Viktor Orbán (born 1963 in Székesfehérvár, Hungary) is a Hungarian politician who co-founded Fidesz in 1988 as an anti-communist student movement. He served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1998 to 2002 and returned to the office in 2010, winning consecutive elections in 2014, 2018, and 2022, each time with a parliamentary supermajority that allowed Fidesz to rewrite the constitution and reshape state institutions.
Orbán is most associated with the concept of "illiberal democracy," a term he embraced in a July 2014 speech at Băile Tușnad (Tusnádfürdő), in which he cited Russia, Turkey, and China as models of successful non-liberal states. His tenure has been marked by:
- Adoption of a new Fundamental Law (constitution) in 2011.
- Restrictions on the Constitutional Court's powers and changes to judicial appointments.
- Consolidation of media ownership under government-aligned holdings, notably KESMA (Central European Press and Media Foundation), established in 2018.
- A 2017 law targeting foreign-funded NGOs and a campaign against the Central European University, which relocated most operations to Vienna in 2019.
- Hard-line opposition to EU migrant quotas following the 2015 migration crisis and construction of a border fence along the Serbian and Croatian borders.
Orbán's government has been the subject of repeated EU rule-of-law proceedings, including an Article 7 TEU procedure triggered by the European Parliament in September 2018, and the withholding of cohesion and recovery funds under the 2020 conditionality regulation. In March 2021, Fidesz left the European People's Party group ahead of expected suspension; it later affiliated with the Patriots for Europe group formed in 2024.
On foreign policy, Orbán has cultivated close ties with Russia and China, repeatedly delayed or diluted EU sanctions packages on Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and blocked or slowed Sweden's and Finland's NATO accession ratifications, with Hungary's parliament approving Sweden's accession in February 2024.
Example
In July 2024, Viktor Orbán used Hungary's rotating presidency of the Council of the EU to make unsanctioned "peace mission" visits to Kyiv, Moscow, and Beijing, drawing rebuke from EU institutions.
Frequently asked questions
Orbán served a first term from 1998 to 2002 and has served continuously since May 2010, making him the EU's longest-serving head of government as of the mid-2020s.
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