Overview
- Parliament approved a constitutional limit of eight years for any prime minister that counts service since 1990, a change that legally prevents Viktor Orbán from returning to the office he held for two decades.
- The reform was driven by Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, which used its two-thirds majority to pass the amendment and is preparing further steps to dismantle bodies created under Orbán.
- The government has signaled plans to abolish the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty, an agency critics say targeted journalists, NGOs and opposition figures under the guise of fighting foreign interference.
- President Tamás Sulyok has refused to resign and retains the power to send laws for constitutional review, prompting the new majority to pursue constitutional options to remove or neutralize him.
- Brussels released €16.4 billion that had been frozen over rule-of-law concerns, a clear external reward for the government’s initial course that raises the central question of whether reforms will depersonalize institutions or recreate concentrated power.