The journalist and director, Rafa Latorre, met in La Brújula with Xavi Colás, recently returned from Budapest, and Jacobo de Regoyos, correspondent in Brussels, to decipher the defeat of Viktor Orbán and the arrival to power of Péter Magyar. The report focused on three axes: the toxic role of the support of Donald Trump and his vice president JD Vance, Hungary’s clash with Brussels over the rule of law and immigration, and the fatigue of a population that has seen how inflation and the deterioration of public services belied the triumphalist story of the outgoing prime minister.
The support of Trump and JD Vance, from asset to liability
Colás recalled that Orbán presented himself to part of the electorate as the man who understood “the most powerful on the planet”: Putin, Trump and now also JD Vance, who traveled to Budapest in the final stretch of the campaign to openly ask for a vote for the Hungarian leader. This support, which was intended to project strength, has been revealed as a “poisonous” factor at a time when Trumpism generates mistrust even among its supposed European allies.
De Regoyos stressed that Vance’s support is inseparable from his aversion to the European Union, and that the US vice president has made it his own cause to support leaders who act as “Trojan horses” within European institutions. Orbán’s defeat, the correspondent explained, has been celebrated in Brussels “without embarrassment” and with very measured phrases such as that of Ursula von der Leyen: “Today Europe is Hungarian.”
Hungary, the thorn in Brussels’ side
During the last years, Hungary became the main blocking factor within the European Union. De Regoyos reviewed the string of open conflicts: more than 18 billion euros in European funds blocked due to rule of law problems, a fine of 200 million euros plus one million euros per day for failing to comply with asylum and migration regulations, and the systematic veto of sanctions and aid packages to Ukraine.
Orbán used the unanimity rule as a pressure tool, going so far as to condition multi-year budgets and key foreign policy decisions to try to force the release of those funds. The challenge for Péter Magyar will now be to dismantle this model of “illiberal democracy” and advance real reforms if he wants Brussels to lift the sanctions and unlock the withheld money.
The economy, gas and “the refrigerator”
Beyond geopolitics, Colás emphasized the daily wear and tear that the Hungarian population has suffered. He explained that Orbán had invested for years in a “currency” based on the cultural war and the foreign enemy—Brussels, Ukraine, the LGTBI community—but that this symbolic currency has been devalued at the rate that prices have risen and public services have worsened.
The journalist used a very graphic metaphor: “Television can scream very loudly, but there is a moment when the refrigerator speaks even louder.” In his conversations in Budapest, he said, citizens responded about hospitals and bills when asked about the elections, making it clear that the economy had weighed more than any identity story.
In this context, Russian gas remains a central weapon. Colás recalled that Russia will pressure Magyar in this way, because the new leader cannot appear to the Hungarians as the man who raises the bill as soon as he comes to power. This dependence limits its margin, no matter how much it wants to get closer to the European Union and NATO.
An EU with less blockade, but without guaranteed unanimity
Orbán’s departure from the center of power opens an opportunity for European foreign policy, but it does not solve all the problems. De Regoyos pointed out that we will now have to observe the role of other leaders such as the Slovakian Robert Fico or the Czech Andrej Babis, who have never had the weight of Orbán, but could try to occupy part of that space.
In Brussels, the defeat of the Hungarian leader has revived the debate about ending unanimity in foreign policy to prevent a single country from blocking the other 26. Ursula von der Leyen defends this change, but the correspondent recalled that the Lisbon Treaty itself requires unanimity to reform this rule, and that a similar attempt already failed in 2018 despite the support of large countries such as Spain, Germany or Italy.
Casual closing: Hungarian “survivalist”
The conversation in La Brújula ended on a lighter tone, with Latorre joking about the “extraordinary Magyar” of Xavi Colás and the journalist himself acknowledging, laughing, that the composition of the audience helped him disguise pronunciation defects. Jacobo de Regoyos also joined the game about the accent, before dismissing an analysis that mixed geopolitics, economics and Hungarian internal politics with the didactic seal of the program.
