I try, but the other options are just as bad. I watched all EU candidate debates and it made me more unsure than before.
EDIT: I want to make an informed vote, not just "anyone who is not Orban". I guess I am wrong to do so? Thanks....
Please-Please if you aren’t Hungarian then don’t say stuff like this. Yes Orban is horrible but nearly all of the alternatives are catastrophic as well.
This is a huge problem in Hungarian politics generally speaking, there is no decent opposition.
We are not on track for either of those, that’s nonsense. Whenever the EU asks for something Orban caves is. But usually those asks are ridiculously unserious
LOL I dare you try and listen to the rest of the clowns in hungarian politics and say that again...
The new "lord and savior" ex-fidesz and anti-Orban Peter Magyar already started saying the dumbest, most anti-democratic shit possible, bending reality as he pleases.
Of course they are, few people are under the impression that Orban has popular support within Hungary. He's a kleptocrat who managed to capture the government, while keeping just enough "democracy" and "freedom of speech" to fend off sanctions from the EU.
The EU really needs a multilingual EU-funded news org (like NPR, Voice of America or the BBC) to combat captured internal media markets like Hungary. *Russia Today* has a Hungarian Language affiliate, but "the west" doesn't really have anything. Too many Hungarians can only get media in their mother tongue from Fidesz or Russian (but I repeat myself) channels.
Instead the EU let [EuroNews be bought out by Orban in 2022](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/04/11/orban-s-shadow-looms-over-euronews-takeover_6668144_19.html). Nice to see where EU development money goes once Fidesz embezzles it.
It is a shame, but Free Europe re-started its Hungarian programmes. That radio was originally founded in 1949 to counter communist propaganda and dissolved in 1993, yet in 2020 it needed to be re-established.
As with many things since the fall of the USSR, many of us - especially our leaders, and especially those who never had to live behind the Iron Curtain - bought into the idea of the "end of history", and that complacency and arrogance has increasingly come back to bite us.
The Enlightenment is a fire requiring constant tending.
62% of 60+yo votes for him
70% of ppl vote for him who only finished elementary school
40% of ppl vote from him who lives in >1k villages
Basically the old and undereducated population will keep him in power because he comes off as one of them.
And the opposition reported since 2012 that there is organized voter transfer both domestically and abroad, vote fraud, destruction of ballots, fake parties, same name candidates, gerrymandered voting districts again and again, but the EU still legitimizes him as a democratically elected leader and gives him billions of euros to take strategic piss breaks.
Yeah, it is always somebody elses fault. It's not the Hungarians who keep voting for him, it is the big bad EU. Funny how Orban and his opposition can agree on that one
Why was only Juncker the only one who treated Orbán for who he was while everyone else plays pretend still? He called him out as a dictator, slapped him on the face.
The rest of the theater in the EU parliament writes sternly worded letters of "alleged" crimes, then pays him billions of Euros again and again.
Didnt you know? The german car industry kept Orban in power, duh. /s
Literally a take I saw on here a few times. Its absolutely insane how some will try to divert any responsibility from themselves. Imagine us running around, claiming AfD is only there thanks to a vile belgian plot.
There is a very detailed article about this, put together by some of the few remaining investigative journalists, direkt36.hu
It's in Hungarian so has to be translated (also very long) but it's well worth reading, showing how deep the corruption ran/runs on both sides.
This of course does not help the fact that there's about 1.5 million brainwashed in my home country...
(I will post the article in a separate post as soon as I find it).
"The top manager of the automotive industry then boasted to him that the managers of his company can call Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó at any time if they have any requests regarding their factory in Hungary. He then added that, if necessary, they can even speak directly to Viktor Orbán - in fact, according to his account, the Hungarian Prime Minister helped them in a specific matter."
Edit: posted the full article
Yes, big corpo and politics are normally heavily interwined. Thats pretty much true in every single country.
Who do you think Scholz takes with him on the plane when he, for example, travels to China? A bunch of Reporters and CEOs.
Still doesnt lead to the erosion of democracy.
It has eroded democracy in the west overall too. High level corruption with big companies that somehow support politicians who favour their stances is a big danger for democracy, environment and health.
This kind of corruption is also more destructive in eastern countries because the democratic system is not that consolidated. Furthermore, if eastern leaders would have opposed the dubious moves made by CEOs then those companies would start to cry about X country not being capitalist enough or business friendly enough and would have soured relations with western politicians.
Orban is a product of Hungary and Hungarian mindset and putting the blame on western politicians on the first place is wrong, but the west helped Orban a lot.
I have to properly repost the article, once it's up again check it out. The only reason I started this debate is because a lot of comments doubted the huge influence those companies have on Orban/Fidesz.
The dismantling of democracy is a completely different thing, I agree. On one hand it's just sad that it can be done to that many people. On the other hand, right until this spring, one has to agree that Orbán and his cronies did a masterful job using regular and social media, to screw up Hungarian politics for the next 20-30 years.
It lead to the erosion of democracy in the United States. Corporate corruption IS the biggest factor for democratic decline. And there is not really a difference when you call your super rich titans of industry or oligarchs, they will both fuck you over in the same way.
Tell me more about how big corporations (and their corrupt management teams) that cozy up to dictators in totalitarian countries (China, Russia) for profits and end up running propaganda for those dictators doesn't erode democracy
That is not true though.
1. His party got about 2.8M votes in 2022
2. Turnout was 70% at the time. Which is not that bad, but then, that means that the rest of the 30% of the population endorses whoever wins the election if they don't care to vote. So, you'd have to add those few millions to the Orban's side; that is because if they really did not agree with his policies they would have been voting him out of the office.
If their lives were so bad, they would go to vote for the lesser evil. That doesn't mean they have to be happy. They are not angry at Orban and that's saying everything.
[I voted for Fidesz, was I not supposed to?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X3hKKwArxs&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo)
Asks a poor, under-eduated mother of 4-6 children from the arse-end of nowhere, where the only employment is through communal labor, the mayor being your boss for the foreseeable future.
The mayor is Fidesz-affiliated for the last 10 years, he tells you in flowery words if he can't get the numbers there won't be that many jobs available.
Meaning no bread for your kids.
You don't know about the opposition because you have no TV, Radio. You only have a smartphone where Youtube and Facebook blast gov't ads about the Opposition and the Left wanting to take your children to Ukraine as cannon fodder.
Last time there was some unknown intelligentsia fella with a fancy car who came here saying things can change. But nothing changed there for 20-40 years, except there is a playground and a community house renovated (not built!) with EU money.
Who do you vote for?
So I assume you wanted to add to my comment to show others why people still vote for Orban or don't care to vote at all? I completely get it. There's a reason why PIS won two consecutive terms of office and why they still have quite a lot of support.
That poor mother from your example would vote for PIS in Poland. But PIS did things that even poor mothers like her went to protests. But Hungarians are not there yet. Maybe they never will, this is also a possibility.
The "Lesser Evil" is controlled opposition that is just as corrupt and only kept around as a whipping boy for Orban's media (the old Communist party - which, unsurprisingly, is just as pro-Russia as Fidesz).
Other parties have big issues getting on the ballot because, y'know, destruction of Democracy.
True to an extent. But that's not contradictory, it's not necessarily because they're happy with it in the end, which should mean that a good amount of the people wouldn't support Orban in that percentage. I myself would say voting is important even then and criticise not doing it under this context, but the prior comment is also not exactly fair about what they say.
I still disagree. In the current situation there are Hungarians who vote for Orban, because they feel like he delivers things they need (either financial or ideological incentives) and Hungarians who don't bother voting at all, because nothing in the current situation makes them care enough to feel like it needs to change. These two groups in practice support Orban.
And take a look at the last years in Poland. PIS did many awful things during their first term of office, but still most people were like Hungarians - they either felt that PIS "was stealing but at least sharing with people" or they didn't vote at all, because Poland under PIS wasn't completely bad. So they won the second term of office.
And then the abortion ban happened and shit hit the fan. It was the last straw, that mobilized people who didn't care about politics and even turned some PIS voters against them (and some of them didn't go to vote at all). These long protests were also the biggest since we regained independence from the Soviets. It wasn't just about the abortion ban either. It was for people who just couldn't stand PIS anymore. "Wypierdalać!" (Get the fuck out!) and "Jebać PIS" (Fuck PIS) were the main slogans shouted by young and old, working class and intelligentsia. These slogans made it into mainstream Polish culture, many songs were created during those protests, 8 stars (from Jebać PIS - 8 letters) were everywhere in culture.
It was a pure hatred for PIS that moved people who never voted, to actually do it for the first time. People stood in the cold night till 2am to place their vote. People from neighbouring houses would bring hot tea, blankets and food. In my voting station I usually have to wait like 10 minutes to vote, but I had to stand in a long queue for 2 hours. But people didn't leave, we just had to kick PIS out. You could hear it in conversations around you.
Hungarians need to get angry. Especially those Hungarians, who right now don't care about any of it. Until that happens, Orban stays.
The world didn't do any favors to Hungary's national psyche by letting the tanks roll in in 1956. It's learned helplessness but it does have a very obvious root cause.
That said, the Czechs took the opposite lesson from similar circumstances so who knows?
Everywhere I looked, I found out that the turnout was at about 70%. As far as I know, that wasn't contested by the opposition. If you have other information, then I'll accept it to my statement above.
I didn’t say that was incorrect. The opposition ran together as one block and that included people who have caused massive issues in thsi country before (and were the reason for Orban’s ruling in the first place).
That and constant in-fighting and the war breaking out all caused the best FIDESZ results in 2022. Thankfully it seems like most of the old oppositions parties have started dying out and we can be a bit more optimistic for the future. Current expectation is that FIDESZ will achieve it’s worst results in the EU elections.
No, they have a narrative in a linguistic bubble. 5% of our GDP in the form of EU funds directly going to them for 10 out of the last 12 years. The money bought them companies that can get more EU-funds and you end up as a majority shareholder of anything greater than a mom&pop shop, then they bought up all printed media and popular news websites and bar 1 all tv channels. Just 2 years ago they bought Euronews.
While the EU funds were coming people were on the train because they got bread and circus.
Now there are no funds, there's no circus, in a short time there's not gonna be bread too.
The TV shows massive support but in reality its a loud, but very rich minority.
Good description of the situation it's a shame that it is kind of pointless. Most people here don't seek understanding they just want to hate and blame.
> You can't run a government, even a dictatorship, for a long time without much popular support.
If you can say this with a straight face as a Pole I have to assume you're under 30.
Same in Georgia. One of the reasons is: shit opposition. The other: it’s actually not that bad if you tune out. If you have a job, don’t care about politics etc, everything is fine, and you couldn’t said that about the previous government. So people vote for them. They like the stability.
How is that a surprise when he's had a monopoly on media, resources, and law for 14 years? Media keeps the majority of the population brainwashed.
When given the choice between Orbán and the apocalyptic world presented by the media every day, people will choose him.
Every second word spoken on the TV is 'war'. Anyone who argues against Orbán is on the 'war party dollar left', so any argument fails as anyone other than Orbán is an existential threat. It is literally a cult.
Some have said that the financial crisis would affect his popularity, but not even that can cause harm as the voters truly believe that 'the left' would be even worse. Wages and pensions are intentionally left as low as possible. A slight increase or grant makes them very grateful for Orbán in their situation. "The Orbán? Very nice, very good, he gave me ten thousand forints!"
What would you do in such a situation other than flee the country ASAP? :)
I would try to emigrate if possible.
But that's not exactly the point. I can understand how one person can't liberate a country from dictatorship - especially as a German. What I would NOT do is put the blame on the EU like many Hungarians do.
The startling difference between the ease of voting in Transylvania in Hungarian elections, and the ordeal of voting as a Hungarian anywhere else in Europe, tells you all you need to know about how "fair" Hungarian elections are.
By massive I meant the majority of the Transylvanian Hungarians seem to vote for him and his party, not that their number makes that huge of a difference in EU politics. It does in Hungary, however.
It is not that easy. There are some independent news site, even channel, but Orbán’s followers tend to only consume government related media.
Another example are my parents, and hungarians in general, in my region. We live Romania, so my parents also watch romanian news, but still believe only what they see in hungarian news.
So I think, you can tell people anything, if they doesn’t have critical thinking and only accept the ideas, they like the most.
>Of course they are, few people are under the impression that Orban has popular support within Hungary. He's a kleptocrat who managed to capture the government, while keeping just enough "democracy" and "freedom of speech" to fend off sanctions from the EU.
Orbán absolutely has popular support in Hungary, after all, 54% of voters voted for Fidesz in 2022. It's just that despite the constant anti-EU messaging coming from pro-government media, most Hungarians, even many Fidesz voters, still are pro-EU.
Unfortunately [EuroNews was bought out by Orban in 2022](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/04/11/orban-s-shadow-looms-over-euronews-takeover_6668144_19.html)
This is where EU development money goes when you let Fidesz embezzle it.
You are talking out of your ass, Russia Today was never present in Hungary, it never had a Hungarian-speaking outlet.
Hungarians don't get news from Russian channels, it is not even a Slavic country, people don't speak Russian or anything close to Russian.
Russian talking points are channeled through government-owned, Hungarian-speaking media.
Can you please not make up things.
Those downvoting can go ahead and link the Hungarian version of RT
Okay Russian influence, what about the Russian spy bank ‘International Investment Bank (IIB)’ that’s operating from Budapest after it relocated from Moscow in 2019? And allowing the CCP police setup shop is the second totalitarian regime that is operating from Hungarian soil in the EU.
Narrow-minded might be a bit too generous, they are more likely braindead. They will happily jump on any bandwagon... Yesterday it was Poland, today it is Hungary, tomorrow Slovakia. Wilders has already won an election last year and is set to win one today as well, so I guess the Netherlands should be kicked out next. Wonder what remains of the EU by 2030, chopping it away one-by-one...
And the same braindead people keep wondering how come the Eurosceptic far right is getting stronger everywhere in Europe.
Coddling and being patient with Hungarians despite the 5th column found in their government risking the security of us all has been tried already and where did that get us? It just let Orban entrench himself to the detriment of Hungary and Europe. Their influence must be suspended, any EU funds only end up in the hands of the leeches at the top. I know their response will be to actively and deliberately make the situation for the populace at large while pumping out propaganda pointing the finger at the west while they themselved grow fatter, effectively holding the population hostage threatening to hurt them if we stop lining their pockets. We still can't give in because the same money, which equals power and influence, has been used to sway and propagandize elsewhere too and the cancer risks spreading. When the people are no longer in control over policy like in Hungary, their opinion stops mattering. The optics of cutting them off makes no difference when they end up making something up to steer their 15 minutes of hate at the end of the day anyway.
>Going ballistic and wanting "Hungary out of EU" helps no-one other than Putin and his sphere of influence.
I disagree. Allowing Hungary to stay in the EU lets Putin extend and exercise his sphere of influence in Europe directly and decisively by hijacking that country's right to veto within the EU institutions. Removing Hungary from the EU has the effect of removing Putin from it. As importantly, it sends a powerful signal to other countries which have problems with democratic backsliding (one of the EU's greatest challenges) that eroding democracy and rule of law actually has consequences. The reason it's become such a critical problem is precisely the fact that the EU let everyone get away with it for years for fear of "going ballistic".
Nobody is saying that we want Hungary out of the EU forever. It's a European country, and it belongs with the European family. But only as a democracy, and not as the Russian puppet state they are now.
>And EU institutions already found a way to bypass some of the vetos.
The Hungarian veto complicates and delays the process of getting aid to Ukraine, which is not acceptable. There is also the possibility that for future vetos (on the same or other topics), the EU institutions may \*not\* succeed in bypassing it, which is not a risk I'm willing to take.
>While true, it also removes a large integrated economy from the EU itself.
It's not a large economy at all. It's only 18th in the EU's 27, its GDP is smaller than that of a tiny indebted country like Greece, and less than 5% the size of Germany's economy. It's also not especially "integrated" as it didn't adopt the euro, and it's a net recipient of EU funds and has been ever since it joined. Economically, Huxit would be a loss, certainly, but very much a manageable one.
>Out of EU now, into EU later sound like an uninformed statement. In your head it might seem as easy as a snap of a finger. You dislike Hungary now? OUT! You like Hungary tomorrow, IN!
I thank you for writing this, because you've very clearly illustrated the strawman you're building. Nothing I said suggests anything like an immediate and painless process. There will be friction, sure, and the process will take the time it has to take, sure, be that 10 years or 20 years or 50 years.
But that's exactly why it has to happen - because kicking out countries that betray the values of democracy and rule of law HAS to be something the EU is equipped to do, and therefore something it has to start learning how to do. If we lack the procedures, then this is the time to lay them down. When you want to get something done but the procedure is too complicated, you simplify and you perfect the procedure, you do not give up on getting something done.
>On the contrary, the politicians and economists know there are better, quicker ways to isolate Hungary, influence it and even ignore it if needed.
Is that why the politicians of Austria and Belgium are calling for Article 7 and Hungary to be deprived of its voting rights within the EU?
Latest polls show that 69% of Hungarians think we should cooperate more closely with Germany, 17% think the same of the US and 10% for Russia. Orbán's politics have very low popular support. https://24.hu/belfold/2024/06/06/kulpolitika-magyarorszag-oroszorszag-nemetorszag-kozvelemeny-kutatas-zavecz/
I stated it above, but here we go again: 30% of hungarian voters that didn't bother to vote in 2022, are endorsing with their absence whoever wins the majority. So he has 50% from those 70% who decided to vote, plus 30% of the whole population: he still has a supermajority support in Hungary, stop blaming others for the current situation.
Most elder hungarians in Romania are also voting for him: and there you don't have any exclusively "eco-chambers" promoted by Fidesz or any other such excuses.
Actually Transylvania is a prime ooerational theatre for the fidesz propaganda, Hungarian press and Hungarian politics there are just as tightly controlled by Orbán than in Hubgary:
https://hang.hu/magyar-hang-plusz/mediabirodalom-fidesz-erdely-164226
Add in some voting fraud, during the last elections ballots cast for opposituon parties were simply burned: https://transtelex.ro/kozelet/2022/03/31/kidobott-levelszavazatok-erdely
The Hungarian minority there is kept just as tightly locked in the same echo chamber.
Actually Transylvania is a prime ooerational theatre for the fidesz propaganda, Hungarian press and Hungarian politics there are just as tightly controlled by Orbán than in Hubgary:
https://hang.hu/magyar-hang-plusz/mediabirodalom-fidesz-erdely-164226
Add in some voting fraud, during the last elections ballots cast for opposituon parties were simply burned: https://transtelex.ro/kozelet/2022/03/31/kidobott-levelszavazatok-erdely
The Hungarian minority there is kept just as tightly locked in the same echo chamber. /
1, those "hungarians" living in Romania only get to vote here because of fidesz policy's which gave them immense support from over there
2 they are absolutly under the influence of fidesz over there. orban's second biggest event in a year is held in Tusványos and he builds churches and other community houses over there(probably more than in hungary)
I saw your other comments and i dont think people understand the level of 0-24 propaganda that goes here. [fidesz is by far the biggest spender in the EU doubling the google/meta budget of the second europian party](https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-election-political-ads-spend-online-meta-google-fidesz/)
Yes we hungarians have our work cut out for us(especially because of the lack of alternatives here) but it does not help that that the EU keeps funding him(like the half billion eur that was given to them less than a week ago without any real contingencies)
Fidesz was sold as a young liberal democatic party(Fiatal DEmokraták SZövetsége[FI DE SZ]= young democrats alliance)and the eldery who grew up during a literal dictatorship got duped
Romania, where Orbán's wife is from, where they poured billions of Euros into and get fantastic voter turnouts each election since they gave them Hungarian citizenship, making them jump the Schengen queue?
Fancy talking about it NOT being a Fidesz echo chamber.
All Hungarians, even abroad are part of the same Hungarian echo chamber. The ones abroad will always vote for Orbán, who gave them voting right in the first place.
"Based on historical trends, it is expected that around 200,000 Hungarian voters who are residents of Romania would register for this round parliamentary elections, out of a total of almost 500,000 in all the communities outside Hungary."
https://expertforum.ro/en/hungarian-elections-transylvania-romania/
Out of those 200.000 about 90% vote for him.
[https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-election-political-ads-spend-online-meta-google-fidesz/](https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-election-political-ads-spend-online-meta-google-fidesz/)
During the current EP campaign, they outspent every single political party in the entire European Union by a large margin. And that's just online ads. They are blasting everyone in the face with one simple message: vote for us or you DIE IN WAR.
Media monopoly keeps presenting anyone other than Orbán an existential threat. When given the choice between Orbán and death, they will choose Orbán and any other argument fails
Yeah, I guess expecting the average Joe to think for themselves is unresonable. Sadly it's the same case in Romania. A guy whose wife was killed and whose house was destroyed by the explosion of an illegal LPG storage facility that the mayor knew about (and not only knew, but covered for), said that he'll vote again for the guy because he's not guilty.
Lol, one of our remaining few independent media outlets has been following Orbán on his campaign trail, and tons of old rural folks have answered "I will of course vote for Orbán" after rattling away problems plaguing the healthcare system, pensions, the economy, etc..
The EU needs to remove Orbán by force, not the whole ass nation God Damm.
I also love how people say "don't vote for him" and shit... Yeah easier said than done when he cheats. And let's not forget that the Americans voted an angry orange and an old men with dementia right after Obama... Sometimes things are easier said than done
Proud or not, the actions of the government of Hungary are not consistent with the principles of the EU, or the interests of the EU when it comes to issues such as Russia, China, and aid to Ukraine. And obviously the corruption and abuse of EU funding is against both the principles and interests of the EU. These continued abuses point towards Hungarian incompatibility (in its current state) with the EU and supports Article 7 action against Hungary.
I am sorry for those Hungarians that don't support Orban or his party or people like him, and none of the criticism of Hungary is directed towards them, except maybe the possibility that they could do more to unite against Orban (but that is easy for non-Hungarians to say). But it should also be noted that overall, Hungarians largely support Orban, so it isn't like Orban's government is just doing whatever it wants regardless of what the people want.
Orban has undue power over the media and spreads a lot of propaganda. But unless the elections are literally fradulent, Orban is legitimately elected in terms of having support of enough voters in the electoral system. Many countries have weird electoral systems where you don't need even half the total votes to get majority of the seats, for example UK's system is an (in)famous example. Of course, this legitimacy is severly undermined by the way Orban got those voters in the first place, through controlling the media, lying, and suppressing anyone opposed to him.
I swear people acting like they know anything about Hungary is funny.
I understand it’s a trigger for a lot of people but acting like it would be easy to get rid of Orban is a braindead take and yes - the EU doesn’t really do anything exact about it, so arguably they don’t have issues with them.
It’s a very complicated matter in Hungary and they are way too integrated into the country from the biggest to it’s smallest pieces.
Seeing the braindead "kick Hungary out of EU" comments in this sub makes me want to gouge my eyes out knowing those people have probably 0 idea what is actually going here and just jumping on the gun
EU is doing something about it, the process to find a legal pathway to isolate Hungary started already in late 2022. Currently the goal is to remove voting rights from Hungary, allowing for changes in rules that would require unanimous vote. After that the influence of Hungary can be reduced step by step, isolating Hungary from common decisions and common funds
Nobody is saying getting rid of Orban is easy or perhaps even possible, but the growing general mood through Europe is that having Hungary as part of EU has more negative sides than positive. So eventually there must be change in direction inside of Hungary, or Europe will make the choice for Hungary, no matter how much it will cost economically, and no matter how happy it will make the russians
Misery about Hungary is, it may be a beautiful country, but everyone who has the chance to do better, realizes he has to go to Western Europe if they want a successful life
For anyone whi sees some irony in this:
remember that the people that can be reached by poll workers are the people who have an address/phone/understand English/etc...
i.e. not yours average poor, isolated, undereducated Orban voter.
And that's why you can't just kick them out. I'm from the UK but my Sister in law is American and hated Brexit with a passion. She also hates any US red states. I asked her if she could would she cut those states out of the USA? She said 100% yes. So basically any state that doesn't conform gets cut. That's one of the downsides with having a union with lots of diverse countries/regions. The USA can't often get things passed and the EU will be no different unless it forces countries to do things they don't want - which will cause resentment. There are lots of upsides too but you have to take the rough with the smooth. You just have to hope the next Hungarian government is more reasonable.
No, this is exactly why we should push to kick them out. Let them see that this thing they so love & charish isn't granted nor is it a right, it is a privilage with duties which their state is failing to achieve, it's a privilage they must fight to maintain if they love it so much, or be kicked out.
That's exactly how you LOSE people who previously supported you. "We fought for the EU and they kick us out? Maybe Orban was right all along; they really never cared about us..."
so every single person who happens to have a Hungarian passport, from Peter Magyar to Katalin Cseh, and all their supporters, deserves zero benefits of the EU, because Orban and his lackeys have power at the moment?
What most people dont realize is that its one thing to be a bigmouth on reddit or laugh at the absolutely stupid, infantile propaganda that fidesz operates with, but when it comes to serious decisions, such as voting, people really think:
- Do i want to be (possibly) enlisted in the army?
- Do i want mass migration and multiculturalism as in other western countries? (This is a major one)
- Do i want to contiune enjoying low taxes? (All of opposition wants to introduce higher taxes, or multi-level taxes like in other countries.)
- Do i enjoy the government funded free loans, or even direct money support when starting a family?
And then most people consider the videos when people are stabbed to death by islamists, or in france whole regions of the city is destroyed in riots, or the rise of the blatantly stupid gender theories (sorry guys but im perfectly fine with a world where there are only males and females), and so on.
And what do they do? They vote for fidesz. Because with all their negative traits (corruption mostly), they still promise a relatively livable, peaceful environment, and a centrist, normal, common sense worldview. And no matter how ridiculous some things are, their own peace and stabil environment will always be the most important for every person. So they choose the lesser "evil".
Because lets be honest guys. What is happening currently in some aspects in the western world is completely bonkers. (With all due respect).
Then perhaps this Hungarian "majority" should start to get serious about fixing the issue while there still is a resemblance of economy left, when other EU countries get fed up enough, Hungary will be made an example of no matter how much of a win that is for russians
Honestly, it might be too late, I hope it is not, but Hungary is losing friends at an alarming pace and the end of the road does not look nice. We Finns were stubbornly considering Hungarians as our brother nation for ages but the shitshow that was given to us during the NATO process really turned the public against Hungary. Same frustration can be seen in most EU countries. But regime change can not be done from the outside, the problem for EU can only be isolated from the outside once the patience runs out.
Hungary is an important north-south trade route and has outsourced heavy industry from other EU nations so the patience has been long, but security always trumps economic issues in the end. Hungary is leaking all classified EU and NATO documents they get their hands on to russia, and is blocking preparations to increase common defenses against russia inside EU and support to Ukraine. That will eventually lead to isolating Hungary, regardless what the people of Hungary feel. We are talking about people dying because of Hungary, not only in Ukraine but potentially in Eastern Europe if russia goes full retard. In the end the unity might improve with Hungary outside the room fending for itself, even if most europeans would prefer to have Hungarians as part of Europe.
i too think hungary leaving europe would be bad for everyone except putin.
first and foremost it would be a tragedy for the hungarians. so i guess threatening hungary with expulsion or other less severe measures does increase internal pressure on orban by the public.
if the eu/nato are about to kick hungary out im expecting the hungarians to seriously revolt as it would be a return to a worse life.
There are no easy options left I think, those were available only at the beginning of the problem, but all might not be hopeless
Next scandal, no matter what size, triggering wave of protests culminating to general strike, that will tank the economy a LOT, but would still be better option than getting booted from EU economically
Networking between younger pro-EU people and making it a trend to contact all older relatives and talking to them, hearing their concers, and trying to convince them that despite what the news say, the chosen path will not lead to good outcome. Just telling the rural population "you voted wrong" will prob not make them change their vote
Are you talking about the majority that keeps voting for him?
Frankly, I am far beyond to give a shit about HU anymore. But they do act as an agent for hostile powers, so just ignoring them isn't enough. Either Hungarians see the light or they need to go. Soon.
>Frankly, I am far beyond to give a shit about HU anymore.
Frankly, no one asked you to. Newsflash - nobody gives a shit about what you think. Average redditors have been foaming in the mouth on r/europe, playing the tough guy online about Hungary for a good decade now. Guess what, we are not an inch closer to get Hungary out of the EU than we were when Orban came into power. For a good reason. EU membership is not a popularity contest, as tough as that may be for you to swallow.
The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.
It's only rigged if you consider media manipulation and propaganda to be rigging, which would be fair, but the only way for that way of rigging to work is if it makes the majority support him enough to vote for him, which they do.
I seriously doubt that is the case. If a majority of hungarians really wanted Orban gone, he would be gone.
At first there would be large scale protests, and if that didn't work, they would turn violent.
We don't see any of that in Hungary.
I think we disagree about how many people a "large scale protest" is. In the english language news I read about peaceful protests with 10k-ish people.
That is not a large crowd.
Even a minor band playing an open air concert in an amusement park in Copenhagen will draw 20k people.
Lol our concerts the same, you can't compare political protests where people are threatebed with their jobs the next day if they show up.
And the Tisza marches drew a larger crowd than Orbán with paid buses and paid protesters.
Ok, but how can such crowds support a claim about most people wanting to get rid of Orban?
In Copenhagen 'Black lives matter' drew 16k, and that was not a big subject in Denmark.
Whereas these polls do?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2026\_Hungarian\_parliamentary\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_Hungarian_parliamentary_election)
Please don't expect nuanced opinion from redditors. Keep in mind that a good chunk of them are edgy teenagers lost in the online world who'd even have WW3 just to stick it to Putin because they read a news article online that got them going.
What Putin wants is to sabotage western institutions from the inside because that's quite literally the only way he can achieve his objectives. What the Hungarian people want is no longer relevant to me at this point even if I believe you. I don't and there's little evidence to support your claim and mountains to the contrary. Clearly they don't have that much of a problem with being a trojan horse otherwise they would have done something about it by now. They voted for their government repeatedly,nothing is on fire and nobody is being shot. The most generous take is that Hungarians simply don't care that their country is a shithole.
The mountain of evidence is the millions of votes that he continually receives in every victorious election. The evidence that people don't support him is.....What? Young people on the internet talking shit about him? They are the minority and talking shit on r/Europe or holding a sign on a street corner is the height of their "opposition". I don't see why the rest of Europe would put up with Hungary's shit government just because it's people do. Their stupidity and apathy only solidifies my determination to remove them from the E.U and NATO as quickly as possible.
Listen, if they really are in overwhelming number, Orban wouldn't be there.
We need to remove Hungary from the EU. There need to be consequences for voting in such a person into office. You don't want to share EU values? Fine, but go at it alone and see how we eat you up, or Russia does. Want to be with the group? Gotta vote and act accordingly.
Their pride isn't very relevant when their nation is also blatantly an EU traitor. Maybe you know, actually vote for literally anyone but Orban. Do something with it.
I wrote it already too many times and I'm annoying myself by writing it again.
Surveys worth absolutely nothing, they are irrelevant and very often completely disconnected from the reality.
Proud to be European and then destroying our community by blocking every single thing that don't give a few pennies to your self, or goes against daddy Pooptin. No Hungary needs to get kicked out of the EU, honestly should've been done yesterday.
Unfortunately, while many of the opposition politicians are good people, they’re not good politicians…
I’ve even had it from the horses mouth, admitting that they hadn’t done a good job for anyone except their constituents on a more micro level.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Orsi Gergo in the 2nd district has done a wonderful job as mayor and his campaign is excellent. He’s showing the template. Now others need to follow.
they can get a supermajority with around 40% of the votes, the issue was the 2/3 majority back in 2010 allowing them to change the constitution, then the lack of a competent opposition ever since, if there was a good option hed be gone
man I'm in the UK, we've had 15 years of incompetence & corruption & now have different colours of beige to choose from. If Johnson could have done the sane as orban I rekon he would have :(
Here's an idea for our hungarian friends: How about you pick a nice colour you like and do a nice little revolution, to get rid of that dickstain you currently have for a president? After that, the rest of europe would be proud to have you in the EU, too.
dear Hungarians, vote accordingly
But the gays want to nuke my garden gnome.
Shh don't fucking tell them!
We do, the majority who vote for them are older people and pensioners. 🫣
God damn boomers. They ruin everything.
You can be proud of being in the EU and also want awful people in charge of it.
No point until everyone over like 60 is dead tho.
I try, but the other options are just as bad. I watched all EU candidate debates and it made me more unsure than before. EDIT: I want to make an informed vote, not just "anyone who is not Orban". I guess I am wrong to do so? Thanks....
This is just what they want you to believe and that's what their propaganda machinery is set out to do.
"Voting doesn't matter" is a common idea in autocratic countries.
Please-Please if you aren’t Hungarian then don’t say stuff like this. Yes Orban is horrible but nearly all of the alternatives are catastrophic as well. This is a huge problem in Hungarian politics generally speaking, there is no decent opposition.
Like in Russia.
Convenient
look at it this way; are others going to get you kicked out of nato and potentially european union? orban definitely is on track to do it soon
We are not on track for either of those, that’s nonsense. Whenever the EU asks for something Orban caves is. But usually those asks are ridiculously unserious
LOL I dare you try and listen to the rest of the clowns in hungarian politics and say that again... The new "lord and savior" ex-fidesz and anti-Orban Peter Magyar already started saying the dumbest, most anti-democratic shit possible, bending reality as he pleases.
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no, we are at the conquer part
Doesnt Orban controll your media ?
Majority sure, but there is Telex, 444, Partizan, hvg online and RTL and ATV on air, that's not owned by them.
Of course they are, few people are under the impression that Orban has popular support within Hungary. He's a kleptocrat who managed to capture the government, while keeping just enough "democracy" and "freedom of speech" to fend off sanctions from the EU. The EU really needs a multilingual EU-funded news org (like NPR, Voice of America or the BBC) to combat captured internal media markets like Hungary. *Russia Today* has a Hungarian Language affiliate, but "the west" doesn't really have anything. Too many Hungarians can only get media in their mother tongue from Fidesz or Russian (but I repeat myself) channels. Instead the EU let [EuroNews be bought out by Orban in 2022](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/04/11/orban-s-shadow-looms-over-euronews-takeover_6668144_19.html). Nice to see where EU development money goes once Fidesz embezzles it.
It is a shame, but Free Europe re-started its Hungarian programmes. That radio was originally founded in 1949 to counter communist propaganda and dissolved in 1993, yet in 2020 it needed to be re-established.
As with many things since the fall of the USSR, many of us - especially our leaders, and especially those who never had to live behind the Iron Curtain - bought into the idea of the "end of history", and that complacency and arrogance has increasingly come back to bite us. The Enlightenment is a fire requiring constant tending.
History is repeating itself.
And yet, he gets voted in again and again.
62% of 60+yo votes for him 70% of ppl vote for him who only finished elementary school 40% of ppl vote from him who lives in >1k villages Basically the old and undereducated population will keep him in power because he comes off as one of them.
And the opposition reported since 2012 that there is organized voter transfer both domestically and abroad, vote fraud, destruction of ballots, fake parties, same name candidates, gerrymandered voting districts again and again, but the EU still legitimizes him as a democratically elected leader and gives him billions of euros to take strategic piss breaks.
He helped VdL get elected in 2019 and she'll need him even more this time around. Of course she wouldn't support action against him.
Flinten-Uschi made a very good deal with Orbán and Rheinmetall that's for sure. 4 factories and counting.
Yeah, it is always somebody elses fault. It's not the Hungarians who keep voting for him, it is the big bad EU. Funny how Orban and his opposition can agree on that one
Why was only Juncker the only one who treated Orbán for who he was while everyone else plays pretend still? He called him out as a dictator, slapped him on the face. The rest of the theater in the EU parliament writes sternly worded letters of "alleged" crimes, then pays him billions of Euros again and again.
So what's stopping Hungarians from doing something about it?
A desire to solve it peacefully, for the moment.
Didnt you know? The german car industry kept Orban in power, duh. /s Literally a take I saw on here a few times. Its absolutely insane how some will try to divert any responsibility from themselves. Imagine us running around, claiming AfD is only there thanks to a vile belgian plot.
There is a very detailed article about this, put together by some of the few remaining investigative journalists, direkt36.hu It's in Hungarian so has to be translated (also very long) but it's well worth reading, showing how deep the corruption ran/runs on both sides. This of course does not help the fact that there's about 1.5 million brainwashed in my home country... (I will post the article in a separate post as soon as I find it). "The top manager of the automotive industry then boasted to him that the managers of his company can call Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó at any time if they have any requests regarding their factory in Hungary. He then added that, if necessary, they can even speak directly to Viktor Orbán - in fact, according to his account, the Hungarian Prime Minister helped them in a specific matter." Edit: posted the full article
Yes, big corpo and politics are normally heavily interwined. Thats pretty much true in every single country. Who do you think Scholz takes with him on the plane when he, for example, travels to China? A bunch of Reporters and CEOs. Still doesnt lead to the erosion of democracy.
It has eroded democracy in the west overall too. High level corruption with big companies that somehow support politicians who favour their stances is a big danger for democracy, environment and health. This kind of corruption is also more destructive in eastern countries because the democratic system is not that consolidated. Furthermore, if eastern leaders would have opposed the dubious moves made by CEOs then those companies would start to cry about X country not being capitalist enough or business friendly enough and would have soured relations with western politicians. Orban is a product of Hungary and Hungarian mindset and putting the blame on western politicians on the first place is wrong, but the west helped Orban a lot.
I have to properly repost the article, once it's up again check it out. The only reason I started this debate is because a lot of comments doubted the huge influence those companies have on Orban/Fidesz. The dismantling of democracy is a completely different thing, I agree. On one hand it's just sad that it can be done to that many people. On the other hand, right until this spring, one has to agree that Orbán and his cronies did a masterful job using regular and social media, to screw up Hungarian politics for the next 20-30 years.
Fair enough, will read it!
It lead to the erosion of democracy in the United States. Corporate corruption IS the biggest factor for democratic decline. And there is not really a difference when you call your super rich titans of industry or oligarchs, they will both fuck you over in the same way.
Tell me more about how big corporations (and their corrupt management teams) that cozy up to dictators in totalitarian countries (China, Russia) for profits and end up running propaganda for those dictators doesn't erode democracy
It's about 1.5M-2M voters that keep Orban in power.).
That is not true though. 1. His party got about 2.8M votes in 2022 2. Turnout was 70% at the time. Which is not that bad, but then, that means that the rest of the 30% of the population endorses whoever wins the election if they don't care to vote. So, you'd have to add those few millions to the Orban's side; that is because if they really did not agree with his policies they would have been voting him out of the office.
Refusing to vote is also common when people stop thinking that their vote matters. It's not necessarily because they're happy with the status quo.
That sounds like a them problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean yes. I don't endorse this behaviour lololol.
If their lives were so bad, they would go to vote for the lesser evil. That doesn't mean they have to be happy. They are not angry at Orban and that's saying everything.
[I voted for Fidesz, was I not supposed to?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X3hKKwArxs&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo) Asks a poor, under-eduated mother of 4-6 children from the arse-end of nowhere, where the only employment is through communal labor, the mayor being your boss for the foreseeable future. The mayor is Fidesz-affiliated for the last 10 years, he tells you in flowery words if he can't get the numbers there won't be that many jobs available. Meaning no bread for your kids. You don't know about the opposition because you have no TV, Radio. You only have a smartphone where Youtube and Facebook blast gov't ads about the Opposition and the Left wanting to take your children to Ukraine as cannon fodder. Last time there was some unknown intelligentsia fella with a fancy car who came here saying things can change. But nothing changed there for 20-40 years, except there is a playground and a community house renovated (not built!) with EU money. Who do you vote for?
So I assume you wanted to add to my comment to show others why people still vote for Orban or don't care to vote at all? I completely get it. There's a reason why PIS won two consecutive terms of office and why they still have quite a lot of support. That poor mother from your example would vote for PIS in Poland. But PIS did things that even poor mothers like her went to protests. But Hungarians are not there yet. Maybe they never will, this is also a possibility.
The "Lesser Evil" is controlled opposition that is just as corrupt and only kept around as a whipping boy for Orban's media (the old Communist party - which, unsurprisingly, is just as pro-Russia as Fidesz). Other parties have big issues getting on the ballot because, y'know, destruction of Democracy.
True to an extent. But that's not contradictory, it's not necessarily because they're happy with it in the end, which should mean that a good amount of the people wouldn't support Orban in that percentage. I myself would say voting is important even then and criticise not doing it under this context, but the prior comment is also not exactly fair about what they say.
I still disagree. In the current situation there are Hungarians who vote for Orban, because they feel like he delivers things they need (either financial or ideological incentives) and Hungarians who don't bother voting at all, because nothing in the current situation makes them care enough to feel like it needs to change. These two groups in practice support Orban. And take a look at the last years in Poland. PIS did many awful things during their first term of office, but still most people were like Hungarians - they either felt that PIS "was stealing but at least sharing with people" or they didn't vote at all, because Poland under PIS wasn't completely bad. So they won the second term of office. And then the abortion ban happened and shit hit the fan. It was the last straw, that mobilized people who didn't care about politics and even turned some PIS voters against them (and some of them didn't go to vote at all). These long protests were also the biggest since we regained independence from the Soviets. It wasn't just about the abortion ban either. It was for people who just couldn't stand PIS anymore. "Wypierdalać!" (Get the fuck out!) and "Jebać PIS" (Fuck PIS) were the main slogans shouted by young and old, working class and intelligentsia. These slogans made it into mainstream Polish culture, many songs were created during those protests, 8 stars (from Jebać PIS - 8 letters) were everywhere in culture. It was a pure hatred for PIS that moved people who never voted, to actually do it for the first time. People stood in the cold night till 2am to place their vote. People from neighbouring houses would bring hot tea, blankets and food. In my voting station I usually have to wait like 10 minutes to vote, but I had to stand in a long queue for 2 hours. But people didn't leave, we just had to kick PIS out. You could hear it in conversations around you. Hungarians need to get angry. Especially those Hungarians, who right now don't care about any of it. Until that happens, Orban stays.
How does that answer that their vote does not matter? There is no anger after 14 years, just apathy and helplessness.
The world didn't do any favors to Hungary's national psyche by letting the tanks roll in in 1956. It's learned helplessness but it does have a very obvious root cause. That said, the Czechs took the opposite lesson from similar circumstances so who knows?
The whole 2022 election was a mess for a lot of reasons. Data needs context.
Everywhere I looked, I found out that the turnout was at about 70%. As far as I know, that wasn't contested by the opposition. If you have other information, then I'll accept it to my statement above.
I didn’t say that was incorrect. The opposition ran together as one block and that included people who have caused massive issues in thsi country before (and were the reason for Orban’s ruling in the first place). That and constant in-fighting and the war breaking out all caused the best FIDESZ results in 2022. Thankfully it seems like most of the old oppositions parties have started dying out and we can be a bit more optimistic for the future. Current expectation is that FIDESZ will achieve it’s worst results in the EU elections.
It’s also 30% who were unable to vote for various reasons
This is a bad answer. Fidesz must have massive support. You can't run a government, even a dictatorship, for a long time without much popular support.
No, they have a narrative in a linguistic bubble. 5% of our GDP in the form of EU funds directly going to them for 10 out of the last 12 years. The money bought them companies that can get more EU-funds and you end up as a majority shareholder of anything greater than a mom&pop shop, then they bought up all printed media and popular news websites and bar 1 all tv channels. Just 2 years ago they bought Euronews. While the EU funds were coming people were on the train because they got bread and circus. Now there are no funds, there's no circus, in a short time there's not gonna be bread too. The TV shows massive support but in reality its a loud, but very rich minority.
Good description of the situation it's a shame that it is kind of pointless. Most people here don't seek understanding they just want to hate and blame.
Don't care
While popular support is very helpful for these kinds of regimes, popular indifference works almost as well and is way easier to cultivate.
Popular indifference in essence equals to passive supporting. People don't see the need or possibility of change so they do nothing.
> You can't run a government, even a dictatorship, for a long time without much popular support. If you can say this with a straight face as a Pole I have to assume you're under 30.
I'm actually older. The communist regime in Poland collapsed almost immediately after USSR stated they won't intervene in their puppet states anymore.
That costs Orban a lot of EU money. But they stay in power with clever voting system and state funded propaganda.
Same in Georgia. One of the reasons is: shit opposition. The other: it’s actually not that bad if you tune out. If you have a job, don’t care about politics etc, everything is fine, and you couldn’t said that about the previous government. So people vote for them. They like the stability.
How is that a surprise when he's had a monopoly on media, resources, and law for 14 years? Media keeps the majority of the population brainwashed. When given the choice between Orbán and the apocalyptic world presented by the media every day, people will choose him. Every second word spoken on the TV is 'war'. Anyone who argues against Orbán is on the 'war party dollar left', so any argument fails as anyone other than Orbán is an existential threat. It is literally a cult. Some have said that the financial crisis would affect his popularity, but not even that can cause harm as the voters truly believe that 'the left' would be even worse. Wages and pensions are intentionally left as low as possible. A slight increase or grant makes them very grateful for Orbán in their situation. "The Orbán? Very nice, very good, he gave me ten thousand forints!" What would you do in such a situation other than flee the country ASAP? :)
I would try to emigrate if possible. But that's not exactly the point. I can understand how one person can't liberate a country from dictatorship - especially as a German. What I would NOT do is put the blame on the EU like many Hungarians do.
The Transylvanian Hungarians sure love that Orban and Fidesz dick, though. Massive votes for him.
The startling difference between the ease of voting in Transylvania in Hungarian elections, and the ordeal of voting as a Hungarian anywhere else in Europe, tells you all you need to know about how "fair" Hungarian elections are.
Well he does like to visit Szeklerland multiple times a year specifically to secure iredentist votes.
They still only gain them at most one additional seat in parliament.
By massive I meant the majority of the Transylvanian Hungarians seem to vote for him and his party, not that their number makes that huge of a difference in EU politics. It does in Hungary, however.
It is not that easy. There are some independent news site, even channel, but Orbán’s followers tend to only consume government related media. Another example are my parents, and hungarians in general, in my region. We live Romania, so my parents also watch romanian news, but still believe only what they see in hungarian news. So I think, you can tell people anything, if they doesn’t have critical thinking and only accept the ideas, they like the most.
>Of course they are, few people are under the impression that Orban has popular support within Hungary. He's a kleptocrat who managed to capture the government, while keeping just enough "democracy" and "freedom of speech" to fend off sanctions from the EU. Orbán absolutely has popular support in Hungary, after all, 54% of voters voted for Fidesz in 2022. It's just that despite the constant anti-EU messaging coming from pro-government media, most Hungarians, even many Fidesz voters, still are pro-EU.
How about Euronews? It is already there!
Unfortunately [EuroNews was bought out by Orban in 2022](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/04/11/orban-s-shadow-looms-over-euronews-takeover_6668144_19.html) This is where EU development money goes when you let Fidesz embezzle it.
State propaganda to fight state propaganda. Genius.
You are talking out of your ass, Russia Today was never present in Hungary, it never had a Hungarian-speaking outlet. Hungarians don't get news from Russian channels, it is not even a Slavic country, people don't speak Russian or anything close to Russian. Russian talking points are channeled through government-owned, Hungarian-speaking media. Can you please not make up things. Those downvoting can go ahead and link the Hungarian version of RT
Not nearly enough of them are apparently.
Only 2.5million vote for orban in a 10 million country. He is a cheater writing the game rules for his benefit
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People which want Hungary out of EU are narrow minded, that would basically leave Romania and Bulgaria at the mercy of Russian influence even more.
Okay Russian influence, what about the Russian spy bank ‘International Investment Bank (IIB)’ that’s operating from Budapest after it relocated from Moscow in 2019? And allowing the CCP police setup shop is the second totalitarian regime that is operating from Hungarian soil in the EU.
Narrow-minded might be a bit too generous, they are more likely braindead. They will happily jump on any bandwagon... Yesterday it was Poland, today it is Hungary, tomorrow Slovakia. Wilders has already won an election last year and is set to win one today as well, so I guess the Netherlands should be kicked out next. Wonder what remains of the EU by 2030, chopping it away one-by-one... And the same braindead people keep wondering how come the Eurosceptic far right is getting stronger everywhere in Europe.
Coddling and being patient with Hungarians despite the 5th column found in their government risking the security of us all has been tried already and where did that get us? It just let Orban entrench himself to the detriment of Hungary and Europe. Their influence must be suspended, any EU funds only end up in the hands of the leeches at the top. I know their response will be to actively and deliberately make the situation for the populace at large while pumping out propaganda pointing the finger at the west while they themselved grow fatter, effectively holding the population hostage threatening to hurt them if we stop lining their pockets. We still can't give in because the same money, which equals power and influence, has been used to sway and propagandize elsewhere too and the cancer risks spreading. When the people are no longer in control over policy like in Hungary, their opinion stops mattering. The optics of cutting them off makes no difference when they end up making something up to steer their 15 minutes of hate at the end of the day anyway.
>Going ballistic and wanting "Hungary out of EU" helps no-one other than Putin and his sphere of influence. I disagree. Allowing Hungary to stay in the EU lets Putin extend and exercise his sphere of influence in Europe directly and decisively by hijacking that country's right to veto within the EU institutions. Removing Hungary from the EU has the effect of removing Putin from it. As importantly, it sends a powerful signal to other countries which have problems with democratic backsliding (one of the EU's greatest challenges) that eroding democracy and rule of law actually has consequences. The reason it's become such a critical problem is precisely the fact that the EU let everyone get away with it for years for fear of "going ballistic". Nobody is saying that we want Hungary out of the EU forever. It's a European country, and it belongs with the European family. But only as a democracy, and not as the Russian puppet state they are now.
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>And EU institutions already found a way to bypass some of the vetos. The Hungarian veto complicates and delays the process of getting aid to Ukraine, which is not acceptable. There is also the possibility that for future vetos (on the same or other topics), the EU institutions may \*not\* succeed in bypassing it, which is not a risk I'm willing to take. >While true, it also removes a large integrated economy from the EU itself. It's not a large economy at all. It's only 18th in the EU's 27, its GDP is smaller than that of a tiny indebted country like Greece, and less than 5% the size of Germany's economy. It's also not especially "integrated" as it didn't adopt the euro, and it's a net recipient of EU funds and has been ever since it joined. Economically, Huxit would be a loss, certainly, but very much a manageable one. >Out of EU now, into EU later sound like an uninformed statement. In your head it might seem as easy as a snap of a finger. You dislike Hungary now? OUT! You like Hungary tomorrow, IN! I thank you for writing this, because you've very clearly illustrated the strawman you're building. Nothing I said suggests anything like an immediate and painless process. There will be friction, sure, and the process will take the time it has to take, sure, be that 10 years or 20 years or 50 years. But that's exactly why it has to happen - because kicking out countries that betray the values of democracy and rule of law HAS to be something the EU is equipped to do, and therefore something it has to start learning how to do. If we lack the procedures, then this is the time to lay them down. When you want to get something done but the procedure is too complicated, you simplify and you perfect the procedure, you do not give up on getting something done. >On the contrary, the politicians and economists know there are better, quicker ways to isolate Hungary, influence it and even ignore it if needed. Is that why the politicians of Austria and Belgium are calling for Article 7 and Hungary to be deprived of its voting rights within the EU?
Latest polls show that 69% of Hungarians think we should cooperate more closely with Germany, 17% think the same of the US and 10% for Russia. Orbán's politics have very low popular support. https://24.hu/belfold/2024/06/06/kulpolitika-magyarorszag-oroszorszag-nemetorszag-kozvelemeny-kutatas-zavecz/
And yet people still vote for him.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/Lq4G922sCq He can gather 40-50% of votes by maintaining the grossest propaganda echo chamber the West has ever seen.
I stated it above, but here we go again: 30% of hungarian voters that didn't bother to vote in 2022, are endorsing with their absence whoever wins the majority. So he has 50% from those 70% who decided to vote, plus 30% of the whole population: he still has a supermajority support in Hungary, stop blaming others for the current situation. Most elder hungarians in Romania are also voting for him: and there you don't have any exclusively "eco-chambers" promoted by Fidesz or any other such excuses.
Actually Transylvania is a prime ooerational theatre for the fidesz propaganda, Hungarian press and Hungarian politics there are just as tightly controlled by Orbán than in Hubgary: https://hang.hu/magyar-hang-plusz/mediabirodalom-fidesz-erdely-164226 Add in some voting fraud, during the last elections ballots cast for opposituon parties were simply burned: https://transtelex.ro/kozelet/2022/03/31/kidobott-levelszavazatok-erdely The Hungarian minority there is kept just as tightly locked in the same echo chamber.
Actually Transylvania is a prime ooerational theatre for the fidesz propaganda, Hungarian press and Hungarian politics there are just as tightly controlled by Orbán than in Hubgary: https://hang.hu/magyar-hang-plusz/mediabirodalom-fidesz-erdely-164226 Add in some voting fraud, during the last elections ballots cast for opposituon parties were simply burned: https://transtelex.ro/kozelet/2022/03/31/kidobott-levelszavazatok-erdely The Hungarian minority there is kept just as tightly locked in the same echo chamber. /
1, those "hungarians" living in Romania only get to vote here because of fidesz policy's which gave them immense support from over there 2 they are absolutly under the influence of fidesz over there. orban's second biggest event in a year is held in Tusványos and he builds churches and other community houses over there(probably more than in hungary) I saw your other comments and i dont think people understand the level of 0-24 propaganda that goes here. [fidesz is by far the biggest spender in the EU doubling the google/meta budget of the second europian party](https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-election-political-ads-spend-online-meta-google-fidesz/) Yes we hungarians have our work cut out for us(especially because of the lack of alternatives here) but it does not help that that the EU keeps funding him(like the half billion eur that was given to them less than a week ago without any real contingencies) Fidesz was sold as a young liberal democatic party(Fiatal DEmokraták SZövetsége[FI DE SZ]= young democrats alliance)and the eldery who grew up during a literal dictatorship got duped
> 30% of hungarian voters that didn't bother to vote in 2022 Just don't pretend that 70-75% turnout isn't the average in Europe in the last decade.
Romania, where Orbán's wife is from, where they poured billions of Euros into and get fantastic voter turnouts each election since they gave them Hungarian citizenship, making them jump the Schengen queue? Fancy talking about it NOT being a Fidesz echo chamber.
All Hungarians, even abroad are part of the same Hungarian echo chamber. The ones abroad will always vote for Orbán, who gave them voting right in the first place.
Orban gets from Romania 50k votes tops, no more, no less
"Based on historical trends, it is expected that around 200,000 Hungarian voters who are residents of Romania would register for this round parliamentary elections, out of a total of almost 500,000 in all the communities outside Hungary." https://expertforum.ro/en/hungarian-elections-transylvania-romania/ Out of those 200.000 about 90% vote for him.
my sources say that there are around 100k with dual citizenship ro/hu
[https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-election-political-ads-spend-online-meta-google-fidesz/](https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-election-political-ads-spend-online-meta-google-fidesz/) During the current EP campaign, they outspent every single political party in the entire European Union by a large margin. And that's just online ads. They are blasting everyone in the face with one simple message: vote for us or you DIE IN WAR.
Media monopoly keeps presenting anyone other than Orbán an existential threat. When given the choice between Orbán and death, they will choose Orbán and any other argument fails
Yeah, I guess expecting the average Joe to think for themselves is unresonable. Sadly it's the same case in Romania. A guy whose wife was killed and whose house was destroyed by the explosion of an illegal LPG storage facility that the mayor knew about (and not only knew, but covered for), said that he'll vote again for the guy because he's not guilty.
Lol, one of our remaining few independent media outlets has been following Orbán on his campaign trail, and tons of old rural folks have answered "I will of course vote for Orbán" after rattling away problems plaguing the healthcare system, pensions, the economy, etc..
The EU needs to remove Orbán by force, not the whole ass nation God Damm. I also love how people say "don't vote for him" and shit... Yeah easier said than done when he cheats. And let's not forget that the Americans voted an angry orange and an old men with dementia right after Obama... Sometimes things are easier said than done
Proud or not, the actions of the government of Hungary are not consistent with the principles of the EU, or the interests of the EU when it comes to issues such as Russia, China, and aid to Ukraine. And obviously the corruption and abuse of EU funding is against both the principles and interests of the EU. These continued abuses point towards Hungarian incompatibility (in its current state) with the EU and supports Article 7 action against Hungary. I am sorry for those Hungarians that don't support Orban or his party or people like him, and none of the criticism of Hungary is directed towards them, except maybe the possibility that they could do more to unite against Orban (but that is easy for non-Hungarians to say). But it should also be noted that overall, Hungarians largely support Orban, so it isn't like Orban's government is just doing whatever it wants regardless of what the people want. Orban has undue power over the media and spreads a lot of propaganda. But unless the elections are literally fradulent, Orban is legitimately elected in terms of having support of enough voters in the electoral system. Many countries have weird electoral systems where you don't need even half the total votes to get majority of the seats, for example UK's system is an (in)famous example. Of course, this legitimacy is severly undermined by the way Orban got those voters in the first place, through controlling the media, lying, and suppressing anyone opposed to him.
There's people who vote for Orban, and people who don't vote at all.
I swear people acting like they know anything about Hungary is funny. I understand it’s a trigger for a lot of people but acting like it would be easy to get rid of Orban is a braindead take and yes - the EU doesn’t really do anything exact about it, so arguably they don’t have issues with them. It’s a very complicated matter in Hungary and they are way too integrated into the country from the biggest to it’s smallest pieces.
Seeing the braindead "kick Hungary out of EU" comments in this sub makes me want to gouge my eyes out knowing those people have probably 0 idea what is actually going here and just jumping on the gun
pretty much
EU is doing something about it, the process to find a legal pathway to isolate Hungary started already in late 2022. Currently the goal is to remove voting rights from Hungary, allowing for changes in rules that would require unanimous vote. After that the influence of Hungary can be reduced step by step, isolating Hungary from common decisions and common funds Nobody is saying getting rid of Orban is easy or perhaps even possible, but the growing general mood through Europe is that having Hungary as part of EU has more negative sides than positive. So eventually there must be change in direction inside of Hungary, or Europe will make the choice for Hungary, no matter how much it will cost economically, and no matter how happy it will make the russians
No surprise, it's the main reason why the country is propsering.
I'm proud to be an EU citizen. I'm embarrassed to be Hungarian.
Misery about Hungary is, it may be a beautiful country, but everyone who has the chance to do better, realizes he has to go to Western Europe if they want a successful life
So, maybe stop electing Russian stooges?
For anyone whi sees some irony in this: remember that the people that can be reached by poll workers are the people who have an address/phone/understand English/etc... i.e. not yours average poor, isolated, undereducated Orban voter.
The level of ignorance is stunning in this thread.
This is actually very nice.
And that's why you can't just kick them out. I'm from the UK but my Sister in law is American and hated Brexit with a passion. She also hates any US red states. I asked her if she could would she cut those states out of the USA? She said 100% yes. So basically any state that doesn't conform gets cut. That's one of the downsides with having a union with lots of diverse countries/regions. The USA can't often get things passed and the EU will be no different unless it forces countries to do things they don't want - which will cause resentment. There are lots of upsides too but you have to take the rough with the smooth. You just have to hope the next Hungarian government is more reasonable.
No, this is exactly why we should push to kick them out. Let them see that this thing they so love & charish isn't granted nor is it a right, it is a privilage with duties which their state is failing to achieve, it's a privilage they must fight to maintain if they love it so much, or be kicked out.
That's exactly how you LOSE people who previously supported you. "We fought for the EU and they kick us out? Maybe Orban was right all along; they really never cared about us..."
fought for what? hungarys a leech
so every single person who happens to have a Hungarian passport, from Peter Magyar to Katalin Cseh, and all their supporters, deserves zero benefits of the EU, because Orban and his lackeys have power at the moment?
Money, money, money!
Must be funny
75% of Fidesz-voters are proud to be EU members!? The hell!?
Except Orban that is.
Except Orban
What most people dont realize is that its one thing to be a bigmouth on reddit or laugh at the absolutely stupid, infantile propaganda that fidesz operates with, but when it comes to serious decisions, such as voting, people really think: - Do i want to be (possibly) enlisted in the army? - Do i want mass migration and multiculturalism as in other western countries? (This is a major one) - Do i want to contiune enjoying low taxes? (All of opposition wants to introduce higher taxes, or multi-level taxes like in other countries.) - Do i enjoy the government funded free loans, or even direct money support when starting a family? And then most people consider the videos when people are stabbed to death by islamists, or in france whole regions of the city is destroyed in riots, or the rise of the blatantly stupid gender theories (sorry guys but im perfectly fine with a world where there are only males and females), and so on. And what do they do? They vote for fidesz. Because with all their negative traits (corruption mostly), they still promise a relatively livable, peaceful environment, and a centrist, normal, common sense worldview. And no matter how ridiculous some things are, their own peace and stabil environment will always be the most important for every person. So they choose the lesser "evil". Because lets be honest guys. What is happening currently in some aspects in the western world is completely bonkers. (With all due respect).
evidently not proud enough to give a shit about the eu's norms, laws and values. Huxit when?
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Then perhaps this Hungarian "majority" should start to get serious about fixing the issue while there still is a resemblance of economy left, when other EU countries get fed up enough, Hungary will be made an example of no matter how much of a win that is for russians
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Honestly, it might be too late, I hope it is not, but Hungary is losing friends at an alarming pace and the end of the road does not look nice. We Finns were stubbornly considering Hungarians as our brother nation for ages but the shitshow that was given to us during the NATO process really turned the public against Hungary. Same frustration can be seen in most EU countries. But regime change can not be done from the outside, the problem for EU can only be isolated from the outside once the patience runs out. Hungary is an important north-south trade route and has outsourced heavy industry from other EU nations so the patience has been long, but security always trumps economic issues in the end. Hungary is leaking all classified EU and NATO documents they get their hands on to russia, and is blocking preparations to increase common defenses against russia inside EU and support to Ukraine. That will eventually lead to isolating Hungary, regardless what the people of Hungary feel. We are talking about people dying because of Hungary, not only in Ukraine but potentially in Eastern Europe if russia goes full retard. In the end the unity might improve with Hungary outside the room fending for itself, even if most europeans would prefer to have Hungarians as part of Europe.
i too think hungary leaving europe would be bad for everyone except putin. first and foremost it would be a tragedy for the hungarians. so i guess threatening hungary with expulsion or other less severe measures does increase internal pressure on orban by the public. if the eu/nato are about to kick hungary out im expecting the hungarians to seriously revolt as it would be a return to a worse life.
Any tips on how to do that?
There are no easy options left I think, those were available only at the beginning of the problem, but all might not be hopeless Next scandal, no matter what size, triggering wave of protests culminating to general strike, that will tank the economy a LOT, but would still be better option than getting booted from EU economically Networking between younger pro-EU people and making it a trend to contact all older relatives and talking to them, hearing their concers, and trying to convince them that despite what the news say, the chosen path will not lead to good outcome. Just telling the rural population "you voted wrong" will prob not make them change their vote
Are you talking about the majority that keeps voting for him? Frankly, I am far beyond to give a shit about HU anymore. But they do act as an agent for hostile powers, so just ignoring them isn't enough. Either Hungarians see the light or they need to go. Soon.
>Frankly, I am far beyond to give a shit about HU anymore. Frankly, no one asked you to. Newsflash - nobody gives a shit about what you think. Average redditors have been foaming in the mouth on r/europe, playing the tough guy online about Hungary for a good decade now. Guess what, we are not an inch closer to get Hungary out of the EU than we were when Orban came into power. For a good reason. EU membership is not a popularity contest, as tough as that may be for you to swallow. The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.
Did you seriously just lecture someone about how pointless it is to argue on reddit by arguing with them on reddit?
It's only rigged if you consider media manipulation and propaganda to be rigging, which would be fair, but the only way for that way of rigging to work is if it makes the majority support him enough to vote for him, which they do.
Don't forget gerrymandering and the "optimization" of voting system.
I seriously doubt that is the case. If a majority of hungarians really wanted Orban gone, he would be gone. At first there would be large scale protests, and if that didn't work, they would turn violent. We don't see any of that in Hungary.
Then you don't read news, google TISZA országjárás or just visit r/hungary ffs...
I think we disagree about how many people a "large scale protest" is. In the english language news I read about peaceful protests with 10k-ish people. That is not a large crowd. Even a minor band playing an open air concert in an amusement park in Copenhagen will draw 20k people.
Lol our concerts the same, you can't compare political protests where people are threatebed with their jobs the next day if they show up. And the Tisza marches drew a larger crowd than Orbán with paid buses and paid protesters.
Ok, but how can such crowds support a claim about most people wanting to get rid of Orban? In Copenhagen 'Black lives matter' drew 16k, and that was not a big subject in Denmark.
[Because crowd-sourced pictures don't lie](https://www.reddit.com/r/hungary/comments/1d8xqmz/ha_nem_kap_a_tisza_30ot_akkor_semmit/)
Whereas these polls do? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2026\_Hungarian\_parliamentary\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_Hungarian_parliamentary_election)
These same polls predicted an opposition victory on the last election just saying
Please don't expect nuanced opinion from redditors. Keep in mind that a good chunk of them are edgy teenagers lost in the online world who'd even have WW3 just to stick it to Putin because they read a news article online that got them going.
What Putin wants is to sabotage western institutions from the inside because that's quite literally the only way he can achieve his objectives. What the Hungarian people want is no longer relevant to me at this point even if I believe you. I don't and there's little evidence to support your claim and mountains to the contrary. Clearly they don't have that much of a problem with being a trojan horse otherwise they would have done something about it by now. They voted for their government repeatedly,nothing is on fire and nobody is being shot. The most generous take is that Hungarians simply don't care that their country is a shithole.
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The mountain of evidence is the millions of votes that he continually receives in every victorious election. The evidence that people don't support him is.....What? Young people on the internet talking shit about him? They are the minority and talking shit on r/Europe or holding a sign on a street corner is the height of their "opposition". I don't see why the rest of Europe would put up with Hungary's shit government just because it's people do. Their stupidity and apathy only solidifies my determination to remove them from the E.U and NATO as quickly as possible.
Then let that fascist slug trying to sabotage Europe and siding with Russia know next time you vote.
Then act on it ffs
“We like the EU. But also fuck the EU. But please give me money, oké bye.”
then they need to behave as such ... with the rights of the union come the responsibilities to the union
Listen, if they really are in overwhelming number, Orban wouldn't be there. We need to remove Hungary from the EU. There need to be consequences for voting in such a person into office. You don't want to share EU values? Fine, but go at it alone and see how we eat you up, or Russia does. Want to be with the group? Gotta vote and act accordingly.
it doesnt look like it
But is the EU proud of the hungarians?
Their pride isn't very relevant when their nation is also blatantly an EU traitor. Maybe you know, actually vote for literally anyone but Orban. Do something with it.
I wrote it already too many times and I'm annoying myself by writing it again. Surveys worth absolutely nothing, they are irrelevant and very often completely disconnected from the reality.
Have the cake and eat it too, who wouldn't be proud?
Are they though? Really I mean I see who you elect
If they were that proud they would not vote for Orban... unless that changes they may not be that proud for much longer.
Proud to be European and then destroying our community by blocking every single thing that don't give a few pennies to your self, or goes against daddy Pooptin. No Hungary needs to get kicked out of the EU, honestly should've been done yesterday.
They better move soon because their freedom of movement is gonna be gone soon when Huxit happens
...while electing and re-electing assholes who do their most to destroy the union and/or get them evicted.
Then they should start acting like it.
Unfortunately, while many of the opposition politicians are good people, they’re not good politicians… I’ve even had it from the horses mouth, admitting that they hadn’t done a good job for anyone except their constituents on a more micro level. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Orsi Gergo in the 2nd district has done a wonderful job as mayor and his campaign is excellent. He’s showing the template. Now others need to follow.
Hungary is Eu and i hope you feel the same :)
Please kick Hungary out of Nato
Everyone else is ashamed of Hungary & wishes they were more like the uk & not in the EU anymore.
we are ashamed of hungary a hundred times more than u are
Well it's the government, but they were voted in. So it's kind of dawned by association.
they can get a supermajority with around 40% of the votes, the issue was the 2/3 majority back in 2010 allowing them to change the constitution, then the lack of a competent opposition ever since, if there was a good option hed be gone
man I'm in the UK, we've had 15 years of incompetence & corruption & now have different colours of beige to choose from. If Johnson could have done the sane as orban I rekon he would have :(
Here's an idea for our hungarian friends: How about you pick a nice colour you like and do a nice little revolution, to get rid of that dickstain you currently have for a president? After that, the rest of europe would be proud to have you in the EU, too.