Zbigniew Ziobro, the former Polish justice minister facing 26 criminal charges, had earlier been granted a temporary refugee passport by Viktor Orbán’s government. But when Péter Magyar was formally sworn in as prime minister on Saturday, he fled Hungary immediately.
Ziobro and the coincidence that cannot be accidental
Zbigniew Ziobro left Hungary on the exact day Magyar Péter took over as prime minister with the formation and inauguration of the new Parliament, which we reported on, here.
The former Polish justice minister fled to the United States – with a temporary Hungarian refugee passport in his pocket, as his Polish passport had already been invalidated earlier. He had been living in Budapest since January 2026, sheltered by the Orbán government under an official refugee status granted by government decree, wrote 444.
Magyar Péter had previously publicly announced he would not protect the Polish politicians staying in Budapest. This gave the final push to Zbigniew Ziobro and his associate Marcin Romanowski to look for a way out.
Trump personally intervened for the visa
According to Polish press reports following the Zbigniew Ziobro case, obtaining the American visa did not happen on its own – and it almost did not happen at all.
Just three weeks ago the American ambassador in Warsaw publicly promised: the United States would not take in the former Polish minister staying in Hungary. Yet Ziobro still received the visa – and according to the Gazeta Wyborcza, only the president had the power to override that position.
The paper explains Trump’s help by saying that after Orbán Viktor’s election defeat on April 12, politically almost only the PiS remained for Trump among the European anti-EU parties. Every other ally had either fallen away or turned hostile. As the Polish daily puts it:
“Hungary dropped out, and Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni turned her back on him, or betrayed him.”
The AfD, the paper notes, is hostile toward the United States, and the Trump administration never had a particularly good relationship with Marine Le Pen’s French nationalist party either. With Orbán gone, the PiS is now Trump’s last meaningful European partner – and helping Ziobro was a way of keeping that relationship alive.
How did the Polish politicians end up in Budapest in the first place?
Marcin Romanowski, Zbigniew Ziobro’s former deputy, moved to Budapest in December 2024 after a European arrest warrant was issued against him. Ziobro followed, receiving Hungarian refugee status in January 2026 – the Hungarian government officially justified its decision by saying that democracy and the rule of law are in crisis in Poland.
In reality, Fidesz was doing a favour for an old ally, the PiS – a party it had grown distant from in recent years over Hungary’s Russia-friendly foreign policy. The Orbán government took in a politician charged with leading an organised criminal group and embezzling 150 million zloty – that is 13.8 billion forints – of public money. It was a political gesture dressed up as humanitarian protection.
Romanowski stayed – and is in serious trouble
While Zbigniew Ziobro left the country on Saturday, Marcin Romanowski remains in Budapest for the time being – and his options are far more limited.
His legal situation is more complicated than Ziobro’s was. Not only is there a valid European arrest warrant against him, but a previous American visa application of his was also rejected earlier – so the overseas exit appears closed for him for now. He cannot easily go west, and returning to Poland would mean immediate arrest.
Ziobro got out of the EU with a refugee passport, however according to the Polish paper he is still not entitled to refugee status in the United States. What exactly awaits him in Washington, and on what legal basis he will be allowed to stay, remains an open question. For Romanowski, even that uncertain option is currently unavailable.
What does this mean for Magyar Péter’s first days?
For the new prime minister, Zbigniew Ziobro’s departure from Hungary on Saturday is both a symbolic and a practical start to his tenure. It demonstrates, without Magyar having to do anything at all, that the political logic of the Orbán era has already begun to unravel on its own.
Magyar had previously made it clearly clear that he would not continue the Fidesz era’s “asylum policy” – and it seems Ziobro took this seriously. The continued, tacit protection of the accused Polish politician would have been incompatible with the new governing direction.
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