order, comparable with the two world wars and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Orbán described his current mission: "while breaking with the [liberal] dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them, we are trying to find the form of community organisation, the new Hungarian state, which is capable of making our community competitive in the great global race for decades to come."[106]

Orbán also garnered controversy for proposing an "internet tax", and for his perceived corruption.[107] His second premiership saw numerous protests against his government, including one in Budapest in November 2014 against the proposed "internet tax".[108]

Orbán's government implemented a flat tax on personal income set at 16%.[109] Orbán has called his government "pragmatic", citing restrictions on early retirement in the police force and military, making welfare more transparent, and a central banking law that "gives Hungary more independence from the European Central Bank".[110]

After the 2014 parliamentary election, Fidesz won a majority, garnering 133 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly.[111] While he won a large majority, he garnered 44.54% of the national vote, down from 52.73% in 2010.[citation needed]

During the 2015 European migrant crisis, Orbán ordered the erection of the Hungary–Serbia barrier to block entry of illegal immigrants so that Hungary could register all the migrants arriving from Serbia, which is the country's responsibility under the Dublin Regulation, a European Union law.[112] Under Orbán, Hungary took numerous actions to combat illegal immigration and reduce refugee levels.[113] In May 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled against Hungary's policy of migrant transit zones, which Orbán subsequently abolished while also tightening the country's asylum rules.[114]

In the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election, the Fidesz–KDNP alliance was victorious and preserved its two-thirds majority, with Orbán remaining prime minister. Orbán and Fidesz campaigned primarily on the issues of immigration and foreign meddling, and the election outcome was seen as a victory for right-wing populism in Europe.[115][116][117]

 
Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński with Orbán on 22 September 2017

On 30 March 2020, the Hungarian parliament voted 137 to 53 in favor of passing legislation that would create a state of emergency without a time limit, grant the prime minister the ability to rule by decree, suspend by-elections, and introduce the possibility of prison sentences for spreading fake news and sanctions for leaving quarantine.[118][119][120] Two and a half months later, on 16 June 2020, the Hungarian parliament passed a bill that ended the state of emergency effective 19 June.[121] However, on the same day the parliament passed a new law removing the requirement of parliamentary approval for future "medical" states of emergencies, allowing the government to declare them by decree.[122][123]

In 2021, the parliament transferred control of 11 state universities to foundations led by allies of Orbán.[124][125] The Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a residential college, received an influx of government funds and assets equal to about 1% of Hungary's gross domestic product, reportedly as part of a mission to train future conservative intellectuals.[126]

Due to a combination of unfavourable conditions, which involved soaring demand of natural gas, its diminished supply from Russia and Norway to the European markets, and less power generation by renewable energy sources such as wind, water and solar energy, Europe faced steep increases in energy prices in 2021. In October 2021, Orbán blamed a record-breaking surge in energy prices on the European Commission's Green Deal plans.[127]

 
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Viktor Orbán in the Kremlin on 1 February 2022

In the 2022 parliamentary election, Fidesz won a majority, garnering 135 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly. While Orbán's close ties with Moscow raised concerns, core Fidesz voters were persuaded that mending ties with the EU might also lead Hungary into war. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe dispatched a full-scale monitoring mission for the election.[128] Orbán declared victory on Sunday night, with partial results showing his Fidesz party leading the vote by a wide margin. Addressing his supporters after the partial results, Orbán said: "We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels."[4] Opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay admitted defeat shortly after Orbán's speech.[129]

Democratic backsliding and authoritarianism

Between 2010 and 2020, Hungary dropped 69 places in the Press Freedom Index,[130][131] and lost 11 places in the Democracy Index.[132][133] In 2019 Freedom House downgraded the country from "free" to "partly free".[134] The V-Dem Democracy indices rank Hungary in 2021 as 96th in its "electoral democracy index" that measures "whether elections were free and fair, as well as the prevalence of a free and independent media", sitting between Benin and Malaysia.[135] Freedom House's Nations in Transit 2020 report reclassified Hungary from a democracy to a transitional or hybrid regime.[136]

The late professor of economics at Harvard University, János Kornai, described the evolution of the Hungarian state during Orbán's second premiership as having taken a "u-turn" away from the aim of becoming a market economy based on the rule of law and private ownership and instead beginning the "systematic destruction of the fundamental institutions of democracy".[137]: 34–35  In her 2015 article on Orbán's illiberal democracy, dr. Abby Innes, associate professor of political economy at the London School of Economics simply states that "Hungary can no longer be ranked a democratic country".[138]: 95  Former minister of education, Bálint Magyar, has stated that elections in Hungary under Orbán are undemocratic and "free but not fair", due to gerrymandering, large-scale control over the media, and suspect funding for political campaigns.[139]

In the April 2022 election, Orbán's Fidesz party won 54% of the vote but 83% of the districts, due to gerrymandering, and "other tweaks" to Hungarian electoral rules.[140] According to American journalist and author Andrew Marantz, Orbán passed laws, amended the constitution and "patiently debilitated, delegitimatized, hollowed out" civic institutions such as courts, universities, and the apparatus necessary for free elections that are now controlled by Orbán loyalists.[140] Domination of the public media by Orbán prevents the public from hearing critics' point of view. In 2022, Orbán's opponent was given just five minutes on the national television "to make his case to the voters".[140] Private media outlets like the ATV and RTL, among others, offered playtime for opposition members. An example of the discreet, below-the-radar process of accumulating power by Orbán and his party was the creation of a special police force that started as a small anti-terror unit. The unit grew and became more powerful "bit by bit in disparate clauses buried in unrelated laws". Marantz cites Princeton professor of sociology Kim Lane Scheppele, who contends the unit now has enough power to function "essentially" as Orbán's "secret police".[140]

Hungarian political scientist András Körösényi, using Max Weber's classification, argues that Orbán's rule cannot be described simply by the notions of authoritarianisation or illiberalism. He stresses out that the Orbán regime can be characterised as plebiscitary leadership democracy instead.[141][142][143]

Anti-LGBT policies

Since his election as prime minister in 2010, Orbán has led initiatives and laws to hinder human rights of LGBT+ people, regarding such rights as "not compatible with Christian values".

In 2020, Orbán's government ended legal recognition of transgender people, receiving criticism both in Hungary and abroad.[144]

In 2021 his party proposed legislation to censor any "LGBT+ positive content" in movies, books or public advertisements and to severely restrict sex education in school forbidding any information thought to "encourage gender change or homosexuality". The law has been likened to Russia's restriction on "homosexual propaganda".[145] German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen harshly criticized the law,[146] while a letter from sixteen EU leaders including Pedro Sánchez and Mario Draghi warned against "threats against fundamental rights and in particular the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation".[147]

His anti-LGBT+ positions came under more scrutiny after the revelation that one of the European deputies of his party, József Szájer, had participated in a gay sex party in Brussels, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic quarantine restrictions.[148][149][150] Szájer was one of the major architects behind the 2011 Constitution of Hungary. This new constitution has been criticized by Human Rights Watch for being discriminatory towards the LGBT+ community.[151][152]

To coincide with the parliamentary election in the spring of 2022, Orbán announced a four-question referendum regarding LGBTQ issues in education. It did not pass.[153] It came after complaints from the European Union (EU) about anti-LGBTQ discriminatory laws.[154] Human rights groups condemned the referendum as anti-LGBT rhetoric that supported discrimination.[155][156]

On July 22, 2023, in a speech he gave in Romania, Orbán complained that the EU was conducting an "LGBTQ offensive".[157]

Foreign policy

In July 2018, Orbán travelled to Turkey to attend the inauguration ceremony of re-elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[158] In October 2018, Orbán said after talks with President Erdoğan in Budapest that "A stable Turkish government and a stable Turkey are a precondition for Hungary not to be endangered in any way due to overland migration."[159]

In June 2019, Orbán met Myanmar's State Counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. They discussed bilateral ties and illegal migration.[160][161]

China

Main article: China–Hungary relations

Orbán has maintained close ties with China throughout his tenure, and his administration is generally seen as China's closest ally in the EU.[162] Hungary joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015,[163] while in April 2019, Orbán attended a BRI forum in Beijing,[164] where he met the Chinese leader Xi Jinping.[165] He spearheaded plans to open a Fudan University campus in Budapest, which led to pushback in Hungary.[166] He met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo member and top diplomat Wang Yi in Budapest on 20 February 2023; he afterwards backed the peace plan released Wang Yi concerning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[167]

Russia and Ukraine

Main articles: Hungary–Russia relations and Hungary–Ukraine relations

Orbán questioned Nord Stream II, a new Russia–Germany natural gas pipeline. He said he wants to hear a "reasonable argument why South Stream was bad and Nord Stream is not".[168] "South Stream" refers to the Balkan pipeline cancelled by Russia in December 2014 after obstacles from the EU.[169]

Since 2017, Hungary's relations with Ukraine rapidly deteriorated over the issue of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.[170] Orbán and his cabinet ministers repeatedly criticized Ukraine's 2017 education law, which makes Ukrainian the only language of education in state schools,[171][172] and threatened to block further Ukraine's EU and NATO integration until it is modified or repealed.[173] (The language law was amended in December 2023 in favor of official languages of the European Union, including Hungarian.[174])

Orbán has displayed an ambivalent attitude towards Russia and Vladimir Putin, especially following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[175][176] He has described the war as "clear aggression" by Russia, saying a sovereign Ukraine is needed "to stop Russia posing a threat to the security of Europe".[177][178][179] However, conversely, he has also criticised the European Union for "prolonging the war" in Ukraine by sanctioning Russia and sending weapons and money to Ukraine instead of encouraging a negotiated peace, and has been accused of blocking aid to Ukraine.[180][181][182]

Amidst the 2021-2022 Ukraine crisis, Orbán was the first EU leader to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a visit he called "a peacekeeping mission".[183] They also discussed Russian gas exports to Hungary.[129] On 2 March, as Russia had already launched an invasion of Ukraine, Orbán decided to welcome Ukrainian refugees to Hungary, and will support the Ukrainian membership to the European Union.[129] Initially, Orbán condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and said Hungary would not veto EU sanctions against Russia.[184] However, Orbán rejected sanctions on Russian energy, due to Hungary's excessive dependency (85%) on Russian fossil fuels.[185] In late March 2022, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky singled out Orban for his lack of support for Ukraine.[186] In June, Zelensky thanked Orbán for supporting Ukraine's sovereignty and for giving asylum to Ukrainians.[187]

On 27 February 2023, Viktor Orbán said that Hungary supports the Chinese peace plan in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, despite opposition by Western leaders. Beijing's 12-point statement that criticised unilateral sanctions, would reduce strategic risks associated with nuclear weapons in Central and Eastern Europe, according to the statement.[188]

Hungary's accession to the Organization of Turkic States

See also: Hungarian Turanism
 
Viktor Orbán during the 7th Summit of Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States in Baku, in 2019

Since 2014, Hungary has had observer status at the General Assembly of Turkic-speaking States, and in 2017 it submitted an application for accession to the International Turkic Academy. During the 6th Summit of Turkic Council, Orbán said that Hungary is seeking even closer cooperation with the Turkic Council.[189] In 2018, Hungary obtained observer status in the council.[190] In 2021, Orbán mentioned that the Hungarian and Turkic peoples share a historical and cultural heritage "reaching back many long centuries". He also pointed out that the Hungarian people are "proud of this heritage", and "were also proud when their opponents in Europe mocked them as barbarian Huns and Attila's people".[191] In 2023, during his visit to Kazakhstan, Orbán said that Hungarians come to Kazakhstan "with great pleasure" because the two nations are connected by "millennial common roots".[192]

Israel and Hamas

The Hungarian government expressed support for Israel in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. On 13 October, Orbán stated "Israel has the right to defend itself" and "we will not allow sympathy rallies supporting terrorist organisations".[193] On 22 October, Fidesz parliamentary leader Máté Kocsis announced that the party will introduce a manifesto before the parliament condemning Hamas terrorism.[194]

Nationalistic views

In his 2018 speech at the meeting of the Association of Cities with County Rights, Orbán said "We must state that we do not want to be diverse and do not want to be mixed: we do not want our own colour, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others. We do not want this. We do not want that at all. We do not want to be a diverse country."[195][196]

In February 2020, Orbán was interviewed by Christopher DeMuth at the National Conservatism Conference in Rome.[197]

In his 2021 speech, Orbán said "The challenge with Bosnia is how to integrate a country with 2 million Muslims." Bosnian leaders responded by calling for Orbán's visit to Sarajevo to be cancelled. The head of the country's Islamic Community, Husein Kavazović, characterized his statement as "xenophobic and racist".[198][199]

In May 2022, Orbán promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory in a speech.[200]

In July 2022, Orbán – repeating the thesis of Jean Raspail[201][202] – spoke in Romania against the "mixing" of European and non-European races, adding "We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race."[203][204][205][206] In Vienna two days later, he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about race.[17]

Opposition to immigration, support for higher birth rates

As stated by The Guardian, the "Hungarian government doubled family spending between 2010 and 2019", intending to achieve "a lasting turn in demographic processes by 2030". Orbán has espoused an anti-immigration platform, and has also advocated for increased investment into "Family First". Orbán has disregarded the European Union's attempts to promote integration as a key solution to population distribution problems in Europe. He has also supported investments into countering the country's low birth rates. Orbán has tapped into the "great replacement theory" which emulates a nativist approach to rejecting foreign immigration out of fear of replacement by immigrants. He has stated that "If Europe is not going to be populated by Europeans in the future and we take this as given, then we are speaking about an exchange of populations, to replace the population of Europeans with others." The Guardian stated that "This year the Hungarian government introduced a 10 million forint (£27,000) interest-free loan for families, which does not have to be paid back if the couple has three children."[207]

 
Orbán and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in December 2021

In July 2020, Orbán expressed that he still expects arguments over linking of disbursement of funds of the European Union to rule-of-law criteria but remarked in a state radio interview that they "didn't win the war, we (they) won an important battle".[208] In August 2020, Orbán whilst speaking at an event to inaugurate a monument commemorating the Treaty of Trianon, said Central European nations should come together to preserve their Christian roots as western Europe experiments with same-sex families, immigration and atheism.[209]

Despite the anti-immigration rhetoric from Orbán, Hungary increased the immigration of foreign workers into the country as of 2019 to address a labor shortage.[210][211][212]

Views, public image, international influence

 
Orbán with José Manuel Barroso and Stavros Lambrinidis in January 2011

Orbán's blend of soft Euroscepticism, populism,[213][214][215] and national conservatism has seen him compared to politicians and political parties as diverse as Jarosław Kaczyński's Law and Justice, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Matteo Salvini's League, Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Donald Trump,[216] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin.[217] Orbán has sought to make Hungary an "ideological center for ... an international conservative movement".[218]

According to Politico, Orbán's political philosophy "echoes the resentments of what were once the peasant and working classes" by promoting an "uncompromising defense of national sovereignty and a transparent distrust of Europe's ruling establishments".[216] Orbán frequently emphasizes the importance of Christianity, although he and the overwhelming majority of Hungarians do not attend church regularly.[219] His authoritarian appeal to "global conservatives" has been summarized by Lauren Stokes as: "I alone can save you from the ravages of Islamization and totalitarian progressivism -- and in the face of all that, who has time for checks and balances and rules?".[219]

Orbán had a close relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, having known him for decades. He is described as "one of Mr Netanyahu's closest allies in Europe".[220] Orbán received personal advice on economic reforms from Netanyahu, while the latter was Finance Minister of Israel (2003–2005).[221] In February 2019, Netanyahu thanked Orbán for "deciding to extend the embassy of Hungary in Israel to Jerusalem".[222]

Orbán is seen as having laid out his political views most concretely in a widely cited 2014 public address at Băile Tușnad (known in Hungary as the Tusnádfürdői beszéd, or "Tusnádfürdő speech"). In the address, Orbán repudiated the classical liberal theory of the state as a free association of atomistic individuals, arguing for the use of the state as the means of organizing, invigorating, or even constructing the national community. Although this kind of state respects traditionally liberal concepts like civic rights, it is properly called "illiberal" because it views the community, and not the individual, as the basic political unit.[106] In practice, Orbán claimed, such a state should promote national self-sufficiency, national sovereignty, familialism, full employment and the preservation of cultural heritage.[106]

 
Orbán and Angela Merkel, Congress of the European People's Party in Madrid on 21 October 2015
 
Orbán with Vladimir Putin in February 2016

Orbán's second and third premierships have been the subject of significant international controversy, and reception of his political views is mixed. The 2011 constitutional changes enacted under his leadership were, in particular, accused of centralizing legislative and executive power, curbing civil liberties, restricting freedom of speech, and weakening the Constitutional Court and judiciary.[98] For these reasons, critics have described him as an "irredentist",[223] a "right-wing populist",[224] an "authoritarian",[225] "far-right",[226] a "fascist",[227] "autocratic",[228] a "Putinist",[229] a "strongman",[230] and a "dictator".[231]

The European migrant crisis, coupled with continued Islamist terrorism in the European Union, have popularized Orbán's nationalist, protectionist policies among European conservative leaders. "Once ostracized" by Europe's political elite, writes Politico, Orbán "is now the talisman of Europe's mainstream right".[216] As other Visegrád Group leaders, Orbán opposes any compulsory EU long-term quota on redistribution of migrants.[232]

He wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Europe's response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union's misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation."[233] He also demanded an official EU list of "safe countries" to which migrants can be returned.[234] According to Orbán, Turkey should be considered a safe third country.[235]

As mentioned above, Orbán has promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. In a 2018 speech, he stated: "I think there are many people who would like to see the end of Christian Europe, and they believe that if they replace its cultural subsoil, if they bring in millions of people from new ethnic groups which are not rooted in Christian culture, then they will transform Europe according to their conception."[236]

During a press conference in January 2019, Orbán praised Brazil's then president Jair Bolsonaro, saying that currently "the most apt definition of modern Christian democracy can be found in Brazil, not in Europe".[237]

In support of Orbán and his ideas, a think tank called the Danube Institute was established in 2013, funded by the Batthyány Foundation, which in turn is "funded entirely by the Hungarian government".[140] Batthyány "sponsors international conferences and three periodicals, all in English: European Conservative, Hungarian Review, and Hungarian Conservative". In 2020, the institute began hosting fellows.[140]

 
Orbán with Mike Pompeo in Budapest in February 2019
In the United States

Orbán often attacked the administrations of presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, particularly for their supposed pro-immigration policies. Some analysts argue that Orban's attacks on the US are largely political theater for his domestic voters.[19]

In January 2022, Donald Trump endorsed Orbán in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election, saying in a statement that he "truly loves his Country and wants safety for his people", and praising his hard-line immigration policies.[238][239] Donald Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, once called Orbán "Trump before Trump".[196]

In August 2021, Tucker Carlson hosted some episodes of his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, from Budapest, praising Orbán as the one elected leader "on the face of the earth, ... who publicly identifies as a Western-style conservative". He also conducted a fifteen-minute interview with Orbán, which was widely criticized for its fawning nature and lack of challenging questions.[140]

In May 2022 the Conservative Political Action Conference, the "flagship conference" of American conservatism,[219] held a satellite event in Budapest.[240] In Florida, a law regulating sex education in schools, sometimes called the "Don’t Say Gay" law, resembles a similar Hungarian law passed in 2021 and was, according to governor Ron DeSantis's press secretary, inspired by it.[140]

In August 2022, Orbán was the opening speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas.[241]

Domestic policy

Viktor Orbán's domestic policy agenda has placed emphasis on cultural conservatism, especially through pro-natalist policies designed to encourage family formation and reduce immigration. Female university graduates who have (or adopt) children within two years of graduation receive partial or full forgiveness on their student loans, including a full write-off of their student debt if they have three or more children.[242][243] Hungarian women who have four or more children are eligible for full income tax exemption for life.[244] Married couples are eligible for low fixed-rate mortgages on a house with additional financial support through family housing benefits, as well as subsidies for the purchase of seven-seat cars for families with three or more children and financial support for child care.[245] In support of these policies, Orbán stated in 2019 that "For the west, the answer is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine. But we do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children."[246] The government has also tightened legal regulations on access to abortion, including requiring pregnant women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus prior to an abortion being approved by a doctor.[247] The number of abortions procured in Hungary between 2010 and 2021 fell almost 50%, from 34 per hundred live births in 2010 to 23.7 per hundred in 2021.[248]

His government's economic approach has been referred to as "Orbánomics".[249] Despite early concerns that these reforms would undermine investor confidence, economic growth has been strong with unemployment "plummeting" between 2010 and 2021 and year-on-year GDP growth at 4 percent in 2021.[250] Progressive taxation on income was abolished in 2015 and replaced with a flat rate of 16% on gross income, and income taxes on those aged 25 years or younger was abolished entirely in 2021.[251] Hungary paid the last of its IMF loan ahead of schedule in 2013, with the fund closing its Budapest office later that year.[252] Due to the economic impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the shocks of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, Orbán's government has imposed windfall taxes on banks, pharmaceutical companies, and energy companies in order to maintain a government-subsidized cap on utility bills (including gas, electricity, water, district heating, sewage, and garbage collection) which continues into 2023.[253]

Orbán's government has encouraged and provided financial support for the establishment of conservative think-tanks and cultural institutions. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium has purchased stakes in several European universities and has purchased the Modul University in Vienna.[254][255] The thinktank's Brussels branch opened in November 2022.[256] In 2021, Orbán's government passed a bill which privatized 11 Hungarian universities and subsequently were endowed billions of euros in assets from the state budget, as well as real estate and shares in large companies. The government has appointed conservatives to the supervisory boards of these universities.[257]

As part of a drive to "re-Christianize" the country, his government has privatised many previously state-run schools and enlisted Christian churches to provide education, introduced religion classes into the national education curriculum, and provided financial support to more Christian schools.[258] The country's kindergarten curriculum was amended to promote "national identity, Christian cultural values, patriotism, attachment to homeland and family".[250] Between 2010 and 2018, the number of Catholic schools increased from 9.4 percent to 18 percent.[259] The government also created the Center for Fundamental Rights (Hungarian: Alapjogokért Központ) in 2013 who describe their mission as "preserving national identity, sovereignty and Christian social traditions".[250] In 2019 the government passed a law taking control of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.[260]

Criticism and political techniques

Orbán's critics have included domestic and foreign leaders (including former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,[261] German Chancellor Angela Merkel,[262] and the Presidents of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso,[263] and Jean-Claude Juncker),[264] intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations. He has been accused of pursuing anti-democratic reforms; attacking the human rights of the LGBT community; reducing the independence of Hungary's press, judiciary and central bank; amending Hungary's constitution to prevent amendments to Fidesz-backed legislation; and of cronyism and nepotism.[265][266][267]

Orbán was accused of pork barrel politics for building Pancho Aréna, a 4,000-seat stadium in the village in which he grew up, Felcsút, at a distance of some 6 metres (20 ft) from his country house.[268]

Economic cronyism

In the book The Ark of Orbán, Attila Antal wrote that the Orbán system of governance is characterized by the transformation of public money into private money, a system that has built a neo-feudal world of national capitalists, centered on the prime minister and his own family business interests. The largest share of national capitalists is the oligarchy "produced" by the system, such as István Tiborcz, who is closest to Viktor Orbán, and Lőrinc Mészáros and his family.[269]

A 2016 opinion piece for The New York Times by Kenneth Krushel called Orbán's political system a kleptocracy that wipes some of the country's wealth partly into its own pockets and partly into the pockets of people close to it.[270]

A 2017 Financial Times article compared the Hungarian elite under Orbán's government to Russian oligarchs. The article noted that they differ in that Hungary's "Oligarchs" under Orbán largely benefit from EU subsidies, unlike the Russian oligarchs. The article also mentioned the sudden increase in the personal wealth of Orbán's childhood friend, Lőrinc Mészáros, thanks to winning state contracts.[271]

A 2019 New York Times investigation revealed how Orbán leased plots of farm land to politically connected individuals and supporters of his and his party, thereby channeling disproportionate amounts of the EU's agricultural subsidies Hungary receives every year into the pockets of cronies.[272]

Opposition to European integration

Some opposition parties and critics also consider Orbán an opponent of European integration. In 2000, opposition parties MSZP and SZDSZ and the left-wing press presented Orbán's comment that "there's life outside the EU" as proof of his anti-Europeanism and sympathies with the radical right.[273][274] In the same press conference, Orbán clarified that "It will not be a tragedy if we cannot join the EU in 2003. (...) But this is not what we are preparing for. We are trying to urge our integration [into the EU], because it may give a new push to the economy."[275]

Migrant crisis

Hungarian-American business magnate and political activist George Soros criticized Orbán's handling of the European migrant crisis in 2015, saying: "His plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle."[276]

Orbán has been criticized for engineering the 2015 European migrant crisis for his own political gain. Specifically, he has been accused of mistreating migrants within Hungary and later sending many to Western Europe in an effort to stoke far-right sympathies in Western European countries.[277][278] During the crisis, Orbán ordered fences be put up across the Hungarian borders with Serbia and Croatia and refused to comply with the European Union's mandatory asylum quota.[279]

In 2015, The New York Times acknowledged that Orbán's stance on migration is slowly becoming mainstream in European politics. Andrew Higgins interviewed Orbán's ardent critic, György Konrád, who said that Orbán was right and Merkel was wrong concerning the handling of the migrant crisis.[280]

Anti-Soros theme

The Orbán government began to attack George Soros and his NGOs in early 2017, particularly for his support for more open immigration. In July 2017, the Israeli ambassador in Hungary joined Jewish groups and others in denouncing a billboard campaign backed by the government. Orbán's critics claimed it "evokes memories of the Nazi posters during the Second World War". The ambassador stated that the campaign "evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear", an apparent reference to the Holocaust. Hours later, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a "clarification", denouncing Soros, stating that he "continuously undermines Israel's democratically elected governments" and funded organizations "that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself". The clarification came a few days before an official visit to Hungary by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[281] The anti-Soros messages became key elements of the government's communication and campaign since then, which, among others, also targeted the Central European University (CEU).[282][283][284][285]

Journalist Andrew Marantz argues that whether or not Soros was doing any actual harm to Hungary or conservative values, it was important to have a face to attack in a political campaign rather than abstract ideas like "globalism, multiculturalism, bureaucracy in Brussels"; and that this was a strategy explained to Orbán by political consultant Arthur J. Finkelstein.[140]

Accusations of antisemitism

Orbán has been frequently accused of antisemitism, particularly for promoting conspiracy theories about the Jewish philanthropist George Soros.[286][287] In 2022 he was condemned by the International Auschwitz Committee for comments in which he criticised mixing "with non-Europeans". The Committee called on the EU to continue to distance itself from "Orbán's racist undertones and to make it clear to the world that a Mr. Orbán has no future in Europe".[288] Others have rejected the claim that he is antisemitic, arguing that his founding of the Holocaust Memorial Center and Memorial Day for the Hungarian Victims of the Holocaust are evidence of this.[289][290] He has also been accused of rehabilitating antisemitic Hungarian historical figures and of exploiting antisemitism.[291][292][293]

Irredentism and nativism

Main article: Hungarian irredentism

Orban's policy positions have been reported to lean towards irredentism and nativism.[294][295] He has overseen the transfer of hundreds of millions of Hungarian taxpayer money for the preservation of Hungarian language and monuments and institutions of the Hungarian diaspora, particularly in Romania, irking the Romanian government.[296]

Mixed-race statement

In a speech delivered to the 31st Bálványos Free Summer University and Student Camp in July 2022, Orbán expressed views that were later described as "a pure Nazi text" that was "worthy of Goebbels" by one of his senior advisers, Zsuzsa Hegedűs, in her letter of resignation.[16][297] In the speech, Orbán stated that "Migration has split Europe in two – or I could say that it has split the West in two. One half is a world where European and non-European peoples live together. These countries are no longer nations: they are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples" and "we are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race".[298] The speech drew condemnation from both the Romanian foreign ministry and other European leaders.[15] Two days later, in Wien, Orbán made it clear, he was talking about cultures and not about race. Zsuzsa Hegedüs later, in a letter to Orbán expressed that she is proud of him, and he can count on her like he could in the past 20 years.[299][17]

Later that month, he touched on this criticism in a speech at the CPAC opening in Dallas, saying that "a Christian politician cannot be racist" and calling his critics "simply idiots".[300][240][301] He also attacked billionaire George Soros, former United States President Barack Obama, "globalists", and the United States' Democratic Party.[300]

Personal life

 
Orbán and his wife, Anikó Lévai, in 2016

Orbán married jurist Anikó Lévai in 1986, they have five children.[302] Their eldest daughter, Ráhel, is married to entrepreneur Tiborcz István [hu], whose company, Elios, was accused of receiving unfair advantages when winning public tenders.[303] (see Elios case [hu]) Orbán's son, Gáspár, is a retired footballer, who played for Ferenc Puskás Football Academy in 2014.[304][better source needed] Gáspár is also one of the founders of a religious community called Felház.[305] Orbán has three younger daughters (Sára, Róza, Flóra) and three granddaughters (Ráhel's children Aliz and Anna Adél; Sára's daughter Johanna).[citation needed]

Orbán is a member of the Calvinist-oriented Hungarian Reformed Church, while his wife and their five children were raised Catholic.[306] His son Gáspár Orbán converted in 2014 to the Faith Church, a Pentecostal denomination, and is currently a minister who had heard from God and witnessed miraculous healings.[307]

Football interests

Orbán is very fond of sports, especially of football; he was a signed player of FC Felcsút, and as a result he also appears in Football Manager 2006.[308][309]

Orbán has played football from his early childhood. He was a professional player with FC Felcsút. After ending his football career, he became one of the main financiers of the Hungarian football and his hometown's club, Felcsút FC, later renamed the Ferenc Puskás Football Academy.[310] He had a prominent role in the foundation of Puskás Akadémia in Felcsút, creating one of the most modern training facilities for young Hungarian footballers.[311]

He played an important role in establishing the annually organised international youth cup, the Puskás Cup, at Pancho Aréna, which he also helped build,[312][271] in his hometown of Felcsút. His only son, Gáspár, learned and trained there.[313]

Orbán is said to watch as many as six games a day. His first trip abroad as prime minister in 1998 was to the World Cup final in Paris; according to inside sources, he has not missed a World Cup or Champions League final since.[309]

Then FIFA President Sepp Blatter visited the facilities at the Puskás Academy in 2009. Blatter, together with the widow of Ferenc Puskás, as well as Orbán, founder of the academy, announced the creation of the new FIFA Puskás Award during that visit.[314] He played the minor role of a footballer in the Hungarian family film Szegény Dzsoni és Árnika (1983).[315]

See also

References

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Bibliography

  • Bell, Imogen (2003). Central and South-Eastern Europe 2004. Routledge. ISBN 978-1857431865.
  • Debreczeni, József (2002), Orbán Viktor (in Hungarian), Budapest: Osiris
  • Fabry, Adam (2019). "Neoliberalism, crisis and authoritarian–ethnicist reaction: The ascendancy of the Orbán regime". Competition & Change. 23 (2): 165–191. doi:10.1177/1024529418813834. S2CID 158640642.
  • Kenney, Padraic (2002). A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-05028-7.
  • Lendvai, Paul (2017). Orbán: Hungary's Strongman. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190874865.
  • Martens, Wilfried (2009). Europe: I Struggle, I Overcome. Springer. ISBN 978-3540892885.
  • Metz, Rudolf, and Daniel Oross. "Strong Personalities’ Impact on Hungarian Party Politics: Viktor Orbán and Gábor Vona." in Party Leaders in Eastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020) pp. 145–170. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-32025-6_7
  • Rydliński, Bartosz. "Viktor Orbán–First among Illiberals? Hungarian and Polish Steps towards Populist Democracy." Online Journal Modelling the New Europe 26 (2018): 95–107. online
  • Szikra D. "Democracy and welfare in hard times: the social policy of the Orban Government in Hungary between 2010 and 2014" Journal of European Social Policy (2014) 24(5): 486–500.
  • Szilágyi, Anna, and András Bozóki. "Playing it again in post-communism: the revolutionary rhetoric of Viktor Orbán in Hungary." Advances in the History of Rhetoric 18.sup1 (2015): S153–S166. online
  • Toomey, Michael (2018). "History, nationalism and democracy: myth and narrative in Viktor Orbán's 'illiberal Hungary'". New Perspectives. Interdisciplinary Journal of Central & East European Politics and International Relations. 26 (1): 87–108. doi:10.1177/2336825X1802600110.

Further reading

  • Hollós, János – Kondor, Katalin: Szerda reggel – Rádiós beszélgetések Orbán Viktor miniszterelnökkel, 1998. szeptember – 2000. December; ISBN 963-9337-32-3
  • Hollós, János – Kondor, Katalin: Szerda reggel – Rádiós beszélgetések Orbán Viktor miniszterelnökkel, 2001–2002; ISBN 963-9337-61-7
  • A történelem főutcáján – Magyarország 1998–2002, Orbán Viktor miniszterelnök beszédei és beszédrészletei, Magyar Egyetemi Kiadó; ISBN 963-8638-31-1
  • 20 év – Beszédek, írások, interjúk, 1986–2006, Heti Válasz Kiadó, ISBN 963-9461-22-9
  • Egy az ország. Helikon Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2007. (translated into Polish as Ojczyzna jest jedna in 2009).
  • Rengéshullámok. Helikon Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2010.
  • Janke, Igor: Hajrá, magyarok! – Az Orbán Viktor-sztori egy lengyel újságíró szemével Rézbong Kiadó, 2013. (English: Igor Janke: Forward! – The Story of Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, German: Viktor Orbán: Ein Stürmer in der Politik).

External links

  • Official website
  • News from the BBC (2002)
  • Hungarian PM puts football first – BBC
  • Orbán in 1989 – YouTube (in Hungarian)
Political offices
Preceded by Prime Minister of Hungary
1998–2002 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Prime Minister of Hungary
2010–present 		Incumbent
Party political offices
New title President of Fidesz
1993–2000 		Succeeded by
Preceded by President of Fidesz
2003–present 		Incumbent

February 16, 2024
viktor, orbán, native, form, this, personal, name, orbán, viktor, mihály, this, article, uses, western, name, order, when, mentioning, individuals, viktor, mihály, orbán, hungarian, ˈviktor, ˈorbaːn, born, 1963, hungarian, lawyer, politician, been, prime, mini. The native form of this personal name is Orban Viktor Mihaly This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals Viktor Mihaly Orban 1 Hungarian ˈviktor ˈorbaːn born 31 May 1963 is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010 previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002 He has led the Fidesz political party since 1993 with a break between 2000 and 2003 Viktor OrbanMPOrban in 2022Prime Minister of HungaryIncumbentAssumed office 29 May 2010PresidentLaszlo Solyom Pal Schmitt Laszlo Kover acting Janos Ader Katalin NovakDeputyTibor Navracsics Sandor Pinter Zsolt Semjen Mihaly VargaPreceded byGordon BajnaiIn office 6 July 1998 27 May 2002PresidentArpad Goncz Ferenc MadlPreceded byGyula HornSucceeded byPeter MedgyessyPresident of the FideszIncumbentAssumed office 17 May 2003Preceded byJanos AderIn office 18 April 1993 29 January 2000Preceded byOffice establishedSucceeded byLaszlo KoverMember of the National AssemblyIncumbentAssumed office 2 May 1990Personal detailsBornViktor Mihaly Orban 1963 05 31 31 May 1963 age 60 Szekesfehervar HungaryPolitical partyFidesz since 1988 SpouseAniko Levai m 1986 wbr Children5 including GasparParentsErzsebet Sipos Gyozo Balint OrbanResidence s Carmelite Monastery of Buda5 Cinege ut BudapestAlma materEotvos Lorand University JD ProfessionPoliticianlawyerSignatureWebsiteViktor Orban websiteOrban studied law at Eotvos Lorand University before entering politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 Orban already headed the Hungarian dissident student movement and became nationally known after a 1989 speech in which he openly demanded that Soviet armed forces leave the People s Republic of Hungary After the end of communism in Hungary in 1989 followed by transition to a multiparty democracy the following year Orban was elected to the National Assembly and led Fidesz s parliamentary caucus until 1993 During Orban s first term as prime minister from 1998 to 2002 with him as the head of a conservative coalition government inflation and the fiscal deficit shrank and Hungary joined NATO Orban was the Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2010 In 2010 Orban was again elected prime minister Central issues during Orban s second premiership include controversial constitutional and legislative reforms in particular the 2013 amendments to the Constitution of Hungary as well as the European migrant crisis the lex CEU and the COVID 19 pandemic in Hungary He was reelected in 2014 2018 and 2022 On 29 November 2020 he became the country s longest serving prime minister 2 Starting with the Second Orban Government in 2010 during his uninterrupted stay in power Orban has curtailed press freedom weakened judicial independence and undermined multiparty democracy amounting to democratic backsliding during Orban s tenure 3 4 5 For his own part Orban has issued harsh criticism of and has refused to implement multiple policies favored by the political leadership of the European Union in Brussels which he alleges are anti nationalist and anti Christian The E U has fired back by accusing Orban of accepting their money anyway and of political corruption by funneling it to his allies and relatives It has further been alleged that Orban s government is a kleptocracy 6 His government has also been characterized as a hybrid regime and dominant party system 7 8 9 10 Orban defends his policies as illiberal Christian democracy 11 12 As a result Fidesz was suspended from the European People s Party from March 2019 13 in March 2021 Fidesz left the EPP over a dispute over new rule of law language in the latter s bylaws 14 In a July 2022 speech Orban criticized the miscegenation of European and non European races saying We Hungarians are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race 15 16 Two days later in Vienna he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about race 17 His tenure has seen Hungary s government shift towards what he has called illiberal democracy while simultaneously promoting Euroscepticism and opposition to liberal democracy and establishment of closer ties with China and Russia 18 19 20 Contents 1 Early life 2 Early career 1988 1998 3 First premiership 1998 2002 3 1 Economy 3 2 Foreign policy 4 Leader of the Opposition 2002 2010 5 Second premiership 2010 present 5 1 Democratic backsliding and authoritarianism 5 2 Anti LGBT policies 5 3 Foreign policy 5 3 1 China 5 3 2 Russia and Ukraine 5 3 3 Hungary s accession to the Organization of Turkic States 5 3 4 Israel and Hamas 5 4 Nationalistic views 5 4 1 Opposition to immigration support for higher birth rates 6 Views public image international influence 6 1 Domestic policy 6 2 Criticism and political techniques 6 2 1 Economic cronyism 6 2 2 Opposition to European integration 6 2 3 Migrant crisis 6 2 4 Accusations of antisemitism 6 2 5 Irredentism and nativism 6 2 6 Mixed race statement 7 Personal life 7 1 Football interests 8 See also 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 Further reading 12 External linksEarly lifeOrban was born on 31 May 1963 in Szekesfehervar into a rural middle class family as the eldest son of the agronomist mechanical engineer and later construction businessman Gyozo Orban born 1940 21 and the special educator and speech therapist Erzsebet Sipos born 1944 22 He has two younger brothers both businessmen Gyozo Jr born 1965 and Aron born 1977 His paternal grandfather Mihaly Orban a former docker and a war veteran farmed and worked as a veterinary assistant in Alcsutdoboz in Fejer County where Orban first grew up The family moved in 1973 to the neighbouring Felcsut where Orban s father was head of the machinery department at the local farm collective 23 Orban attended school there and in Vertesacsa 24 25 His parents and his grandfather completed further education as adults and pursued their careers within the framework of economic liberalisation under the Kadar regime 26 In 1977 the family moved to Szekesfehervar where Orban had secured a place at the prestigious Blanka Teleki grammar school 27 In his first two years at the school he served as local secretary of the Hungarian Young Communist League KISZ membership of which was mandatory in order to matriculate to a university 28 29 and of which his father was a patron 30 During his high school years Orban developed an interest in football and befriended his future political associate Lajos Simicska 27 After graduating in 1981 he completed his military service alongside Simicska He was jailed several times for indiscipline which included a failure to appear for duty during the 1982 FIFA World Cup and striking a non commissioned officer during a personal altercation 31 His time in the army also coincided with the declaration of martial law in Poland in December 1981 which his friend Simicska criticised 31 Orban recalled expecting to be mobilised to invade Poland 32 He would later state that military service had shifted his political views radically from the previous position of a naive and devoted supporter of the Communist regime 29 However a state security report from May 1982 when his father was working on an engineering contract in Libya still described him as loyal to our social system 30 33 Next in 1983 Orban went to study law at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest He joined an English model residential college for law students from outside the capital Jogasz Tarsadalomtudomanyi Szakkollegium Lawyers Special College of Social Sciences established in 1983 by the young lecturer Istvan Stumpf under the protection of the latter s father in law the minister of the interior Istvan Horvath 34 35 Members of this college which would be named after Istvan Bibo in May 1989 35 were permitted to explore social sciences beyond the socialist canon and the new field of bourgeois political science in particular 36 37 38 It was there that Orban met Gabor Fodor and Laszlo Kover 36 39 He became chairman of the executive committee of the college s sixty students in 1984 39 He went on a series of trips to Poland with his classmates and lecturer Tamas Fellegi in 1984 1985 and again in 1987 during the third pastoral visit of John Paul II Their Polish contacts all along were Malgorzata Tarasiewicz and Adam Jagusiak members to be of the anti Communist student movement Freedom and Peace from 1985 40 Orban submitted his Master s thesis on the Polish Solidarity movement based on interviews with its leaders in 1986 32 41 In August 1986 shortly before Orban s wedding with Dr Aniko Levai in Szolnok in September of that year a police source reported him to belong to an organisation whose members were lecturing in the USA or West Germany as the country s expected future leaders and receiving Western support while also being privy to top level government decisions through minister Horvath and enjoying full protection of the Budapest police BRFK The minister was expected to personally intervene to clear Orban in particular of any sedition charges 30 33 After obtaining the higher degree of Juris Doctor 42 in 1987 43 44 Orban lived in Szolnok for two years commuting to his job in Budapest as a sociologist at the Management Training Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food 45 In November 1987 Orban welcomed a group of 150 delegates from 17 countries to a two day seminar on the Perestroika conscientious objection and the prospects for a pan European democratic movement held at the Lawyers Special College of Social Sciences with the backing of the European Network for East West Dialogue 38 In September 1989 Orban took up a research fellowship at Pembroke College Oxford funded by the Soros Foundation which had employed him part time since April 1988 46 He began work on the concept of civil society in European political thought under the guidance of Zbigniew Pelczynski 25 47 During this time he unsuccessfully contested the Fidesz leadership elections in Budapest which he lost to Fodor In January 1990 he abandoned his project at Oxford and returned to Hungary with his family to run for a seat in Hungary s first post communist parliament 48 Early career 1988 1998 nbsp Orban and Gabor Fodor at the Szarszo meeting of 1993On 30 March 1988 at the Lawyers Special College of Social Sciences Orban alongside Stumpf Fodor Kover and 32 other students and activists founded the Alliance of Young Democrats Fiatal Demokratak Szovetsege FIDESZ a liberal nationalist youth movement conceived as an overt political challenge to the Hungarian Young Communist League whose members were banned from participation 49 50 The college journal Szazadveg End of the Century established with Orban s help and funded by George Soros since 1985 now became the press organ of Fidesz 51 41 52 39 On 16 June 1989 Orban gave a speech in Heroes Square Budapest on the occasion of the reburial of Imre Nagy and other national martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution In his speech he demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops The speech brought him to national prominence and announced the existence of Fidesz to the wider public 53 In the summer of 1989 he took part in the opposition round table talks representing Fidesz alongside Laszlo Kover 54 Fidesz became a political party in October 1989 55 nbsp Orban in 1997 as leader of the oppositionOn returning home from Oxford he secured the first spot on the Fidesz candidate list ahead of Fodor and was elected Member of Parliament from Pest County at the April 1990 election 56 He was appointed leader of the Fidesz s parliamentary group in this capacity until May 1993 57 On 18 April 1993 Orban became the first president of Fidesz replacing the national board that had served as a collective leadership since its founding Under his leadership Fidesz gradually transformed from a radical liberal student organization to a center right people s party 58 The conservative turn caused a severe split in the membership Several members left the party including Peter Molnar Gabor Fodor and Zsuzsanna Szelenyi Fodor and others later joined the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats SZDSZ initially a strong ally of Fidesz but later a political opponent 59 During the 1994 parliamentary election Fidesz barely reached the 5 threshold 60 Orban became MP from his party s Fejer County Regional List 57 He was chairman of the Committee on European Integration Affairs between 1994 and 1998 57 He was also a member of the Immunity Incompatibility and Credentials Committee for a short time in 1995 57 Under his presidency Fidesz adopted Hungarian Civic Party Magyar Polgari Part to its shortened name in 1995 His party gradually became dominant in the right wing of the political spectrum while the former ruling conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum MDF had lost much of its support 60 From April 1996 Orban was chairman of the Hungarian National Committee of the New Atlantic Initiative NAI 61 In September 1992 Orban was elected vice chairman of the Liberal International 62 In November 2000 however Fidesz left the Liberal International and joined the European People s Party EPP During the time Orban worked hard to unite the center right liberal conservative parties in Hungary At the EPP s Congress in Estoril in October 2002 he was elected vice president an office he held until 2012 63 First premiership 1998 2002 Main article First Orban GovernmentThis section about a living person needs additional citations for verification Please help by adding reliable sources Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page especially if potentially libelous Find sources Viktor Orban news newspapers books scholar JSTOR April 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message In 1998 Orban formed a coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum MDF and the Independent Smallholders Party FKGP The coalition won the 1998 parliamentary elections with 42 of the national vote 63 Orban became the second youngest prime minister of Hungary at the age of 35 after Andras Hegedus 64 and the first post Cold War head of government in both eastern and central Europe who had not previously been a member of a communist party during the Soviet era 65 The new government immediately launched a radical reform of state administration reorganizing ministries and creating a superministry for the economy In addition the boards of the social security funds and centralized social security payments were dismissed Following the German model Orban strengthened the prime minister s office and named a new minister to oversee the work of his cabinet citation needed nbsp Orban with Tamas Deutsch in 2000In February the government decided that plenary sessions of the Hungarian Parliament would be held only every third week 66 Opposition parties strongly opposed the change 67 68 69 arguing that it would reduce parliament s legislative efficiency and ability to supervise the government 70 In March the government also tried to replace the National Assembly rule that requires a two thirds majority vote with one of a simple majority but the Constitutional Court ruled this unconstitutional 71 Two of Orban s state secretaries in the prime minister s office had to resign in May due to their implication in a bribery scandal involving the American military manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corporation Before bids on a major jet fighter contract the two secretaries along with 32 other deputies of Orban s party had sent a letter to two US senators to lobby for the appointment of a Budapest based Lockheed manager to be the US ambassador to Hungary 72 On 31 August the head of the Tax Office also resigned after protracted criticism by the opposition on his earlier allegedly suspicious business dealings citation needed The government was also involved in a lengthy dispute with Budapest City Council the national government s decision in late 1998 to cancel two major urban projects the construction of a new national theatre 73 and of the fourth subway line citation needed Relations between the Fidesz led coalition government and the opposition worsened in the National Assembly where the two seemed to have abandoned all attempts at consensus seeking politics The government pushed to swiftly replace the heads of key institutions such as the Hungarian National Bank chairman the Budapest City Chief Prosecutor and the Hungarian Radio with partisan figures Although the opposition resisted for example by delaying their appointing of members of the supervising boards the government ran the institutions without the stipulated number of directors In a similar vein Orban failed to show up for question time in parliament for periods of up to 10 months His statements such as The parliament works without opposition too also contributed to the image of arrogant and aggressive governance 74 A later report in March by the Brussels based International Federation of Journalists criticized the Hungarian government for improper political influence in the media as the country s public service broadcaster teetered close to bankruptcy 75 Numerous political scandals during 2001 led to a de facto if not actual breakup of the coalition that held power in Budapest A bribery scandal in February triggered a wave of allegations and several prosecutions against the Independent Smallholders Party The affair resulted in the ousting of Jozsef Torgyan from both the FKGP presidency and the top post in the Ministry of Agriculture The FKGP disintegrated and more than a dozen of its MPs joined the government faction 76 Economy Orban s economic policy was aimed at cutting taxes and social insurance contributions while reducing inflation and unemployment Among the new government s first measures was to abolish university tuition fees and reintroduce universal maternity benefits The government announced its intention to continue the Socialist Liberal stabilization program and pledged to narrow the budget deficit which had grown to 4 5 of GDP 77 The previous Socialist government had almost completed the privatization of government run industries and had launched a comprehensive pension reform However the Socialists had avoided two major socioeconomic issues reform of health care and agriculture these remained to be tackled by Orban s government citation needed Economic successes included a drop in inflation from 15 in 1998 to 7 8 in 2001 Annual GDP growth rates were fairly steady under Orban s tenure ranging from 3 8 to 5 2 The fiscal deficit fell from 3 9 in 1999 to 3 4 in 2001 and the ratio of the national debt decreased to 54 of GDP 77 Under the Orban cabinet there were realistic hopes that Hungary would be able to join the Eurozone by 2009 However negotiations for entry into the European Union slowed in the fall of 1999 after the EU included six more countries in addition to the original six in the accession discussions Orban repeatedly criticized the EU for its delay citation needed nbsp Mikulas Dzurinda Orban and Gunter Verheugen during the opening of the Maria Valeria Bridge across the Danube connecting the Slovak town of Sturovo with Esztergom in Hungary in November 2001Foreign policy In March 1999 after Russian objections were overruled Hungary joined NATO along with the Czech Republic and Poland 78 The Hungarian membership to NATO demanded its involvement in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia s Kosovo crisis and modernization of its army NATO membership also dealt a blow to the economy because of a trade embargo imposed on Yugoslavia 79 Hungary attracted international media attention in 1999 for passing the status law concerning estimated three million ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring Romania Slovakia Serbia and Montenegro Croatia Slovenia and Ukraine The law aimed to provide education health benefits and employment rights to members of those minorities and was said to heal the negative effects of the disastrous 1920 Trianon Treaty 80 Governments in neighbouring states particularly Romania claimed to be insulted by the law which they saw as interference in their domestic affairs Proponents of the status law countered that several of the countries criticizing the law themselves had similar constructs to provide benefits for their own minorities Romania acquiesced after amendments following a December 2001 agreement between Orban and Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Năstase 81 Slovakia accepted the law after further concessions made by the new government after the 2002 elections 82 nbsp Orban with George W Bush at the White House in 2001Leader of the Opposition 2002 2010 This section about a living person needs additional citations for verification Please help by adding reliable sources Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page especially if potentially libelous Find sources Viktor Orban news newspapers books scholar JSTOR April 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message The level of public support for political parties generally stagnated even with general elections coming in 2002 Fidesz and the main opposition Hungarian Socialist Party MSZP ran neck and neck in the opinion polls for most of the year both attracting about 26 of the electorate According to a September 2001 poll by the Gallup organization however support for a joint Fidesz Hungarian Democratic Forum party list would run up to 33 of the voters with the Socialists drawing 28 and other opposition parties 3 each 83 Meanwhile public support for the FKGP plunged from 14 in 1998 to 1 in 2001 As many as 40 of the voters remained undecided however Although the Socialists had picked their candidate for prime minister former finance minister Peter Medgyessy the opposition largely remained unable to increase its political support citation needed The dark horse of the election was the radical nationalist Hungarian Justice and Life Party MIEP with its leader Istvan Csurka s radical rhetoric MIEP could not be ruled out as the key to a new term for Orban and his party should they be forced into a coalition after the 2002 elections citation needed The elections of 2002 were the most heated Hungary had experienced in more than a decade and an unprecedented cultural political division formed in the country In the event Orban s group lost the April parliamentary elections to the opposition Hungarian Socialist Party which set up a coalition with its longtime ally the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats Turnout was a record high 70 5 Beyond these parties only deputies of the Hungarian Democratic Forum made it into the National Assembly The populist Independent Smallholders Party and the right Hungarian Justice and Life Party lost all their seats Thus the number of political parties in the new assembly was reduced from six to four 84 MIEP challenged the government s legitimacy demanded a recount complained of election fraud and generally kept the country in election mode until the October municipal elections The socialist controlled Central Elections Committee ruled that a recount was unnecessary a position supported by observers from the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe whose only substantive criticism of the election conduct was that the state television carried a consistent bias in favour of Fidesz 85 Orban received the Freedom Award of the American Enterprise Institute and the New Atlantic Initiative 2001 the Polak Award 2001 the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit 2001 the Forderpreis Soziale Marktwirtschaft Price for the Social Market Economy 2002 and the Merite Europeen prize 2004 In April 2004 he received the Papal Grand Cross of the Order of St Gregory the Great In the 2004 European Parliament election the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party was heavily defeated by the opposition conservative Fidesz Fidesz gained 47 4 of the vote and 12 of Hungary s 24 seats 86 87 nbsp Orban and Hans Gert Pottering in 2006 nbsp Orban and Romanian President Traian Băsescu in 2008Orban was the Fidesz candidate for the parliamentary election in 2006 Fidesz and its new old candidate failed again to gain a majority in this election which initially put Orban s future political career as the leader of Fidesz in question 88 However after fighting with the Socialist Liberal coalition Orban s position resolidified and he was elected president of Fidesz for yet another term in May 2007 89 On 17 September 2006 an audio recording surfaced from a closed door Hungarian Socialist Party meeting which was held on 26 May 2006 in which Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany gave an obscenity laden speech The leak ignited mass protests citation needed On 1 November Orban and his party announced their plans to stage several large scale demonstrations across Hungary on the anniversary of the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Revolution The events were intended to serve as a memorial to the victims of the Soviet invasion and a protest against police brutality during the 23 October unrest in Budapest Planned events included a candlelight vigil march across Budapest However the demonstrations were small and petered out by the end of the year 90 A new round of demonstrations expected in the spring of 2007 did not materialize citation needed On 1 October 2006 Fidesz won the municipal elections which counterbalanced the MSZP led government s power to some extent Fidesz won 15 of 23 mayoralties in Hungary s largest cities although it narrowly lost Budapest to the Liberal Party and majorities in 18 of 20 regional assemblies 91 92 On 9 March 2008 a national referendum took place on revoking government reforms which introduced doctor fees per visit and medical fees paid per number of days spent in hospital as well as tuition fees in higher education Fidesz initiated the referendum against the ruling MSZP 93 94 The procedure for the referendum started on 23 October 2006 when Orban announced they would hand in seven questions to the National Electorate Office three of which on abolishing copayments daily fees and college tuition fees were officially approved on 17 December 2007 and called on 24 January 2008 The referendum passed a significant victory for Fidesz 95 In the 2009 European Parliament election Fidesz won by a large margin garnering 56 36 of votes and 14 of Hungary s 22 seats 96 Second premiership 2010 present Main articles Second Orban Government Third Orban Government Fourth Orban Government and Fifth Orban Government nbsp Orban at a press conference following the meeting of leaders of the Visegrad Group Germany and France on 6 March 2013 nbsp Hungarians won t live according to the commands of foreign powers Orban told the crowd at Kossuth square on 15 March 2012In the 2010 parliamentary elections Orban s party won 52 73 of the popular vote but received a 68 majority of parliamentary seats due to the design of the post communist electoral system 97 139 98 A two third parliamentary majority is enough to change the constitution and in 2011 Orban s government drafted a new constitution behind closed doors debated it for only nine days in the parliament and passed it on a party line 99 52 100 101 102 103 Orban would go on to amend the constitution twelve times in his first year in office 99 52 Among other changes it includes support for traditional values nationalism references to Christianity and a controversial electoral reform which decreased the number of seats in the Parliament of Hungary from 386 to 199 104 105 The new constitution entered into force on 1 January 2012 and was later amended further Orban held a now famous speech in July 2014 in Băile Tușnad a remote village in Romania at the Balvanyos Free Summer University and Student Camp 106 In his speech he articulated his vision of forging an illiberal democracy in Hungary and described the Western 2007 2008 financial crisis as a paradigm shift of the international order comparable with the two world wars and the dissolution of the Soviet Union Orban described his current mission while breaking with the liberal dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them we are trying to find the form of community organisation the new Hungarian state which is capable of making our community competitive in the great global race for decades to come 106 Orban also garnered controversy for proposing an internet tax and for his perceived corruption 107 His second premiership saw numerous protests against his government including one in Budapest in November 2014 against the proposed internet tax 108 Orban s government implemented a flat tax on personal income set at 16 109 Orban has called his government pragmatic citing restrictions on early retirement in the police force and military making welfare more transparent and a central banking law that gives Hungary more independence from the European Central Bank 110 After the 2014 parliamentary election Fidesz won a majority garnering 133 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly 111 While he won a large majority he garnered 44 54 of the national vote down from 52 73 in 2010 citation needed During the 2015 European migrant crisis Orban ordered the erection of the Hungary Serbia barrier to block entry of illegal immigrants so that Hungary could register all the migrants arriving from Serbia which is the country s responsibility under the Dublin Regulation a European Union law 112 Under Orban Hungary took numerous actions to combat illegal immigration and reduce refugee levels 113 In May 2020 the European Court of Justice ruled against Hungary s policy of migrant transit zones which Orban subsequently abolished while also tightening the country s asylum rules 114 In the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election the Fidesz KDNP alliance was victorious and preserved its two thirds majority with Orban remaining prime minister Orban and Fidesz campaigned primarily on the issues of immigration and foreign meddling and the election outcome was seen as a victory for right wing populism in Europe 115 116 117 nbsp Poland s Law and Justice PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski with Orban on 22 September 2017On 30 March 2020 the Hungarian parliament voted 137 to 53 in favor of passing legislation that would create a state of emergency without a time limit grant the prime minister the ability to rule by decree suspend by elections and introduce the possibility of prison sentences for spreading fake news and sanctions for leaving quarantine 118 119 120 Two and a half months later on 16 June 2020 the Hungarian parliament passed a bill that ended the state of emergency effective 19 June 121 However on the same day the parliament passed a new law removing the requirement of parliamentary approval for future medical states of emergencies allowing the government to declare them by decree 122 123 In 2021 the parliament transferred control of 11 state universities to foundations led by allies of Orban 124 125 The Mathias Corvinus Collegium a residential college received an influx of government funds and assets equal to about 1 of Hungary s gross domestic product reportedly as part of a mission to train future conservative intellectuals 126 Due to a combination of unfavourable conditions which involved soaring demand of natural gas its diminished supply from Russia and Norway to the European markets and less power generation by renewable energy sources such as wind water and solar energy Europe faced steep increases in energy prices in 2021 In October 2021 Orban blamed a record breaking surge in energy prices on the European Commission s Green Deal plans 127 nbsp Russian President Vladimir Putin with Viktor Orban in the Kremlin on 1 February 2022In the 2022 parliamentary election Fidesz won a majority garnering 135 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly While Orban s close ties with Moscow raised concerns core Fidesz voters were persuaded that mending ties with the EU might also lead Hungary into war The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe dispatched a full scale monitoring mission for the election 128 Orban declared victory on Sunday night with partial results showing his Fidesz party leading the vote by a wide margin Addressing his supporters after the partial results Orban said We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon and you can certainly see it from Brussels 4 Opposition leader Peter Marki Zay admitted defeat shortly after Orban s speech 129 Democratic backsliding and authoritarianism Between 2010 and 2020 Hungary dropped 69 places in the Press Freedom Index 130 131 and lost 11 places in the Democracy Index 132 133 In 2019 Freedom House downgraded the country from free to partly free 134 The V Dem Democracy indices rank Hungary in 2021 as 96th in its electoral democracy index that measures whether elections were free and fair as well as the prevalence of a free and independent media sitting between Benin and Malaysia 135 Freedom House s Nations in Transit 2020 report reclassified Hungary from a democracy to a transitional or hybrid regime 136 The late professor of economics at Harvard University Janos Kornai described the evolution of the Hungarian state during Orban s second premiership as having taken a u turn away from the aim of becoming a market economy based on the rule of law and private ownership and instead beginning the systematic destruction of the fundamental institutions of democracy 137 34 35 In her 2015 article on Orban s illiberal democracy dr Abby Innes associate professor of political economy at the London School of Economics simply states that Hungary can no longer be ranked a democratic country 138 95 Former minister of education Balint Magyar has stated that elections in Hungary under Orban are undemocratic and free but not fair due to gerrymandering large scale control over the media and suspect funding for political campaigns 139 In the April 2022 election Orban s Fidesz party won 54 of the vote but 83 of the districts due to gerrymandering and other tweaks to Hungarian electoral rules 140 According to American journalist and author Andrew Marantz Orban passed laws amended the constitution and patiently debilitated delegitimatized hollowed out civic institutions such as courts universities and the apparatus necessary for free elections that are now controlled by Orban loyalists 140 Domination of the public media by Orban prevents the public from hearing critics point of view In 2022 Orban s opponent was given just five minutes on the national television to make his case to the voters 140 Private media outlets like the ATV and RTL among others offered playtime for opposition members An example of the discreet below the radar process of accumulating power by Orban and his party was the creation of a special police force that started as a small anti terror unit The unit grew and became more powerful bit by bit in disparate clauses buried in unrelated laws Marantz cites Princeton professor of sociology Kim Lane Scheppele who contends the unit now has enough power to function essentially as Orban s secret police 140 Hungarian political scientist Andras Korosenyi using Max Weber s classification argues that Orban s rule cannot be described simply by the notions of authoritarianisation or illiberalism He stresses out that the Orban regime can be characterised as plebiscitary leadership democracy instead 141 142 143 Anti LGBT policies Since his election as prime minister in 2010 Orban has led initiatives and laws to hinder human rights of LGBT people regarding such rights as not compatible with Christian values In 2020 Orban s government ended legal recognition of transgender people receiving criticism both in Hungary and abroad 144 In 2021 his party proposed legislation to censor any LGBT positive content in movies books or public advertisements and to severely restrict sex education in school forbidding any information thought to encourage gender change or homosexuality The law has been likened to Russia s restriction on homosexual propaganda 145 German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen harshly criticized the law 146 while a letter from sixteen EU leaders including Pedro Sanchez and Mario Draghi warned against threats against fundamental rights and in particular the principle of non discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation 147 His anti LGBT positions came under more scrutiny after the revelation that one of the European deputies of his party Jozsef Szajer had participated in a gay sex party in Brussels despite the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic quarantine restrictions 148 149 150 Szajer was one of the major architects behind the 2011 Constitution of Hungary This new constitution has been criticized by Human Rights Watch for being discriminatory towards the LGBT community 151 152 To coincide with the parliamentary election in the spring of 2022 Orban announced a four question referendum regarding LGBTQ issues in education It did not pass 153 It came after complaints from the European Union EU about anti LGBTQ discriminatory laws 154 Human rights groups condemned the referendum as anti LGBT rhetoric that supported discrimination 155 156 On July 22 2023 in a speech he gave in Romania Orban complained that the EU was conducting an LGBTQ offensive 157 Foreign policy In July 2018 Orban travelled to Turkey to attend the inauguration ceremony of re elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan 158 In October 2018 Orban said after talks with President Erdogan in Budapest that A stable Turkish government and a stable Turkey are a precondition for Hungary not to be endangered in any way due to overland migration 159 In June 2019 Orban met Myanmar s State Counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi They discussed bilateral ties and illegal migration 160 161 China Main article China Hungary relations Orban has maintained close ties with China throughout his tenure and his administration is generally seen as China s closest ally in the EU 162 Hungary joined China s Belt and Road Initiative BRI in 2015 163 while in April 2019 Orban attended a BRI forum in Beijing 164 where he met the Chinese leader Xi Jinping 165 He spearheaded plans to open a Fudan University campus in Budapest which led to pushback in Hungary 166 He met with Chinese Communist Party CCP Politburo member and top diplomat Wang Yi in Budapest on 20 February 2023 he afterwards backed the peace plan released Wang Yi concerning Russia s invasion of Ukraine 167 Russia and Ukraine Main articles Hungary Russia relations and Hungary Ukraine relations Orban questioned Nord Stream II a new Russia Germany natural gas pipeline He said he wants to hear a reasonable argument why South Stream was bad and Nord Stream is not 168 South Stream refers to the Balkan pipeline cancelled by Russia in December 2014 after obstacles from the EU 169 Since 2017 Hungary s relations with Ukraine rapidly deteriorated over the issue of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine 170 Orban and his cabinet ministers repeatedly criticized Ukraine s 2017 education law which makes Ukrainian the only language of education in state schools 171 172 and threatened to block further Ukraine s EU and NATO integration until it is modified or repealed 173 The language law was amended in December 2023 in favor of official languages of the European Union including Hungarian 174 Orban has displayed an ambivalent attitude towards Russia and Vladimir Putin especially following Russia s invasion of Ukraine 175 176 He has described the war as clear aggression by Russia saying a sovereign Ukraine is needed to stop Russia posing a threat to the security of Europe 177 178 179 However conversely he has also criticised the European Union for prolonging the war in Ukraine by sanctioning Russia and sending weapons and money to Ukraine instead of encouraging a negotiated peace and has been accused of blocking aid to Ukraine 180 181 182 Amidst the 2021 2022 Ukraine crisis Orban was the first EU leader to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a visit he called a peacekeeping mission 183 They also discussed Russian gas exports to Hungary 129 On 2 March as Russia had already launched an invasion of Ukraine Orban decided to welcome Ukrainian refugees to Hungary and will support the Ukrainian membership to the European Union 129 Initially Orban condemned Russia s invasion of Ukraine and said Hungary would not veto EU sanctions against Russia 184 However Orban rejected sanctions on Russian energy due to Hungary s excessive dependency 85 on Russian fossil fuels 185 In late March 2022 Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky singled out Orban for his lack of support for Ukraine 186 In June Zelensky thanked Orban for supporting Ukraine s sovereignty and for giving asylum to Ukrainians 187 On 27 February 2023 Viktor Orban said that Hungary supports the Chinese peace plan in the Russo Ukrainian conflict despite opposition by Western leaders Beijing s 12 point statement that criticised unilateral sanctions would reduce strategic risks associated with nuclear weapons in Central and Eastern Europe according to the statement 188 Hungary s accession to the Organization of Turkic States See also Hungarian Turanism nbsp Viktor Orban during the 7th Summit of Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States in Baku in 2019Since 2014 Hungary has had observer status at the General Assembly of Turkic speaking States and in 2017 it submitted an application for accession to the International Turkic Academy During the 6th Summit of Turkic Council Orban said that Hungary is seeking even closer cooperation with the Turkic Council 189 In 2018 Hungary obtained observer status in the council 190 In 2021 Orban mentioned that the Hungarian and Turkic peoples share a historical and cultural heritage reaching back many long centuries He also pointed out that the Hungarian people are proud of this heritage and were also proud when their opponents in Europe mocked them as barbarian Huns and Attila s people 191 In 2023 during his visit to Kazakhstan Orban said that Hungarians come to Kazakhstan with great pleasure because the two nations are connected by millennial common roots 192 Israel and Hamas The Hungarian government expressed support for Israel in the 2023 Israel Hamas war On 13 October Orban stated Israel has the right to defend itself and we will not allow sympathy rallies supporting terrorist organisations 193 On 22 October Fidesz parliamentary leader Mate Kocsis announced that the party will introduce a manifesto before the parliament condemning Hamas terrorism 194 Nationalistic views In his 2018 speech at the meeting of the Association of Cities with County Rights Orban said We must state that we do not want to be diverse and do not want to be mixed we do not want our own colour traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others We do not want this We do not want that at all We do not want to be a diverse country 195 196 In February 2020 Orban was interviewed by Christopher DeMuth at the National Conservatism Conference in Rome 197 In his 2021 speech Orban said The challenge with Bosnia is how to integrate a country with 2 million Muslims Bosnian leaders responded by calling for Orban s visit to Sarajevo to be cancelled The head of the country s Islamic Community Husein Kavazovic characterized his statement as xenophobic and racist 198 199 In May 2022 Orban promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory in a speech 200 In July 2022 Orban repeating the thesis of Jean Raspail 201 202 spoke in Romania against the mixing of European and non European races adding We Hungarians are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race 203 204 205 206 In Vienna two days later he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about race 17 Opposition to immigration support for higher birth rates As stated by The Guardian the Hungarian government doubled family spending between 2010 and 2019 intending to achieve a lasting turn in demographic processes by 2030 Orban has espoused an anti immigration platform and has also advocated for increased investment into Family First Orban has disregarded the European Union s attempts to promote integration as a key solution to population distribution problems in Europe He has also supported investments into countering the country s low birth rates Orban has tapped into the great replacement theory which emulates a nativist approach to rejecting foreign immigration out of fear of replacement by immigrants He has stated that If Europe is not going to be populated by Europeans in the future and we take this as given then we are speaking about an exchange of populations to replace the population of Europeans with others The Guardian stated that This year the Hungarian government introduced a 10 million forint 27 000 interest free loan for families which does not have to be paid back if the couple has three children 207 nbsp Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in December 2021In July 2020 Orban expressed that he still expects arguments over linking of disbursement of funds of the European Union to rule of law criteria but remarked in a state radio interview that they didn t win the war we they won an important battle 208 In August 2020 Orban whilst speaking at an event to inaugurate a monument commemorating the Treaty of Trianon said Central European nations should come together to preserve their Christian roots as western Europe experiments with same sex families immigration and atheism 209 Despite the anti immigration rhetoric from Orban Hungary increased the immigration of foreign workers into the country as of 2019 to address a labor shortage 210 211 212 Views public image international influence nbsp Orban with Jose Manuel Barroso and Stavros Lambrinidis in January 2011Orban s blend of soft Euroscepticism populism 213 214 215 and national conservatism has seen him compared to politicians and political parties as diverse as Jaroslaw Kaczynski s Law and Justice Silvio Berlusconi s Forza Italia Matteo Salvini s League Marine Le Pen s National Rally Donald Trump 216 Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin 217 Orban has sought to make Hungary an ideological center for an international conservative movement 218 According to Politico Orban s political philosophy echoes the resentments of what were once the peasant and working classes by promoting an uncompromising defense of national sovereignty and a transparent distrust of Europe s ruling establishments 216 Orban frequently emphasizes the importance of Christianity although he and the overwhelming majority of Hungarians do not attend church regularly 219 His authoritarian appeal to global conservatives has been summarized by Lauren Stokes as I alone can save you from the ravages of Islamization and totalitarian progressivism and in the face of all that who has time for checks and balances and rules 219 Orban had a close relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having known him for decades He is described as one of Mr Netanyahu s closest allies in Europe 220 Orban received personal advice on economic reforms from Netanyahu while the latter was Finance Minister of Israel 2003 2005 221 In February 2019 Netanyahu thanked Orban for deciding to extend the embassy of Hungary in Israel to Jerusalem 222 Orban is seen as having laid out his political views most concretely in a widely cited 2014 public address at Băile Tușnad known in Hungary as the Tusnadfurdoi beszed or Tusnadfurdo speech In the address Orban repudiated the classical liberal theory of the state as a free association of atomistic individuals arguing for the use of the state as the means of organizing invigorating or even constructing the national community Although this kind of state respects traditionally liberal concepts like civic rights it is properly called illiberal because it views the community and not the individual as the basic political unit 106 In practice Orban claimed such a state should promote national self sufficiency national sovereignty familialism full employment and the preservation of cultural heritage 106 nbsp Orban and Angela Merkel Congress of the European People s Party in Madrid on 21 October 2015 nbsp Orban with Vladimir Putin in February 2016Orban s second and third premierships have been the subject of significant international controversy and reception of his political views is mixed The 2011 constitutional changes enacted under his leadership were in particular accused of centralizing legislative and executive power curbing civil liberties restricting freedom of speech and weakening the Constitutional Court and judiciary 98 For these reasons critics have described him as an irredentist 223 a right wing populist 224 an authoritarian 225 far right 226 a fascist 227 autocratic 228 a Putinist 229 a strongman 230 and a dictator 231 The European migrant crisis coupled with continued Islamist terrorism in the European Union have popularized Orban s nationalist protectionist policies among European conservative leaders Once ostracized by Europe s political elite writes Politico Orban is now the talisman of Europe s mainstream right 216 As other Visegrad Group leaders Orban opposes any compulsory EU long term quota on redistribution of migrants 232 He wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Europe s response is madness We must acknowledge that the European Union s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation 233 He also demanded an official EU list of safe countries to which migrants can be returned 234 According to Orban Turkey should be considered a safe third country 235 As mentioned above Orban has promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory In a 2018 speech he stated I think there are many people who would like to see the end of Christian Europe and they believe that if they replace its cultural subsoil if they bring in millions of people from new ethnic groups which are not rooted in Christian culture then they will transform Europe according to their conception 236 During a press conference in January 2019 Orban praised Brazil s then president Jair Bolsonaro saying that currently the most apt definition of modern Christian democracy can be found in Brazil not in Europe 237 In support of Orban and his ideas a think tank called the Danube Institute was established in 2013 funded by the Batthyany Foundation which in turn is funded entirely by the Hungarian government 140 Batthyany sponsors international conferences and three periodicals all in English European Conservative Hungarian Review and Hungarian Conservative In 2020 the institute began hosting fellows 140 nbsp Orban with Mike Pompeo in Budapest in February 2019In the United StatesOrban often attacked the administrations of presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden particularly for their supposed pro immigration policies Some analysts argue that Orban s attacks on the US are largely political theater for his domestic voters 19 In January 2022 Donald Trump endorsed Orban in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election saying in a statement that he truly loves his Country and wants safety for his people and praising his hard line immigration policies 238 239 Donald Trump s former chief strategist Steve Bannon once called Orban Trump before Trump 196 In August 2021 Tucker Carlson hosted some episodes of his show Tucker Carlson Tonight from Budapest praising Orban as the one elected leader on the face of the earth who publicly identifies as a Western style conservative He also conducted a fifteen minute interview with Orban which was widely criticized for its fawning nature and lack of challenging questions 140 In May 2022 the Conservative Political Action Conference the flagship conference of American conservatism 219 held a satellite event in Budapest 240 In Florida a law regulating sex education in schools sometimes called the Don t Say Gay law resembles a similar Hungarian law passed in 2021 and was according to governor Ron DeSantis s press secretary inspired by it 140 In August 2022 Orban was the opening speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC in Dallas Texas 241 Domestic policy Viktor Orban s domestic policy agenda has placed emphasis on cultural conservatism especially through pro natalist policies designed to encourage family formation and reduce immigration Female university graduates who have or adopt children within two years of graduation receive partial or full forgiveness on their student loans including a full write off of their student debt if they have three or more children 242 243 Hungarian women who have four or more children are eligible for full income tax exemption for life 244 Married couples are eligible for low fixed rate mortgages on a house with additional financial support through family housing benefits as well as subsidies for the purchase of seven seat cars for families with three or more children and financial support for child care 245 In support of these policies Orban stated in 2019 that For the west the answer is immigration For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine But we do not need numbers We need Hungarian children 246 The government has also tightened legal regulations on access to abortion including requiring pregnant women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus prior to an abortion being approved by a doctor 247 The number of abortions procured in Hungary between 2010 and 2021 fell almost 50 from 34 per hundred live births in 2010 to 23 7 per hundred in 2021 248 His government s economic approach has been referred to as Orbanomics 249 Despite early concerns that these reforms would undermine investor confidence economic growth has been strong with unemployment plummeting between 2010 and 2021 and year on year GDP growth at 4 percent in 2021 250 Progressive taxation on income was abolished in 2015 and replaced with a flat rate of 16 on gross income and income taxes on those aged 25 years or younger was abolished entirely in 2021 251 Hungary paid the last of its IMF loan ahead of schedule in 2013 with the fund closing its Budapest office later that year 252 Due to the economic impact of Russia s invasion of Ukraine as well as the shocks of COVID 19 pandemic and lockdowns Orban s government has imposed windfall taxes on banks pharmaceutical companies and energy companies in order to maintain a government subsidized cap on utility bills including gas electricity water district heating sewage and garbage collection which continues into 2023 253 Orban s government has encouraged and provided financial support for the establishment of conservative think tanks and cultural institutions The Mathias Corvinus Collegium has purchased stakes in several European universities and has purchased the Modul University in Vienna 254 255 The thinktank s Brussels branch opened in November 2022 256 In 2021 Orban s government passed a bill which privatized 11 Hungarian universities and subsequently were endowed billions of euros in assets from the state budget as well as real estate and shares in large companies The government has appointed conservatives to the supervisory boards of these universities 257 As part of a drive to re Christianize the country his government has privatised many previously state run schools and enlisted Christian churches to provide education introduced religion classes into the national education curriculum and provided financial support to more Christian schools 258 The country s kindergarten curriculum was amended to promote national identity Christian cultural values patriotism attachment to homeland and family 250 Between 2010 and 2018 the number of Catholic schools increased from 9 4 percent to 18 percent 259 The government also created the Center for Fundamental Rights Hungarian Alapjogokert Kozpont in 2013 who describe their mission as preserving national identity sovereignty and Christian social traditions 250 In 2019 the government passed a law taking control of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 260 Criticism and political techniques Orban s critics have included domestic and foreign leaders including former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 261 German Chancellor Angela Merkel 262 and the Presidents of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso 263 and Jean Claude Juncker 264 intergovernmental organizations and non governmental organizations He has been accused of pursuing anti democratic reforms attacking the human rights of the LGBT community reducing the independence of Hungary s press judiciary and central bank amending Hungary s constitution to prevent amendments to Fidesz backed legislation and of cronyism and nepotism 265 266 267 Orban was accused of pork barrel politics for building Pancho Arena a 4 000 seat stadium in the village in which he grew up Felcsut at a distance of some 6 metres 20 ft from his country house 268 Economic cronyism In the book The Ark of Orban Attila Antal wrote that the Orban system of governance is characterized by the transformation of public money into private money a system that has built a neo feudal world of national capitalists centered on the prime minister and his own family business interests The largest share of national capitalists is the oligarchy produced by the system such as Istvan Tiborcz who is closest to Viktor Orban and Lorinc Meszaros and his family 269 A 2016 opinion piece for The New York Times by Kenneth Krushel called Orban s political system a kleptocracy that wipes some of the country s wealth partly into its own pockets and partly into the pockets of people close to it 270 A 2017 Financial Times article compared the Hungarian elite under Orban s government to Russian oligarchs The article noted that they differ in that Hungary s Oligarchs under Orban largely benefit from EU subsidies unlike the Russian oligarchs The article also mentioned the sudden increase in the personal wealth of Orban s childhood friend Lorinc Meszaros thanks to winning state contracts 271 A 2019 New York Times investigation revealed how Orban leased plots of farm land to politically connected individuals and supporters of his and his party thereby channeling disproportionate amounts of the EU s agricultural subsidies Hungary receives every year into the pockets of cronies 272 Opposition to European integration Some opposition parties and critics also consider Orban an opponent of European integration In 2000 opposition parties MSZP and SZDSZ and the left wing press presented Orban s comment that there s life outside the EU as proof of his anti Europeanism and sympathies with the radical right 273 274 In the same press conference Orban clarified that It will not be a tragedy if we cannot join the EU in 2003 But this is not what we are preparing for We are trying to urge our integration into the EU because it may give a new push to the economy 275 Migrant crisis Hungarian American business magnate and political activist George Soros criticized Orban s handling of the European migrant crisis in 2015 saying His plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle 276 Orban has been criticized for engineering the 2015 European migrant crisis for his own political gain Specifically he has been accused of mistreating migrants within Hungary and later sending many to Western Europe in an effort to stoke far right sympathies in Western European countries 277 278 During the crisis Orban ordered fences be put up across the Hungarian borders with Serbia and Croatia and refused to comply with the European Union s mandatory asylum quota 279 In 2015 The New York Times acknowledged that Orban s stance on migration is slowly becoming mainstream in European politics Andrew Higgins interviewed Orban s ardent critic Gyorgy Konrad who said that Orban was right and Merkel was wrong concerning the handling of the migrant crisis 280 Anti Soros themeThe Orban government began to attack George Soros and his NGOs in early 2017 particularly for his support for more open immigration In July 2017 the Israeli ambassador in Hungary joined Jewish groups and others in denouncing a billboard campaign backed by the government Orban s critics claimed it evokes memories of the Nazi posters during the Second World War The ambassador stated that the campaign evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear an apparent reference to the Holocaust Hours later Israel s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a clarification denouncing Soros stating that he continuously undermines Israel s democratically elected governments and funded organizations that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself The clarification came a few days before an official visit to Hungary by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 281 The anti Soros messages became key elements of the government s communication and campaign since then which among others also targeted the Central European University CEU 282 283 284 285 Journalist Andrew Marantz argues that whether or not Soros was doing any actual harm to Hungary or conservative values it was important to have a face to attack in a political campaign rather than abstract ideas like globalism multiculturalism bureaucracy in Brussels and that this was a strategy explained to Orban by political consultant Arthur J Finkelstein 140 Accusations of antisemitism Orban has been frequently accused of antisemitism particularly for promoting conspiracy theories about the Jewish philanthropist George Soros 286 287 In 2022 he was condemned by the International Auschwitz Committee for comments in which he criticised mixing with non Europeans The Committee called on the EU to continue to distance itself from Orban s racist undertones and to make it clear to the world that a Mr Orban has no future in Europe 288 Others have rejected the claim that he is antisemitic arguing that his founding of the Holocaust Memorial Center and Memorial Day for the Hungarian Victims of the Holocaust are evidence of this 289 290 He has also been accused of rehabilitating antisemitic Hungarian historical figures and of exploiting antisemitism 291 292 293 Irredentism and nativism Main article Hungarian irredentism Orban s policy positions have been reported to lean towards irredentism and nativism 294 295 He has overseen the transfer of hundreds of millions of Hungarian taxpayer money for the preservation of Hungarian language and monuments and institutions of the Hungarian diaspora particularly in Romania irking the Romanian government 296 Mixed race statement In a speech delivered to the 31st Balvanyos Free Summer University and Student Camp in July 2022 Orban expressed views that were later described as a pure Nazi text that was worthy of Goebbels by one of his senior advisers Zsuzsa Hegedus in her letter of resignation 16 297 In the speech Orban stated that Migration has split Europe in two or I could say that it has split the West in two One half is a world where European and non European peoples live together These countries are no longer nations they are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples and we are willing to mix with one another but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race 298 The speech drew condemnation from both the Romanian foreign ministry and other European leaders 15 Two days later in Wien Orban made it clear he was talking about cultures and not about race Zsuzsa Hegedus later in a letter to Orban expressed that she is proud of him and he can count on her like he could in the past 20 years 299 17 Later that month he touched on this criticism in a speech at the CPAC opening in Dallas saying that a Christian politician cannot be racist and calling his critics simply idiots 300 240 301 He also attacked billionaire George Soros former United States President Barack Obama globalists and the United States Democratic Party 300 Personal life nbsp Orban and his wife Aniko Levai in 2016Orban married jurist Aniko Levai in 1986 they have five children 302 Their eldest daughter Rahel is married to entrepreneur Tiborcz Istvan hu whose company Elios was accused of receiving unfair advantages when winning public tenders 303 see Elios case hu Orban s son Gaspar is a retired footballer who played for Ferenc Puskas Football Academy in 2014 304 better source needed Gaspar is also one of the founders of a religious community called Felhaz 305 Orban has three younger daughters Sara Roza Flora and three granddaughters Rahel s children Aliz and Anna Adel Sara s daughter Johanna citation needed Orban is a member of the Calvinist oriented Hungarian Reformed Church while his wife and their five children were raised Catholic 306 His son Gaspar Orban converted in 2014 to the Faith Church a Pentecostal denomination and is currently a minister who had heard from God and witnessed miraculous healings 307 Football interests Orban is very fond of sports especially of football he was a signed player of FC Felcsut and as a result he also appears in Football Manager 2006 308 309 Orban has played football from his early childhood He was a professional player with FC Felcsut After ending his football career he became one of the main financiers of the Hungarian football and his hometown s club Felcsut FC later renamed the Ferenc Puskas Football Academy 310 He had a prominent role in the foundation of Puskas Akademia in Felcsut creating one of the most modern training facilities for young Hungarian footballers 311 He played an important role in establishing the annually organised international youth cup the Puskas Cup at Pancho Arena which he also helped build 312 271 in his hometown of Felcsut His only son Gaspar learned and trained there 313 Orban is said to watch as many as six games a day His first trip abroad as prime minister in 1998 was to the World Cup final in Paris according to inside sources he has not missed a World Cup or Champions League final since 309 Then FIFA President Sepp Blatter visited the facilities at the Puskas Academy in 2009 Blatter together with the widow of Ferenc Puskas as well as Orban founder of the academy announced the creation of the new FIFA Puskas Award during that visit 314 He played the minor role of a footballer in the Hungarian family film Szegeny Dzsoni es Arnika 1983 315 See alsoFirst Orban Government Second Orban Government Third Orban Government Fourth Orban Government Fifth Orban Government Orbanomics List of prime ministers of Hungary by tenureReferences Orbannak kiutottek az elso ket fogat Origo in Hungarian 20 December 2012 Retrieved 30 August 2012 Dora Annar 1 December 2020 Viktor Orban became the longest serving prime minister of Hungary DailyNewsHungary Retrieved 24 December 2023 What to do when Viktor Orban erodes democracy The Economist Retrieved 17 December 2017 a b Kingsley Patrick 10 February 2018 As West Fears the Rise of Autocrats Hungary Shows What s Possible The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 10 February 2018 Maerz Seraphine F Luhrmann Anna Hellmeier Sebastian Grahn Sandra Lindberg Staffan I 2020 State of the world 2019 autocratization surges resistance grows Democratization 27 6 909 927 doi 10 1080 13510347 2020 1758670 ISSN 1351 0347 The EU is tolerating and enabling authoritarian kleptocracy in Hungary The Economist 5 April 2018 ISSN 0013 0613 Retrieved 5 July 2021 Autocratization Surges Resistance Grows Democracy Report 2020 Archived 30 March 2020 at the Wayback Machine V Dem Institute University of Gothenburg March 2020 Kreko Peter Enyedi Zsolt 2018 Orban s Laboratory of Illiberalism Journal of Democracy 29 3 39 51 doi 10 1353 jod 2018 0043 ISSN 1086 3214 S2CID 158956718 Archived from the original on 30 November 2020 Retrieved 25 January 2021 Dropping the Democratic Facade Freedom House Archived from the original on 10 May 2020 Retrieved 23 October 2020 Hungary Becomes First Partly Free EU Nation in Democracy Gauge Bloomberg com 5 February 2019 Archived from the original on 25 November 2020 Retrieved 23 October 2020 Full text of Viktor Orban s speech at Băile Tusnad Tusnadfurdo of 26 July 2014 The Budapest Beacon 30 July 2014 Hungarian PM sees shift to illiberal Christian democracy in 2019 European vote Reuters 28 July 2018 Retrieved 29 July 2020 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that European parliament elections next year could bring about a shift toward illiberal Christian democracy in the European Union that would end the era of multiculturalism Hungary Orban Europe s centre right EPP suspends Fidesz BBC 20 March 2019 Retrieved 26 March 2021 Hungary Viktor Orban s ruling Fidesz party quits European People s Party Deutsche Welle 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Retrieved 18 December 2023 Strongmen strut their stuff as Orban visits Putin in Russia Politico Europe 1 February 2022 Retrieved 2 February 2022 Hungary will not veto EU sanctions on Russia Orban Reuters 3 March 2022 Hungary s excessive reliance on Russian gas will end by 2022 miniszterelnok hu miniszterelnok hu Retrieved 9 August 2022 Stevis Gridneff Matina 25 March 2022 In a speech to the E U Zelensky singles out Hungary over sanctions The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 26 March 2022 Zelensky agrees on energy cooperation with Orban invites him to visit Ukraine interfax com Retrieved 13 August 2022 Preussen W FEBRUARY 27 2023 Orban backs China s Ukraine peace plan politico europe Accessed 7 April 2023 Hungary is ready for the opening of a new chapter in Hungarian Turkic cooperation miniszterelnok hu 3 September 2018 Turkic Council inaugurates office in Budapest Anadolu Agency 19 September 2021 Hungary to initiate joint summit of Turkic Council and V4 12 November 2021 Teslova Elena 2 November 2023 Hungarian prime minister visits Kazakhstan for bilateral talks summit Hungary to ban rallies supporting terrorist organisations Orban says Reuters 13 October 2023 Retrieved 23 October 2023 A Fidesz parlamenti nyilatkozatban itelne el a Hamasz terrortamadasat telex in Hungarian 22 October 2023 Retrieved 23 October 2023 Prime Minister Viktor Orban s speech at the annual general meeting of the Association of Cities with County Rights miniszterelnok hu a b Kakissis Joanna 13 May 2019 In Trump Hungary s Viktor Orban Has a Rare Ally in the Oval Office NPR Retrieved 23 July 2022 Viktor Orban National Conservatism Conference Rome 2020 Retrieved 6 October 2023 Shameful and rude Orban slammed over remark on Bosnia s Muslims Euronews 23 December 2021 Retrieved 26 May 2022 Bancroft Ian 12 November 2021 With its EU and US anchors dislodged Bosnia Herzegovina is cast adrift openDemocracy Retrieved 26 May 2022 Garamvolgyi Flora Borget Julian 18 May 2022 Orban and US right to bond at Cpac in Hungary over great replacement ideology The Guardian Francia irotol lopta a fajkeveredos kifejezeseket Orban a tusnadfurdoi beszedehez telex in Hungarian 26 July 2022 Retrieved 29 July 2022 Speech by Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the 31st Balvanyos Summer Free University and Student Camp About Hungary 25 July 2022 Retrieved 29 July 2022 Walker Shaun Garamvolgyi Flora 24 July 2022 Viktor Orban sparks outrage with attack on race mixing in Europe The Guardian Retrieved 30 July 2022 Woods John 24 July 2022 PM Orban said which races Hungarians might and would not mix with Daily News Hungary Retrieved 31 July 2022 Mitchell Taiyler Simone 24 July 2022 Hungary s leader Viktor Orban bashed Western Europeans for mixing with non Europeans and said Hungarians do not want to become a mixed race Business Insider Retrieved 30 July 2022 Woods John 23 July 2022 Orban Hungarians are not a mixed race and do not want to become one Daily News Hungary Retrieved 6 August 2022 Walker Shaun 6 September 2019 Viktor Orban trumpets Hungary s procreation not immigration policy The Guardian Retrieved 3 May 2020 Simon Zoltan 24 July 2020 Viktor Orban Expects More Battles Over Rule of Law Bloomberg Retrieved 24 July 2020 Hungary s Orban calls for central Europe to unite around Christian roots NBC News 20 August 2020 Retrieved 20 August 2020 Pancevski Bojan Bihari Adam 8 September 2019 Hungary Loudly Opposed to Immigration Opens Doors to More Foreign Workers The Wall Street Journal Vass Abraham 24 September 2019 Number of Foreigners Coming to Hungary to Work Growing Hungary Today In Orban s Hungary more migrants due to labor shortage InfoMigrants 30 September 2019 Hungary One party rule The Guardian editorial London 5 January 2011 Castle Stephen 22 April 2002 Populist premier set for defeat in Hungarian election The Independent London Archived from the original on 17 August 2022 A populist s lament Viktor Orban has made Hungary a ripe target for doubters Politics hu Hungary 22 November 2011 archived from the original on 16 November 2017 retrieved 3 September 2018 a b c Waller Luke Viktor Orban The conservative subversive Politico Retrieved 9 May 2016 Simonyi Andras 12 October 2014 Putin Erdogan and Orban Band of Brothers The Huffington Post Retrieved 9 May 2016 Novak Benjamin Grynbaum Michael M 7 August 2021 Conservative Fellow Travelers Tucker Carlson Drops In On Viktor Orban The New York Times Archived from the original on 28 December 2021 Retrieved 7 August 2021 a b c Marantz Andrew 4 July 2022 The Illiberal Order The New Yorker Retrieved 14 July 2022 Binyamin Netanyahu is soft on anti Semitism when it suits him The Economist Retrieved 30 September 2017 Hungarian PM We share the same security concerns as Israel Israel Hayom Retrieved 30 September 2017 Ahren Raphael 19 February 2019 Hungary to open office with diplomatic status in Jerusalem The Times of Israel Pack Jason The Hungary model Resurgent nationalism The National Interest Retrieved 9 May 2016 Playing with fear The Economist 12 December 2015 Retrieved 9 May 2016 Schliefer Yigal October 2014 Hungary at the turning point Moment Slate Retrieved 9 May 2016 Zerofsky Elisabeth 7 January 2019 Viktor Orban s Far Right Vision for Europe The New Yorker Retrieved 11 August 2023 Kingsley Patrick 15 March 2019 He Used to Call Viktor Orban an Ally Now He Calls Him a Symbol of Fascism The New York Times Veer Harmen van der Meijers Maurits 3 May 2017 Analysis Hungary s government is increasingly autocratic What is the European Parliament doing about it The Washington Post Retrieved 12 April 2018 Zakaria Fareed 31 July 2014 The rise of Putinism The Washington Post Retrieved 9 May 2016 Faris Stephan 22 January 2015 Power Hungary How Viktor Orban became Europe s new strongman Bloomberg Retrieved 23 September 2013 Woodard Colin 17 June 2015 Europe s new dictator Politico Retrieved 9 May 2016 Traynor Ian 5 September 2015 Refugee crisis East and West split as leaders resent Germany for waiving rules The Guardian Retrieved 11 August 2021 Traynor Ian 3 September 2015 Migration crisis Hungary PM says Europe in grip of madness The Guardian Hungary PM rejects Merkel s moral imperialism in refugee crisis Yahoo News 23 September 2015 Birnbaum Michael Witte Griff 3 September 2015 People in Europe are full of fear over refugee influx The Washington Post Retrieved 11 August 2020 We must protect the achievements of the past eight years Press release Office of the Prime Minister 27 March 2018 Archived from the original on 11 December 2018 Gorondi Pablo 10 January 2019 Hungary s Orban wants anti migration forces to control EU Associated Press Schnell Mychael 3 January 2022 Trump endorses autocratic Hungarian leader The Hill Retrieved 4 January 2022 Goldmacher Shane 3 January 2022 Trump Endorses Viktor Orban Hungary s Far Right Prime Minister The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 4 January 2022 a b Folkenflik David 4 August 2022 Hungary s autocratic leader tells U S conservatives to join his culture war NPR Retrieved 9 August 2022 Smith David 6 August 2022 Viktor Orban turns Texas conference into transatlantic far right love in The Guardian Hungary tries for baby boom with tax breaks and loan forgiveness BBC News 10 February 2019 Retrieved 1 August 2023 Hungarian Family Policy in Action No Income Tax for Young Mothers Hungarian Conservative 8 January 2023 Retrieved 1 August 2023 Ellyatt Holly 11 February 2019 Have four or more babies in Hungary and you ll pay no income tax for life prime minister says CNBC Retrieved 1 August 2023 Kennedy Rachael 11 February 2019 Hungary offers to pay for cars mortages and tax bills of big families Euronews Retrieved 1 August 2023 Hopkins Valerie 10 February 2019 Have more children and pay no income tax Orban promises Hungarian mothers Financial Times Retrieved 1 August 2023 Cursino Malu 13 September 2022 Hungary decrees tighter abortion rules BBC News Retrieved 1 August 2023 Zemplenyi Lili 12 July 2022 The Number of Terminated Pregnancies Decreased Without a Change in the Hungarian Abortion Law The Hungarian Conservative Retrieved 1 August 2023 Hungary grapples with cost of Orbanomics Financial Times 27 October 2014 Retrieved 1 August 2023 a b c Hopkins Valerie 21 May 2020 How Orban s decade in power changed Hungary Financial Times Retrieved 1 August 2023 Hungary s Orban Scraps Income Tax for Young Voters Before Crucial Election Bloomberg com 15 January 2021 Retrieved 1 August 2023 Byrne Andrew 9 June 2015 Orbanomics confounds critics as Hungary s economy recovers Financial Times Retrieved 1 August 2023 Gulyas Veronika 25 February 2023 Hungary to Maintain Windfall Taxes Into 2023 Minister Says Bloomberg News Retrieved 1 August 2023 Brader Adam 12 May 2023 MCC Acquires Leading Austrian University The Hungarian Conservative Retrieved 1 August 2023 Preussen Wilhelmine 1 November 2022 Viktor Orban funded think tank vows to shake up Brussels Politico Retrieved 1 August 2023 Inotai Edit 3 November 2022 Hungary Test Drives Vehicle to Create Intellectual Powerhouse Balkan Insight Retrieved 1 August 2023 Schlagwein Felix 5 June 2021 Hungary Orban seeks to control universities DW 05 06 2021 Deutsche Welle Retrieved 1 August 2023 Larson Luke 9 June 2023 Faith politics and paradox in culturally Christian Hungary Catholic World Report Retrieved 1 August 2023 Crosses and catechism Hungary s push to Christianise education France 24 9 September 2021 Retrieved 1 August 2023 Hopkins Valerie 12 July 2019 Hungary s takeover of academy blasted as expression of power Financial Times Retrieved 1 August 2023 Letter to the Prime Minister of Hungary from the Secretary of State of the United States of America PDF 23 December 2011 Archived from the original PDF on 7 May 2016 Retrieved 5 May 2016 Angela Merkel criticized Viktor Orban behind closed doors Daily News Hungary 9 October 2015 The European Commission reiterates its serious concerns over the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of Hungary ec europa eu 12 April 2013 Retrieved 5 May 2016 Happy slaps rambling speeches and jaw dropping insults this is the man who RUNS the EU Daily Express 28 June 2016 Press freedom a loser in Viktor Orban s winner take all Hungary 2 December 2011 Archived from the original on 13 September 2018 Retrieved 5 May 2016 Bayer Lili 24 September 2020 How Orban broke the EU and got away with it Politico Retrieved 7 February 2021 Bayer Lili 23 June 2021 It s Hungary vs Everyone after attacks on LGBTQ rights Politico Retrieved 6 July 2021 Hakim Danny 3 April 2014 A village stadium is a symbol of power for Hungary s premier The New York Times Retrieved 1 May 2016 Orban barkaja www kossuth hu in Hungarian Retrieved 4 April 2022 Krushel Kenneth 6 October 2016 Opinion Biting the E U That Feeds Him The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 27 August 2023 a b Buckley Neil Byrne Andrew 21 December 2017 Viktor Orban s oligarchs a new elite emerges in Hungary Financial Times Retrieved 4 April 2022 Gebrekidan Selam Apuzzo Matt Novak Benjamin 3 November 2019 The Money Farmers How Oligarchs and Populists Milk the E U for Millions The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 16 February 2022 Orban van elet az EU n kivul is Uj Szo 1 February 2002 Archived from the original on 11 November 2014 Retrieved 19 March 2019 Orban Viktor Wikidezet Wikiquote in Hungarian Retrieved 30 September 2017 Orban mar tobb mint husz eve mondja hogy van elet az EU n kivul is Telex 7 August 2021 Archived from the original on 27 August 2023 Retrieved 27 August 2023 Gergely Andras 30 October 2015 Orban accuses Soros of stoking refugee wave to weaken Europe Bloomberg Retrieved 12 August 2021 Viktor Orban Uses Migrant Crisis to Shore Up His Sagging Popularity PIIE 2 March 2016 Retrieved 28 November 2021 Beauchamp Zack 18 September 2015 Like animals why Hungary is herding refugees into miserable detention camps Vox Retrieved 28 November 2021 Thorpe Nick 6 April 2018 The man who thinks Europe has been invaded BBC News Retrieved 1 August 2023 Higgins Andrew 20 December 2015 Hungary s Migrant Stance Once Denounced Gains Some Acceptance The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 30 August 2022 Baker Luke 10 July 2017 Israel backs Hungary says financier Soros is a threat Reuters Retrieved 13 August 2021 Gorondi Pablo 3 April 2017 Hungary Parliament to rush bill targeting Soros school Associated Press Archived from the original on 2 April 2017 Retrieved 3 April 2017 Witte Griff 17 March 2018 Once fringe Soros conspiracy theory takes center stage in Hungarian election The Washington Post Herszenhorn David M 27 April 2017 Hungary s Freudian political fight Orban vs Soros Politico Retrieved 10 August 2021 Walker Shaun 22 June 2017 A useful punching bag why Hungary s Viktor Orban has turned on George Soros The Guardian Echikson William 13 May 2019 Viktor Orban s anti Semitism problem Politico Retrieved 1 August 2023 Forman Ira 20 July 2022 Viktor Orban s antisemitism and those who enable it opinion The Jerusalem Post Retrieved 1 August 2023 Holocaust survivors condemn race remarks by Hungary s Orban France 24 27 July 2022 Retrieved 1 August 2023 Kovacs Zoltan 24 July 2022 Hungary s Viktor Orban is not antisemitic opinion The Jerusalem Post Retrieved 1 August 2023 Grosz Andor 17 April 2018 Memorial Day of the Hungarian Victims of the Holocaust IHRA Retrieved 1 August 2023 Suleiman Susan Rubin 19 February 2020 Jewish Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz Is Dumped From the Hungarian Curriculum Tablet Retrieved 1 August 2023 Forman Ira 14 December 2018 Viktor Orban Is Exploiting Anti Semitism The Atlantic Retrieved 1 August 2023 Dunai Marton 22 January 2014 Hungary PM defends contested monument to Nazi victims Reuters Retrieved 1 August 2023 Hopkins Valerie 5 June 2020 Viktor Orban keeps Trianon treaty bitterness alive 100 years on Financial Times Retrieved 11 August 2023 Hungary s illiberal leader wins a fourth term Financial Times 4 April 2022 Retrieved 11 August 2023 Orban s largesse wins over Romania s Hungarians France 24 15 March 2021 Retrieved 11 August 2023 Khrushcheva Nina L 10 August 2022 Far right populists come out of the racist closet The Japan Times Retrieved 13 August 2022 Speech by Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the 31st Balvanyos Summer Free University and Student Camp miniszterelnok hu miniszterelnok hu Retrieved 2 August 2022 Andras Santa 29 July 2022 Tavozik Hegedus Zsuzsa de irt egy ujabb levelet mert orul Orban becsi nyilatkozatanak index hu in Hungarian Retrieved 9 August 2022 a b Woolley John 4 August 2022 Hungarian leader Viktor Orban declares at CPAC that a Christian politician cannot be racist CBS News Retrieved 9 August 2022 Hungary s Viktor Orban fires up Texas conservatives BBC News 5 August 2022 Retrieved 9 August 2022 Csaladja Orban Viktor Viktor Orban family Official Website in Hungarian Hungary 31 December 2022 a href Template Citation html title Template Citation citation a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Viktor Orban s son in law awarded billions in state and local contracts The Budapest Beacon 22 December 2014 Orban Gaspar jatszott az NB I ben Blikk in Hungarian 8 March 2014 Archived from the original on 9 March 2014 Retrieved 9 March 2014 Kalan Dariusz 30 October 2019 How Viktor Orban s son found God instead of politics ozy com Retrieved 15 August 2022 Istvan Sebestyen Orban hite The faith of Orban Hetek in Hungarian Retrieved 3 November 2013 Adam Christopher 6 November 2017 A Portrait of Viktor Orban s Son as a Healer and Pentecostal Preacher Hungarian Free Press Retrieved 20 June 2022 Top ten footballers turned politicians Goal 9 May 2010 a b Goldblatt David Nolan Daniel 11 January 2018 Viktor Orban s reckless football obsession The Guardian Retrieved 19 January 2018 Orban lenne a felcsuti focimese hose Origo accessed 12 April 2018 in Hungarian Puskas Academy Vidi hu accessed 12 April 2018 in Hungarian Foster Peter 7 October 2016 A village fit for a king How Viktor Orban had a football stadium and a railway built on his doorstep The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on 11 January 2022 Retrieved 19 January 2018 NB II Orban fia orult meccsen debutalt a Fradi Dragonerrel ikszelt eredmenyek Archived from the original on 26 October 2010 Sepp Blatter az Akademian Puskas Akademia official website accessed 17 June 2018 in Hungarian Szegeny Dzsoni es Arnika 1983 IMDb accessed 17 June 2018 BibliographyBell Imogen 2003 Central and South Eastern Europe 2004 Routledge ISBN 978 1857431865 Debreczeni Jozsef 2002 Orban Viktor in Hungarian Budapest Osiris Fabry Adam 2019 Neoliberalism crisis and authoritarian ethnicist reaction The ascendancy of the Orban regime Competition amp Change 23 2 165 191 doi 10 1177 1024529418813834 S2CID 158640642 Kenney Padraic 2002 A Carnival of Revolution Central Europe 1989 Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 0 691 05028 7 Lendvai Paul 2017 Orban Hungary s Strongman Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0190874865 Martens Wilfried 2009 Europe I Struggle I Overcome Springer ISBN 978 3540892885 Metz Rudolf and Daniel Oross Strong Personalities Impact on Hungarian Party Politics Viktor Orban and Gabor Vona in Party Leaders in Eastern Europe Palgrave Macmillan Cham 2020 pp 145 170 doi 10 1007 978 3 030 32025 6 7 Rydlinski Bartosz Viktor Orban First among Illiberals Hungarian and Polish Steps towards Populist Democracy Online Journal Modelling the New Europe 26 2018 95 107 online Szikra D Democracy and welfare in hard times the social policy of the Orban Government in Hungary between 2010 and 2014 Journal of European Social Policy 2014 24 5 486 500 Szilagyi Anna and Andras Bozoki Playing it again in post communism the revolutionary rhetoric of Viktor Orban in Hungary Advances in the History of Rhetoric 18 sup1 2015 S153 S166 online Toomey Michael 2018 History nationalism and democracy myth and narrative in Viktor Orban s illiberal Hungary New Perspectives Interdisciplinary Journal of Central amp East European Politics and International Relations 26 1 87 108 doi 10 1177 2336825X1802600110 Further readingHollos Janos Kondor Katalin Szerda reggel Radios beszelgetesek Orban Viktor miniszterelnokkel 1998 szeptember 2000 December ISBN 963 9337 32 3 Hollos Janos Kondor Katalin Szerda reggel Radios beszelgetesek Orban Viktor miniszterelnokkel 2001 2002 ISBN 963 9337 61 7 A tortenelem foutcajan Magyarorszag 1998 2002 Orban Viktor miniszterelnok beszedei es beszedreszletei Magyar Egyetemi Kiado ISBN 963 8638 31 1 20 ev Beszedek irasok interjuk 1986 2006 Heti Valasz Kiado ISBN 963 9461 22 9 Egy az orszag Helikon Konyvkiado Budapest 2007 translated into Polish as Ojczyzna jest jedna in 2009 Rengeshullamok Helikon Konyvkiado Budapest 2010 Janke Igor Hajra magyarok Az Orban Viktor sztori egy lengyel ujsagiro szemevel Rezbong Kiado 2013 English Igor Janke Forward The Story of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban German Viktor Orban Ein Sturmer in der Politik External linksViktor Orban at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp News from Wikinews nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Data from Wikidata Official website News from the BBC 2002 Hungarian PM puts football first BBC Orban in 1989 YouTube in Hungarian Political officesPreceded byGyula Horn Prime Minister of Hungary1998 2002 Succeeded byPeter MedgyessyPreceded byGordon Bajnai Prime Minister of Hungary2010 present IncumbentParty political officesNew title President of Fidesz1993 2000 Succeeded byLaszlo KoverPreceded byJanos Ader President of Fidesz2003 present Incumbent Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Viktor Orban amp oldid 1206717099, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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