Viktor Orban has been prime minister of Hungary since 2010, and previously served in that role from 1998 until 2002. In that first stint as Hungarian leader, Orban passed without comment in European Union circles, but his second premiership has seen him come up against the EU on issues related to the rule of law, LGBT rights, and the 2015 migrant crisis. 

Orban is now fully fledged right-wing populist, but unlike other people who fit that description, sees himself as the international poster boy for this type of politics, making him Hungary’s most divisive export. Hungary’s future looks, in many ways, very bleak- it has a flatlining economy, largely due to falling population, something likely to lead to scarcity and rising prices in the long run. It is not helped by the fact that Orban is hoping his party, which has little novel or innovative to say about Hungary’s economic situation, will stay in power until 2060. 

Could Orban happen here? Hungary, a nation only thirty years free from communism, and suffering from endemic corruption and economic stagnation, was fertile ground for the right-wing politics of Orban. What about countries like Britain, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, which have much longer traditions of democracy and the rule of law? 

My guest today is Viktoria Serdült. Viktoria is an author at Visegrad Insight, a media site that focuses on Hungary and its Central European neighbours, as well as HVG, Hungary’s leading economic and political weekly. We discuss the seeds of Orban’s rise in the fall of Hungarian communism, his manipulation of the media, his government’s family planning policy, the chasm in social attitudes that exists across the European continent, and the 2015 migrant crisis.