Days after his election victory, Peter Magyar announced the formation of a government of experts by mid-May. Instead of the announced “democracy,” Hungary will get a government consisting of representatives of the banks, the economy and the European Union, which will continue the right-wing, anti-social and undemocratic policies of the ousted Orbán government.
Magyar’s Tisza party won the election last weekend by a landslide, with over 53 percent in a record turnout of 78 percent. He has the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments in the new parliament. Orbán’s Fidesz slumped sharply with 38.3 percent of the vote.
Magyar has announced a change in policy and rapid reforms. The priority is the release of €19 billion in funding withheld by the EU, €10 billion of which expires at the end of August. In view of Hungary’s tense budgetary and economic situation, these funds are of great importance for the new government. Even before officially forming his administration, Magyar entered into talks with the EU Commission to discuss the conditions for the release of the EU funds.
The composition of the government is not yet official, but several people are considered certain to be given posts in the new cabinet. Almost without exception, these are figures who are closely linked to the political and economic interests of the European powers. Former top managers are also earmarked for central posts.
It can be assumed that the appointment of ministers will take place in close coordination with the European Union, which had vigorously supported Magyar’s election campaign. In particular, the European People’s Party (EPP), to which Magyar himself belongs in the European Parliament, played an important role in this.
The Foreign Ministry is expected to go to Anita Orbán. A government member under Viktor Orbán, to whom she is not related, from 2010 to 2015, she was special ambassador for energy security. When Anita Orbán concentrated the energy supply on Russia in 2017, she broke with Fidesz and moved to the private sector, where she worked in management positions at the American energy corporation Tellurian and the telecommunications giant Vodafone. In January of this year, she joined Magyar’s Tisza.
Anita Orbán advocates rapid independence from Russian oil deliveries. She has stated that she does not want to throw any further “spanners in the works” for the EU after a change of government. As early as 2008, she wrote a book with the telling title Power, Energy and the New Russian Imperialism.
The prospective finance minister, András Kármán, also comes from the Viktor Orbán camp. After 2010, he was active in Orbán’s government as a state secretary and conducted negotiations with the EU. Most recently, he worked for Erste Group Bank AG. During the election campaign, he supported Tisza in tax and financial matters.
Kármán has stated that he wants to lay the foundations for formal entry into the eurozone by 2030. By then, all necessary economic criteria are to be met. Currently, Hungary does not meet the Maastricht criteria, which are required for the introduction of the euro; the national debt and budget deficit are too high. Hungary’s credit rating is BBB or BBB-, with rating agency Fitch having set the outlook to “negative.” If cuts are not made, there is the threat of a downgrade to “junk” level.
There is no question that the criteria to enter the eurozone require enormous cuts. And this is exactly what Kármán is supposed to push through. One of the first measures is the abolition of state price caps. Kármán has argued that such interventions cannot be reconciled with free market principles.
The current legal upper limits for price ranges on food and everyday goods were introduced when prices were no longer affordable for more and more households due to increased inflation.
Zsolt Hegedűs is to oversee cuts in the health sector. A doctor, who practised in England for several years, Hegedűs has no political experience whatsoever and only joined Tisza last summer.
Former top manager István Kapitány could head the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The ex-Shell manager had gone abroad after the fall of Stalinist rule in Budapest in 1990 and made a career. Today, he denounces corruption, excessive bureaucracy and any restriction of business interests. He also criticises the dependence on Russian energy.
The former commander-in-chief of the Hungarian armed forces, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, is being cited as future defence minister. He was dismissed from military service by the Orbán government over espionage allegations and immediately joined Tisza. In fact, he was dismissed because he spoke out against what he considered the excessively slow expansion of NATO to the east and the close relations with Russia.
In terms of domestic policy, Magyar is adopting the right-wing policies of his predecessor. A reversal of the authoritarian restructuring of state institutions, a more just social policy or a departure from the inhumane refugee policy cannot be found on the new government’s agenda.
Just last week, Magyar called on the presidents and heads of almost all relevant institutions—the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Competition Authority—to resign.
Only the head of the Central Bank, Mihaly Varga, is to remain at his post, although he came into office through Fidesz. Varga has openly supported Kármán’s austerity policy, but a dispute between the government and the Central Bank could harm the economy in the present circumstances.
Magyar is no less abrasive when it comes to influencing the media than Orbán, under whose government critical media were silenced. On public television, he announced that as one of its first steps his government would suspend the news programmes of “propaganda media.” Magyar did not respond to the presenter’s remark that the discontinuation of the news broadcasts violated the law.
The new government wants to continue the Orbán government’s brutal refugee policy and maintain the border installations in the south of Hungary, on the so-called Balkan route. His country would neither take in refugees nor make payments, Magyar declared. Instead, Hungary could help other states to build up their “defence.”
On the issue of immigration, Magyar goes even further than his right-wing extremist predecessor. He has already announced that he will completely stop the recruitment of workers from non-EU states, which has been strictly limited up to now. Orbán had permitted this due to the urgent need for skilled workers.
Thus, it is not surprising that the first preparatory meeting of the parties to be represented in parliament proceeded very harmoniously. With Tisza, Fidesz and Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland), exclusively right-wing and fascist forces are represented. The leader of Mi Hazánk, László Toroczkai, explicitly praised the productive atmosphere of the talks.
Although Tisza has a two-thirds majority, Magyar relies on cooperation with Fidesz and the fascists. For example, each parliamentary group is to provide a deputy speaker of parliament, and all parties are to be represented in the committees to be set up.
Like Orbán, Magyar will rely on the most right-wing elements to push through his policies against the population. In view of the pressure from Brussels, the difficult economic situation and the planned cuts, resistance in the population will grow rapidly.