Péter Magyar would debate Orbán in Strasbourg, but Hungarian PM can easily get out of it

"There was an election where they received a pretty significant vote of confidence. I wish them good luck." – Viktor Orbán said of Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party ahead of Saturday's meeting in Kötcse. In an unusual move, the Hungarian Prime Minister made a stop at the entrance to the venue and answered journalists' questions for almost a quarter of an hour.

According to the latest Závecz Research survey, the Tisza Party is now only 6 percent behind Fidesz among the total adult population. However, Orbán, who has not given an interview to the independent media for more than 14 years and who admittedly regards a normal interview as a "bullfight", claimed that the reason why he stopped to speak with the press was not because of the pressure that Péter Magyar represents, but because he "simply missed" the journalists.

Inside though, in a closed circle, according to ATV, Orbán spoke about the change in domestic political space, and he did so without once mentioning the name of the president of the Tisza Party, which won nearly 30% of the vote in June's EP elections. According to the Prime Minister, the reason why Fidesz has had it easier until now is that they could say that "there is the past and there's us, and the past should not be allowed to return".

But when it comes to 2026, the question will be about the kind of future the two parties are promising.

Although Orbán believes that the era of experts in politics has ended, he took the words of conservative philosopher András Lánczi to heart, and said that the debates on policy, health and education must be won.

"You can count on us! We’ll be here and we are ready to engage in a professional debate with you or your ministers," Péter Magyar responded in his live video on Sunday night.

In Strasbourg they can do what’s not possible in Budapest

Will the Prime Minister, who has avoided all domestic policy debates for more than 18 years, really clash with the leader of the strongest opposition party? Given that the Tisza Party is currently not represented in the Hungarian Parliament, the only place where this could happen is the European Parliament. Next Wednesday, on 18 September, Viktor Orbán will address the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg in his capacity as the leader of the country currently holding the presidency of the EU, and as an MEP, Péter Magyar will be allowed to comment.

When asked about the debate in Strasbourg over the weekend, Orbán promised to fulfill the obligations of the rotating presidency.

“I will be available for all Members of the European Parliament.”

"See you in Strasbourg, Prime Minister!" Péter Magyar immediately responded, adding that he hoped that Orbán did not just have "as big a face as János Lázár when he spoke in Kötcse, but that he would indeed answer MEPs' questions in Strasbourg". The Tisza Party leader said he would ask the Prime Minister about issues that affect the lives of the Hungarian people: health, education, transport, the economy and the public media service.

In his short speech, he will also ask the Hungarian Prime Minister to inform the European Parliament about how it is possible that since February, the Hungarian public media, which operates from an annual budget of 140 billion forints, has not invited the leader of the Tisza Party to appear in a live program.

However, as DK MEP Csaba Molnár pointed out a few days ago, no one should expect a major debate or a heated question-and-answer exchange. The DK vice-president gave a detailed summary of what next Wednesday's session will look like:

• As the prime minister of the country holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, Orbán will deliver the opening speech and will outline the priorities of the presidency.
• Next up will be a speaker from the European Commission, which is typically the Commission President herself, Ursula von der Leyen.
• This will be followed by reactions from the leaders of the parliamentary groups in a series of 3-5 minute speeches.
• Other MEPs will have the opportunity to speak after the group leaders, within certain limits. The European People's Party is expected to give Péter Magyar the opportunity to react to Orbán's speech, but the President of the Tisza Party will definitely not have more than 1-2 minutes at his disposal.
• Once all the speeches have finished, Orbán will come back and respond to what has been said. The Hungarian Prime Minister is under no obligation to respond to each individual speech. According to Csaba Molnár, in this round, it is customary to respond to the speeches of the President of the European Commission and the leaders of the main political groups.

Given all this, it is highly unlikely that Orbán will address Péter Magyar's remarks, as the Hungarian prime Minister has no intention to elevate his political opponent and address domestic issues in the European Parliament, where others are expected to ask him about Russian-Hungarian relations and his diplomatic tour, which he calls a peace mission.

It's been a long-standing strategy of the Hungarian prime minister to ignore his current political opponent in public and to not allow even the slightest opportunity for a debate between them. In the Hungarian Parliament, for example, he almost never responds to Ferenc Gyurcsány's speeches, nor did he engage in debate or any other joint appearance with Péter Márki-Zay, the six-party opposition's candidate for prime minister, during the 2022 parliamentary election campaign.

It's not in Orbán's interest to speak publicly about matters on which his government has serious shortcomings. Why would he speak in the European Parliament about the state of Hungarian education and health care when he has spent the last few years building up the image of an influential global political strategist?

Nevertheless, Péter Magyar is also going to do what an opposition leader who wants to be Orbán's challenger in the 2026 parliamentary elections should do. The message that the chairman of the Tisza Party needs to send to the Hungarian electorate with his short, 1-2 minute speech is that he is on an equal footing with the prime minister and is able to push Orbán up against the wall with hard questions.

Even if the prime minister should ignore Magyar there, the Tisza Party chairman can still demonstrate to his followers by means of a cleverly edited video that he clashed with the prime minister in Strasbourg and was able to prevail on policy issues. This is an old, well-established strategy for the opposition: Mi Hazánk president László Toroczkai regularly posts videos of (the Hungarian parliament's) "The hour of questions" on his YouTube channel under the title Toroczkai-Orbán debate, where he presents himself as a leader of equal standing with Orbán.

Péter Magyar should take advantage of this opportunity, if only because it is unlikely that he will have many more opportunities to engage Orbán face to face before 2026.

When the chairman of the Tisza Party launched a vote this summer on whether he should take up his EP mandate, one of his arguments in favour of working in the European Parliament was that as an MEP he would be able to speak in the Hungarian Parliament and would thus be able to directly question those "who otherwise try to avoid answering questions in any way possible".

But an Orbán-Magyar clash in the Hungarian parliament is even less likely than in Strasbourg. Even a debate between Magyar and one of the Orbán government's ministers would only occur in the rarest of cases. In the Hungarian parliament, MEPs can only participate in debates on EU bills. These debates usually take place in an almost empty chamber, with only the main speakers of the political parties and the parliamentary state secretary of the ministry proposing the bill being present.

In recent years, Viktor Orbán has only appeared in Parliament to vote, and for every fourth “Hour of questions”, as the rules of the House oblige him to answer MPs' questions presented there. MEPs are not allowed to put questions to him there, nor are they allowed to interpellate or speak ahead of the agenda. Thus, on the first day of the autumn session of Parliament, which starts on 30 October, Orbán will be able to debate with MPs who currently do not pose any threat to Fidesz.

Since the Tisza Party does not have a group in parliament, during the debates on EU bills Magyar can speak for only a few minutes, a much narrower timeframe than the others. All he can gain from this is to project the image of a solid politician in pictures and videos showing him speaking from the parliamentary podium.

Traitorous, self-promoting politicians in slim-fit suits

The last time Viktor Orbán agreed to a debate was in 2006, when, as leader of the opposition, he debated Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. He has carefully avoided such situations since then, and has tried to avoid elevating his challengers to his level. Last weekend in Kötcse, when asked whether Péter Magyar or Ferenc Gyurcsány was the better political opponent, he said it would be nice if he could choose his opponent, but it was up to the voters to decide. The Tisza Party president has said that voters made a clear decision on 9 June: he will be the prime minister's challenger in 2026.

It is therefore no coincidence that in recent months Orbán, continuing his previous practice, has rarely spoken directly about Magyar, and has never pronounced his name in public. The first time he referred to the former justice minister's ex-husband was in his speech on 15 March, when, quoting Hungarian writer Magda Szabó, he said:

“As for the traitor, he is forgotten, he is no more, he is dead, we never knew him.”

At the end of May, when the journalist from the French newspaper Le Point asked him whether he was worried about Péter Magyar, the new opponent emerging from the circles of Fidesz, Orbán said that he had been in politics for more than 30 years and had seen many people come and go. “So much so that I can't even remember the names of the opponents I've had to face. We'll wait and we'll let the Hungarian people vote and decide the future.”

On election night, Orbán announced with delight that Fidesz had defeated both the old and the new opposition. "No matter what they call the current opposition, we will always defeat them, again and again." The following day, however, he admitted to the public media that Péter Magyar had made life difficult for them, as they had to fight two different oppositions.

"We never saw him as someone who had pulled out of Fidesz. It's just his fable that he belonged to the inner circles, because the inner circles of Fidesz have no such knowledge. He received the courtesy due to the husband of the justice minister, but quite simply, he was never on our radar," Orbán said about Magyar when speaking to Index after the election. And in Tusványos, this is how he described his new opponent, who he says is up against the "tough young people of nationalist sentiment who have both feet on the ground" as one of

“the liberal, slim-fit gear-wearing, latte-avocado consuming, ”free from everything", self-indulging politicians".

"Thank you for your comment about slim fit clothing, Prime Minister! We believe that athletic people who wear normal clothes, can also be patriots. But those who unscrupulously steal Hungarian taxpayers' money and give it to their families and friends – not so much. Regardless of their build," was Péter Magyar's response at the time. Orbán's response arrived just recently: he revealed to the tabloid Blikk that in addition to the heated verbal confrontations, he started training again, and is building up strength for the next confrontations by doing kettlebell workouts.