Viktor Orbán

Viktor Orbán has been successfully playing a big power game in the last decade, punching far above his weight. But his image as a negative hero in the Western World has clearly backfired now, with Orbán using the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to complete his authoritarian regime. Orbán’s moves are not purely the domestic political problems of Hungary – an authoritarian state within the EU could be deadly dangerous for the entire project. Germany has a very important role to play in the current situation. 

In the last three months it has become crystal clear that, among other matters, the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary has taken its toll on a peculiar subject – the rule of law itself.

On the evening of 24 July, a crowd of 10 000 -15 000 people gathered in front of the office of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to show their solidarity for the journalists who had resigned that very same morning from the largest remaining independent Hungarian news portal. In Hungary, demonstrations tend to draw no more than five thousand people, so the protest's size was surprising, especially since there is nothing new or shocking in democratic institutions being under heavy fire in Hungary.

The Hungarian Parliament passed an Act on the Protection Against the Coronavirus. It gives an already authoritarian government extraordinary, dangerous powers.