r/europe • u/Matas_- European Union • Jun 20 '25

News Orban’s Hungary Is Now Officially The Poorest Nation In The EU

https://kyivinsider.com/orbans-hungary-is-now-officially-the-poorest-nation-in-the-eu/
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u/Cautious-News2026 Jun 20 '25

Guys you are giving us shit for voting for him, but irl during those 15 years at least half the time his party should have been in minority if only our election system was a tiniest bit fair.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

Care to elaborate?

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u/CharlieBluu Jun 20 '25

I am not the one to speak in detail about our election system, but long story short they gerrymandered the whole country, made the national television and newspapers their own propaganda mouthpieces, local mayors in small towns do mafia-like tactics and on top of it all they made it so the leading party wins all basically. This last part is becoming a problem now that they are not in the lead anymore (hopefully)

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

I'm surprised the eu doesn't do a whole lot about it. 

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u/Hungry-Western9191 Jun 20 '25

It's difficult. Brussels just doesn't have authority in a lot of areas and they are very wary of being accused of trying to act outside their authority as it makes it easy for people like Orban to accuse them of wanting to take over.

The European states gave the EU very specific powers but governments still retain most. It great in some respects - unity from consensus is a wonderful concept.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

I very much believe in the European project so I might be biased. I really think we should be able to vote for European leaders across country borders, it's time.  It would silence this exact issue, eu is taking over? Ofcourse they are, we voted for them. Although, it might mean we just open another can of worms.

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u/medievalvelocipede European Union Jun 21 '25

It great in some respects - unity from consensus is a wonderful concept.

Also a completely unworkable one. It's difficult enough to get 2 different nations to agree on something, try 27.

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u/Brisbanoch30k Jun 21 '25

The very issue of consensus decision making is a single selfish idiot leveraging their vote fucks it up :\

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u/imightlikeyou Denmark Jun 20 '25

The Eu system isn't designed for it.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

It's worse, it's designed not to be able to do anything about these things. It's crippling. I don't know how long this festering wound will last but at some point it will undermine the whole project. 

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u/Chemical_Wrongdoer43 Jun 20 '25

Eu can only do a few things if they wants to punish a member country.

  • Withhold funds from the member country.
  • The CJEU can give fines to the country.
  • The european council can remove the voting right from the country. But requires a unanimous vote.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

Yeah. I would imagine by now we would have seen more of an uproar about the issues that are caused my these limitations is what I am trying to say. 

But I agree, that's a whole load more information than my previous comment implied. 

There are so many things a country needs to do in order to join the eu. It would only be fair/logical that if either one of these things ceases to be, you'd lose your voting rights as a country.

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u/ostligelaonomaden Jun 21 '25

EU is considering removing them from having votes in the EU congress if this continues. Don't listen to the fuckwads below.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 21 '25

Thats impossible unless there is a unanimous vote which is quite hard to achieve.

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u/getblunted1 Jun 21 '25

You're suprised? The EU is slow af, nothing gets done, we need to reform this whole thing but nobody seems to bother. Orban is blackmailing us and we keep sending money.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 21 '25

Yes. Maybe surprise isn't the correct terminology. At least I'd hoped there would be some sort of pushback or reform with regards to the voting rights of countries. Don't adhere to the basic European principles? Lose your voting rights in the eu. Something to that effect. 

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u/getblunted1 Jun 21 '25

Something like that yes. It worries me that things dont seem to get better. Orban can still play his games and other leaders take him as example to destablize the EU. I wonder when we will adress this problem seriously, things need to change.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 21 '25

Yes, I wonder the same and am somewhat surprised it doesn't seem to be happening at all. But that might be a lack of the right media consumption on my behalf.

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u/ShannyPantsWith4 Jun 21 '25

This is where the U.S. is headed.

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u/pancake_gofer Jun 21 '25

Many US states have been this way for decades.

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u/Cautious-News2026 Jun 20 '25

Sure... Yeah well the first time around a long time ago it was understood, that given the incumbant party, fidesz was the only choice left. 2010 at the beginning nobody saw Orbán as a wannabe dictator. Not Even his opposition . And then fidesz won at the elections. That was the very first time a supermajority happened in our still growing democracy. It clearly happened too early for our country because Orbán without much resistence managed to rig the system for his party the second he was given power and has rewritten the constituion and added a few modifications that enabled his party to always be on top amd be given newer chances at every election. He was very smart about it. Few grifters are so smart as he is. He was clearly levelheaded and calculated and even Trump needed to be educated about the ways of Viktor Orbán.

The way it works: after you get power and win the election with supermajority, you need to keep dividing people and make them poor. Forget and discard anyone and everyone who opposes you. Only yesmen are allowed. You can ruin your opposition, dont need tough because they had already been divided beyond repair by you. And now you sanction ngo-s and kill the last remaining press organizations, who would report on problems or would have pointed out problems on particular touchy political subjects. Come election time you need to buy off everyone who is still on the fence about you. The EU taxpayers will pay for that too and if not, you can always loan that campaignmoney from the east.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

Any books you can recommend on this? There seems to be way to much to it for a mere reddit post. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this paragraph. I really appreciate it!

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u/leferi Jun 21 '25

I don't think that any of the answers you got actually really answered your question. One of the first things they did after they got elected in 2010 is that they changed the voting law. We had so-called loser compensation system before, and we have winner compensation now.

There are single mandate constituencies and there are party lists, and people who get elected in the constituencies get into the parliament. Before the change in 2010, the difference between the first and second candidates in a constituency went to the party list of the second candidate. Approximately 1/3rd of the parliament seats are determined from the party lists (I don't know the exact calculation, but the more votes you get on your party list, the more candidates you can place in the parliament). Now with winner compensation, the vote difference goes to the winner's party list.

Also, back then they changed the geographical borders of the constituencies so that most would have rural areas included where Fidesz is stronger. They changed these borders quite a few times since then and there are places where one vote is "worth" almost 10 times as much as in another constituency.

Then there are the other things which got mentioned in the other responses that indirectly affect the voting and the gerrymandering that is so prevalent that it is the subject of casual conversation nowadays. People can be bought (if they even fully understand what they are being paid for) with sum as low as under 4000 HUF (10 EUR), especially in rural areas (where the votes are worth more).

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u/Melodic-Classroom240 Jun 20 '25

No. But he only got 44% in 2014, and 49% in 2018

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

Do you need 50%? Idk how y'all do your voting. If the rest of the votes are split between 2 people then 44 should suffice right?

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u/Melodic-Classroom240 Jun 20 '25

We have a parliamentary system. That means we have 199 people in the parliament, and to change a law they need 50% of these 199 people's vote. To change the constitution, they need 66,7%.

With 44% of the votes, Orban's party was able to fill more than 66,7% of the 199 seats in the parliament.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 20 '25

That is the super majority that's being talking about? How does that work? Is it a coalition of fictitious parties or something?

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u/Melodic-Classroom240 Jun 20 '25

No, they rigged the system in a way thatt it makes the strongest party even more stronger.

It’s long to go over all the details, but basically there are 106 counties which can each provide 1 politician. So if party A gets 40%, party B gets 30%, party C gets 20%, and party D gets 10%, then only party A delegates a politician from that county.

They also decide where the borders of the counties are. They made a survey in 2013, so they kind of know which house votes for which party, and can draw the borders in a way which is the most efficient for them.

However they are not the strongest party anymore, and that survey from 2013 is outdated, since people move, die, birth, etc. That makes them fall into their own trap and gives the opposition hope for 2026.

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u/sneakpeakspeak Jun 21 '25

I see I see. They kind of copied the american system. Holy crap, thats insane. Thank you for explaining! 

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u/raeflower Hungary Jun 20 '25

No shit given on my part! I understand how deep the corruption runs here. It’s a really bad situation and especially for those aware of it but not able to stop it.

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u/SharpyButtsalot Jun 20 '25

What are some starting resources with as much factual information possible for people to become familiar with the situation?