Hungary’s new prime minister meets Poland’s leadership

On his first official visit abroad, Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar is due to meet Poland’s leadership in Warsaw on Wednesday.

A meeting with the pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk is scheduled for Wednesday morning and later, Magyar will meet the right-wing conservative President Karol Nawrocki.

In the afternoon, he plans to join Tusk in the latter’s home town of Gdańsk to speak with Solidarity founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Wałęsa.

The visit is symbolic. Magyar’s centre-right Tisza Party secured a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliamentary elections in April, ousting right-wing populist Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power.

Throughout his time in power, Orbán had dismantled the rule of law and eroded democracy in Hungary. Magyar has pledged to bring systemic change.

Many see a parallel here with Poland’s Tusk. In the 2023 parliamentary elections, Tusk succeeded in defeating the right-wing conservative PiS – which had governed Poland for eight years – with a pro-European opposition alliance.