Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been the 56th

prime minister of Hungary The prime minister of Hungary () is the head of government of Hungary. The prime minister and the government of Hungary, Cabinet are collectively accountability, accountable for their policies and actions to the National Assembly (Hungary), Par ...

since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has also led the

Fidesz Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (; ) is a national-conservative political party in Hungary led by Viktor Orbán. It has increasingly identified as illiberal. Originally formed in 1988 under the name of Alliance of Young Democrats () as ...

political party since 2003, and previously from 1993 to 2000. He was re-elected as prime minister in 2014, 2018, and 2022. On 29 November 2020, he became the country's longest-serving prime minister. Orbán was first elected to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

in 1990 and led Fidesz's parliamentary group until 1993. During his first term as prime minister and head of the conservative

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

, from 1998 to 2002, inflation and the fiscal deficit shrank, and Hungary joined

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. After losing reelection, however, Orbán led the opposition party from 2002 to 2010. Since 2010, when he resumed office, his policies have undermined democracy, weakened

judicial independence Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary should be independent from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government or from private or partisan inte ...

, increased corruption, and curtailed

press freedom Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...

in Hungary. During his second premiership, several controversial constitutional and legislative reforms were made, including the 2013 amendments to the Constitution of Hungary. He frequently styles himself as a defender of Christian values in the face of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, which he claims is anti-nationalist and anti-Christian. His portrayal of the EU as a political foe—as he accepts its money and funnels it to his allies and relatives—has led to accusations that his government is a

kleptocracy Kleptocracy (from Greek , "thief", or , "I steal", and from , "power, rule"), also referred to as thievocracy, is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land the ...

. It has also been characterized as a

hybrid regime A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a Democracy, democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of ...

dominant-party system A dominant-party system, or one-party dominant system, is a political occurrence in which a single political party continuously dominates election results over running opposition groups or parties. Any ruling party staying in power for more tha ...

, and

mafia state In politics, a mafia state is a Sovereign state, state system where the government is tied with organized crime to the degree when government officials, the police, and/or military became a part of the criminal enterprise. According to US diplom ...

.
Autocratization Surges – Resistance Grows: Democracy Report 2020
'', V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg (March 2020). Orbán defends his policies as "illiberal

Christian democracy Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

." As a result, Fidesz was suspended from the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

in March 2019. In March 2021, Fidesz left the EPP over a dispute over new rule-of-law language in the latter's bylaws. While shifting Hungary's towards what he has called "

illiberal democracy The term "illiberal democracy" describes a Government, governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of ...

," he has also promoted

Euroscepticism Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek reform ...

, opposition to

liberal democracy Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberalism, liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal dem ...

and establishment of closer ties with

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Early life and background (1963–1988)

Viktor Orbán was born on 31 May 1963 and has two younger brothers, both businessmen, Győző Jr. (born in 1965) and Áron (born in 1977). Their paternal grandfather, Mihály Orbán, a former dockworker and a war veteran, farmed and worked as a veterinary assistant in Alcsútdoboz in

Fejér County Fejér (, ) is an administrative county in central Hungary. It lies on the west bank of the river Danube and nearly touches the eastern shore of Lake Balaton. It shares borders with the Hungarian counties Veszprém, Komárom-Esztergom County ...

, where Orbán first lived while growing up. Then, the family moved in 1973 to neighboring Felcsút, where Orbán's father headed the machinery department at the local farm collective. Orbán attended school there and in Vértesacsa. In 1977, the family moved to

Székesfehérvár Székesfehérvár (; ; ; ; Serbian language, Serbian: ''Стони Београд''; ), known colloquially as Fehérvár (), is a city in central Hungary, and the country's ninth-largest city. It is the Regions of Hungary, regional capital of C ...

, where Orbán had secured a place at the prestigious Blanka Teleki school. In his first two years there, he served as local

secretary A secretary, administrative assistant, executive assistant, personal secretary, or other similar titles is an individual whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, program evalu ...

of the Hungarian Young Communist League (KISZ), in which membership was mandatory for matriculation to a university, Also, his father happened to be a patron of the KISZ. After graduating from high school in 1981, Orbán completed his

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Few nations, such ...

alongside

Lajos Simicska Lajos Simicska (born 28 January 1960) is a former Hungarian business magnate, a former politician of Fidesz, and he was the head of APEH, Hungary's internal revenue service between 1998–1999, during the first government of Viktor Orbán. He w ...

, whom he had befriended in high school. Orbán was jailed several times for indiscipline, which included a failure to appear for duty during the

1982 FIFA World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain from 13 June to 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy national footbal ...

and striking a

non-commissioned officer A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is an enlisted rank, enlisted leader, petty officer, or in some cases warrant officer, who does not hold a Commission (document), commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority b ...

during a personal altercation. His time in the army also coincided with the declaration of

martial law in Poland Martial law in Poland () existed between 13 December 1981 and 22 July 1983. The Polish United Workers' Party, government of the Polish People's Republic drastically restricted everyday life by introducing martial law and a military junta in an a ...

in December 1981, which his friend Simicska criticized. During that period, Orbán recalled, he expected to be mobilized to invade Poland. He would later remark that military service had shifted his political views radically from the previous position of a "naive and devoted supporter" of the Communist regime. Nonetheless, a state security report from May 1982 still described him as "loyal to our social system". In 1983, Orbán went to study

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

at the

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University (, ELTE, also known as ''University of Budapest'') is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. There, he joined ''Jogász Társadalomtudományi Szakkollégium'' (Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences), a

residential college A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship ...

—established in 1983 by István Stumpf and modeled on English universities—for law students from outside the capital. Its members were permitted to explore social sciences beyond the socialist canon and the "new" field of "

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

, in particular. There, Orbán met Gábor Fodor and

László Kövér László Kövér (; born 29 December 1959) is a Hungarian politician who is the current List of speakers of the National Assembly (Hungary), speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary. Under his capacity as speaker, he was also twice acting pre ...

. Orbán became chairman of the executive committee of the college's 60 students in 1984. He also went on a series of trips to Poland with his classmates and lecturer Tamás Fellegi in during the 1984–1985 school year and again in 1987, during the third pastoral visit of

John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

. Their lead Polish contacts were Małgorzata Tarasiewicz and Adam Jagusiak, who would become members of the

anti-Communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

student movement , beginning 1985. In 1986, Orbán submitted his master's thesis on the Polish

Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

movement, based on interviews with its leaders. That August, shortly before his marriage to Dr Anikó Lévai in

Szolnok Szolnok (; also known by #Name and etymology, alternative names) is the county seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county in central Hungary. A city with county rights, it is located on the banks of the Tisza river, in the heart of the Great Hungarian ...

, in September 1986, a police source reported him as affiliated with an organization whose members were lecturing in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, presenting themselves as "the country's expected future leaders." They received Western support while also enjoying full protection by the Budapest police () and insider access to top-level government decisions through the Communist Interior Minister István Horváth. The minister was expected to intervene personally to clear Orbán, in particular, of any

sedition Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech or organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, establ ...

charges. After obtaining the higher degree of

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

in 1987, Orbán lived in

for two years, commuting to his job in Budapest as a sociologist at the Management Training Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In November 1987, at the Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences, Orbán welcomed a group of 150 delegates from 17 countries to a two-day seminar—backed by the European Network for East–West Dialogue—on the

Perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

conscientious objection A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

, and the prospects for a pan-European democratic movement. In September 1989, Orbán took up a research fellowship at

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale ...

, funded by the

Soros Foundation Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the st ...

which had employed him part-time since April 1988. He began work on the concept of

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Zbigniew Pełczyński. During this time, he unsuccessfully contested the Fidesz leadership elections in Budapest, which he had 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 In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Political ascent (1988–1998)

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 Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

youth movement conceived as an overt political challenge to the Hungarian Young Communist League, whose members were banned from participation. The college journal ''Századvég'' (''End of the Century''), established with Orbán's help and funded by

George Soros George Soros (born György Schwartz; August 12, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist. , he has a net worth of US$7.2 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundat ...

since 1985, now became the press organ of Fidesz. On 16 June 1989, Orbán gave a

speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

in Heroes' Square, Budapest, on the occasion of the reburial of

Imre Nagy Imre Nagy ( ; ; 7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who served as Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic, Chairman of the Council of Ministers (''de facto'' Prime Minister of Hungary, Prime Minis ...

and other national

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...

s of the

1956 Hungarian Revolution The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...

. In his speech, he demanded free

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

and the withdrawal of Soviet troops which brought him to national prominence and announced the existence of Fidesz. In the summer of 1989, he took part in the opposition round table talks, representing Fidesz alongside László Kövér. Fidesz became a political party in October 1989. 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. He was appointed leader of the Fidesz's parliamentary group, in this capacity until May 1993. 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. The conservative turn caused a severe split in the membership. Several members left the party, including Péter Molnár, Gábor Fodor and

Zsuzsanna Szelényi Zsuzsanna Szelényi (born 6 October 1966) is a Hungarian author, politician, and foreign policy expert. She is the Director of the Democracy Institute Leadership Academy for Central and Eastern Europe. Her book 'Tainted Democracy, Viktor Orban and ...

. Fodor and others later joined the liberal

Alliance of Free Democrats The Alliance of Free Democrats – Hungarian Liberal Party (, , SZDSZ ) was a liberal political party in Hungary. The SZDSZ was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party and of Liberal International. It drew its su ...

(SZDSZ), initially a strong ally of Fidesz, but later a political opponent. During the 1994 parliamentary election, Fidesz barely reached the 5% threshold. Orbán became MP from his party's Fejér County Regional List. He was chairman of the Committee on European Integration Affairs between 1994 and 1998. He was also a member of the Immunity, Incompatibility and Credentials Committee for a short time in 1995. 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. From April 1996, Orbán was chairman of the Hungarian National Committee of the New Atlantic Initiative (NAI). In September 1992, Orbán was elected vice chairman of the

Liberal International Liberal International (LI) is a worldwide organization of liberalism, liberal political parties. The political international was founded in Oxford in 1947 and has become the pre-eminent network for liberal and progressive democratic parties aim ...

. In November 2000, however, Fidesz left the Liberal International and joined the

(EPP). During the time, Orbán worked hard to unite the center-right liberal conservative parties in Hungary. At the EPP's Congress in

Estoril Estoril () is a town in the civil parish of Cascais e Estoril of the Portuguese Municipality of Cascais, on the Portuguese Riviera. It is a popular tourist destination, with hotels, beaches, and the Casino Estoril. It has been home to numero ...

in October 2002, he was elected vice-president, an office he held until 2012.

First premiership (1998–2002)

In 1998, Orbán formed a coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the

Independent Smallholders' Party The Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party (), known mostly by its acronym FKgP or its shortened form Independent Smallholders' Party (), is a list of political parties in Hungary, political party in Budapest, Hungary. During ...

(FKGP). The coalition won the 1998 parliamentary elections with 42% of the national vote. Orbán became the second youngest prime minister of Hungary at the age of 35 (after

András Hegedüs András Hegedüs (; 31 October 1922 – 23 October 1999) was a Hungary, Hungarian Communist politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary, Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1955 to 1956. He fled to the Soviet Union on 28 October, ...

) and the first post-

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

head of government In the Executive (government), executive branch, the head of government is the highest or the second-highest official of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presid ...

in both eastern and

central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...

who had not previously been a member of a communist party during the

Soviet-era The history of the Soviet Union (USSR) (1922–91) began with the ideals of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following the Russian Civil War, ...

. In February, the government decided that plenary sessions of the Hungarian Parliament would be held only every third week. Opposition parties strongly opposed the change, arguing that it would reduce parliament's legislative efficiency and ability to supervise the government. 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. 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. 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. 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 The Hungarian National Bank ( , MNB) is the central bank of Hungary and as such part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). It was established in 1924 as a successor entity of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, under the economic assistance ...

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. A later report in March by the Brussels-based

International Federation of Journalists The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is the largest global union federation of journalists' trade unions in the world. It represents more than 600,000 media workers from 187 organisations in 146 countries. The IFJ is an associate ...

criticized the Hungarian government for improper political influence in the media, as the country's public service broadcaster teetered close to bankruptcy. 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.

Economy

Orbán's

economic policy ''Economic Policy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press, Oxford Academic on behalf of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Center for Economic Studies (University of Munich), and the Paris Scho ...

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 Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spen ...

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.Gazdag, László: Így kormányozták a magyar gazdaságot
, ''FN.hu'', 12 February 2012; accessed 15 March 2014. 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.

Foreign policy

In March 1999, after Russian objections were overruled, Hungary joined

along with the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. The Hungarian membership to NATO demanded its involvement in

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or simply Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and commonly referred to as FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe locate ...

's Kosovo crisis and modernization of its army. NATO membership also dealt a blow to the economy because of a trade

embargo Economic sanctions or embargoes are commercial and financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. Economic sanctions are a form of coercion that attempts to get an actor to change its behavior throu ...

imposed on Yugoslavia. Hungary attracted international media attention in 1999 for passing the "status law" concerning estimated three-million ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

Serbia and Montenegro The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or simply Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and commonly referred to as FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe locate ...

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. 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. 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; Slovakia accepted the law after further concessions made by the new government after the 2002 elections.

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 to neck according to 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 have support from up to 33% of the voters, with the Socialists drawing 28% and other opposition parties 3% each. 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.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p. 899 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 The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the p ...

, whose only substantive criticism of the election conduct was that the state television carried a consistent bias in favour of Fidesz. In the

2004 European Parliament election The 2004 European Parliament election was held between 10 and 13 June 2004 in the 25 member states of the European Union, using varying election days according to local custom. The European Parliamental parties could not be voted for, but elect ...

, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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

copayment A patient's copayment or copay is the patient's share of the cost for goods or services rendered, with the other share ("co" = with) paid by the patient's insurance company. The patient's co-payment is usually paid directly to the provider, but is ...

s, 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. In the

2009 European Parliament election The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Member of the European Parliament, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent s ...

, Fidesz won by a large margin, garnering 56.36% of votes and 14 of Hungary's 22 seats.

Second premiership (2010–present)

Second Orbán government (2010–2014)

In the 2010 parliamentary elections, Orbán's party won 52.7% of the popular vote but received a 68% majority of parliamentary seats due to the design of the post-communist electoral system. 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. Orbán rejected suggestions within his party to pursue a more cautious agenda. He would go on to amend the constitution twelve times in his first year in office. 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. The new constitution entered into force on 1 January 2012, replacing the

Hungarian Constitution of 1949 The Hungarian Constitution of 1949 was adopted on 20 August 1949 and heavily amended on 23 October 1989. The document was Hungary's first permanent written constitution, and until its replacement in 2011, the country was the only former Eastern Blo ...

. In 2012 Orbán's government implemented a

flat tax A flat tax (short for flat-rate tax) is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base. It is not necessarily a fully proportional tax. Implementations are often progressi ...

personal income In economics, personal income refers to the total earnings of an individual from various sources such as wages, investment ventures, and other sources of income. It encompasses all the products and money received by an individual. Personal inco ...

set at 16%. 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". On 14 January 2014 Orbán went to Moscow in order to sign with

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

an agreement on the Paks II nuclear power plant (NPP). The Russian state-owned enterprise

Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom (commonly referred to as Rosatom rus, Росатом, p=rosˈatəm}), also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, (), or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian State corporation (Russia), sta ...

would develop the NPP, and Hungary was to finance the plant by borrowing from Russia. At the same time Orbán reassured everyone that the South Stream pipeline would be completed soon. The ''

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

'' complained that "there was no formal bidding process for the plant's expansion, and the terms of the loan agreement have not yet been made public," even after the Hungarian parliament approved the deal on 6 February. It later came to light that the loan amounted to €8bn and was financed over a 30 year term. Hungarian MFA Peter Szijjarto told reporters that the deal was "the business (transaction) of the century." Westinghouse and

Areva Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...

, two Western prime contractors, had been lured since 2012 by the Hungarian civil service but eventually had been frozen out of competition by the Orbán government, who chose to sole-source the deal.

Third Orbán government (2014–2018)

After the April 2014 parliamentary election, Fidesz won a majority, garnering 133 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly. While Orbán's party won a large majority, it received 44.5% of the national vote, 8.7% less than in 2010. In a speech in July 2014 in Băile Tușnad, a remote village in Romania, at the Bálványos Free Summer University and Student Camp Orbán first publicly articulated an ideology of illiberalism. He described the Western

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

as a paradigm shift of the

international order In international relations, international order refers to patterned or structured relationships between actors on the international level. Definition David Lake, Lisa Martin and Thomas Risse define "order" as "patterned or structured relat ...

, comparable with the two

world war A world war is an international War, conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I ...

s and the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

. Orbán described his current mission: "while breaking with the iberaldogmas 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." In November 2014 Orbán proposed a controversial "internet tax" amid accusations of corruption. That same year there were numerous protests against his government, including one in Budapest in November 2014 against the proposed "internet tax". During the 2015

European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and Human migration, migrants into Europe, mostly from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request Right of asyl ...

, Orbán ordered the erection of the Hungary–Serbia barrier to block entry of

illegal immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, wi ...

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. Under Orbán, Hungary took numerous actions to combat illegal immigration and reduce refugee levels. In May 2020, the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice (), is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting ...

ruled against Hungary's policy of migrant transit zones, which Orbán subsequently abolished while also tightening the country's asylum rules. As other

Visegrád Group The Visegrád Group (also known as the Visegrád Four or the V4) is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The alliance aims to advance co-operation in military, e ...

leaders, Orbán opposes any compulsory EU long-term quota on redistribution of migrants. According to him, Turkey should be considered a safe third country for unwanted immigrants or refugees. In 2015 Orbán wrote in the ''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...

'': "Europe's response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union's misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation." He also demanded an official EU list of "safe countries" to which migrants can be returned. He proposed 6 points to the

to tackle the crisis: # Joint surveillance of Greek borders to prevent migration from continuing illegally # The separation of

refugees A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

and economic immigrants prior to their entrance to the

Schengen area The Schengen Area ( , ) encompasses European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their common borders. As an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) policy of the European Union (EU), it ...

# All EU Member States and countries it judges to be as such should be considered Safe States (a state which complies with the

1951 Refugee Convention The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the 1951 Refugee Convention or the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 is a United Nations multilateral treaty that defines who a refugee is and sets out the rights of individuals ...

) to be able to accept refugees on paper. # Every member should increase their contributions by at least 1% and reduce their expenditure by 1%. This would raise €3 billion for crisis management and refugee aid. # Work with

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

and

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

to manage the wave oming from Syria(This was also approved by D.C.) # The creation of a world quota (not obliging but) calling on all

developed countries A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for eval ...

to accept refugees on a proportional basis. All but one of these points were voted through by the Parliament in the September 2015 (the surveillance of the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

was left to the Greek military).

Fourth Orbán government (2018–2022)

In the April 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election, the

– 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 Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti- elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establis ...

in Europe. In a 2018 speech at the meeting of a municipal association, 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." 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 A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

, and introduce the possibility of prison sentences for spreading fake news and sanctions for leaving quarantine. 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. 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. In 2021, the parliament transferred control of 11 state universities to foundations led by allies of Orbán. The

Mathias Corvinus Collegium Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) is Hungary's largest Educational institution, private educational institution located in Budapest, Hungary. Founded in 1996, it was initially directed at university students in the arts and social sciences. It serv ...

, 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. Due to a combination of unfavourable conditions, which involved soaring demand of

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

, its diminished supply from Russia and Norway to the European markets, and less power generation by

renewable energy sources Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind power, and hydropower. Bioenergy and ...

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. 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. In February 2020, Orbán was interviewed by Christopher DeMuth at the National Conservatism Conference in Rome. In July 2020, Orbán expressed that he still expects arguments over linking of disbursement of funds of the

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". In August 2020, Orbán whilst speaking at an event to inaugurate a monument commemorating the

Treaty of Trianon The Treaty of Trianon (; ; ; ), often referred to in Hungary as the Peace Dictate of Trianon or Dictate of Trianon, was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace Conference. It was signed on the one side by Hungary ...

, said Central European nations should come together to preserve their Christian roots as western Europe experiments with same-sex families, immigration and atheism. In a 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".

Fifth Orbán government (2022–present)

In the April 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. 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." Opposition leader

Péter Márki-Zay Péter Márki-Zay (, born 9 May 1972), often referred to by his initials MZP, is a Hungarian politician, marketer, economist, electrical engineer and historian. He has served as mayor of Hódmezővásárhely since 2018, and is the co-founder of ...

admitted defeat shortly after Orbán's speech. In May 2022, Orbán promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory in a speech. In July 2022, Orbán – repeating the thesis of

Jean Raspail Jean Raspail (, 5 July 1925 – 13 June 2020) was a French explorer, novelist, and travel writer. Many of his books are about historical figures, exploration and indigenous peoples. He was a recipient of the prestigious French literary awards Gra ...

– spoke in Romania against the "mixing" of European and non-European races, adding "We ungariansare not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race." In Vienna two days later, he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about race. In 2023, Orbán criticized EU's New Pact on Migration and Asylum, saying, "Unity is dead, secure borders are no more." In 2024, Orbán said that

immigration to Europe Immigration to Europe has a long history, but increased substantially after World War II. Western European countries, especially, saw high growth in immigration post 1945, and many European nations today (particularly those of the EU-15) have s ...

would disintegrate the European Union and called it an "existential issue" for the EU. He blamed the European Commission and the European Parliament for the situation and warned that Hungary was "ready" to file a lawsuit against the

von der Leyen Commission Von der Leyen Commission refers to either of two consecutive European Commissions headed by Ursula von der Leyen: * Von der Leyen Commission I (2019–2024) * Von der Leyen Commission II The second von der Leyen Commission is the current Euro ...

. In July 2024 Zelensky decided to shut down the overland pipeline transfer of petroleum products from Russia to Hungary. Orbán and his government protested this event strenuously. When

suggested that Hungary could use the Adria pipeline, Orbán refused, and his foreign minister said that it was unreliable. In October 2024, as the Premier of Hungary was invited to address the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

as part of Hungary's six-month presidency of the

European Council The European Council (informally EUCO) is a collegiate body (directorial system) and a symbolic collective head of state, that defines the overall political direction and general priorities of the European Union (EU). It is composed of the he ...

. Peter Magyar,

Manfred Weber Manfred Weber (born 14 July 1972) is a German politician who has been serving as President of the European People's Party (EPP) since 2022 and as Leader of the EPP Group in the European Parliament since 2014. He has been a Member of the European ...

, Valerie Hayer, and Moritz Koerner amongst others lined up to berate him. During the European Parliament session, Ursula von der Leyen criticized Orbán, accusing him of failing to support Ukraine and mismanaging Hungary's economy. She highlighted the contrast between Orbán's current stance and the bravery of Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956, questioning the rationale of blaming Ukraine for the war. Additionally, MEP Péter Magyar criticized Orbán's government for corruption and declining living standards.

Foreign policy

Orbán attended the inauguration ceremonies of re-elected Turkish President

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

in 2018 and

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

. 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." In June 2019, Orbán met

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

's State Counsellor and

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...

winner

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She served as State Counsellor of Myanmar and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Myanmar), Ministe ...

. They discussed bilateral ties and illegal migration.

China

Orbán has maintained close ties with China throughout his tenure, and his administration is generally seen as China's closest ally in the EU. Hungary joined China's

Belt and Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or B&R), known in China as the One Belt One Road and sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the government of China in 2013 to invest in more t ...

(BRI) in 2015, while in April 2019, Orbán attended a BRI forum in Beijing, where he met the Chinese leader

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping, pronounced (born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (China), chairman of the Central Military Commission ...

. He spearheaded plans to open a

Fudan University Fudan University (FDU) is a public university, national public university in Yangpu, Shanghai, Yangpu, Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education and is co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal ...

campus in Budapest, which led to pushback in Hungary. He met with

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

(CCP)

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

member and top diplomat Wang Yi in Budapest on 20 February 2023; he afterwards backed the peace plan released by Wang Yi concerning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine

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". "South Stream" refers to the Balkan pipeline cancelled by Russia in December 2014 after obstacles from the EU. Since 2017, Hungary's relations with Ukraine rapidly deteriorated over the issue of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Orbán and his cabinet ministers repeatedly criticized Ukraine's 2017 education law, which makes Ukrainian the only language of education in state schools, and threatened to block further Ukraine's EU integration until it is modified or repealed. (The language law was amended in December 2023 in favor of official languages of the European Union, including Hungarian.) Orbán has displayed an ambivalent attitude towards

and

, especially following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He has described the war as "clear aggression" by Russia, saying a sovereign

is needed "to stop Russia posing a threat to the security of Europe". 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. Consequently Austro-Hungarian journalist Paul Lendvai called Orbán ''Divider of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

''. Amidst the 2021-2022 Ukraine crisis, Orbán was the first EU leader to meet with

in Moscow in a visit he called "a peacekeeping mission". They also discussed Russian gas exports to Hungary. 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. Initially, Orbán condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and said Hungary would not veto EU sanctions against Russia. However, Orbán rejected sanctions on Russian energy, due to Hungary's excessive dependency (85%) on Russian fossil fuels. In late March 2022, Ukraine President

Volodymyr Zelensky Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...

singled out Orbán for his lack of support for Ukraine. In June, Zelensky thanked Orbán for supporting Ukraine's sovereignty and for giving asylum to Ukrainians. On 27 February 2023, Viktor Orbán said that Hungary supports China's peace plan in the

Russo-Ukrainian war The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

, despite opposition by Western leaders. Beijing's 12-point statement that criticised unilateral sanctions, would reduce strategic risks associated with

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...

s in Central and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

, according to the statement.

Accession to the Organization of Turkic States

11th summit of the Organization of Turkic States in Bishkek 08

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. In 2018, Hungary obtained observer status in the council. In 2021, Orbán mentioned that the Hungarian and

Turkic peoples Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...

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 A barbarian is a person or tribe of people that is perceived to be primitive, savage and warlike. Many cultures have referred to other cultures as barbarians, sometimes out of misunderstanding and sometimes out of prejudice. A "barbarian" may ...

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

and

Attila Attila ( or ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central Europe, C ...

's people". 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".

Israel and Hamas

The Hungarian government expressed support for Israel in the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

. On 13 October, Orbán stated "Israel has the right to defend itself" and "we will not allow sympathy rallies supporting terrorist organisations". On 22 October, Fidesz

parliamentary leader A parliamentary leader is a political title or a descriptive term used in various countries to designate the person leading a parliamentary group or caucus in a legislature, legislative body, whether it be a national or sub-national legislature. ...

Máté Kocsis announced that the party will introduce a manifesto before the parliament condemning

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

terrorism. In April 2025, Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...

visited Budapest, despite the ICC's arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

and crimes against humanity in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

. During the visit, the Hungarian government of Orbán announced that Hungary would withdraw from the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...

(ICC), describing it as "politically biased".

Policy and views

Orbán's blend of

soft Euroscepticism Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek refo ...

populism Populism is a essentially contested concept, contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the "common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently a ...

, and

national conservatism National conservatism is a nationalist variant of conservatism that concentrates on upholding national and cultural identity, communitarianism and the public role of religion. It shares aspects of traditionalist conservatism and social conserv ...

has seen him compared to politicians and political parties as diverse as

Jarosław Kaczyński Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński (born 18 June 1949) is a Polish politician. He co-founded the Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2001 with his twin brother, Lech Kaczyński, and has served as its leader since 2003. He served as Prime Minister of Pola ...

Law and Justice Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; 29 September 193612 June 2023) was an Italian Media proprietor, media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in three governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a mem ...

Forza Italia (FI; ) was a centre-right liberal-conservative political party in Italy, with Christian democratic,Chiara Moroni, , Carocci, Rome 2008 liberalOreste Massari, ''I partiti politici nelle democrazie contempoiranee'', Laterza, Rome-Bari 2004 (esp ...

Matteo Salvini Matteo Salvini (; born 9 March 1973) is an Italian politician who has been serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Italian Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport since 2022. He has been List of F ...

's Lega (previously

Lega Nord Lega Nord (LN; ), whose complete name is (), is a right-wing politics, right-wing, federalism, federalist, populism, populist and conservatism, conservative list of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy. In the run-up to the 201 ...

Marine Le Pen Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician of the far-right National Rally, National Rally party (RN). She served as the party's president from 2011 to 2021, and ran for the French presidency in ...

National Rally The National Rally (, , RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (, , FN), is a French far-right politics, far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and French nationalism, nationalist. It is the single largest Nat ...

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

, and

. Orbán has sought to make Hungary an "ideological center for ... an international conservative movement". According to ''

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...

'', Orbán's political philosophy "echoes the resentments of what were once the peasant and working classes" by promoting an "uncompromising defense of

national sovereignty A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) co ...

and a transparent distrust of Europe's ruling establishments". Orbán frequently emphasizes the importance of Christianity, although he and the overwhelming majority of Hungarians do not attend church regularly. His authoritarian appeal to "global conservatives" has been summarized by Lauren Stokes as: "I alone can save you from the ravages of

Islamization The spread of Islam spans almost 1,400 years. The early Muslim conquests that occurred following the death of Muhammad in 632 CE led to the creation of the caliphates, expanding over a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted ...

and totalitarian progressivism – and in the face of all that, who has time for checks and balances and rules?". Orbán has criticized the EU, comparing it to forces that have occupied Hungary throughout history. Orbán had a close relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister

, having known him for decades. He is described as "one of Mr Netanyahu's closest allies in Europe". Orbán received personal advice on economic reforms from Netanyahu, while the latter was

Finance Minister of Israel The Israeli Ministry of Finance () is the main economic ministry of the Government of Israel. It is responsible for planning and implementing the Government's overall economic policy, as well as setting targets for fiscal policy, preparing the dr ...

(2003–2005). In February 2019, Netanyahu thanked Orbán for "deciding to extend the embassy of Hungary in Israel to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

". 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. In practice, Orbán claimed, such a state should promote national self-sufficiency, national sovereignty, familialism,

full employment Full employment is an economic situation in which there is no cyclical or deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely structural and frictional, may ...

and the preservation of

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by socie ...

. 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 A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

and judiciary. For these reasons, critics have described him as an "

irredentist Irredentism () is one state's desire to annex the territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to or the same as the population of the parent state. Hist ...

", a "

right-wing populist Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti- elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishm ...

", an "

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...

", "

far-right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

", a "

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

", "

autocratic Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by the head of state and Head of government, government, known as an autocrat. It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with demo ...

", a " Putinist", a " strongman", and a "

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute Power (social and political), power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to r ...

". The European migrant crisis, coupled with continued Islamist

terrorism in the European Union history of terrorism in Europe. This has often been linked to nationalist and separatist movements (separating countries), while other acts have been related to politics (including anarchism, far-right and far-left extremism), religious extremi ...

, 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". As mentioned above, Orbán has promoted the

Great Replacement The Great Replacement (), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a debunked white nationalist far-right conspiracy theoryPT71. espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicit ...

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." During a press conference in January 2019, Orbán praised Brazil's then president

Jair Bolsonaro Jair Messias Bolsonaro (; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and former military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as a member of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies (Brazil), Chamb ...

, saying that currently "the most apt definition of modern

can be found in Brazil, not in Europe". 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". Batthyány "sponsors international conferences and three periodicals, all in English: ''European Conservative'', ''Hungarian Review'', and ''Hungarian Conservative''". In 2020, the institute began hosting

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

s. ;In the United States Orbán often attacked the administrations of presidents

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

and

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

, 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. In January 2022,

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. Donald Trump's former chief strategist,

Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of president Donald Trump's first ...

, once called Orbán "Trump before Trump". In August 2021,

Tucker Carlson Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969) is an American conservative political commentator who hosted the nightly political talk show '' Tucker Carlson Tonight'' on Fox News from 2016 to 2023. Since his contract with Fox News was term ...

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. In May 2022 the

Conservative Political Action Conference The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC ) is an annual political conference attended by Conservatism in the United States, conservative Activism, activists and officials from across the United States. CPAC is hosted by the American ...

, the "flagship conference" of American conservatism, held a satellite event in Budapest. In Florida, a law regulating

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, safe sex, birth ...

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 Ronald Dion DeSantis (; born September 14, 1978) is an American politician, attorney, and former United States Navy, naval officer serving as the 46th List of governors of Florida, governor of Florida since 2019. A member of the Republican Pa ...

's press secretary, inspired by it. In August 2022, Orbán was the opening speaker at the

(CPAC) in Dallas, Texas.

Domestic policy

Viktor Orbán's domestic policy agenda has placed emphasis on

cultural conservatism Cultural conservatism is described as the protection of the cultural heritage of a nation state, or of a culture not defined by state boundaries. It is sometimes associated with criticism of multiculturalism, and anti-immigration sentiment. B ...

, 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 loan A student loan is a type of loan designed to help students pay for post-secondary education and the associated fees, such as tuition, books and supplies, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in the fact that the interest ...

s, including a full write-off of their student debt if they have three or more children. Hungarian women who have four or more children are eligible for full

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

exemption for life. Married couples are eligible for low

fixed-rate mortgage A fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) is a mortgage loan where the interest rate on the note remains the same through the term of the loan, as opposed to loans where the interest rate may adjust or "float". As a result, payment amounts and the duration of ...

s 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 Child care, also known as day care, is the care and supervision of one or more children, typically ranging from three months to 18 years old. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), childcare typica ...

. 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." The government has also tightened legal regulations on access to

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

, including requiring pregnant women to listen to the heartbeat of the

fetus A fetus or foetus (; : fetuses, foetuses, rarely feti or foeti) is the unborn offspring of a viviparous animal that develops from an embryo. Following the embryonic development, embryonic stage, the fetal stage of development takes place. Pren ...

prior to an abortion being approved by a doctor. The number of abortions procured in Hungary between 2010 and 2023 fell almost 45%, from 44.8 per hundred live births in 2010 to 24.8 per hundred in 2023. As stated by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 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." His government's economic approach has been referred to as " Orbánomics". Despite early concerns that these reforms would undermine investor confidence, economic growth has been strong with

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work du ...

"plummeting" between 2010 and 2021 and year-on-year GDP growth at 4 percent in 2021.

Progressive tax A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. The term ''progressive'' refers to the way the tax rate progresses from low to high, with the result that a taxpayer's average tax rate is less than the ...

ation on income was abolished in 2015 and replaced with a

flat rate A flat fee, also referred to as a flat rate or a linear rate refers to a pricing structure that charges a single fixed fee for a service, regardless of usage. Less commonly, the term may refer to a rate that does not vary with usage or time of u ...

of 16% on gross income, and income taxes on those aged 25 years or younger was abolished entirely in 2021. Hungary paid the last of its

IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of la ...

loan ahead of schedule in 2013, with the fund closing its Budapest office later that year. Due to the economic impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the shocks of

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

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. Orbán's government has encouraged and provided financial support for the establishment of conservative think-tanks and cultural institutions. The

has purchased stakes in several European universities and has purchased the Modul University in Vienna. The think tank's Brussels branch opened in November 2022. 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. As part of a drive to " re-Christianize" the country, his government has

privatised Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation wh ...

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 school A Christian school is a Parochial school, religious school run on Christianity, Christian principles or by a Christian organization. These schools often include religious education and worship in their curriculum. They may also have a distinct Ch ...

s. The country's

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

curriculum was amended to promote "national identity, Christian cultural values, patriotism, attachment to homeland and family". Between 2010 and 2018, the number of

Catholic school Catholic schools are Parochial school, parochial pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest parochial schools, religious, no ...

s increased from 9.4 percent to 18 percent. The government also created the Center for Fundamental Rights (Hungarian: ) in 2013 who describe their mission as "preserving national identity, sovereignty and Christian social traditions". In 2019 the government passed a law taking control of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

Democratic backsliding, corruption and authoritarianism

According to

Transparency International Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil s ...

, Hungary was the most corrupt country in the European Union in 2023. Between 2010 and 2020, Hungary dropped 69 places in the

Press Freedom Index The World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) is an annual ranking of Country, countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002 based upon the non-governmental organization's own assessment of the countries' Freedom of the ...

, lost 11 places in the

Democracy Index The ''Democracy Index'' published by the Economist Group is an index measuring the quality of democracy across the world. This quantitative and comparative assessment is centrally concerned with democratic rights and democratic institutions. ...

, and deteriorated 16 places in the

Corruption Perceptions Index The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index that scores and ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as assessed by experts and business executives. The CPI generally defines corruption as an "abuse of entr ...

. In 2019

Freedom House Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, Freedom (political), political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, wi ...

downgraded the country from "free" to "partly free". 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 Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

.Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, Nazifa Alizada, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Allen Hicken, Garry Hindle, Nina Ilchenko, Joshua Krusell, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Juraj Medzihorsky, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Josefine Pernes, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Aksel Sundström, Eitan Tzelgov, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, Steven Wilson and Daniel Ziblatt. 2021. "V-Dem ountry–Year/Country–DateDataset v11.1" Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemds21. Additionally,

's ''Nations in Transit 2020'' report reclassified Hungary from a

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

to a transitional or

. Furthermore, in 2022, the

stated that "Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy" and that the country has become an "

electoral autocracy Electoral autocracy is a hybrid regime, in which democratic institutions are imitative and adhere to authoritarian methods. In these regimes, regular elections are held, but they are accused of failing to reach democratic standards of freedom and f ...

". The late professor of economics at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

János Kornai János Kornai (21 January 1928 – 18 October 2021) was a Hungarian economist noted for his analysis and criticism of the command economies of Eastern European communist states. He also covered macroeconomic aspects in countries undergoing pos ...

, 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". In her 2015 article on Orbán's illiberal democracy, Abby Innes, associate professor of political economy at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

simply states that "Hungary can no longer be ranked a democratic country". Former minister of education, Bálint Magyar, has stated that elections in Hungary under Orbán are undemocratic and "free but not fair", due to

gerrymandering Gerrymandering, ( , originally ) defined in the contexts of Representative democracy, representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of Boundary delimitation, electoral district boundaries to advantage a Political party, pa ...

, large-scale control over the media, and suspect funding for political campaigns. In the April 2022 election, Orbán's

party won 54% of the vote but 83% of the districts, due to gerrymandering, and "other tweaks" to Hungarian electoral rules. 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. 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". 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". Hungarian political scientist , using

Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...

'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. In addition, extensive research has been conducted to describe the idea of a "national, sovereign, bourgeois Hungary" stated as the goal of Orbán's rule, is in fact a "political product" of a post-communist

serving to obscure massive corruption and transfers of wealth to those with the right connections.

Anti-LGBT policies

Since his election as prime minister in 2010, Orbán has led initiatives and laws to limit LGBT+ rights. In 2020, Orbán's government ended legal recognition of transgender people, receiving criticism both in Hungary and abroad. In 2021, his party proposed new 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". German Chancellor

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

and European Commission President

Ursula von der Leyen Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (; ; born 8 October 1958) is a German politician, serving as president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the Cabinet of Germany, German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding position ...

harshly criticized the law, while a letter from sixteen EU leaders including

Pedro Sánchez Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (; born 29 February 1972) is a Spanish politician who has served as Prime Minister of Spain since 2018. He has also been Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since July 2017, having p ...

and

Mario Draghi Mario Draghi (; born 3 September 1947) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, banker, statesman, and civil servant, who served as the prime minister of Italy from 13 February 2021 to 22 October 2022. Prior to his appointment as prime mi ...

warned against "threats against fundamental rights and in particular the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation". 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 Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, despite the ongoing

quarantine restrictions. Szájer was one of the major architects behind the 2011

Constitution of Hungary The Fundamental Law of Hungary (), the country's constitution, was adopted by parliament on 18 April 2011, promulgated by the president a week later and entered into force on 1 January 2012. It is Hungary's first constitution adopted within a dem ...

. This new constitution has been criticized by

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

for being discriminatory towards the LGBT+ community. 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. It came after complaints from the

(EU) about anti-LGBTQ discriminatory laws. Human rights groups condemned the referendum as

anti-LGBT rhetoric Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric comprises themes, catchphrases, and slogans that have been used in order to demean lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is widely considered a form of hate speech, which is ille ...

that supported discrimination. On 22 July 2023, in a speech he gave in Romania, Orbán complained that the EU was conducting an "LGBTQ offensive". On 18 March 2025, the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

voted in favor of the 2025 Hungarian Pride ban.

Green transition and climate change

When US President

decided to withdraw from the

Paris Agreement The Paris Agreement (also called the Paris Accords or Paris Climate Accords) is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was ...

on climate change in 2017, Orbán stated: "In Hungary, there is a consensus that climate change is real, that it is dangerous and since it is a global phenomenon, it requires global action to combat it." In October 2021, Orbán warned that the European Commission's planned Fit for 55 climate package and the resulting high energy prices would "destroy" Europe's middle classes, saying that "those responsible for sky-high electricity and gas prices are endangering European democracy." He called the European Union's climate protection plans a "utopian fantasy." In June 2024, Orbán expressed support for the green transition, but criticized the way it was implemented by the "current Brussels elite".

Criticism and political techniques

Orbán's critics have included domestic and foreign leaders (including former

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state (SecState) is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The secretary of state serves as the principal advisor to the ...

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Presidents of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, and

Jean-Claude Juncker Jean-Claude Juncker (; born 9 December 1954) is a Luxembourgish politician who was List of prime ministers of Luxembourg, prime minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013 and president of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019. He also was List ...

), intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations. He has been accused of pursuing anti-democratic reforms; attacking the human rights of the

LGBT community The LGBTQ community (also known as the LGBT, LGBT+, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIA+, or queer community) comprises LGBTQ people, LGBTQ individuals united by LGBTQ culture, a common culture and LGBTQ movements, social movements. These Community, comm ...

; 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 Cronyism is a specific form of in-group favoritism, the spoils system practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. ...

and

nepotism Nepotism is the act of granting an In-group favoritism, advantage, privilege, or position to Kinship, relatives in an occupation or field. These fields can include business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion or health care. In ...

. Orbán was accused of

pork barrel ''Pork barrel'', or simply ''pork'', is a metaphor for allocating government spending to localized projects in the representative's district or for securing direct expenditures primarily serving the sole interests of the representative. The u ...

politics for building Pancho Aréna, a 4,000-seat stadium in the village in which he grew up, Felcsút, at a distance of some from his country house.

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. A 2016 opinion piece for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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. A 2017 ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' article compared the Hungarian elite under Orbán's government to

Russian oligarchs Russian oligarchs () are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownershi ...

. 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. 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.

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 Anti-Europeanism, Anti-European sentiment, and Europhobia are political terms used in a variety of contexts, implying sentiment or policies in opposition to Europe. In the context of racial or ethno-nationalist politics, this may refer to the di ...

and sympathies with the radical right. 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 nto the EU because it may give a new push to the economy."

Migrant crisis

Hungarian-American business magnate and political activist

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." Orbán has been critical of German Chancellor

's decision to open Germany's borders to migrants in 2015. but he himself has been criticized for engineering the

2015 European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe, mostly from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum, the most in a single ...

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. During the crisis, Orbán ordered fences be put up across the Hungarian borders with

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

and

and refused to comply with the European Union's mandatory asylum quota. 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. ;Anti-Soros theme The Orbán government began to attack

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 World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

". 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 In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

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. 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 Central European University (CEU; , ) is a private research university in Vienna. The university offers graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities, which are accredited in Austria and the United States. The univ ...

(CEU). 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.

Accusations of antisemitism

Orbán has been frequently accused of

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

, particularly for promoting

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * ...

about the

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

. 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". 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. He has also been accused of rehabilitating antisemitic Hungarian historical figures and of exploiting antisemitism.

Irredentism and nativism

Orbán's policy positions have been reported to lean towards

irredentism Irredentism () is one State (polity), state's desire to Annexation, annex the territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by Ethnicity, ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to or the same as the ...

and nativism. He has overseen the transfer of hundreds of millions of Hungarian taxpayer money for the preservation of

Hungarian language Hungarian, or Magyar (, ), is an Ugric language of the Uralic language family spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighboring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Out ...

and monuments and institutions of the

Hungarian diaspora The Hungarian diaspora or Magyar diaspora refers to ethnic Hungarians (''Magyars'') living outside the borders of present-day Hungary. The diaspora can be divided into two main groups: the first group includes those who are autochthonous to their ...

, particularly in Romania, irking the Romanian government.

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 Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

text" that was "worthy of Goebbels" by one of his senior advisers, Zsuzsa Hegedűs, in her letter of resignation. 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". The speech drew condemnation from both the Romanian foreign ministry and other European leaders. Two days later, in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Orbán made it clear, he was talking about cultures and not about race. In a letter to Orbán, Zsuzsa Hegedüs later expressed that she was proud of him, and that he could count on her like he could in the past 20 years. 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". He also attacked billionaire

, former United States President

, " globalists", and the United States' Democratic Party.

Personal life

Orbán married jurist Anikó Lévai in 1986, they have five children. Their eldest daughter, Ráhel, is married to entrepreneur , whose company, Elios, was accused of receiving unfair advantages when winning public tenders. (see ) Orbán's son, Gáspár, is a retired footballer, who played for Ferenc Puskás Football Academy in 2014. Gáspár is also one of the founders of a religious community called Felház. Orbán is a member of the

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

-oriented Hungarian Reformed Church, while his wife and their five children were raised

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. His son Gáspár Orbán converted in 2014 to the Faith Church, a Pentecostal denomination, and is currently a minister. He has claimed to have heard from God and to have witnessed miraculous healings. Hatvanpuszta, a historic estate once part of Archduke Joseph’s Alcsút estate, was purchased in 2011 by a company owned by Viktor Orbán’s father, Győző Orbán. The estate has since undergone extensive redevelopment, sparking controversy and allegations of secrecy, with critics suggesting it serves as a private retreat for the Hungarian Prime Minister.

Football interests

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. He had a prominent role in the foundation of Puskás Akadémia in Felcsút. He played an important role in establishing the annually organised international youth cup, the Puskás Cup, at Pancho Aréna, which he also helped build, in his hometown of Felcsút. His only son, Gáspár, learned and trained there. 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. Then

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

President

Sepp Blatter Joseph Sepp Blatter (born Josef Blatter; 10 March 1936) is a Swiss former association football, football administrator who served as the list of Presidents of FIFA, eighth president of FIFA from 1998 to 2015. He has been banned from participatin ...

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. He played the minor role of a footballer in the Hungarian family film ''Szegény Dzsoni és Árnika'' (1983).

Awards and honors

Foreign

* (): **

BIH_Order_of_the_Republic_of_Srpska_ribbon

Order of the Republika Srpska The Order of the Republika Srpska () is the Republika Srpska's highest award. It can be awarded to any head of state, "exceptional person", or institution in recognition of "excellent work strengthening the national consciousness egardingthe ...

(2024) *: ** Ordre_national_du_Merite_GC_ribbon

Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2001) *: ** Order_Dostik_1kl_rib

First Class of the

Order of Friendship The Order of Friendship (, ') is a state decoration of the Russian Federation established by Boris Yeltsin by presidential decree 442 of 2 March 1994 to reward Russian and foreign nationals whose work, deeds and efforts have been aimed at ...

(2023) *: ** Commander's Grand Cross of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas (2009) *: ** MKD_Order_8th_September_BAR

Order 8-September (2013) *: ** Orden_Republike_Srbije

First Class of the Order of the Republic of Serbia (2022) *: ** VAT_Order_of_Saint_Gregory_the_Great_GCross_BAR

Knight Grand Cross of the

Order of St. Gregory the Great The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great (; ) was established on 1 September 1831, by Pope Gregory XVI, seven months after his election as Pope. The order is one of the five Papal order of knighthood, orders of knighthood of th ...

(2004)

Confessional

*Holy Cross Medal of Gratitude (

Armenian Catholic Church The Armenian Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic particular church ''sui iuris'' of the Catholic Church. It accepts the papal supremacy, leadership of the bishop of Rome, and is therefore in full communion with ...

, 2022) *First Class of the (

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

, 2023) *First Class of the Order of St. Sava (

Serbian Orthodox Church The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...

, 2022)

Other honors

*Honorary senator of the

European Academy of Sciences and Arts The European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA, ) is a transnational and interdisciplinary network, connecting about 2,000 recommended scientists and artists worldwide, including 38 Nobel Prize laureates. The European Academy of Sciences and ...

(2000) *Freedom Award by the

American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...

(2001) * Franz Josef Strauss Prize from the Hanns Seidel Foundation (2001) *Polak Award established by the Maria Polak Foundation (2001) *Prize for the Social Market Economy by the German Club of Economics (2002) *Honorary Citizen of Szék, Hungary (2002) * (2002) * by the (2003) *Honorary Citizen of

Esztergom Esztergom (; ; or ; , known by Names of European cities in different languages: E–H#E, alternative names) is a city with county rights in northern Hungary, northwest of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom County, on the righ ...

, Hungary, twice (2006, 2009) *Gold Medal of the Foundation of European Merit (2004) *World No Tobacco Day Award by the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

(2013) *Title 'Man of the Year 2013' by Polish magazine ''

Gazeta Polska ''Gazeta Polska'' (Literal translation, lit.: ''Polish Newspaper'') is a Polish language pro-United Right (Poland), United Right right-wing populist to far-right weekly magazine published in Poland. Profile and history ''Gazeta Polsk''a was f ...

'' (2014) *'The 28 People From 28 Countries Who Are Shaping, Shaking And Stirring Europe: Class Of 2016' by magazine ''

Politico Europe ''Politico Europe'' (stylized as ''POLITICO Europe'') is the European edition of the American news organization '' Politico'' reporting on political affairs of the European Union. Its headquarters are located in Brussels with additional offices in ...

'' *Title 'Man of the Year 2015'at the Economic Forum in Poland (2016) *

FINA World Aquatics, formerly known as FINA (; ), is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administering international competitions in List of water sports, water sports. It is one of several interna ...

Order of Merit (2017) *Golden Order of the Azeri international magazine ''My Azerbaijan'' (2022) * Supreme Order of Turkic World (6 November 2024)

Honorary doctorates

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

(United States, 2002) *

Josai University is a private university in Sakado, Saitama, Japan, established in 1965. The predecessor of the school, Jōsai Gakuen Middle School, later Jōsai High School, was founded in 1918. The university is operated by the Josai University Educational Cor ...

(Japan, 2013) *

Marmara University Marmara University (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Marmara Üniversitesi'') is a Public university, public research university in Istanbul, Turkey. The university, named after the Sea of Marmara, was founded as a university in 1982. However, its ...

(Turkey, 2013)

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * 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. * 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
*

External links

*
News from the BBC (2002)

Hungarian PM puts football first – BBC

Orbán in 1989
–

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Orban, Viktor 1963 births Living people People from Székesfehérvár Prime ministers of Hungary Hungarian critics of Islam Critics of Islamism Critics of multiculturalism Conservatism in Hungary European People's Party politicians Far-right politics in Hungary Fidesz politicians Hungarian anti-communists Hungarian Calvinist and Reformed Christians Hungarian men's footballers Hungarian nationalists Hungarian national conservatives Hungarian sportsperson-politicians Men's association football players not categorized by position Eötvös Loránd University alumni Members of the fourth Orbán Government Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1990–1994) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1994–1998) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1998–2002) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2002–2006) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2006–2010) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2010–2014) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2014–2018) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2018–2022) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2022–2026) 20th-century Hungarian politicians 20th-century Hungarian lawyers 21st-century Hungarian lawyers Members of the fifth Orbán government Leaders of political parties in Hungary Right-wing populists Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (civil) Grand Cross of the Ordre national du Mérite Commander's Grand Crosses of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Gregory the Great Recipients of the Order of St. Sava Trumpism Natalist politicians Recipients of the Supreme Order of Turkic World Authoritarianism

Early life and background (1963–1988)

Political ascent (1988–1998)

First premiership (1998–2002)

Economy

Foreign policy

Leader of the Opposition (2002–2010)

Second premiership (2010–present)

Second Orbán government (2010–2014)

Third Orbán government (2014–2018)

Fourth Orbán government (2018–2022)

Fifth Orbán government (2022–present)

Foreign policy

China

Russia and Ukraine

Accession to the Organization of Turkic States

Israel and Hamas

Policy and views

Domestic policy

Democratic backsliding, corruption and authoritarianism

Anti-LGBT policies

Green transition and climate change

Criticism and political techniques

Economic cronyism

Opposition to European integration

Migrant crisis

Accusations of antisemitism

Irredentism and nativism

Mixed-race statement

Personal life

Football interests

Awards and honors

Foreign

Confessional

Other honors

Honorary doctorates

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links