Hungary’s political “cucumber season”, the usual summer lull when parliament empties out and news goes quiet, never arrived in 2026. August 16th marked the 100th day of Péter Magyar’s government, counting from the May 9th inauguration that followed Tisza’s landslide victory on April 12th. This article presents a checklist of what was promised and what is being implemented so far. Tisza’s nearly 250-page program is remarkably specific, down to a dedicated “first measures” list of pledges the party promised would be visible immediately after taking office, a convenient starting point for this article.
TISZA’s promises are ordered around four fundamental principles: (1) a peaceful and orderly Hungary (security, stability, and predictability), (2) a free and happy Hungary (a fear-free life within a democratic framework), (3) a clean and progressive Hungary (rule of law, accountability, and zero tolerance for corruption), and (4) a prosperous and successful Hungary (merit-based growth and opportunity for everyone). Here, the focus will be on policies related to the third principle, which entails “cleaning up” the domestic political system through restoring checks and balances and holding corrupt officials accountable, as well as the first, which concerns restoring security, stability, and predictability in Hungary’s international relations.
When it comes to domestic matters, the first major test of the new Tisza government’s promise to restore checks and balances was the question of the president. President Tamás Sulyok and Constitutional Court president Péter Polt, a long-standing former chief prosecutor, had each held senior positions within Fidesz-era institutions for over a decade, making them deeply embedded pillars of the outgoing system rather than neutral officeholders. Citing their failure to fulfil their roles as “guardians of the Hungarian constitution,” and after they refused to resign despite repeated calls from the PM, both became the first targets of what Magyar called Operation “Purifying Fire.” Removing them required a constitutional amendment.
Another pressing pledge was the establishment of a National Asset Recovery and Protection Agency, part of a broader political and legal effort to rid the Hungarian state of entrenched corruption and what Magyar described as the “mafia’s” grip on public institutions. The two proposals, the constitutional amendment and the agency’s establishment, were submitted to parliament together. The 17th constitutional amendment was voted through on July 13th, and the asset recovery agency was approved on July 28th. In a striking twist, Sulyok himself signed the amendment that ended his own mandate, declaring it the final nail in the coffin of Hungarian constitutional democracy. It therefore seems that he failed even in this last act to protect the rule of law as he himself understands it, and it remains unclear why he did not instead take the opportunity to resign. The same amendment also introduced a 70-year age limit for Constitutional Court justices, effectively ending Polt’s tenure as well, and capped National Assembly membership at 12 years, or three terms.
Beyond the personal irony of Sulyok’s signature, the amendment has drawn broader criticism. It sparked sharp backlash from Fidesz, now in opposition, which organised a protest against what it called an arbitrary exercise of power, a notable reversal for a party that spent over a decade facing its own rule of law criticisms. The amendment has also been criticised on more structural grounds, for bypassing formal proof, constitutional court proceedings, and any legal determination of personal responsibility. As one analysis put it, the episode exposes a deeper structural flaw: a president who depends on a parliamentary supermajority can only ever offer limited checks and balances, since that same majority can end their mandate through constitutional amendment. In such a system, independence becomes a formality the supermajority can revoke at will.
The process of appointing a new president has likewise come under fire from political analysts and civil society alike, who point to a lack of transparency, insufficient public consultation, and a lack of strategy in decision-making around the presidency. That criticism crystallised around one episode: on July 19th, sixteen figures from the worlds of science, culture, and sport wrote to National Assembly Speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer (who was serving as interim president), proposing chess player Judit Polgár as their nominee. Magyar responded with a supportive Facebook post, followed by an in-person meeting, and suggested he would be honoured if Polgár accepted. Shortly after, the chess player declined the offer in a Facebook post of her own, a rebuff that reflected poorly on Magyar and underscored criticism of the process as hasty and poorly consulted. According to polling from late July, two-thirds of the public felt the promised public consultation never happened, and support for Tisza dipped slightly in the same period. In the end, parliament elected Tisza’s nominee on August 11th: András Baka, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Baka was a fitting symbolic choice: under the Orbán government, he had been forced out of that very position after publicly criticising measures that threatened judicial independence.
If the presidency saga showed how far Magyar was willing to bend the constitution to remove Fidesz-era holdovers, the international side of the ledger shows the other half of what “Purifying Fire” was meant to signal – not just cleaning house but proving Hungary could once again be dealt with in Brussels and beyond.
The first major test of Magyar’s promise to restore Hungary’s standing with the EU came almost immediately. On May 29th, three weeks into office, Magyar would fly to Brussels to conclude an agreement with Commission President von der Leyen to unblock €16.4 billion in EU funds frozen under Orbán: €10 billion from the post-pandemic Recovery and Resilience Facility, €4.2 billion in cohesion funds tied to rule-of-law conditions, and a further €2.2 billion linked to academic freedom reforms. Von der Leyen credited the new cabinet with pushing through “long-overdue reforms” within a matter of weeks. However, the funds themselves are not yet in Hungarian accounts. Milestones are due by the end of August, payment requests follow in September, and disbursement is not expected until the final quarter of the year, so for now this promise sits closer to unlocked than fully delivered.
The veto question moved on a similar timeline. In early June, Hungary dropped its seventeen-month block on Ukraine’s EU accession talks, clearing the first negotiating cluster for both Kyiv and Moldova. This action followed a bilateral deal with Ukraine on language and cultural rights for the roughly 100,000-strong Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, long Budapest’s stated condition. Magyar separately dropped Hungary’s hold on €6.6 billion in EU reimbursements to member states for military aid already sent to Ukraine. He has, however, continued to reject a simplified or accelerated accession track for Kyiv, a position he held even before taking office. As such, the act of lifting the veto in June reads less as a change of heart and more as removing Orbán’s blanket obstruction while preserving the conditional stance he’d campaigned on.
The Visegrád reset followed the same fast start. Magyar’s first trip abroad as PM was to Poland, where he praised Poland’s use of EU funds as a model Hungary had failed to follow for two decades. By June 23rd, all four V4 leaders met at the Grassalkovich Castle just outside of Budapest, at Magyar’s invitation, agreeing to coordinate positions ahead of European Council meetings and to cooperate on cross-border energy and transport infrastructure. Magyar called the group “stronger than ever.” Whether that holds is another matter. The agreement so far only commits the four countries to talking before EU meetings, not to voting the same way once there.
Energy infrastructure was one of the concrete areas the June summit had named, and it didn’t take long to get tested. In early August, record-low Danube water levels forced the Paks nuclear plant, which supplies nearly half of Hungary’s electricity, into its first full shutdown in 44 years. Magyar attributed part of the shortfall to delayed construction of the Paks II reactors under the previous government, a claim Fidesz’s parliamentary leader rejected in parliament, arguing worsening river forecasts had given the new administration weeks of warning it failed to act on.
Slovakia publicly confirmed it would continue supplying Hungary’s contracted share of Danube water regardless, a small but concrete instance of the cooperation that was promised by the June summit but has not yet been fully realized.
One hundred days in, Tisza’s scorecard is a genuine mix. On pillar three, the government moved fast, removing Sulyok and Polt and standing up the asset recovery agency, though critics say the methods used sidestepped the very checks and balances they claim to restore. On pillar one, Brussels ties have visibly thawed: funds unlocked (if not yet disbursed), the Ukraine veto lifted, the V4 reconvened. Whether these add up to lasting change or merely undoing Orbán’s obstruction remains open. If Hungary’s “cucumber season” stayed away this summer, it’s because Magyar’s government gave it no room to arrive.
Oliver Reschreiter is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of European Studies at Jagiellonian University. His research explores the geopolitics of renewable energy within EU energy policy, with a particular focus on Central Asia and the South Caucasus. He examines the intersection of renewable energy initiatives with energy security, political dynamics, and regional development, and how these factors are reshaping EU foreign relations and redefining traditional forms of energy diplomacy. He holds a Master’s degree in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies from the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki, where he specialized in Central Asian affairs. In addition to his academic work, he regularly writes and contributes to publications on energy policy in Central Asia and China.
Léna Zentai is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Fellow at Jagiellonian University within the EUFOG network. Her doctoral research focuses on the European Union’s enlargement policies, with particular attention to the rule of law and its perception and impact in Western Balkan candidate countries. She holds an MSc in Political Science (specialization in Democracy and Representation) and a BA in International Relations and Organizations from Leiden University. She has previously gained experience in EU enlargement policy through internships at the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU (COELA Working Party) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary (EU Enlargement and Pre-Accession Support Department).
