Autocratic Shield against EU Criticism

The Instrumentalisation of National Public Consultations

5 June 2020

Edit Zgut-Przybylska

Visegrad Insight Fellow

The Hungarian government is misusing national consultations to manipulate public opinion and consolidate its power. Undermining democracy with such semi-formalised informal tools will not disappear any time soon from within the European Union.

While Europe is easing lockdown-measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the Hungarian government has recently announced that it will revoke the controversial “special legal order”, that was introduced during the outbreak of the global pandemic crisis.

The so-called Enabling Act provided Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with unlimited power to govern by decree without a sunset provision.

The government has even launched an offensive against foreign experts and media outlets, accusing them of “misinterpreting the Hungarian situation” and demanding an apology in official letters.

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Edit Zgut-Przybylska

Visegrad Insight Fellow

Dr. Edit Zgut-Przybylska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (IFIS) in the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and a visiting fellow at CEU Democracy Institute. Her research interest covers informality and populism in the context of democratic backsliding and the constraining role of the European Union. She is also a visiting lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute of the US State Department. Synthetic versions of her work are available on POLITICO EUROPE, Foreign Policy and Visegrad Insight. Edit held a re:constitution fellowship 2022/2023, a Rethink.CEE fellowship at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a Visegrad Insight Fellowship. She previously worked at Political Capital Research Institute and prior to that, she was a journalist at various media outlets in Hungary.

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