Péter Magyar, the Hungarian election winner who unseated Viktor Orbán, has been invited to meet the Hungarian president, Tamás Sulyok, on Wednesday to discuss the government-formation process.
The timing is politically loaded. Magyar’s camp has repeatedly called for Sulyok to resign, arguing the president is too close to Orbán, and the personal chemistry—whatever is or isn’t there—could show in the first official talks. In a sign that the new leadership is already keeping receipts, Magyar said Sulyok was “appointed to sign everything… whether it’s the menu or the constitution or the laws,” adding, “so we don’t need people like that.” He added that “to me, he is not the president.”
Meanwhile, the US vice-president JD Vance weighed in overnight, defending his decision to travel to Budapest last week in the final days of the campaign. Vance, appearing on Fox News, said he was “said that [Orbán] lost,” but insisted the intervention “was not about Russia, and fundamentally, it was not about Europe.” In his telling, it was a kind of thanks from the US administration for defending American interests against EU bureaucracy.
His argument is that Orbán is one of the few European leaders willing to push back. Vance pointed to moments when “a European bureaucrat” goes after an American company, saying “sometimes the only vote ‘no,’ the only vote to protect that American interest… has been Viktor Orbán.” He also said the White House “certainly knew there was a very good chance that Viktor would lose that election,” and yet wanted to “stand behind a person who had stood by us for a very long time.”
There was praise too, at least on the record. Vance described Orbán as “a great guy who’s done a very good job,” and argued, “I think that his legacy in Hungary is transformational, 16 years, fundamentally changing that country.” It’s hard to parse that as anything other than endorsement—then, almost immediately, a pivot.
Still, for the Magyar transition, Vance offered something like reassurance. He declared that “we will work very very well, I am sure, with the new prime minister of Hungary.” Whether that sentence lands smoothly with Magyar’s supporters is another question; the meeting with Sulyok on Wednesday is already framed by their impatience with old loyalties. One can only imagine the awkwardness, the careful phrasing, and, in the hallways outside offices, the small real-world moments—like the low hum of air conditioning you notice when everyone is trying to sound calm.
Elsewhere on Europe’s political calendar, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to meet German chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin today for intergovernmental consultations. The agenda includes expected discussion of joint defence ventures, including their work on drones, with several ministers set to attend, among them foreign minister Andrii Sybiha, energy minister Denys Shmyhal, and economy minister Oleksii Soboley. Germany has become Ukraine’s biggest backer in its four-year war against Russia’s invasion, according to Misryoum newsroom reported context, with Kyiv aiming to keep Berlin firmly on side after shifts in US support.
And so, in different corners of the continent, leaders are talking—about formation and influence, about defence and diplomacy, about who gets backed and who is left arguing with paperwork. For Hungary, the next few days will be the first real test of whether the tone from Washington can outrun the political hangover from the campaign.
What we know about Iran’s military capabilities via drone and missile attacks
Husband arrested after American woman’s disappearance in Bahamas