Hungary turns on the lights of Europe

That the defeat of Viktor Orbán is good news for Hungary and for the EU admits no discussion. Hungarians will stop living in an “authoritarian democracy” and will have the opportunity to emerge from economic stagnation. The EU will get rid of one of the most conspicuous anti-Europeans who have sat the longest in the European Council and in the Council.

That Orbán's defeat is bad news for Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and the far-right also admits no debate. Trump sent his vice president to save soldier Orbán on a mission that has resulted in a resounding failure. Putin loses the one who vetoed -many times in the form of blackmail- the packages for Ukraine and as a bonus, he directly transmitted the confidential discussions of the European institutions to him.

Netanyahu, embroiled in his continuous series of massacres (Gaza, Lebanon), is left without those who actively supported him in the EU, although he still has the passivity of many member countries and the Commission itself in condemning his actions.

The far right (Orbán's party sits in the European Parliament in the Patriots group with the cream of that spectrum) receives the message that its rise is not unstoppable, which applies to the 2027 electoral calls of Le Pen/Bardella and also for Meloni, who has taken good care of it.

Now we must trust that all hopes placed in Peter Magyar (Peter Hungarian) are fulfilled. May he be a Europeanist from the conservative family to which he belongs and place his country among those who bet on more Europe, separating it from what remains of the Visegrád Group. May he distance Budapest from Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu, that triad that threatens the EU and the rest of the Planet. May he bring full democracy back to Hungary, starting by recovering the separation of powers and guaranteeing citizens' rights. May he boost growth for a stagnant economy.

We Europeans are satisfied that one of our countries with a richer history and culture contributes the most to the common heritage. But joy should not be confused with naivety. We have to touch to believe, if we want to avoid the frustration of high expectations.

Magyar, let's not forget, arrives with no more opposition than FIDESZ, because there are no center-left parties in the parliament housed in a wonderful seat next to the Danube But the electorate that has made him prime minister includes people of all democratic and pro-European tendencies, to whom he must respond with his decisions.

The EU, therefore, must accompany it from the first moment with its support and respectfully encourage it to be a European leader, with its strengths and weaknesses, like everyone, but guided by the values and objectives of the Union to which Hungary belongs since 2004.

It was in that year when I voted yes in the European Parliament for the accession of the Magyar country, misused by Orbán for sixteen years. Today there are more lights in the common European house. And Magyar has to keep them lit like that with its decisions.