This publication is a comprehensive overview of developments, events and trends in Hungary in 2017, and an outlook on what topics we expect to dominate Hungarian politics in 2018, the year of parliamentary elections. It focuses on five broad areas. In the first section we review the year from the perspective of the Hungarian government, with a special emphasis on the issues and policies behind the stable lead of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. In the second section we look at the opposition parties, their state and prospects. The third section focuses on foreign affairs, in particular the Orbán government's relations with key European partners, and Hungary’s place in the Russo-American matrix. In the fourth section, we take a detailed look at how Fidesz's policies have shaped the economy. Finally, some key developments of the Hungarian society – changes in the media landscape, new laws targeting the CEU and NGOs – are discussed. All of the sections conclude with a brief analysis of the issues which may come to the fore in 2018.
Editor: András Bíró-Nagy
Main author: Gábor Győri
Contributing authors: András Bíró-Nagy, Miklós Sebők
Policy Solutions is a progressive political research institute based in Budapest. It was founded in 2008 and it is committed to the values of liberal democracy, solidarity, equal opportunity, sustainability and European integration. The focus of Policy Solutions’ work is on understanding political processes in Hungary and the European Union. Among the pre-eminent areas of our research are the investigation of how the quality of democracy evolves, the analysis of factors driving euroscepticism, populism and the far-right, and election research.
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