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Hungary's prime minister-elect Peter Magyar on Monday called for an urgent convening of parliament and pledged sweeping reforms to fight corruption and unlock billions in frozen European Union funds, as the country absorbed the scale of a landslide election result widely seen as a rebuke to hard-right populism across the continent.
Speaking to reporters a day after his Tisza party secured a two-thirds parliamentary supermajority, Magyar said Hungarians had not voted for "a mere change of government, but for a complete regime change," and that his administration would do "everything in our power" to deliver the beginning of a new era. He described the country as having been "plundered, looted, betrayed, indebted and ruined," and said there was "no time to waste."
Magyar pressed President Tamas Sulyok, an Orban ally who has up to 30 days, or until May 12, to convene parliament, to act "as soon as possible." Sulyok subsequently announced he had invited parliamentary party leaders to a meeting on Wednesday.
Magyar identified the release of approximately 17 to 18 billion euros in EU funds, frozen by Brussels over rule-of-law concerns accumulated during Orban's tenure, as an immediate priority. He said he was "willing to take on" the anti-corruption reforms required to meet the European Commission's conditions, and indicated he would travel to Vienna and Brussels to initiate those discussions. The frozen sum amounts to roughly 15 percent of Hungary's annual government expenditure.
In power since 2010, Orban systematically reshaped Hungary into what he called an "illiberal democracy," curtailing the independence of the judiciary, media and academia and repeatedly clashing with Brussels, which responded by withholding the funds. Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who broke with the party two years ago, built his campaign around the promise of reversing that trajectory.
The result, which saw turnout approach 80 percent, a post-communist record, landed as a significant setback for Orban's international allies. US Vice President JD Vance had travelled to Budapest days before the vote to appear alongside Orban at a campaign rally, and President Donald Trump had publicly pledged to back Hungary with America's "economic might" if Fidesz prevailed. Trump made no comment on the result upon his return to Washington.
Analysts noted the broader implications for Europe's far right. The election, said Pawel Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations, "could mark a real turning point for Donald Trump's culture war in Europe," giving confidence to pro-European forces across the continent and making association with Trump's political brand "more of a liability than an asset."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said "Hungary has chosen Europe." Magyar also received congratulatory calls from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The Kremlin expressed hope for "pragmatic" relations with the new government; Magyar welcomed that, saying he was grateful Moscow and Beijing were "open to pragmatic cooperation, just as Hungary is."
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