Prime Minister Péter Magyar and former president János Áder have opened a new front in Hungary’s escalating constitutional conflict, trading accusations in recent days after Áder denounced the Tisza government’s plan to remove President Tamás Sulyok through the 17th Amendment to the Fundamental Law.
Magyar hit back by branding him a ‘közpénzhorgász’—literally, a ‘public-money angler’—accusing him of channelling state funding through his climate protection foundation while alluding to the former president’s well-known passion for fishing.
The clash erupted after Áder accused the government of pushing Hungary towards an ‘Orwellian’ authoritarian system by seeking to remove Sulyok through a constitutional amendment rather than through existing legal procedures. The former head of state described the plan as a ‘constitutional coup’ and warned that replacing the president in this way would mark the beginning of a ‘cold civil war’.
Magyar responded by shifting the dispute from constitutional principles to the alleged misuse of public funds under the previous administrations led by former prime minister Viktor Orbán. At a government briefing, he said Áder’s criticism was understandable because the government’s planned takeover of public-interest asset-management foundations, known as KEKVAs, would also affect the Blue Planet Climate Protection Foundation linked to the former president. Magyar accused the foundation of functioning as a ‘money pump’ and said billions of forints in public funding had been ‘shovelled out’ through it for years.
Blue Planet is a climate and sustainability foundation established by Áder while he was president. According to the foundation, it was created using money left by Balázs Miklós, a Hungarian engineer who emigrated to Manchester and died in 2013, with instructions that the funds be used for the benefit of Hungarians. Its stated mission is to support initiatives addressing environmental, climate protection, and sustainability challenges.
‘Magyar accused the foundation of functioning as a “money pump”’
Áder demanded either evidence or an apology following Magyar’s remarks, but the prime minister instead published further posts linking to previous Hungarian investigative reporting on the foundation and the former president’s benefits.
On Sunday, Magyar asked why Áder’s foundation had received another HUF 7 billion in public funding shortly before the election, on top of what he described as an earlier HUF 18 billion grant. Hungarian outlet HVG reported that the claim most likely referred to Planet Budapest 2026, a sustainability programme linked to the foundation, while noting that Magyar had not provided the full financing details to support the allegation.
Blue Planet rejected the suggestion that the funding had been a last-minute political favour. In its response, the foundation said the money was allocated for a free sustainability event, had been approved in 2025, contracted in early June that year, and paid in instalments in June 2025 and January 2026.
The Áder–Magyar confrontation forms part of the broader conflict over the so-called Operation Purgatory, the Tisza government’s campaign to dismantle what Magyar calls the ‘political and economic mafia’ built during Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. The 17th Amendment would terminate Sulyok’s mandate, introduce a 12-year term limit for MPs, restore a retirement age for Constitutional Court judges, and form part of a broader anti-corruption and asset-recovery package.
The proposed removal of Sulyok has drawn criticism not only from Fidesz and former state officials, but also from Amnesty International Hungary. The rights group said the political objective of replacing Sulyok could be understandable, but argued that removing him by a fast-tracked constitutional amendment, rather than through existing constitutional procedures, would undermine fair procedure and create a dangerous precedent. It also criticized the short consultation period and raised broader rule-of-law concerns over parts of the amendment.
Sulyok has refused to resign, arguing that his office derives its legitimacy from the Fundamental Law rather than from the approval of the current parliamentary majority. In a recent interview with the Polish conservative weekly Do Rzeczy, he said Magyar had found no public-law basis for removing him and warned that a provision terminating the mandate of the ‘current president’ was a person-specific legislation incompatible with the rule of law.
‘The Áder–Magyar confrontation forms part of the broader conflict over the so-called Operation Purgatory’
The dispute has also reached European institutions. A Venice Commission delegation visited Budapest last week and met both Sulyok and representatives of Magyar’s government after the president requested expert assistance in resolving the conflict in May. The Council of Europe said the talks covered cooperation on restoring the rule of law and the timetable for adopting the draft 17th Amendment.
Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party and its former coalition partner, KDNP, have announced a demonstration for Thursday, 9 July, outside Sándor Palace, the official residence of the president, to protest against the amendment. Magyar dismissed the planned protest as hypocritical, comparing Fidesz to ‘the thief shouting for the police’.
The 17th Amendment was submitted by Magyar himself on Saturday, and the prime minister said Parliament would vote on it in the coming days.
Áder served as President of Hungary between 2012 and 2022 after being elected by the Fidesz–KDNP constitutional supermajority.
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