What Hungary’s new leader really stands for

Leaders from across Europe flocked to celebrate Péter Magyar’s birthday Overwhelming election victory in Hungary.

His success makes him the country’s first new prime minister in 16 years and unseats Viktor Orbán, who has been portrayed as the European Union’s most autocratic leader and a thorn in the side of the EU.

It would therefore be easy to assume that Brussels would be alarmed about the government falling. Europe’s most pro-Russian dictator.

Ursula von der Leyen from the European Commission, António Costa from the European Council, Mark Rutte from NATO and many other leaders publicly celebrated Mr. Magyar’s victory, hoping the election would end disappointments with Hungary.

So, after all this time, are they expecting too much from the man who will replace Mr. Orbán?

Diplomats and insiders who spoke to The Telegraph before and after the election results are perhaps more cautious about the prospect of wholesale change.

“I know this guy,” an EU diplomat told The Telegraph weeks before the election. “Ten years ago he was at the Hungarian embassy. We called him ‘”.Baby Orban‘.”

A second EU diplomat said on Monday: “I don’t believe in magic, especially in politics.”

Mr Magyar may have campaigned on a promise to reset relations with the EU and NATO, but insiders do not see him as a pro-Brussels frontrunner.

“He’s trying not to be seen as pro-EU and he’s trying not to be seen as pro-Ukraine. He’s a conservative man. We shouldn’t expect some kind of prodigal son if he wins,” the diplomat added.

In his victory speech, Mr Magyar promised that Hungary would be “a strong ally in the EU and NATO”.

Perhaps the perfect acid test for this promise would be to unlock a planned process. 90 billion euro loan from the EU to UkraineMost of these are devoted to purchasing weapons against Russian occupation.

Mr. Orbán, who agreed to the loan last December, has repeatedly vetoed it because of the suspension of shipments of Russian oil through a pipeline through Ukrainian territory.

Even after such a resounding victory, Mr. Magyar has yet to concede whether Hungary is ready to reverse its opposition to the loan.

The future prime minister instead claimed that he was ready to “clarify all important issues with our neighbours”.

Nick Sergeef, a senior analyst at S-RM, said: “Many EU politicians will celebrate Tisza’s victory as a serious erosion of the strong anti-Ukrainian camp in the bloc.

“But Magyar has vowed to continue defending Hungarian interests in the EU, which could complicate Hungary’s contribution to EU support for Ukraine.”

Much of Mr. Magyar’s success stems from the fact that his campaign presents him as a leader who is simply trying to throw Orbán-era policies into the fire.

The real difference, Mr. Magyar says, will be the end of the corrupt oligarchy that he claims Mr. Orbán uses to enrich himself through state coffers.

He has promised to hold accountable for such abuses and plans to set up an Office for the Recovery and Protection of National Assets to roll back what he says are the ill-gotten gains of Mr. Orbán’s allies.

Mr. Magyar also campaigned heavily on a promise to bring home billions of euros of European Union funding frozen for Hungary due to corruption and rule of law concerns under Orbán.

He also promised Hungary to introduce the euro by 2030; Mr. Orbán’s government long resisted this.

Bulcsú Hunyadi, an analyst at the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital, said Mr Magyar’s government would be under “tight pressure” from the EU to quickly carry out reforms to gain access to frozen funds that Hungary’s ailing economy desperately needs.

“There are deadlines on lifting the funding freeze. They will need to finalize certain laws and reforms by August this year, which is only a few months away,” he said.

But this is unlikely to mean an end to the “wake-up war” or abandonment of cheap Russian fossil fuels.

The new prime minister is a former member of Mr. Orbán’s Fidesz movement. His ex-wife Judit Varga was once minister of justice.

Ahead of the election, Mr. Magyar refused to communicate about his political rival’s controversial ban on pride parades.

And once again, just like with the Ukrainian loan, the incoming prime minister did not wholeheartedly address the issue in his victory speech.

Instead, he claimed that Hungary would become a country where “no one is stigmatized for loving someone differently than the majority.”

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has managed to free up billions of euros in EU funding after laws deemed anti-LGBT were repealed by his predecessors in Warsaw.

Mr. Magyar managed to win by promising to reverse Hungary’s faltering economic performance, not its democratic decline.

Concerns about the cost of living and the poor performance of public services were much more touchy issues at the ballot box.

The election results do not indicate that Hungary is ready to jettison the social and cultural views it has espoused during Mr. Orbán’s 16-year rule.

‘Robust power structures’

Mr Magyar may have declared his rival’s “regime over”, but that doesn’t mean wholesale change is on the horizon.

There is also a risk that Mr. Orbán could return in the next election if Mr. Magyar does not fulfill his campaign promises.

From the University of Exeter Law School, Dr. “It would be wrong for liberals to rejoice too quickly,” said Raphaël Girard.

“Firstly, Magyar is a center-right figure, a former member of Fidesz, and remains a bit of a dark horse. Secondly, recent history has shown that many populists, from Donald Trump in the US to Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Andrej Babis in the Czech Republic, have managed to return to power after electoral defeat.

“Time will tell whether the Magyar can avoid the fate of their predecessors elsewhere in the world, where their initial promises to dismantle entrenched power structures ultimately failed,” he added.