NYT on Orbán: “Bent the judiciary and the news media to his will”
The New York Times says the problems facing the Hungarian economy are inflation and the rapidly depreciating forint. Andrew Higgins says the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has become an “outsize liberal bugbear”.
New York Times article about Orbán
“He has won four consecutive elections, bent the judiciary and the news media to his will, rewritten the Constitution and turned a small East European backwater into an unlikely beacon for “America First” Republican” is the opening line of an article about Hungary and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the New York Times. The article was first noticed by Mandiner.
“But Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary and his governing party, Fidesz, now confront forces resistant to his implacable political will: the laws of economics as the government struggles with a big budget deficit and ordinary Hungarians with soaring inflation” continues the writer of the article.
The biggest problems are inflation and an ever weakening national currency
The New York Times says the biggest problems facing the Hungarian economy are inflation and the rapidly depreciating forint. In Budapest, the regular street protests are not a threat to the government, as elections are not due until 2026.
“The Hungarian leader is being confronted with soaring inflation and a depreciating currency linked to unsustainable spending by his government,” the article reads the rather strong words. Andrew Higgings reminds us in his summary that the Prime Minister “bent the judiciary and the news media to his will, rewritten the Constitution and turned a small East European backwater into an unlikely beacon for “America First” Republicans and an outsize liberal bugbear.”
But now, he is facing a force independent of his political will: the laws of economics, as those in power struggle with huge budget deficits and the people struggle with soaring prices, the article says.
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Now he has to beg for money
They add that street protests do not threaten the government as the next election will be in 2026. However, the EU’s most vociferous critic and fierce defender of national sovereignty is in the uncomfortable position of having to go to the “Eurocrats” with his hat off to beg. The very people he has been denigrating for years, yet now he is forced to ask them for tens of millions of dollars after Brussels stopped payment because of breaches of the law.
Among other things, the article also refers to Viktor Orbán’s speech in Tusnádfürdő, which, according to them, probably did not increase Hungary’s chances of getting the much-needed money from the European Union, Index writes. They end the article by saying that despite all this, Hungary will still receive nearly EUR 15 billion (HUF 6,065 billion) in epidemiological aid from the EU, and additional funds in the coming months.
Source: Index, Mandiner, The New York Times