Hungary’s Perpetual State of Danger
Fidesz has once again extended the “state of danger.” Creating a perpetual sense of fear and danger could help Orbán rally supporters ahead of the 2026 election.
Last Friday, the Hungarian government extended the “state of danger” (veszélyhelyzet) for another six months until May 2025. Initially declared in March 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fidesz government soon began continuously prolonging it every six months, with only a few interruptions in between. Once the pandemic was declared a thing of the past, the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of and war in Ukraine created another pretext for the Hungarian government to continue ruling in a “state of danger” and perpetually extending it.
The ongoing “state of danger” is not the only long-term government-declared crisis in Hungary over the past decade: Already in the aftermath of the so-called European “refugee crisis”, Fidesz implemented a “state of crisis due to mass migration” that was kept in place from 2016 and extended regularly until mid-2024. However, the simultaneous adaptation of the legal grounds for the use of emergency powers since the pandemic also reveals a calculated way the Orbán government once again tailored the laws to further entrench their rule.
In December 2020, half a year after the first “state of danger” relating to the pandemic was implemented, the government moved ahead to amend the chapter of the Fundamental Law, the Hungarian constitution, that applied to the so-called “state of danger” already in place at that time. Essentially, it implemented the “reform of the constitutional regulation of the special legal order” and reduced the number of “exceptional states” from six to three, namely: State of war (hadiállapot), state of emergency (szükségállapot) and state of danger (veszélyhelyzet). Together, they should build a “more effective system” that is better capable of adapting to changing circumstances while ensuring “transparency and gradualness”.
However, ironically, as an in-depth analysis by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights NGO, states, this envisaged “transparency and gradualness” is contradicted by realities on the ground; the amendment renders the government the sole legislator in case one of these “special legal order regimes” is in place. In short, the ninth amendment, since its implementation in November 2022, further “cemented the very problematic practices developed during the pandemic in relation to the state of danger”, as the Hungarian Helsinki Committee reports. It provides that government with a carte blanche, allowing it to rule by decree and thus override any Act of Parliament, acting as sole legislator whenever the “state of danger” is announced.
While states of emergency can generally serve as a useful tool for crisis management, the extended powers the Hungarian government granted itself during this time were neither used to effectively manage the crisis nor take swift action on issues directly related to the crisis. In fact, during the last few years, the Orbán government issued numerous decrees that had very little to do with the actual crises triggering the state(s) of danger, thus raising valid concerns that this is just the most recent power grab of the Orbán government to help it further concentrate its authority by, for example, stripping municipalities of decision-making powers and financial resources. As such, the government’s continuous extension of the state of danger can hardly be considered anything else than a means to an end, giving Fidesz even more extended powers, by enabling the government to sidestep the parliamentary process entirely, suspend laws, and implement others by decree.
While Fidesz’s two-thirds majority in parliament technically already allows it to rule by itself and adopt laws and constitutional changes at will, the state of danger further enabled Fidesz to justify its meddling as a consequence of and necessity to deal with the “danger” the country was facing, while minimising any remaining oversight and evading scrutiny. As such, it also enabled the further curtailing of, for example, press freedom and limiting the right to protests during the pandemic, under the guise of managing the state of danger.
Overall, the legislative practices around the so-called state of danger and the ninth amendment of the fundamental law are also another striking example of Fidesz’s often-practised so-called autocratic legalism. As Professor Kim Lane Scheppele describes it, autocratic legalism denotes the incremental process of undermining democracy and dismantling liberal constitutions through legal means. In short, it is the instrumentalisation of the law and legal mechanisms, often under the guise of needed reforms or emergencies, to bring about undemocratic reforms, which Orbán has practised from the very beginning.
However, beyond further entrenching power through the law, keeping the country in a state of danger also illustrates Orbán’s instrumentalization of fear.
Authoritarians work based on fear
Aside from a crude power grab, Hungary’s perpetual state of danger might also serve a broader purpose: By creating a sense of ongoing threat and fear, Orbán could hope to rally the population behind him, the experienced leader – as he previously managed in the 2022 elections.
Previous research has shown that authoritarians thrive on fear: People who feel threatened are more likely to desire stricter rules and an emphasis on law and order and are thus more accepting of authoritarian behaviour. Orbán’s politics and electoral appeal serve as an instructive example of that. In the runup to the 2022 Hungarian election, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Orbán campaigned on fear, presenting himself and his party as the only ones able to tackle the “poly-crisis” – the challenges that remained of the pandemic, immigration from outside of Europe, and the war in neighbouring Ukraine. The campaign based on fear proved successful, and Fidesz was able to hold its two-thirds majority, enabling it to continue ruling the country by itself.
However, since then, the domestic political landscape has shifted. With the emergence of a new challenger, former Fidesz member Péter Magyar and his TISZA party, which is currently slightly ahead of Fidesz according to some polls, Orbán might, for the first time in over a decade, face a serious threat to his rule in the 2026 parliamentary elections. As a result, Fidesz already started smear campaigns against Magyar while also changing electoral rules and gerrymandering electoral districts to its own benefit. Whether Orbán will resort to more extreme measures as we get closer to the election and continue the perpetual “state of danger” until then, once again running on a campaign of fear, remains unclear for now.
However, one thing is plainly obvious: Fidesz is aware of the challenge it faces. And far from giving the impression of strength, power, and control, its behaviour shows weakness – and an awareness of the looming threat to its rule.
Gabriela Greilinger