Hungary

Putin’s war in Ukraine seems to be rewriting everything in the Hungarian election campaign, except for the balance of power between the contestants – for now, at least. The ruling party remains the most likely to win the general election, but there is something else Orbán might also lose.

Since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, three and a half million people have fled the country. A conversation with Tineke Strik MEP on the triggering of the EU Temporary Protection Directive and what chances and challenges come with it.

2022 promises to be an exciting electoral year. At least seven seats of the European Council are up for grabs, of which the votes involving Emmanuel Macron and Viktor Orbán may electrify electoral enthusiasts the most. This piece reviews which European leaders will need to defend their positions and how the European Green Party (EGP) members are performing in polls before national, regional and local elections in Europe during 2022.

To avoid further environmental damages due to the use of EU money, the European Commission should suspend funding to the Hungarian government.

The hacking of dissidents worldwide is even more widespread than we thought. This year’s largest cross-border investigative undertaking, the Pegasus Project, has revealed that at least 10 governments have used sophisticated Israeli spyware to gather information on human rights activists, independent journalists, and opposition politicians. The only EU member in the pool of offenders was Hungary. This might not be an unexpected development for most readers, but it is a further blow to both independent journalism and the sanctity of citizens’ privacy.

The Hungarian government has received international criticism over a new law that bans the depiction or promotion of homosexuality to those under the age of 18. Andrea Pető argues that the law may well prove to be a miscalculation by the country’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.

Hungary voted for a bill originally intended to enhance the protection of children and tighten sanctions against pedophile offenders, though introducing an explicit, harsh ban on the "portrayal and the promotion of gender identity different from sex at birth, the change of sex and homosexuality" for persons under the age of 18. What led to the scapegoating of the LGBTQI community?

What might be done with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political system after a potential opposition victory in 2022, considering that it is built mostly on informal power and privatized economic-financial resources? These questions are currently being debated mainly as issues of public law. Unfortunately, little is being said about the sociopolitical requirements for the democratic transition the opposition so desires.

Recently, the Hungarian ruling party and its media empire launched a massive campaign against independent policy analysts and opposition parties, accusing them of spreading anti-vaccination views. These campaigns follow a typical method of operation: they start from a single piece of information and end in some sort of discriminatory legislation against independent voices.

The Chernobyl disaster is the origin and the starting point for many green and anti-nuclear activists of my generation in Hungary. What are the dilemmas and how does the public see nuclear energy in Hungary on the 35th anniversary of Chernobyl and the 10th of the Fukushima disaster?