Most Hungarian minority associations in neighboring countries were extensions of Orbán's Fidesz party. The new Hungarian Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, now wants to reform the system of relations with the diaspora.

Since 1990, no prime minister in Hungary has been able to avoid the unwritten obligation to declare himself responsible for Hungarians abroad. Behind this lies the “Trianon trauma” that still lives in the country today: after World War I, Hungary lost more than 70 percent of its territory to neighboring countries with the Trianon Peace Treaty (1920).

As a result, millions of Hungarians suddenly found themselves in other countries, where they were often treated as second-class citizens. During the communist dictatorship that ruled Hungary from 1945 to 1989, talking about compatriots in neighboring countries was a taboo subject.

Hungary's first post-communist prime minister, conservative Jozsef Antall, attracted attention in 1990 when he said upon taking office that he wanted to be prime minister "in the spirit" of all 15 million Hungarians.

In doing so, of the five million Hungarians abroad worldwide, he was thinking primarily of the three and a half million who were then in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Since then, Hungarians abroad have been a permanent domestic political topic, although their numbers are declining – today only about two million Hungarians still live in neighboring countries.

No other Hungarian prime minister has embraced the “immigrant Hungarians,” as they are called in Hungarian, as much as Viktor Orbán. This is especially true for the 1.1 million Hungarians living in Transylvania, Romania, who are arguably the largest Hungarian minority in Europe. Their interest group, the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), was transformed by Orbán years ago into an arm of his Fidesz party.

The end of "ethnic autocracy"
Sociologist Tamas Kiss, originally from Cluj, Transylvania, speaks of “ethnic autocracy.” Similar dependence on Orban and Fidesz can be found in the Union of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) in Serbia, and to a lesser extent in Hungarian parties in Slovakia and Ukraine. But it is now clear: for all politicians loyal to Orban in all four countries, the change of government in Budapest also marked a turning point. The incoming prime minister, Peter Magyar, demanded that they remain politically neutral in the future. In addition, he wants to reform the corrupt system of financial support for Hungarian minorities.

A turning point for minority politicians
This is not a small political issue, but a pan-European one. Hungarian parties in Romania and Serbia have considerable influence on government policy in their countries, especially in Romania. Both parties are members of the European People’s Party (EPP), which Orbán’s Fidesz left in 2021. Both are also members of the Federalist Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), the largest minority umbrella alliance in Europe, whose president is a RMDSZ politician. FUEN created the “Minority SafePack” initiative in 2013 for better protection of minorities in Europe, which Orbán’s government used for its anti-EU policy. Orbán’s government’s financial support for the institutional network of minorities has also developed into a cross-border problem. According to conservative estimates, it has amounted to more than three billion euros over the past 16 years, with most of the money going to Romania. Verifiable figures are not available, as support for Hungarians abroad is provided through a completely non-transparent system of foundations and companies.

It was about voters.
But Orbán's massive appropriation of diaspora Hungarians has one goal: voters. Many minority Hungarians hold Hungarian citizenship and as such have been eligible to vote on party lists in Hungarian parliamentary elections since 2014. Of particular importance are Hungarians in Romania, the largest diaspora. They usually vote overwhelmingly for Fidesz.

To ideologically bind minority Hungarians to his party, Orbán has created a deeply revisionist historical narrative. According to him, Hungarians are the nation that was divided like no other in Europe in the 20th century and that suffers because of it to this day. But, as Orbán’s narrative continued, they still remain united, and this across borders, with Orbán as their leader.

Better relations with nationalists
This discourse did not prevent the Budapest autocrat from cultivating excellent relations with nationalist politicians of other nations, such as Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić or Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. Last year, on the occasion of the presidential elections in Romania, he even recommended to his compatriots to vote for the far-right George Simion, who was once a co-organizer of anti-Romanian attacks on military cemeteries in Transylvania.

Orbán’s state financial support for the minority institutional network has also developed into a cross-border problem. In neighboring countries, and especially in Romania, the Hungarian state funded minority institutions, Hungarian churches, Hungarian-language education, and even built an ethnic economic incentive system that supported entrepreneurs of Hungarian origin.

"Orban bought the politics of the Romanian Hungarians, and a large part of the minority," Peter Eckstein-Kovacs told DW. He is a lawyer, a prominent liberal politician of the Hungarian minority in Romania, and a former minister for minorities. "In this way, most of the RMDSZ leadership became completely Fidesz spokespeople."

Magyar seeks neutrality
The future Hungarian Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, has already met with the political representatives of the Hungarian minorities of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia, Hunor Kelemen, Balint Pastor and Laszlo Gubik, and called on them to remain politically neutral from a party perspective in the future. In fact, Kelemen (Romania) and Pastor (Serbia) in particular intervened in the Hungarian election campaign in 2026 with personal appearances, suggesting that only Orban and Fidesz are capable of representing the interests of Hungarians in the minority.

Peter Magyar wants to support Hungarian minorities. He has already stated that his government does not want to restrict the rights already acquired. However, he also announced the retroactive verification of the legality of all payments to minorities since 2010 and the reorganization of the financial support system in a new and transparent way.

Peter Eckstein-Kovacs hopes that the change in Hungary will also bring incentives for Hungarian minorities: "We need to return to the original idea of ​​minority interest organizations, which meant that all non-extremist currents have a place next to each other within one organization," says the lawyer and liberal politician.

Eckstein-Kovacs expects a radical change in minority policy from the new Hungarian government: "There are very bad historical precedents, let's just think of Germany, in which the mother country used its minorities on the other side of the border in turbulent times. It would be important to create the conditions so that Hungary cannot do to its minorities again what it did to them during the Orbán era."/DW