The Wind of Change

Two weeks after Orbán's historic loss, the future arrived before the new government did.

It began with a whistle.

Before writing, I kept returning to Scorpions’ Wind of Change, a song linked to a moment of European transformation. Once, it captured Moscow, falling walls, and 1990’s optimism. Now, it plays in Budapest, not because history repeats, but because some moments feel similarly electrifying. The old order clings to power while change quietly moves through the halls.

History pauses

Hungary is in a transitional moment. Péter Magyar has not even been sworn in, and the previous government still functions, with bureaucracy moving slowly. Despite this, there is already a noticeable shift: Western capitals respond urgently, Brussels recalculates, and Kyiv remains attentive. Although Orbán’s images still dominate, their grip is weakening.

The wind has not settled. It may yet turn. But for the first time in years, it does not blow in only one direction.

Change in the halls

Change is clear: footsteps fill halls once dominated by one party, rumours spread quickly, and Western capitals now respond immediately. Bureaucracy persists but appears less confident. The regime stays out of habit, not conviction. The new cabinet is quietly evaluating its next steps. Official processes are slow, but Hungary adjusts, eager for the future. The world is alert, torn between doubt and hope.

Old faces, new air

Péter Magyar has yet to take office, and the new government is incomplete, but Hungary’s foreign stance toward Europe, Ukraine, Israel, and others has shifted. Change moves ahead of ceremony; formalities lag while history presses on. Bureaucracy discovers that the future is already happening.

Mandate shock

With its decisive victory, Tisza ended Orbán’s sixteen-year rule and gave Magyar a strong legislative advantage. The numbers are decisive: Tisza won 141 seats in a parliament of 199. Fidesz was reduced to 52. The perception that Fidesz would rule forever has ended, starting a new phase.

The aftermath brought ambiguity and improvisation. Hungarian politics rarely allows clean breaks. Power shifts in stages: sometimes openly, sometimes through bureaucracy, sometimes through something left unsaid at a press conference.

Orbán bows out

Viktor Orbán’s concession was unusually direct. The result, he said, was “painful for us, but clear.” He congratulated the winners and admitted Fidesz-KDNP had lost the mandate. Even then, he reminded supporters that 2.5 million people still trusted his party and vowed: “We will never, never, never, never give up.” That sentence may matter as much as the concession. Orbán left the main stage only to move to a different one.

Magyar called the moment a rupture, not a transfer. At his first international press conference, he declared that Hungary’s place “was, is, and will be in Europe,” promised to restore checks and balances, fight corruption, and begin joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Restoration and rupture arrived together; legality and urgency, repair and removal, Europe and Hungary’s unfinished business converged.

Tisza refused the infamous “White House” parliamentary office, choosing the Szabad György Office Building instead. The party framed the move as a break with authoritarian inheritance and a return to democratic promise. His team’s pledge to open the secret-police archives reinforced the message: no reconciliation without the hard work of truth.

Europe watches

Internationally, Hungary is not changing direction so much as returning to conversations it previously disrupted. Orbán’s last Ukraine move was to link Hungary’s approval of the €90 billion EU loan to the resumption of Russian oil deliveries. He said, “If there is oil, there is money.” When oil resumed, Hungary lifted its veto, and Brussels responded positively.

On 23 April, the Council of the EU finalised the €90 billion support loan to Ukraine. Hungary had not become the beating heart of European solidarity overnight; let us not injure ourselves with optimism. But one of the EU’s most reliable veto points had abruptly stopped working as designed.

Change in Hungary has always kept the wrong schedule: too late for some, too early for others. This time, over the past two weeks, it slipped in before anyone could rehearse their lines.

The sequence of the fortnight

In the first days after the election, the struggle was over legitimacy: who spoke for Hungary, who would be heard in Brussels, whether Orbán’s concession meant the regime had actually accepted defeat or merely changed uniforms. By the second week, the argument had become one of leverage: Tisza’s supermajority, the structure of the new cabinet, the fate of Orbán-era officeholders, the unblocking of the Ukraine loan, and the first contours of Hungary’s return to Europe.

The pattern was timing, not the old binary of promises and reality. Orbán shifted from defiance to bargaining. Magyar from slogans to power. Brussels from exhaustion to engagement. Kyiv from relief to pressure. Washington split: ideologues mourned a mascot, investors hoped for stability.

All within two weeks, Orbán conceded; Magyar announced a new course; Tisza solidified its majority; ministers were appointed; resignations were demanded; and the EU approved a major loan to Ukraine. Hungary’s European role changed not by a big speech, but through signals: new leaders, open offices, moved vetoes, promised archives, and restored ministries.

The future had not yet arrived; instead, it sent its scouts.

The cabinet as a message

Magyar’s most important task is assembling the cabinet.

Cabinets reveal priorities and power. They show which problems take national importance, which voters are reassured, and which habits are quietly buried under new job titles. Magyar’s picks signal three things: competence for markets, seriousness for exhausted voters, and caution for conservatives worried about a headlong rush into liberal maximalism.

The first structural signal is the design of the government itself. Tisza says it wants a 16-member cabinet without “superministries,” built around clear responsibilities and professional portfolios. Orbán’s state thrived on centralisation: blurred lines, informal command, and a prime ministerial system where loyalty often mattered more than institutional clarity. Magyar’s proposed structure goes beyond administrative tidying. It signals that governance should once again be clear and accountable.

Hungary has seen enough so-called new eras to know that changing the set does not rewrite the script. Still, the structure reveals something.

András Kármán, the finance minister nominee, is the credibility pick. A former Erste Bank executive, EBRD board member, and state secretary, he is a banker, a technocrat, a sign that the adults have found the calculator. He signals fiscal seriousness and EU fluency, reassuring investors and voters alike.

István Kapitány, nominated for economy and energy, brings global corporate weight. A former Shell executive, he steps into one of Hungary’s most sensitive portfolios. For years, energy policy here has been a strategic trap dressed up as sovereignty, a leash sold as a necklace. Kapitány signals a move from geopolitical theatre to practical diversification.

Anita Orbán as foreign minister is symbolically awkward, for reasons obvious to anyone who has read a Hungarian newspaper in the last decade. She is no relation to Viktor Orbán, despite the baggage of surnames. Her background is serious, with both corporate and diplomatic experience. The appointment signals a Western-facing, professionalised foreign policy that does not seek to punish conservative voters.

Magyar is assembling a cabinet built for transition rather than retribution.

Bálint Ruff may become one of the most important figures in that transition. As nominee for the Prime Minister’s Office, his portfolio sits at the intersection of memory, money, and Europe. Ruff has said opening the secret-police archives would be his “number one task,” while Reuters also reported that he would oversee EU affairs and efforts to recover billions of forints lost to corruption. The symbolism is hard to miss. The archives are about the unfinished business of 1989. Asset recovery is about the unfinished business of Orbán’s Hungary. EU funds are about whether democratic repair can become economic relief.

In other words, Ruff’s office may become the place where Hungary’s three post-authoritarian questions meet: What happened? Who benefited? How do we rebuild trust?

Lőrincz Viktória, nominated for regional and rural development, signals awareness that democratic transition must reach beyond Budapest into rural Hungary’s dependency networks.

Dávid Vitézy’s nomination as transport and investment minister signals a desire for visible state capacity and infrastructure reform in the area where government is most tangible to citizens. Notably, Vitézy previously served as transport state secretary in Viktor Orbán’s government, making his selection a pragmatic rather than purely oppositional choice.

Kátai-Németh Vilmos, nominated for social and family affairs, marks a shift from paternalism to representation. As the first blind minister in this role, his nomination expands social policy to include accessibility, vulnerability, and dignity as state responsibilities rather than afterthoughts.

The education appointment may be the most politically sensitive of all.

Judit Lannert’s nomination as children and education minister showed Magyar listening to public anxiety. Lannert, an education researcher with decades of experience, offers credibility and expertise without retreating from reform.

Her first comments set the tone: “The less education depends on where someone is born, the more equal it is.” In Hungary, this is not a policy slogan. It is a diagnosis.

Education groups welcomed the return of education to an independent ministry and Lannert’s professional background. After years of neglect, this signalled a change.

Magyar’s cabinet suggests that after Orbán, legitimacy must be earned through competence and responsiveness, not merely by winning an election.

That may be the most important early sign. Magyar does not behave like a man who believes a landslide is a licence to stop listening. Not yet.

De-Orbánization: repair or pressure?

Still, beneath the optimism, there is a harder edge.

On 20 April, Magyar renewed his call for President Tamás Sulyok and senior judges to resign by 31 May. Reuters reported that he described them as “Orbán’s puppets” and said Tisza would use its mandate and legal possibilities if they did not step down.

Here, the post-election story becomes morally complicated, inconvenient for anyone who hoped history would follow the script.

One reading is that Orbán packed institutions with loyalists meant to outlast defeat. On this view, Magyar is trying to rescue these institutions rather than attack them.

The caution is just as real: a two-thirds majority is an invitation to overreach. Hungary has seen landslides become unchecked power before.

Orbán, naturally, has already chosen his line of attack. In a post-election interview, he said the right needed complete renewal, admitted that Fidesz had suffered a clear defeat, and took responsibility for the campaign. But he also warned that calling on the president and constitutional institutions to resign was wrong, and argued that the next government should not “destroy” national achievements but build on them.

This will be Fidesz’s script: loyalists are neutral, audits are persecution, archives are witch-hunts, and asset recovery is Bolshevism with better branding.

Magyar must move quickly enough to prevent obstruction, carefully enough not to confirm the accusations of revenge. It is a difficult balance in a country where subtlety is often the last to arrive and the first to leave.

Veto no more

The most tangible foreign-policy shift came over Ukraine.

Orbán’s final use of Hungary’s veto came over the EU’s €90 billion loan for Ukraine, tying Hungarian support to Russian oil deliveries. Orbán leveraged national interest to extract concessions, even if it meant shielding Russia or undermining European unity. “If there is oil, there is money,” he said, reducing policy to transactional brinkmanship.

When the Druzhba pipeline resumed Russian oil flows on 22 April, Hungary lifted the veto. Overnight, the obstruction evaporated. The Council finalised the loan the next day.

This episode was not about principle. It was about leverage and spectacle, a pattern that has defined Orbán’s dealings with Europe for more than a decade. The message was unmistakable: Hungary’s role as spoiler was always conditional, its red lines usually bargaining chips rather than strategy.

By contrast, Magyar’s approach is cautious and grounded. He has rejected fast-track EU accession for Ukraine and insisted the issue should eventually go to a Hungarian referendum. He continues to prioritise energy security and minority rights, while stating plainly that everyone in Hungary knows Ukraine is a victim. This is not a leap from obstruction to idealism. It is a deliberate move away from weaponised vetoes, towards pragmatic European realism. Magyar does not promise to remake Hungary in anyone else’s image, only to end the era of procedural sabotage in Brussels.

Hungary is becoming less reliable as a spoiler, and the EU’s internal balance is shifting.

Israel, the ICC, and the end of automatic immunity

The Israel file changed more subtly, but no less revealingly.

Netanyahu and Magyar signalled continued cooperation, but friendship no longer comes with automatic immunity.

Orbán had dismissed the International Criminal Court’s warrant against Netanyahu and moved to withdraw Hungary from the court. Magyar has taken a different line. The Times of Israel reported that Magyar said Hungary intends to remain within the ICC system and that if a wanted person enters the territory of an ICC member state, “they must be detained.”

Hungary’s new approach is pragmatic: cooperation with Israel continues, but immunity is no longer automatic, and legal standards are to be applied consistently.

Washington discovers contingency

The American reaction exposed two Washingtons.

The first was ideological Washington. Orbán had become a cherished model for parts of the American right: a small Central European theme park of anti-liberal governance, complete with family-values branding, captured institutions, and subsidised intellectuals explaining why all of this was freedom. Reuters reported that Trump had backed Orbán before the vote, even briefly addressing a Hungarian campaign rally by phone while JD Vance was on stage.

After Orbán lost, Trump adjusted quickly. Asked by ABC News about Orbán’s defeat, he said he was “not concerned” and thought Magyar would do “a good job.”

The international right embraced Orbán until his defeat sent it searching for a new champion. Congressional Democrats cast his loss as a warning for Trump-style politics in the United States. American investors made their priorities clear: they want rule of law, stability, and predictability over ideology.

What the world saw

The world saw something it had almost forgotten was possible in Hungary: the future opening.

There was cautious hope. Brussels saw a weakened obstruction point. Kyiv saw less hostility. American liberals saw a puncture in the authoritarian myth. Investors saw possible EU funds and more predictable governance. Hungarians saw politics open up.

Hope is not the same as evidence.

The evidence is mixed. Magyar has acted quickly on Europe, corruption, and institutional repair, appointing credible professionals and signalling a conservative democratic reset after an illiberal era.

That may be why he won.

The danger is that regime change becomes too complete in the wrong ways. The opportunity is that Hungary might finally finish the democratic transition it postponed, compromised, and then watched Orbán bury under a decade and a half of constitutional engineering. The challenge is whether Magyar can resist the temptations of power that so quickly corrupted his predecessor, or whether old patterns will simply find new actors.

Opening the archives points back to 1989. Joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office points outward. Rebuilding public services points downward into the lived state. Magyar understands that democracy must be realised through effective governance.

This may be the deepest meaning of the first fortnight.

Orbán built a system where politics absorbed the state. Now Magyar must build institutions strong enough to survive politics.

Victory is a single night. Governing is every morning after.

What are the signs pointing to?

Hungary is returning to Europe as a pragmatic, sovereign nation. The test is a real legal change, not just a new tone.

The EU now has more room to act. The Ukraine loan is the clearest example. Hungary’s disappearance as the automatic veto machine does not solve Europe’s strategic problems, but it changes the odds inside the room. For years, Orbán made Hungary smaller by using it to block larger things. It was a politics of subtraction: less Europe, less trust, less air. Magyar seems to understand that influence is not obstruction, and that the work ahead is to expand what is possible rather than simply undo what came before.

Relations with Ukraine are improving. Magyar insists on minority rights, energy security, and a referendum on accession. Kyiv gets a rational Budapest, not a full reversal.

The cabinet is designed for practical governance and national repair, mapping out what must be rebuilt. The test is whether these ministers are empowered or merely displayed.

Orbánism will survive as a political force. Orbán is already reframing defeat as renewal, and Fidesz will defend its networks and call accountability persecution. The regime has moved into opposition, but its roots run deep.

Magyar’s greatest risk is his enormous mandate. Hungary has seen what unchecked two-thirds majorities can do. His task is to use extraordinary power to restore ordinary limits.

That is the paradox of Hungary after the vote.

Hungary voted for a change so sweeping it can only succeed if tempered by restraint. Dismantling a captured state cannot mean recapturing it.

The first two weeks have been hopeful, tense, and revealing. A government is taking shape before it takes office. Europe recalculates. Ukraine, Israel, and Washington adjust. Hungarians watch for the first signs that the state might finally belong to them again.

Orbán’s Hungary was built on the idea that nothing ever changes.

Magyar’s first fortnight proves that change can arrive quickly, even here.

The harder question is whether it can stay.