Hungarian Conservative

All MPs for the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition, as well as some for the left-wing opposition, were absent from the extraordinary parliamentary session called for Monday, thus the vote on Sweden’s NATO membership did not meet the threshold to be legally binding. US Ambassador David Pressman was also present, but then left the House disappointed.

The governing Fidesz-KDNP party coalition in Hungary has maintained their support, while fewer would vote for the parties of the left-wing alliance than did in 2022, as revealed by a joint political year-opening roundtable discussion organized by five polling institutes on Thursday, 11 January in Budapest.

Although the unification made the dream of the Romanians come true, the aspirations of Transylvanian Hungarians for self-determination were ignored. The annexation of Transylvania to Romania was finally enshrined by the Treaty of Paris.

‘It seems clear that both federalists and sovereigntists agree that the current treaty framework isn’t up to the task of addressing the crises in the European Union and its Member States. To tackle these issues, it’s evident that new treaties need to be crafted.’

According to the Center for Fundamental Rights, while Orbán argued for the defence of Hungary’s political, economic, and cultural sovereignty in his remarks, it became apparent from the words of the former prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány that defending the nation’s self-determination is not a political goal for him—which was his downfall after 2006 as well.

Mária Ádám-Haszonics, Zoltán Lomnici, András Patyi, and Réka Varga have all been confirmed to the Constitutional Court by a two-thirds majority vote in the parliament, replacing the four term-limited former justices on the 15-member panel. The Court has the power to strike down legislation if they find it incompatible with the Fundamental Law of Hungary.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs stated at a press conference on Tuesday that Hungary will keep its promise of not holding up Sweden’s joining of NATO, thus it is ready to back it once Turkey is. However, a recent incident of Quran burning in Stockholm may set the process back for some time again.

The 2022 opposition prime minister candidate announced the official establishment of his new Mindenki Magyarországa Néppárt (Everyone’s Hungary People’s Party). At the scarcely attended press conference, he revealed that they plan on not taking any funding from the central government, and operating on donations alone; as well as eventually joining the European People’s Party.

There are two models of opposition—one that is based on cooperation and one that is based on absolute rejection. While democracies are characterised by cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties, out-of-power parties in Hungary are unwilling to cooperate with the ruling coalition, which results in their ineffectiveness.

According to the law sponsored by the justice minister, an extended state of emergency is needed to handle the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war in Ukraine and to tackle the economic consequences of the armed conflict. The bill was designed to ‘ensure all means to assist and accommodate refugees, fence off the negative economic impacts.. and help the country leave behind the effects of the war as soon as possible,’ the draft legislation’s preamble said.

The Justice Minister announced on social media that the government will submit further, child protection-related legislative proposals to the National Assembly in the autumn. ’Hungary will have the strictest child protection regulations in Europe because there is no compromise in child protection,’ she wrote. She also pointed out that more and more evidence is emerging that the Hungarian opposition had accepted 4 billion forints in ‘mysterious’ foreign donations to represent foreign interests and policies in Hungary.

Katalin Novák sent the whistleblower bill back to parliament for reconsideration, as she found that it fails to give the fundamental rights of Hungarians an elevated level of protection, as it states to do. She also shared her concerns about the potential violation of freedom of expression rights.

The new law just passed by the National Assembly provides additional protections to whistleblowers; as well as ascribes duties to create confidential abuse report systems to private companies of a certain size and institutions in the public sector.

Not only has the left-wing camp become more fragmented due to Péter Márki-Zay’s movement becoming an independent party, and the former leader of Jobbik founding a new movement, but it has also shrunk in terms of popular support.

‘The cooperation between the National Council for Sustainable Development and the government has become exemplary with the adoption of the strategic framework. This cooperation is the guarantee for achieving our strategic goals in sustainability,’ Katalin Szili, the prime minister’s deputy chief adviser said, marking the tenth anniversary of the National Sustainable Development Framework Strategy.