European leaders expect Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to be re-elected in the high-stakes parliamentary election scheduled for 12 April. According to one EU official cited by POLITICO Brussels, during Thursday’s European Council summit, ‘many of the leaders in the summit room’ believed that it is ‘likely’ that Orbán will secure his fifth consecutive victory.
During the summit, EU leaders tried to convince the Hungarian prime minister to lift his veto on the €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, which he blocked in response to Ukraine’s halt of Russian oil transit through the key Druzhba pipeline since 27 January.
Orbán, however, did not yield, and the veto remained in place. ‘If there is no oil, there is no money,’ he said, describing energy supply as a fundamental national interest. Orbán’s position reportedly caused significant outrage, with several member state leaders—particularly from the Baltic countries and Poland—expressing frustration at the Hungarian prime minister for blocking the loan, which had already been agreed in December 2025.
According to a POLITICO Brussels report, EU leaders are hoping for Orbán to ease his position once re-elected. ‘If Orbán is re-elected—which one EU official said many of the leaders in the summit room on Thursday believe is likely—then he may be more willing to approve the loan, once oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline again.’ If not, the article continues, the EU is preparing further punitive measures against Hungary: ‘freezing more funding, suing Hungary in the EU’s top court, issuing fines, and even the so-called nuclear option, Article 7, which strips countries of their EU voting rights.’
However, the fact that ‘many’ EU leaders expect Orbán to be re-elected runs counter to the narrative of Western mainstream media and the Hungarian opposition. For months, pollsters aligned with the opposition Tisza Party have published surveys showing Tisza leading Fidesz–KDNP by as much as 20 percentage points.
Hungarian Minister of EU Affairs János Bóka recently spoke to POLITICO Brussels, accusing the opposition of building a ‘stolen election’ narrative—meaning that they would not accept the results in the event of an electoral defeat in April and would seek to incite unrest.
Manipulated polls, as well as artificially boosted social media engagement, form an important part of such narratives. ‘Would Péter Magyar come out to a camera and say: “Okay, I’ve heard the voice of the Hungarian people, they want this government to stay in power”?’ the minister asked, adding that this is not a realistic scenario given the ‘political hysteria’ the opposition has already created around the legitimacy of the vote.
Rejecting claims that Orbán would refuse to step down if defeated, Bóka pointed to Fidesz’s history of accepting every election result it has participated in, regardless of whether it won or lost.
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