Magyar has everything to gain from regaining the goodwill of the European Commission, just think about the funds that have been so important for Hungary since 2004. The relationship with the United States will also be preserved, despite the closeness of Donald Trump and Orbán, with the outgoing prime minister even having the right, during the campaign, to a support visit from JD Vance, the American vice president.
Magyar’s published profiles sometimes mention that he was a boy who grew up during the transition from communism to democracy (he was born in 1981) and that he had a poster of Orbán on his bedroom wall. It is also known that he was a member of the government party for many years, married until recently to a former Minister of Justice who was one of Fidesz’s rising stars. And a scandal generated by a presidential pardon is attributed to his break with Orbán and the system built around the almost eternal prime minister, which led him, in 2024, to take up a candidacy for the European Parliament for Tisza, with an excellent result, but, even so, a defeat for his former party. The rest of the journey, especially the victory on the 12th, is known.
We will see what happens in Hungary, remembering that Magyar is a staunch conservative, that many of Orbán’s policies were popular (for example, brakes on immigration), and that geopolitics will force a complex management of the relationship with Ukraine (support, but with a lot of caution) and with Russia (without fascination with Vladimir Putin, but aware of the dependence on Russian gas, to the point of saying that he will not call the Russian leader, but that he will answer if he calls).
A good time to evaluate Magyar, and to learn a little more about the Hungarian soul, will be the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, crushed by Soviet tanks. There are photos of some of them next to the Hungarian Parliament, which in just over a century of existence has seen a lot of history. Maybe because Budapest is in the heart of Europe.
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