BUDAPEST, Hungary — The 16 ministers of Hungary’s new government were sworn into office in Parliament on Tuesday, formalizing the end of Viktor Orbán’s 16-year hold on power and handing control to a center-right coalition led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar. The swearing-in came after only two days of parliamentary committee hearings, a pace that Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer who took office on Saturday, framed as an urgent break from the political system Orbán built.
Magyar’s pro-European Tisza party won 141 of the 199 seats in Parliament in last month’s election, a result that AP described as gaining “more votes and seats in Parliament than any other party in Hungary’s post-Communist history.” The two-thirds majority gives Tisza the legislative power to roll back policies that Orbán’s critics had characterized as authoritarian. Orbán’s euroskeptic Fidesz party now holds 52 seats, down from 135 before the election, while the far-right Mi Hazánk holds six.
In remarks after the swearing-in, Magyar drew a direct contrast with his predecessor. “The government now being formed will be the government of all Hungarians” and “a servant of the nation and not of the prime minister,” he said. “We must repair the destruction, division, backwardness and loss of trust over the past two decades by making Hungary a functioning, livable and self-reliant country again.”
The new government has signaled that accountability for alleged corruption under Orbán will be an early priority. Magyar plans to form a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an authority tasked with investigating and seeking to recover public funds misused during Orbán’s tenure. He has also said Hungary will join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which would allow EU officials to investigate fraud cases and the use of bloc funds inside the country.
Magyar has also vowed to suspend the news services of Hungary’s public broadcaster — widely described as a mouthpiece for Orbán’s party — until what he called objectivity can be restored. In his inauguration speech, he called on many of Orbán’s appointees who hold lengthy-term positions, including the president, the attorney general, the head of the media authority, and the chief justice of the Constitutional Court, to step down no later than May 31.
The cabinet expands the government to 16 ministries, up from 12 under Orbán. New separate ministries for health, environmental protection, and education have been created — portfolios that did not exist as standalone departments under the previous administration. Magyar has said he will prioritize restoring democratic institutions and the rule of law, which he contends eroded during Orbán’s rule, and holding accountable those he says were responsible for overseeing and benefiting from widespread official corruption.
On the international front, the new government is expected to shift Hungary’s posture within the European Union, where Orbán had frequently vetoed key decisions, most recently concerning support for Ukraine. The administration has signaled it will prioritize unblocking roughly 17 billion euros, or about $20 billion, in EU funds frozen over rule-of-law and corruption concerns — money the AP reported is “sorely needed to jump-start Hungary’s struggling economy, which has stagnated for the past four years.”
In a video posted to Facebook on Monday, Foreign Minister Anita Orbán, a diplomat and foreign policy expert, said her ministry’s primary task will be to “bring EU funds home” and to “consolidate Hungary’s place in Europe and in the EU.” Among other new cabinet members sworn in Tuesday were Minister of Economy and Energy István Kapitány, a former Shell executive, and Minister of Finance András Kármán, an economist and former executive at Erste Bank.
Nearly 3.4 million Hungarians voted for Tisza, and many expect the new government to hold Fidesz officials and their business allies accountable for misconduct and corruption attributed to the outgoing administration. The coming weeks will test whether Magyar can deliver on those expectations while navigating a legislative agenda that promises to transform Hungary’s relationship with Brussels and rewrite the institutional architecture Orbán left behind.