Magyar targets graft, maintains border crackdown

For Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, defeating Viktor Orbán in a landslide election was only the beginning. Less than six months into his term, his new government is pursuing former officials he accuses of corruption and abuses of power. In an exclusive interview, Magyar, 45, said efforts to recover assets that were allegedly misused under his predecessor were underway, but that the push for accountability must follow the rule of law that Orbán's government often flouted.

"The Hungarian people obviously want to see results in holding those responsible accountable, punishing them and recovering stolen property," Magyar said from his central Budapest office. During Orbán's rule, he said, Hungarians "experienced that this wonderful country, which was a high achiever when we joined the European Union in 2004, became one of the poorest and most corrupt member states in Europe."

Magyar's centre-right, pro-European Tisza party defeated Orbán's far-right Fidesz in April, ending 16 years of rule admired by the global nationalist right for its antagonistic approach to the EU and strong stance against immigration and the "liberal mainstream."

Orbán's self-described "illiberal democracy" dismantled checks and balances and enriched allied business figures, largely through awarding them lucrative EU-financed state contracts. Concerns over corruption and democratic backsliding prompted the bloc to begin withholding billions in funding to Hungary in 2021.

Before the election, Magyar promised to bring those responsible for past abuses to justice and to recover public assets misused under Orbán. Recent polls show a large majority of voters expect him to fulfill that pledge.

Magyar's government established the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, which holds investigative and prosecutorial powers to pursue cases of misused public funds. Magyar called the office a "superauthority" that can enlist police, prosecutors and the national tax authority "so that it doesn't take years to uncover a complicated corruption case."

Magyar has also applied to join the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which investigates crimes involving EU funds, reversing Orbán's longstanding refusal to participate. While several former officials have already been detained on suspicion of corruption-related offenses, Magyar acknowledged there is pressure for quicker results.

"I feel the impatience," he said. "But everyone must understand that we want to build a rule of law state, a democratic country, a country that complies with EU and fundamental rights, and that takes time." "I try to tell people that it's not the first 10 minutes of mafia movies and crime films that are the most exciting, but the middle and the end," he said.

Rapid reforms targeting corruption and bolstering judicial independence helped secure the EU's announcement in May that it would unlock 16.4 billion euros (around $18.4 billion) for Hungary that it had frozen under Orbán. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will visit Budapest on Friday for the 70th anniversary of Hungary's 1956 anti-Soviet revolution in another sign that the bumpy relationship with the EU is turning a corner.

But the rapprochement has not erased differences over migration. Magyar said his administration would retain Orbán-era immigration and asylum policies, including escorting migrants who entered irregularly back across the southern border into Serbia. The fences with razor wire along the border, erected by Orbán in 2015 to keep out migrants and asylum seekers, will also stay in place.

In 2024, the European Court of Justice fined Hungary 200 million euros ($225 million) plus 1 million euros ($1.1 million) daily for failing to comply with a 2020 ruling on its asylum and removal practices. Magyar said that since that ruling, "there is a completely new political environment" in the EU concerning immigration, and that Hungary had "already lost one billion euros because of this punishment, and I don't think that's right."

He expects an agreement ending the fines by the end of the year, and linked the dispute to negotiations on the EU's next seven-year budget, which requires unanimous approval from member states. "I don't believe that there can be a common EU budget until this problem is solved," he said. Magyar has also sought to repair relations with neighbouring Ukraine after Orbán repeatedly blocked aid to Kyiv and held up EU sanctions against Russia, all while maintaining cordial ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a turnabout from Orbán's hostile approach to Kyiv, Magyar's government has expressed solidarity with Ukraine and designated Russia a national security threat. But he has maintained Hungary's demand that Ukraine protect its ethnic Hungarian minority's right to education in its mother tongue.

While Orbán's government had failed to secure such a change, Ukraine's parliament last week expanded minority-language education rights alongside Ukrainian following weeks of bilateral consultations.

Magyar called the passage of the law "a chance to open a new chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations," which he said for many years have been "very frosty." He welcomed other Ukrainian gestures, including acknowledging Soviet Ukraine's responsibility for the deportation and torture of Hungarians between 1944 and 1946, which he said was "an important step toward reconciliation."

Still, Magyar opposes accelerated EU membership for Ukraine – advocated by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and numerous EU leaders – saying accession must be merit based and that he does not believe a country at war can join the bloc.

"It undermines the credibility of the European Union if you put some (prospective) member countries on a fast track," he said.