09 July 2025
A Legal Scalpel Instead of an Axe
Hungary appears to be assuming the role of a Trojan horse in the European Union, advancing the interests of foreign powers. Of particular concern is Hungary’s conduct in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, especially in light of its obstruction of EU sanctions against Russia. Thus far, the EU’s conventional instruments have proven insufficient in curbing Hungary’s veto strategy. For this reason, I propose a path that is both legally feasible and politically realistic: a reinterpretation of Article 7 TEU that would allow for a targeted use of the instrument. Continue reading >>
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21 May 2025
A Threat to the Core
On May 13, 2025, just before midnight, a FIDESZ deputy tabled a new bill before the Hungarian Parliament. The bill seeks to enhance “sovereignty protection measures” by introducing sweeping transparency instruments targeting foreign-funded interference in Hungarian public life. These restrictions purposefully shrink civic space further, roll back protections of fundamental rights and impair the functioning of constitutional democracy in a retrogressive fashion. When adopted, Hungary’s constitutional order will fundamentally regress from the state that existed at the time of its accession to the European Union. Continue reading >>
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02 April 2025
How Hungary’s Pride Ban Tests the EU’s Commitment to Democracy
On March 18, 2025, the Hungarian Parliament passed legislation aimed at protecting children from assemblies that promote homosexuality. Although the amendment imposes general limitations on freedom of assembly, it is commonly understood as a ban on the LGBTQ+ Pride march, just ahead of the 30th anniversary in 2025. The new law purposefully violates European human rights standards on freedom of assembly and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as fundamental values of the European Union, such as the rule of law and democracy (Article 2 TEU). Continue reading >>
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31 January 2025
The Authoritarian Market Playbook
For more than a decade, lawyers and political scientists have extensively studied the “authoritarian playbook” – the instruments, methods and processes used by autocrats such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to capture established democracies. However, so far, the impact of autocratic economic governance on the rule of law has been surprisingly underexplored in the legal field. The respective electoral wins of Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024 illustrate that economic policies are often at the heart of authoritarian actors’ electoral success and ideological goals. Even more so, this is certainly true for Hungary, as Orbán’s political regime is deeply rooted in crony state capitalism and institutionalized corruption. Continue reading >>
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16 January 2025
Targeting Disciplinary Courts
Hungary has faced significant challenges to judicial independence in recent years. The incumbent Chief Justice appears to have been working for some time to take control over disciplinary proceedings. In a recent development, the sweeping outrage of judges against planned structural reforms may have created the political opportunity to further silence dissenting voices. The Chief Justice’s New Year Greetings made it clear that the threat is real. Hungary could be on the verge of a full-scale judicial capture. Continue reading >>
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15 January 2025
How the Destroyers of Academic Freedom Masquerade Themselves as Its Victims
Under the authoritarian leadership of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the government has started a culture war to dismantle the independence of academic institutions, including universities and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, arguing that they represent a threat to their proudly proclaimed illiberal ideology. Ironically, after dismantling academic freedom in the country, Orbán’s administration started to claim that actually the liberals are the ones who, through "cancel culture", threaten academic freedom. Continue reading >>04 March 2023
A New Chapter in the European Rule of Law Saga?
‘[B]y adopting the legislation cited in the first paragraph, Hungary has infringed Article 2 TEU‘. At first glance, this plea seems almost unspectacular. Yet, when one takes a closer look, this very plea demonstrates the European Commission’s attempt to write nothing less than a new chapter in the saga of the European rule of law crisis. The Commission’s action concerns the controversial Hungarian law of the Fidesz government, which restricts information about transsexuality and homosexuality. This blog post aims to provide an overview over the recent development and the academic debate regarding the justiciability of Art. 2 TEU in this context. I argue that although the mobilisation of Art. 2 TEU as a stand-alone provision might open new doors to tackle the democratic backsliding in some Member States, this approach has to be handled with great care. Continue reading >>
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18 November 2022
Trusting Hungary with Billions of Euros
It’s crunch time for the Conditionality Regulation at the European Commission. In its College meeting on 22 November, the Commission is scheduled to discuss whether Hungary has actually made the 17 changes it proposed in order to avoid cuts to its Cohesion Funds. What the Commission chooses to do will depend on whether it believes that Hungary’s anti-corruption program will in fact allow Hungary to be entrusted with billions of Euros without having a sizeable fraction of those Euros pocketed by cronies. We believe that Hungary’s reforms are designed to be ineffective and will not even begin to halt the massive corruption that is the hallmark of Hungary’s kleptocracy. Continue reading >>
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06 October 2022
How NOT to Be an Independent Agency
The Hungarian government is trying to convince EU institutions that it is taking adequate steps to ensure proper spending of EU funds going forward. At the center of this effort is a new ‘Integrity Authority’. The law establishing this authority, Bill T/1260, just passed the Hungarian Parliament on 3 October 2022. We have carefully read the laws enacted so far that establish a new anti-corruption framework and can confidently say that neither the Commission nor the Council should accept what the Hungarian government is offering because the proposed changes do not begin to alter business as usual in Hungary. In this blogpost, we will analyze the ‘Integrity Authority’ which forms the centerpiece of the government’s program, showing that it is not independent from the government nor are its powers real. Continue reading >>
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18 June 2022
The Role of Referenda in Orban’s Regime
Following the parliamentary elections and the national referendum in April 2022, the OSCE found that the legal framework was inadequate for the conduct of a democratic plebiscite. Even though the observers noted several shortcomings of the legal regulation and documented many serious anomalies of the electoral system, they failed to put their analysis in a broader political and legal context. The aim of this short piece is to briefly describe the role that the referenda play in Orbán’s regime. Continue reading >>
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