ELECTION CAMPAIGN: THE HUNGARIAN STATE IN ACTION

After a 50-day official campaign period, general elections were held in Hungary on 3 April, and FIDESZ, in government since 2010, won a supermajority for the fourth time. The election results are hardly surprising given the government's gravity in campaigning. 

Orban’s Fidesz has likely overspent in Hungary’s election campaign

Fidesz itself seems to have violated the spending cap of HUF 1.177 bn, just with its billboard ads worth HUF 1.4 bn. Altogether pro-government forces have spent HUF 3bn on outdoor ads in March.

EU’S FINANCIAL INTERESTS SAFEGUARDED. OR NOT?

The EU Court of Justice has given green light to the Commission’s Rule of Law mechanism: the misuse of EU funds could soon have more severe consequences. The Luxembourg court's ruling comes after Hungary, criticized for systemic corruption, and Poland, whose judicial independence is under threat, asked the CJEU to annul the Regulation on the conditionality system for protecting the EU budget, saying the EU had no right to adopt it.

Hungary’s State of Corruption Heading Towards Elections

After 12 years of authoritarian rule, Orbán’s System of National Cooperation has reached its final shape. In 2021 Fidesz did its best to cement its positions in oversight institutions and markets it hijacked. Without being really aware of it, Hungarians donated national assets worth billions of Euros to the power elite of the regime. The institutions concerned have largely accepted this logic of power, just as the majority of the society.