The writer is editorial director and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations
With Viktor Orbán’s downfall, a linchpin of the relationship between Maga and the European right has fallen. His authoritarian model was an inspiration for the second Trump term and Budapest had become a hub for the transatlantic rightwing ecosystem. Hungarians knew exactly what they were voting out when they backed the conservative Péter Magyar’s opposition Tisza party: even though their main concerns were living standards and public services, fully 85 per cent of its voters also wanted a different relationship with the US.
Hungary’s election result confirmed a wider trend: the convergence of the European right and the American right following Trump’s 2024 election victory has recently become a divergence. Following Trump’s win, Europe’s conventional Atlanticist conservatives (optimistic about their ability to constrain and even co-opt a deal-hungry president) and its radical right (which saw his win as a legitimising, momentum-boosting source of potential future support) sought to embrace him. Both sentiments are now fading.