The end of Orbán?

It has been 16 years since Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party assumed power in Hungary – and it might have begun to feel like things could never change. But with a parliamentary election just around the corner, there’s now a glimmer – a hint! a twinkle! – of hope that the EU's most illiberal government could finally be on its way out. This week, we’re devoting the entire episode to the April 12 elections: what’s certain, what remains to be seen, and most importantly, what’s at stake. And to make sense of it all, we’re joined by two Budapest-based friends of the podcast: the novelist Krisztián Marton, and Viktória Serdült, reporter at HVG, one of the last surviving bastions of independent journalism in Hungary. “At last, a figure has emerged who could wrench power from Viktor Orbán in Hungary” – Viktória Serdült for The Guardian, 18 December 2024 Paul the Octopus on Wikipedia Krisztián Marton on Instagram Viktória Serdült on X This week’s Hungary-themed Inspiration Station recommendations are the song “Tizenhat” by Elefánt, the documentary The Trap , and the FT series The Orbán System . MISS OUR NORMAL PROGRAMMING? This week’s edition of our newsletter, Good Week Bad Week, has you covered.

You can listen to The end of Orbán? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The end of Orbán? is an episode from The Europeans by Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer.

This episode is 46:00 long.

This episode was published on Mar 26, 2026.

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