Péter Magyar doesn’t take office until May. In the five days since his Tisza party crushed Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, he has refused to move into Orbán’s €50 million Buda Castle office, confronted state television presenters on air, and welcomed European Commission officials to Budapest to begin unlocking €17 billion in frozen EU funds.

Not a single day is being wasted.

“This is the end of an era,” Orbán finally conceded on Thursday, five days after his defeat, describing feelings of “pain and emptiness” in an interview with the Patrióta YouTube channel. He took personal responsibility but offered little analysis. Fidesz, reduced from 135 parliamentary seats to roughly 55, now faces a leadership meeting on April 28 with no obvious successor in sight.

A Super-Majority and a Stopwatch

Tisza won 52% of the vote on April 12, translating to as many as 140 of 199 seats in the National Assembly — a constitutional super-majority. Final results are expected Saturday, including recounts and overseas ballots that could push the tally higher.

Magyar has already secured a commitment from President Tamás Sulyok to convene parliament the week of May 4, accelerating the handover. Among Tisza’s incoming MPs, not one has previously held a parliamentary seat — a clean-slate requirement the party imposed during candidate selection, according to EUObserver.

The urgency is both political and economic. Hungary is in deep recession. Nearly three-quarters of voters aged 18–29 backed Tisza, and their chants at rallies — “Ria, Ria Hungaria,” “Europa,” “Russians go home” — amounted to what former ambassador Réka Szemerkényi called a ready-made foreign policy agenda.

The €17 Billion Question

The EU froze approximately €17 billion — split between €10 billion in COVID recovery aid and €6.3 billion in cohesion funds — over corruption and democratic backsliding under Orbán. Hungary has already lost about €2 billion of the total, according to Bruegel fellow Zsolt Darvas, and has been fined €1 million daily since June 2024 over asylum procedures that breach EU law.

The COVID tranche expires in August. “The clock is ticking for a number of topics,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho told reporters. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote that “there is swift work to be done to restore, realign and reform” Hungary’s policies before the money can flow.

Unlocking it requires meeting 27 criteria on judicial independence, anti-corruption measures, and media freedom. Darvas told AP that the necessary legislation could pass “in a single day” with Tisza’s super-majority — changing how judges are selected and what powers they hold.

Magyar has pledged to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and create a state asset recovery unit, both concrete signals to Brussels.

Dismantling the Machine

Orbán didn’t just govern Hungary for 16 years. He rebuilt its institutions around Fidesz. The Central European Press and Media Foundation (Kesma) controls 476 titles, roughly 50 of them news outlets. Magyar has promised to suspend state media news programmes until impartial editors are appointed. At the state news agency MTI, 90 staff members have already written to management demanding an end to editorial interference, according to HVG.

The incoming government is racing to prevent evidence destruction and capital flight. Tisza insiders told the BBC that some ministry officials are offering digital copies of documents in exchange for keeping their jobs. Dozens of state contracts with favoured companies were allegedly signed in the final week before the election.

Magyar also plans a retroactive constitutional two-term limit for prime ministers — a door slammed on Orbán’s return.

What Changes in Brussels

For the EU, the result is straightforward. Hungary was a chronic obstacle on Ukraine aid, sanctions, and rule-of-law enforcement. Magyar has said he will honour a €90 billion loan to Ukraine that Orbán vetoed after initially agreeing to it. Hungary is also eligible for up to €16 billion in low-interest defence loans through the EU’s €150 billion SAFE initiative. Combined with the frozen funds, the total approaches 15% of GDP, according to Jeremy Cliffe at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

For Moscow, the calculation is simple: Orbán was a useful complication inside the EU. That role is ending.

The Contradiction Across the Border

Chatham House argues that Hungary’s result, alongside Italy’s Giorgia Meloni losing a referendum on judicial reform and France’s National Rally failing to capture major cities, sends a warning that entrenched populist systems are reversible. The lesson is not that populism is finished, but that it falters when it stops delivering materially.

The irony writes itself. The same week one European country ejected its longest-serving illiberal leader, others were reaching for their own version. Not a paradox — just the continent’s contradictory, simultaneous present.

Magyar has the mandate, the numbers, and €17 billion reasons to hurry. What he doesn’t have is time.

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