Viktor Orbán

Early life and background (1963–1988)

Viktor Mihály Orbán was born on 31 May 1963 and has two younger brothers, both businessmen, Győző Jr. (born in 1965) and Áron (born in 1977). Their paternal grandfather, Mihály Orbán, a former dockworker and a war veteran, farmed and worked as a veterinary assistant in Alcsútdoboz in Fejér County, where Orbán first lived while growing up. In 1973, the family resettled to neighboring Felcsút, where Orbán's father headed the machinery department at the local farm collective. Orbán attended school there and in Vértesacsa. In 1977, the family moved to Székesfehérvár, where Orbán had secured a place at the prestigious Blanka Teleki school. In his first two years there, he served as local secretary of the Hungarian Young Communist League (KISZ), in which membership was mandatory for matriculation to a university. Additionally, his father happened to be a patron of the KISZ.

After graduating from high school in 1981, Orbán completed his military service alongside Lajos Simicska, whom he had befriended in high school. Orbán was jailed several times for indiscipline, which included a failure to appear for duty during the 1982 FIFA World Cup and striking a non-commissioned officer during a personal altercation. His time in the army also coincided with the declaration of martial law in Poland in December 1981, which his friend Simicska criticized. During that period, Orbán recalled, he expected to be mobilized to invade Poland. He would later remark that military service had shifted his political views radically from the previous position of a "naive and devoted supporter" of the Communist regime. Nonetheless, a state security report from May 1982 still described him as "loyal to our social system".

In 1983, Orbán went to study law at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. There, he joined Jogász Társadalomtudományi Szakkollégium (Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences), a residential college—established in 1983 by István Stumpf and modeled on English universities—for law students from outside the capital. Its members were permitted to explore social sciences beyond the socialist canon and the "new" field of "bourgeois" political science, in particular. There, Orbán met Gábor Fodor and László Kövér.

Orbán became chairman of the executive committee of the college's 60 students in 1984. He also went on a series of trips to Poland with his classmates and a lecturer, Tamás Fellegi, during the 1984–1985 school year and again in 1987, during the third pastoral visit of John Paul II. Their lead Polish contacts were Małgorzata Tarasiewicz and Adam Jagusiak, who would become members of the anti-Communist student movement Freedom and Peace, beginning in 1985.

Political ascent (1988–1998)

On 30 March 1988, at the Lawyers' Special College of Social Sciences, Orbán–alongside Stumpf, Fodor, Kövér, and 32 other students and activists–founded the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, FIDESZ), a liberal-nationalist youth movement conceived as an overt political challenge to the Hungarian Young Communist League, whose members were banned from participation.

The college journal Századvég (End of the Century), established with Orbán's help and funded by George Soros since 1985, grew into Fidesz's press organ.

On 16 June 1989, Orbán gave a speech in Heroes' Square, Budapest, on the occasion of the reburial of Imre Nagy and other national martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In his speech, he demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which brought him to national prominence and announced the existence of Fidesz. In the summer of 1989, he took part in the opposition round table talks, representing Fidesz alongside László Kövér. Fidesz was established as a political party in October 1989.

On returning home from Oxford, he secured the first spot on the Fidesz candidate list ahead of Fodor and was elected Member of Parliament from Pest County at the April 1990 election.

He was appointed leader of Fidesz's parliamentary group, in this capacity until May 1993.

On 18 April 1993, Orbán became the first president of Fidesz, replacing the national board that had served as a collective leadership since its founding. Under his leadership, Fidesz gradually transformed from a radical liberal student organization to a center-right people's party.

The conservative turn caused a severe split in the membership. Several members left the party, including Péter Molnár, Gábor Fodor, and Zsuzsanna Szelényi. Fodor and others later joined the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), initially a strong ally of Fidesz, but later a political opponent.

First premiership (1998–2002)

In 1998, Orbán formed a coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP). The coalition won the 1998 parliamentary elections with 42% of the national vote. Orbán became the second youngest prime minister of Hungary at the age of 35 (after András Hegedüs).

In February, the government decided that plenary sessions of the Hungarian Parliament would be held only every third week. Opposition parties strongly opposed the change, arguing that it would reduce parliament's legislative efficiency and ability to supervise the government. In March, the government also tried to replace the National Assembly rule that requires a two-thirds majority vote with one of a simple majority, but the Constitutional Court ruled this unconstitutional.

Two of Orbán's state secretaries in the prime minister's office had to resign in May, due to their implication in a bribery scandal involving the American military manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corporation. Before bidding on a major jet-fighter contract, the two secretaries, along with 32 other deputies of Orbán's party, had sent a letter to two US senators to lobby for the appointment of a Budapest-based Lockheed manager to be the US ambassador to Hungary. The government was also involved in a lengthy dispute with the Budapest City Council over the national government's decision in late 1998 to cancel two major urban projects: the construction of a new national theatre.

Relations between the Fidesz-led coalition government and the opposition worsened in the National Assembly, where the two seemed to have abandoned all attempts at consensus-seeking politics. The government pushed to swiftly replace the heads of key institutions (such as the Hungarian National Bank chairman, the Budapest City Chief Prosecutor, and the Hungarian Radio) with partisan figures. Although the opposition resisted, for example, by delaying their appointing of members of the supervising boards, the government ran the institutions without the stipulated number of directors. In a similar vein, Orbán refused to participate in the parliament's question time for periods of up to 10 months. His statements, such as "The parliament works without opposition too...", also contributed to the image of arrogant and aggressive governance.

A later report in March by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists criticized the Hungarian government for improper political influence in the media, as the country's public service broadcaster teetered close to bankruptcy. Numerous political scandals during 2001 led to a de facto, if not actual, breakup of the coalition that held power in Budapest. A bribery scandal in February triggered a wave of allegations and several prosecutions against the Independent Smallholders' Party. The affair resulted in the ousting of József Torgyán from both the FKGP presidency and the top post in the Ministry of Agriculture. The FKGP disintegrated, and more than a dozen of its MPs joined the government faction.

Economy

Orbán's economic policy was aimed at cutting taxes and social insurance contributions, while reducing inflation and unemployment. Among the new government's first measures was abolishing university tuition fees and reintroducing universal maternity benefits. The government announced its intention to continue the Socialist–Liberal stabilization program and pledged to narrow the budget deficit, which had grown to 4.5% of GDP.

Economic successes included a drop in inflation from 15% in 1998 to 7.8% in 2001. Annual GDP growth rates were fairly steady under Orbán's tenure, ranging from 3.8% to 5.2%. The fiscal deficit fell from 3.9% in 1999 to 3.4% in 2001, and the ratio of the national debt decreased to 54% of GDP.

Foreign policy

In March 1999, after Russian objections were overruled, Hungary joined NATO along with the Czech Republic and Poland. Hungary's NATO membership demanded the country's involvement in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Kosovo crisis and the modernization of its army. NATO membership also dealt a blow to the economy because of a trade embargo imposed on Yugoslavia. However, Orbán noted in 2026 that he had denied a request from U.S. President Bill Clinton to use Hungary to attack Serbian forces based in the Serbian province of Vojvodina.

Hungary attracted international media attention in 1999 for passing the "status law", which addressed the situation of approximately three million members of ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The law aimed to provide education, health benefits, and employment rights to members of those minorities, and was said to heal the negative effects for Hungarians of the 1920 Trianon Treaty.

Governments in neighbouring states, particularly Romania, claimed to be insulted by the law, which they saw as interference in their domestic affairs. Proponents of the status law countered that several of the countries criticizing the law themselves had similar constructs to provide benefits for their own minorities. Romania acquiesced after amendments following a December 2001 agreement between Orbán and Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Năstase; Slovakia accepted the law after further concessions made by the new government after the 2002 elections.

Leader of the opposition (2002–2010)

The level of public support for political parties generally stagnated, even with general elections coming in 2002. Fidesz and the main opposition Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) ran neck to neck according to opinion polls for most of the year, both attracting about 26% of the electorate. According to a September 2001 poll by the Gallup organization, however, support for a joint Fidesz – Hungarian Democratic Forum party list would have support from up to 33% of the voters, with the Socialists drawing 28% and other opposition parties 3% each.

In the event, Orbán's group lost the April parliamentary elections to the opposition Hungarian Socialist Party, which set up a coalition with its longtime ally, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats. Turnout was a record-high 70.5%. Beyond these parties, only deputies of the Hungarian Democratic Forum made it into the National Assembly. The populist Independent Smallholders' Party and the right-wing Hungarian Justice and Life Party lost all their seats. Thus, the number of political parties in the new assembly was reduced from six to four.

MIÉP challenged the government's legitimacy, demanded a recount, complained of election fraud, and generally kept the country in election mode until the October municipal elections. The socialist-controlled Central Elections Committee ruled that a recount was unnecessary, a position supported by observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, whose only substantive criticism of the election conduct was that the state television carried a consistent bias in favour of Fidesz.

In the 2004 European Parliament election, the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party was heavily defeated by the opposition conservative Fidesz. Fidesz gained 47.4% of the vote and 12 of Hungary's 24 seats.

Orbán was the Fidesz candidate for the parliamentary election in 2006. Fidesz and its new-old candidate failed again to gain a majority in this election, which initially put Orbán's future political career as the leader of Fidesz in question. However, after fighting with the Socialist-Liberal coalition, Orbán's position resolidified, and he was elected president of Fidesz for yet another term in May 2007.

Second premiership (2010–2026)

Second government (2010–2014)

In the 2010 parliamentary elections, Orbán's party won 52.7% of the popular vote but received a 68% majority of parliamentary seats due to the design of the post-communist electoral system. A two-thirds parliamentary majority is enough to change the constitution, and in 2011 Orbán's government drafted a new constitution behind closed doors, debated it for only nine days in the parliament, and passed it on a party line. Orbán rejected suggestions within his party to pursue a more cautious agenda. He would go on to amend the constitution twelve times in his first year in office. Among other changes, it includes support for traditional values, nationalism, references to Christianity, and a controversial electoral reform, which decreased the number of seats in the Parliament of Hungary from 386 to 199. The new constitution entered into force on 1 January 2012, replacing the Hungarian Constitution of 1949.

In 2012, Orbán's government implemented a flat tax on personal income set at 16%. Orbán has called his government "pragmatic", citing restrictions on early retirement in the police force and military, making welfare more transparent, and a central banking law that "gives Hungary more independence from the European Central Bank."

On 14 January 2014, Orbán went to Moscow in order to sign with Vladimir Putin an agreement on the Paks II nuclear power plant (NPP). The Russian state-owned enterprise Rosatom would develop the NPP, and Hungary was to finance the plant by borrowing from Russia. At the same time, Orbán reassured everyone that the South Stream pipeline would be completed soon. The BBC complained that "there was no formal bidding process for the plant's expansion, and the terms of the loan agreement have not yet been made public," even after the Hungarian parliament approved the deal on 6 February. It later came to light that the loan amounted to €8bn and was financed over a 30-year term. Hungarian MFA Peter Szijjarto told reporters that the deal was "the business (transaction) of the century." Westinghouse and Areva, two Western prime contractors, had been lured since 2012 by the Hungarian civil service but eventually had been frozen out of competition by the Orbán government, which chose to sole-source the deal.

Third government (2014–2018)

After the April 2014 parliamentary election, Fidesz won a majority, garnering 133 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly. While Orbán's party won a large majority, it received 44.5% of the national vote, 8.7% less than in 2010.

In a speech in July 2014 in Băile Tușnad, a remote village in Romania, at the Bálványos Free Summer University and Student Camp, Orbán first publicly articulated an ideology of illiberalism. He described the Western 2008 financial crisis as a paradigm shift of the international order, comparable with the two world wars and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Orbán described his current mission: "while breaking with the [liberal] dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them, we are trying to find the form of community organisation, the new Hungarian state, which is capable of making our community competitive in the great global race for decades to come."

In November 2014, Orbán proposed a controversial "internet tax" amid corruption accusations. That same year, there were numerous protests against his government, including one in Budapest in November 2014 against the proposed "internet tax".

During the 2015 European migrant crisis, Orbán ordered the erection of the Hungary–Serbia barrier to block the entry of illegal immigrants so that Hungary could register all the migrants arriving from Serbia, which is the country's responsibility under the Dublin Regulation, a European Union law. Under Orbán, Hungary took numerous actions to combat illegal immigration and effectively reduced the influx of refugees. In May 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled against Hungary's policy of migrant transit zones, which Orbán subsequently abolished while also tightening the country's asylum rules.

Like other Visegrád Group heads of state, Orbán opposes any compulsory EU long-term quota on the redistribution of migrants. According to him, Turkey should be considered a safe third country for unwanted immigrants or refugees.

In 2015, Orbán wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Europe's response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union's misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation." He also demanded an official EU list of "safe countries" to which migrants can be returned.

Fourth government (2018–2022)

In the April 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election, the Fidesz–KDNP alliance was victorious and preserved its two-thirds majority, with Orbán remaining prime minister. Orbán and Fidesz campaigned primarily on the issues of immigration and foreign meddling, and the election outcome was seen as a victory for right-wing populism in Europe.

In a 2018 speech at the meeting of a municipal association, Orbán stated, "We must state that we do not want to be diverse and do not want to be mixed: we do not want our own colour, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others. We do not want this. We do not want that at all. We do not want to be a diverse country."

On 30 March 2020, the Hungarian parliament voted 137 to 53 in favor of passing legislation that would create a state of emergency without a time limit, grant the prime minister the ability to rule by decree, suspend by-elections, and introduce the possibility of prison sentences for spreading fake news and sanctions for leaving quarantine. Two and a half months later, on 16 June 2020, the Hungarian parliament passed a bill that ended the state of emergency effective 19 June. However, on the same day the parliament passed a new law removing the requirement of parliamentary approval for future "medical" states of emergencies, allowing the government to declare them by decree.

In 2021, the parliament transferred control of 11 state universities to foundations led by allies of Orbán. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a residential college, received an influx of government funds and assets equal to about 1% of Hungary's gross domestic product, reportedly as part of a mission to train future conservative intellectuals.

Due to a combination of unfavourable conditions and irresponsible decisions, which involved devastating nuclear power phase-out (especially in Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland), soaring demand for natural gas, its diminished supply from Russia and Norway to the European markets, and the inability of renewable energy sources (such as wind, water, and solar energy) to generate enough power, Europe faced steep increases in energy prices in 2021. In October 2021, Orbán blamed a record-breaking surge in energy prices on the European Commission's Green Deal plans.

Fifth government (2022–2026)

In the April 2022 parliamentary election, Fidesz won a majority, garnering 135 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly. While Orbán's close ties with Moscow raised concerns, core Fidesz voters were persuaded that mending ties with the EU might also lead Hungary into war. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe dispatched a full-scale monitoring mission for the election. Orbán declared victory on Sunday night, with partial results showing his Fidesz party leading the vote by a wide margin. Addressing his supporters after the partial results, Orbán said: "We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels." Opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay admitted defeat shortly after Orbán's speech.

In May 2022, Orbán promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory in a speech.

In July 2022, Orbán – repeating the thesis of Jean Raspail – spoke in Romania against the "mixing" of European and non-European races, adding, "We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race." In Vienna two days later, he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about race.

In December 2022, The European Commission announced it would hold back all 22 billion euros of EU cohesion funds for Hungary until its government meets conditions related to judiciary independence, academic freedoms, LGBTQI rights and the asylum system.

In 2023, Orbán criticized the EU's New Pact on Migration and Asylum, saying, "Unity is dead, secure borders are no more." In 2024, Orbán said that immigration to Europe would disintegrate the European Union and called it an "existential issue" for the EU. He blamed the European Commission and the European Parliament for the situation and warned that Hungary was "ready" to file a lawsuit against the von der Leyen Commission. Orbán called for a better return policy, stating that "In 2023, a decision was made to return 430,000 illegal migrants from EU countries, and just 84,000 have been returned so far."

In June 2024, Hungary was fined 200 million euros, in addition to a daily one-million-euro fine by the European Court of Justice for "deliberately evading” compliance with European Union laws on migration and asylum seekers.

2026 parliamentary election

Orbán ran for the fifth time for Prime Minister of Hungary, against Péter Magyar of the Tisza Party. Voting officially ended at 19:00.

At 21:31, Orbán conceded defeat to Magyar after 16 years as Prime Minister of Hungary. Orbán said "The responsibility and opportunity to govern were not given to us." Orbán also said "We are not giving up. Never, never, never."

On April 25, 2026 after the defeat in the Parliamentary elections, Orbán said he would leave his Parliament seat but hoped to remain as head of Fidesz. Orbán's Chief of Staff Gergely Gulyás would become the leader of the opposition in the Parliament. Following Magyar's ascension to the prime ministry, the Parliament adopted a constitutional amendment limiting the position to two terms, effectively prohibiting Orbán from further returns to the office.

Post-premiership (2026–present)

On 13 June 2026, a Fidesz party congress re-elected Orbán as party leader for a further year, with 729 of 737 delegates voting in favour and no other candidate standing. His political future had been in question after the defeat, and he had faced open criticism from some former loyalists urging him to leave politics, the first such criticism since he returned to power in 2010. Telling the congress "I do not give up, I never, never, never, never, never give up", Orbán took full responsibility for the election result and said Fidesz had been a "fantastic governing party" but needed to change in order to function as an opposition party capable of governing again.

On 21 July 2026, prosecutors and officers of the national tax authority raided offices housing data servers used by Fidesz as part of an investigation by the Bács-Kiskun County chief prosecutor's office into the suspected misuse of about 17 billion forints (US$53.5 million) in grant money from Hungary's National Cultural Fund during Orbán's time in government. Six current and former officials, not including Orbán, had been charged in connection with the case and denied wrongdoing; they were accused of distributing the money opaquely to artists and performers linked to Fidesz. The party said the raid had been carried out "without prior notice" and with the intention of seizing its entire communications system, and accused the governing Tisza Party of seeking to destroy it by legal means.

On September 2026, Fidesz's parliamentary leader János Bóka said that if Fidesz wins in the 2030 elections and is given the mandate to change, remove the constitutional amendment limiting the prime minister position to two terms, effectively prohibiting Orbán from further returns to the office, this would “open up further possibilities” for Orbán's return.

Views

Orbán's blend of soft Euroscepticism, populism, and national conservatism has seen him compared to politicians and political parties as diverse as Jarosław Kaczyński's Law and Justice, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Matteo Salvini's Lega (previously Lega Nord), Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Vladimir Putin. Orbán has sought to make Hungary an "ideological center for ... an international conservative movement".

According to Politico, Orbán's political philosophy "echoes the resentments of what were once the peasant and working classes" by promoting an "uncompromising defense of national sovereignty and a transparent distrust of Europe's ruling establishments". Orbán frequently emphasizes the importance of Christianity, although he and the overwhelming majority of Hungarians do not attend church regularly. His authoritarian appeal to "global conservatives" has been summarized by Lauren Stokes as: "I alone can save you from the ravages of Islamization and totalitarian progressivism – and in the face of all that, who has time for checks and balances and rules?". Orbán has criticized the EU, comparing it to forces that have occupied Hungary throughout history.

Orbán had a close relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, having known him for decades. He is described as "one of Mr Netanyahu's closest allies in Europe". Orbán received personal advice on economic reforms from Netanyahu, while the latter was Finance Minister of Israel (2003–2005). In February 2019, Netanyahu thanked Orbán for "deciding to extend the embassy of Hungary in Israel to Jerusalem".

Orbán is seen as having laid out his political views most concretely in a widely cited 2014 public address at Băile Tușnad (known in Hungary as the Tusnádfürdői beszéd, or "Tusnádfürdő speech"). In the address, Orbán repudiated the classical liberal theory of the state as a free association of atomistic individuals, arguing for the use of the state as the means of organizing, invigorating, or even constructing the national community. Although this kind of state respects traditionally liberal concepts like civic rights, it is properly called "illiberal" because it views the community, and not the individual, as the basic political unit. In practice, Orbán claimed, such a state should promote national self-sufficiency, national sovereignty, familialism, full employment and the preservation of cultural heritage.

Foreign policy

Orbán attended the inauguration ceremonies of re-elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara in 2018 and 2023. In October 2018, Orbán said after talks with President Erdoğan in Budapest that "A stable Turkish government and a stable Turkey are a precondition for Hungary not to be endangered in any way due to overland migration."

In June 2019, Orbán met Myanmar's State Counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. They discussed bilateral ties and illegal migration.

Orbán has maintained close ties with China throughout his tenure, and his administration is generally seen as China's closest ally in the EU. Hungary joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015, while in April 2019, Orbán attended a BRI forum in Beijing, where he met the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He spearheaded plans to open a Fudan University campus in Budapest, which led to pushback in Hungary. He met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo member and top diplomat Wang Yi in Budapest on 20 February 2023; he afterwards backed the peace plan released by Wang Yi concerning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Orbán questioned Nord Stream 2, a new Russia–Germany natural gas pipeline. He said he wants to hear a "reasonable argument why South Stream was bad and Nord Stream is not". "South Stream" refers to the Balkan pipeline cancelled by Russia in December 2014 after obstacles from the EU.

Since 2017, Hungary's relations with Ukraine have rapidly deteriorated over the issue of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Orbán and his cabinet ministers repeatedly criticized Ukraine's 2017 education law, which makes Ukrainian the only language of education in state schools, and threatened to block further Ukraine's EU integration until it is modified or repealed. It is worth noting that the language law was amended in December 2023 in favor of the official languages of the European Union, including Hungarian.

Orbán has been considered one of the most pro-Russian heads of state worldwide, publicly praising Putin and his policies, even in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On one hand, he has described the war as "clear aggression" by Russia, saying a sovereign Ukraine is needed "to stop Russia posing a threat to the security of Europe." However, conversely, he has also criticised the European Union for "prolonging the war" in Ukraine by sanctioning Russia and sending weapons and money to Ukraine instead of encouraging a negotiated peace, and has been accused of blocking aid to Ukraine. Consequently, Austro-Hungarian journalist Paul Lendvai called Orbán the Divider of Europe.

Domestic policy

Viktor Orbán's domestic policy agenda has placed emphasis on cultural conservatism, especially through pro-natalist policies designed to encourage family formation and reduce immigration. Female university graduates who have (or adopt) children within two years of graduation receive partial or full forgiveness on their student loans, including a full write-off of their student debt if they have three or more children. Hungarian women who have four or more children are eligible for full income tax exemption for life. Married couples are eligible for low fixed-rate mortgages on a house with additional financial support through family housing benefits, as well as subsidies for the purchase of seven-seat cars for families with three or more children and financial support for child care. In support of these policies, Orbán stated in 2019 that "For the west, the answer is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine. But we do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children." The government has also tightened legal regulations on access to abortion, including requiring pregnant women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus prior to an abortion being approved by a doctor. The number of abortions procured in Hungary between 2010 and 2023 fell almost 45%, from 44.8 per hundred live births in 2010 to 24.8 per hundred in 2023.

As stated by The Guardian, the "Hungarian government doubled family spending between 2010 and 2019", intending to achieve "a lasting turn in demographic processes by 2030". Orbán has espoused an anti-immigration platform, and has also advocated for increased investment into "Family First". Orbán has disregarded the European Union's attempts to promote integration as a key solution to population distribution problems in Europe. He has also supported investments into countering the country's low birth rates. Orbán has tapped into the "great replacement theory" which emulates a nativist approach to rejecting foreign immigration out of fear of replacement by immigrants. He has stated that "If Europe is not going to be populated by Europeans in the future and we take this as given, then we are speaking about an exchange of populations, to replace the population of Europeans with others." The Guardian stated that "This year the Hungarian government introduced a 10 million forint (£27,000) interest-free loan for families, which does not have to be paid back if the couple has three children."

His government's economic approach has been referred to as "Orbánomics". Despite early concerns that these reforms would undermine investor confidence, economic growth has been strong with unemployment "plummeting" between 2010 and 2021 and year-on-year GDP growth at 4 percent in 2021. Progressive taxation on income was abolished in 2015 and replaced with a flat rate of 16% on gross income, and income taxes on those aged 25 years or younger was abolished entirely in 2021. Hungary paid the last of its IMF loan ahead of schedule in 2013, with the fund closing its Budapest office later that year. In December 2018, Orbán helped push through a controversial change to the Hungarian labor code that raised the annual cap on overtime from 250 to 400 hours, while giving employers up to three years to pay for the extra work hours. Due to the economic impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the shocks of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, Orbán's government has imposed windfall taxes on banks, pharmaceutical companies, and energy companies in order to maintain a government-subsidized cap on utility bills (including gas, electricity, water, district heating, sewage, and garbage collection) which continues into 2023.

Democratic backsliding, corruption and authoritarianism

According to Transparency International, Hungary was the most corrupt country in the European Union in 2023. Between 2010 and 2020, Hungary dropped 69 places in the Press Freedom Index, lost 11 places in the Democracy Index, and deteriorated 16 places in the Corruption Perceptions Index. In 2019 Freedom House downgraded the country from "free" to "partly free". The V-Dem Democracy indices rank Hungary in 2021 as 96th in its "electoral democracy index" that measures "whether elections were free and fair, as well as the prevalence of a free and independent media", sitting between Benin and Malaysia. Additionally, Freedom House's Nations in Transit 2020 report reclassified Hungary from a democracy to a transitional or hybrid regime. Furthermore, in 2022, the European Parliament stated that "Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy" and that the country has become an "electoral autocracy".

The late professor of economics at Harvard University, János Kornai, described the evolution of the Hungarian state during Orbán's second premiership as having taken a "u-turn" away from the aim of becoming a market economy based on the rule of law and private ownership and instead beginning the "systematic destruction of the fundamental institutions of democracy". In her 2015 article on Orbán's illiberal democracy, Abby Innes, associate professor of political economy at the London School of Economics simply states that "Hungary can no longer be ranked a democratic country". Former minister of education, Bálint Magyar, has stated that elections in Hungary under Orbán are undemocratic and "free but not fair", due to gerrymandering, large-scale control over the media, and suspect funding for political campaigns.

In the April 2022 election, Orbán's Fidesz party won 54% of the vote but 83% of the districts, due to gerrymandering, and "other tweaks" to Hungarian electoral rules. According to American journalist and author Andrew Marantz, Orbán passed laws, amended the constitution and "patiently debilitated, delegitimatized, hollowed out" civic institutions such as courts, universities, and the apparatus necessary for free elections that are now controlled by Orbán loyalists. Domination of the public media by Orbán prevents the public from hearing critics' point of view. In 2022, Orbán's opponent was given just five minutes on the national television "to make his case to the voters". Private media outlets like the ATV and RTL, among others, offered playtime for opposition members. An example of the discreet, below-the-radar process of accumulating power by Orbán and his party was the creation of a special police force that started as a small anti-terror unit. The unit grew and became more powerful "bit by bit in disparate clauses buried in unrelated laws". Marantz cites Princeton professor of sociology Kim Lane Scheppele, who contends the unit now has enough power to function "essentially" as Orbán's "secret police".

Anti-LGBT policies

Since his election as prime minister in 2010, Orbán has led initiatives and laws to limit LGBT+ rights. In 2020, Orbán's government ended legal recognition of transgender people, receiving criticism both in Hungary and abroad.

In 2021, his party proposed new legislation to censor any "LGBT+ positive content" in movies, books or public advertisements and to severely restrict sex education in school forbidding any information thought to "encourage gender change or homosexuality". The law has been likened to Russia's restriction on "homosexual propaganda". German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen harshly criticized the law, while a letter from sixteen EU leaders including Pedro Sánchez and Mario Draghi warned against "threats against fundamental rights and in particular the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation".

His anti-LGBT+ positions came under more scrutiny after the revelation that one of the European deputies of his party, József Szájer, had participated in a gay sex party in Brussels, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic quarantine restrictions. Szájer was one of the major architects behind the 2011 Constitution of Hungary. This new constitution has been criticized by Human Rights Watch for being discriminatory towards the LGBT+ community.

To coincide with the parliamentary election in the spring of 2022, Orbán announced a four-question referendum regarding LGBTQ issues in education. It did not pass. It came after complaints from the European Union (EU) about anti-LGBTQ discriminatory laws. Human rights groups condemned the referendum as anti-LGBT rhetoric that supported discrimination.

On 22 July 2023, in a speech he gave in Romania, Orbán complained that the EU was conducting an "LGBTQ offensive".

On 18 March 2025, the Parliament voted in favor of a ban on Pride parades.

Green transition and climate change

When US president Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2017, Orbán stated: "In Hungary, there is a consensus that climate change is real, that it is dangerous and since it is a global phenomenon, it requires global action to combat it."

In October 2021, Orbán warned that the European Commission's planned Fit for 55 climate package and the resulting high energy prices would "destroy" Europe's middle classes, saying that "those responsible for sky-high electricity and gas prices are endangering European democracy." He called the European Union's climate protection plans a "utopian fantasy".

In June 2024, Orbán expressed support for the green transition, but criticized the way it was implemented by the "current Brussels elite".

Criticism and political techniques

Orbán's critics have included domestic and foreign leaders (including former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Presidents of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, and Jean-Claude Juncker), intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations. He has been accused of pursuing anti-democratic reforms; attacking the human rights of the LGBT community; reducing the independence of Hungary's press, judiciary and central bank; amending Hungary's constitution to prevent amendments to Fidesz-backed legislation; and of cronyism and nepotism.

Orbán was accused of pork barrel politics for building Pancho Aréna, a 4,000-seat stadium in the village in which he grew up, Felcsút, at a distance of some 6 metres (20 ft) from his country house. The stadium, alongside an adjoining soccer academy, cost more than an estimated $200 million to build.

In the book The Ark of Orbán, Attila Antal wrote that the Orbán system of governance is characterized by the transformation of public money into private money, a system that has built a neo-feudal world of national capitalists, centered on the prime minister and his own family business interests. The largest share of national capitalists is the oligarchy "produced" by the system, such as István Tiborcz, his son-in-law and Lőrinc Mészáros, his childhood friend and his family.

A 2016 opinion piece for The New York Times by Kenneth Krushel called Orbán's political system a kleptocracy that wipes some of the country's wealth partly into its own pockets and partly into the pockets of people close to it.

A 2017 Financial Times article compared the Hungarian elite under Orbán's government to Russian oligarchs. The article noted that they differ in that Hungary's "Oligarchs" under Orbán largely benefit from EU subsidies, unlike the Russian oligarchs. The article also mentioned the sudden increase in the personal wealth of Orbán's childhood friend, Lőrinc Mészáros, thanks to winning state contracts.

A 2019 New York Times investigation revealed how Orbán leased plots of farm land to politically connected individuals and supporters of his and his party, thereby channeling disproportionate amounts of the EU's agricultural subsidies Hungary receives every year into the pockets of cronies.

Personal life

Orbán married jurist Anikó Lévai in 1986; they have five children. Their eldest daughter, Ráhel, is married to entrepreneur István Tiborcz, whose company, Elios, was accused of receiving unfair advantages when winning public tenders. (see Elios case) Orbán's son, Gáspár, is a retired footballer, who played for Ferenc Puskás Football Academy in 2014. Gáspár is also one of the founders of a religious community called Felház.

Orbán is a member of the Calvinist-oriented Hungarian Reformed Church, while his wife and their five children were raised Catholic. His son Gáspár Orbán converted in 2014 to the Faith Church, a Pentecostal denomination, and is currently a minister. He has claimed to have heard from God and to have witnessed miraculous healings.

Hatvanpuszta, a historic estate once part of Archduke Joseph's Alcsút estate, was purchased in 2011 by a company owned by Viktor Orbán's father, Győző Orbán. The estate has since undergone extensive redevelopment, sparking controversy and allegations of secrecy, with critics suggesting it serves as a private retreat for the Hungarian Prime Minister.

Football interests

Orbán has played football from his early childhood. He was a professional player with Felcsút FC. After ending his football career, he became one of the main financiers of the club, and of Hungarian football in general; the club was later renamed to Puskás Akadémia FC, which he had a prominent role in the foundation of.

He played an important role in establishing the annually organised international youth cup, the Puskás Cup, at Pancho Aréna, which he also helped build, in his hometown of Felcsút. His only son, Gáspár, learned and trained there.

Orbán is said to watch as many as six games a day. His first trip abroad as prime minister in 1998 was to the World Cup final in Paris; according to inside sources, he has not missed a World Cup or Champions League final since.

Then FIFA President Sepp Blatter visited the facilities at the Puskás Academy in 2009. Blatter, together with the widow of Ferenc Puskás, as well as Orbán, founder of the academy, announced the creation of the new FIFA Puskás Award during that visit. He played the minor role of a footballer in the Hungarian family film Szegény Dzsoni és Árnika (1983).

Awards and honors

Foreign

Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Republika Srpska):

Order of the Republika Srpska (2024)

France:

Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2001)

Kazakhstan:

First Class of the Order of Friendship (2023)

Lithuania:

Commander's Grand Cross of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas (2009)

North Macedonia:

Order 8-September (2013)

Serbia:

First Class of the Order of the Republic of Serbia (2022)

Vatican:

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (2004)

Confessional

Holy Cross Medal of Gratitude (Armenian Catholic Church, 2022)

First Class of the Order of Glory and Honor (Russian Orthodox Church, 2023)

First Class of the Order of St. Sava (Serbian Orthodox Church, 2022)

Other honors

Honorary senator of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2000)

Freedom Award by the American Enterprise Institute (2001)

Franz Josef Strauss Prize from the Hanns Seidel Foundation (2001)

Polak Award established by the Maria Polak Foundation (2001)

Prize for the Social Market Economy by the German Club of Economics (2002)

Honorary Citizen of Szék, Hungary (2002)

Saint Stephen Award (2002)

László Tőkés Award by the László Tőkés Foundation (2003)

Honorary Citizen of Esztergom, Hungary, twice (2006, 2009)

Gold Medal of the Foundation of European Merit (2004)

World No Tobacco Day Award by the World Health Organization (2013)

Title 'Man of the Year 2013' by Polish magazine Gazeta Polska (2014)

'The 28 People From 28 Countries Who Are Shaping, Shaking And Stirring Europe: Class Of 2016' by magazine Politico Europe

Title 'Man of the Year 2015'at the Economic Forum in Poland (2016)

FINA Order of Merit (2017)

Golden Order of the Azeri international magazine My Azerbaijan (2022)

Honorary doctorates

Tufts University (United States, 2002)

Josai University (Japan, 2013)

Marmara University (Turkey, 2013)