Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest / Image source: Molnár Tamás Photograph y via Pexels
By Susanne Fengler
The Tisza Party’s election victory brings an end to 16 years of Fidesz rule. Yet the restructuring of the media system under Viktor Orbán continues to have an impact—and presents the new government with a complex reform task.
The change of power in Hungary is historic: after more than a decade and a half, Viktor Orbán has lost the government. With Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party, a political force is taking the reins that has announced it will restore press freedom and fundamentally reform state media.
But already on election night, Hungarian media law expert and long-time partner of the European Journalism Observatory, Prof. Dr. Gábor Polyák of Budapest’s ELTE University, offered an important assessment in an interview with the FAZ: “propaganda is not all-powerful.” This statement describes the political turning point, but also its limits, for as surprising as the election result is, it does not automatically signify a structural shift in the media system.
A media system in political transition
For years, Hungary has been regarded as one of the most striking examples of how media freedom can be systematically restricted within the European Union. The Hungary chapter in the Global Handbook of Media Accountability already describes the fundamental shift since 2010 as a combination of growing ownership concentration, political influence, and regulatory distortion.
Central to this was the creation of the government-aligned media holding company KESMA, which consolidated around 476 media outlets in 2018. This concentration removed large parts of the media market from competition and made it politically controllable. At the same time, media oversight—particularly the Media Council—became politically dominated and made decisions that systematically favored pro-government actors.
The result was not a classic censorship system, but a hybrid model: a formally pluralistic market with structurally unequal conditions.
Repression without a ban
A recent analysis by Mérték Media Monitor shows how this system continues to function to this day. The report covering the years 2010–2025 describes a “playbook” strategy for weakening independent media, based on legal, economic, and administrative instruments.
These include, for example, the targeted use of state advertising, the exclusion of critically reporting media from information, defamatory campaigns, or regulatory pressure. Crucially, independent media were rarely banned outright—rather, they were structurally disadvantaged and economically hollowed out.
This form of “soft censorship” had far-reaching consequences: According to Mérték, pro-government actors at times controlled the majority of the media market, while independent newsrooms found themselves in a permanent crisis of survival.
European regulation as a Hope—with limits
The question of how these structures can be dismantled is closely linked to European media law. In an analysis of the Ringier-Indamedia deal, Polyák describes the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) as a potential turning point.
The EMFA obliges member states to assess media mergers in the future with regard to pluralism and editorial independence. Unlike the politically legitimised KESMA concentration, such circumvention would be much more difficult today.
At the same time, however, the analysis also highlights the limits of European regulation: as long as national authorities fail to develop transparent criteria and procedures, the impact of the EMFA will remain limited. Media policy therefore continues to depend heavily on national institutions.
More than a matter of laws
An often-overlooked aspect is the weakness of professional self-regulation. The Handbook describes how professional journalism organisations, unions, and accountability mechanisms in Hungary have remained weak or been marginalized for years.
In a politically polarised media system, this meant that key mechanisms capable of stabilising journalistic quality and independence were missing. Civil society actors such as Mérték partially assumed this role—but could not compensate for structural deficits.
A political window—but no automatic change
The Tisza Party’s election victory undoubtedly opens up new possibilities. Yet it does not eliminate the structural problems of a media system that has been politically and economically restructured over the years.
The central challenge now lies not only in rolling back political control but also in reestablishing institutional foundations: independent media oversight, transparent market rules, fair competitive conditions, and functioning forms of journalistic self-organization.
The election shows that even a heavily controlled media system cannot completely dominate societal developments. At the same time, it makes clear just how profound the changes of recent years have been.
Or, to paraphrase Gábor Polyák: propaganda is not all-powerful. But dismantling it is a long-term process—even after a change in power.
Opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views, policies or positions of the EJO or the organisations with which they are affiliated.
This article was first published on: https://de.ejo-online.eu/ The original article is available here: https://de.ejo-online.eu/pressefreiheit/ungarn-nach-orban-warum-ein-regierungswechsel-die-medien-nicht-automatisch-befreit
