Buoyed by a bombshell opinion poll result showing his six-month old party has almost closed the gap on Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, which has ruled Hungary since 2010, the insurgent opposition leader Péter Magyar plans to put the nationalist premier on the spot in the European Parliament next week.
ADVERTISEMENTHungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar is set to come face to face with Viktor Orbán next week for the first time since a breakthrough result in the June European Parliament elections that appears to be the first serious challenge to the 14-year dominance of the right-wing prime minister’s Fidesz party.
Magyar, a conservative former Fidesz insider, will be assisted by the latest sounding by opinion pollster Medián showing domestic support for his Respect and Freedom (Tisza) Party has risen to 39% among decided voters, just four points behind Fidesz.
Viktor Orbán – praised by US presidential hopeful Donald Trump this week as “one of the most respected men” and a “tough person, smart” – is scheduled to speak in the European Parliament on 18 September to present the agenda of his country’s six-month EU Council presidency, after being denied the opportunity in July in what some perceived as a snub.
Trump’s ringing endorsement will scarcely improve the standing of the central European nationalist leader and arch critic of “Brussels” among left-wing and centrist MEPs, and Orbán is likely to face a grilling not least over his use of the first days of Hungary’s turn as chair of intergovernmental talks to embark on a maverick ‘peace mission’ to Kiev, Moscow and Beijing.
Uncharacteristically fielding unsolicited questions from reporters at an annual party event in southern Hungary on Saturday (7 September) and asked if he planned to engage with Magyar while in Strasbourg, Orbán replied that he was “at the disposal of all European Parliament representatives”.
Although ostensibly there to answer questions about Hungary’s legislative priorities during its Council presidency, the prime minister could also face questions over his government’s decision to ease entry requirements for Russian and Belarusian nationals and its threat to bus asylum seekers directly to Brussels.
But perhaps the most pointed questioning could be from Magyar, who now heads a seven-strong Hungarian contingent in the European Peoples’ Party (EPP), the largest political group Strasbourg-based assembly and the former home of Fidesz, whose dozen MEPs now dominate Orbán’s new Patriots for Europe group.
“I’ll be there, and I’ll send you the questions in advance so you have time to prepare,” Magyar said at the end of August in a social media post.
An EPP source confirmed to Euronews that the group intends to make sure Magyar is given the floor after Orbán’s opening speech and initial responses from group leaders.
Hungary’s next general election must take place by 2026, and Tisza recently pledged to double the national minimum wage to the equivalent of €1350 from the following year, while taxing oligarchs and clawing back what Magyar claimed this week were billions that “disappear from the budget through corruption, inflated public procurements and pointless investments”.
Magyar’s intervention in Strasbourg next week may prove to be an opening salvo in what promises to be a long and bitterly fought election campaign by Fidesz and Tisza. That the Medián poll had the whimsical Two-Tailed Dog Party trailing in joint third place with the ultra-nationalist Our Homeland only serves to emphasize the absence of any other credible opposition in the country.