This election in Hungary has had it all. An alleged “honey trap” sex tape, phone-tapping controversies, claims of bomb plots and sabotage.
At stake is the European Union’s ability to agree common positions and a €90 billion loan for Ukraine, without which Kyiv will start to run short of funds next month.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s far-right prime minister, has thrown the kitchen sink at Peter Magyar, an insider-turned-challenger who poses a real threat to Fidesz party’s conservative regime.
The results of parliamentary elections on Sunday will have huge ramifications for the inner workings of the EU.
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Orban, who has been in power since 2010, has gone from a troublesome rogue to someone openly working against the union’s interests.
The need for unanimous EU agreement on anything concerning foreign affairs means the Hungarian leader has been able to jam up the EU’s policymaking system, using his veto to block aid being sent to Ukraine and shield Russia from new economic sanctions.
Brussels may need to reconsider how it arrives at common EU positions if Orban’s populist government manages to win another four-year term. Watering down national capitals’ veto powers would be a hugely contentious debate.
Magyar, a former Fidesz politician, broke with the party and started a new opposition movement, campaigning on an anti-corruption platform that has grown to challenge Orban’s grip on Hungary’s state institutions. Opinion polls put Magyar’s conservative Tisza party in the lead on the final stretch to the April 12th vote.
It has not been a normal campaign.
Two months ago Magyar said he believed a recording had covertly been made of a sexual encounter between him and his former partner in 2024, as part of an alleged “honey trap” operation to discredit him. Anonymous online posts teased its imminent release, but it never dropped.
Then last month a separate audio recording of a call between Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov emerged, seemingly exposing a very cosy relationship between Budapest and Moscow.
Szijjarto said the wiretapping of his phone calls was a “huge scandal”. A few European governments had suspected Orban’s associates were funnelling information about confidential EU-level discussions to Russian president Vladimir Putin, and this looked like proof.
A flagging domestic economy has helped Magyar’s rise. Orban has tried to make the election about the Ukraine war, claiming the opposition party and Brussels officials would set Hungary on a path into the conflict.
Orban has refused to sign off on a €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine to stop Kyiv running out of funds. He previously told fellow EU leaders he wouldn’t oppose the plan, before going back on his word during the campaign.
The latest twist centres on reports a bomb was discovered by Serbia near a pipeline carrying Russian gas to Hungary. Orban hinted Ukraine was to blame. The Ukrainians suggested the plot was a “Russian false-flag operation” to spook voters.
Washington has become involved as well. In a remarkable intervention, US vice president JD Vance echoed Orban’s EU-bashing, saying “Brussels bureaucrats” were holding down Hungary. Vance was speaking in Budapest in a show of the Trump administration’s support for Fidesz.
EU officials and politicians have talked about this election as a crunch point for months.
Magyar is no angel, but he wants to repair relations to unblock billions of euro in EU funding that has been frozen over concerns Orban had undermined the rule of law in Hungary.
What happens if Orban manages to hang on?
There is one line of thinking that the Hungarian leader will become more transactional when he isn’t fighting an election.
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve long given up trying to put myself in Viktor Orban’s head,” one diplomat told me this week.
The EU system has weathered populist Eurosceptic governments before. None have been as obstructive as Orban has become.
[ Can JD Vance save Viktor Orbán from defeat?Opens in new window ]
Evidence suggesting active assistance to Russia, which neighbouring European governments view as an existential threat to their security, seems to cross a line.
A deal this year on the EU’s next €2 trillion budget needs the approval of all 27 member states. That affords a lot of leverage to one leader acting in bad faith.
The top legal minds in the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm led by Ursula von der Leyen, have been searching for ways to work around Orban’s veto.
One regular headache had been the need to renew sanctions blacklisting Russia every six months. Budapest constantly threatened to block the rollover, before backing down at the last minute.
The commission found a way to justify keeping Russia’s sanctioned assets on ice that only required the backing of a large majority of EU states, rather than unanimous agreement.
An Orban re-election will necessitate more creative thinking along those lines and probably start a serious debate about the future of the national veto in EU foreign policymaking.
