My guest is Laslo Andor.

Lasz-Andor is the Secretary General of the Foundation for My guest is Laslo Andor.

Laszlo Andor is the Secretary General of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies

and a former European Commissioner from Hungary.

Welcome to the podcast, Laszlo.

Hello, and thank you for having me.

Right. We're going to start, obviously, by talking about Victor Orban.

Now, to many people outside Hungary, they might by talking about Victor Orban. Now, to many people outside

Hungary, they might just think that Victor Orban has been a leader, prominent person on the

Hungarian political scene relatively recently. But as you know, better than anybody, he has been,

just to remind our listeners, a prime minister of your country since 2010. And before that,

from 1998 to 2002, according to my research and head of his party, Fidesh,

since 1993, with a pause between 2000-2003.

So how would you assess the political success of all ban from his very beginnings almost 30 years ago now?

I think we have to acknowledge that this is a unique political career.

It's even rooted in the change of regime back in 1989

when he made his first public intervention

after organizing a youth organization,

which then was turned into a party,

but indeed he appeared as a radical, young, liberal political leader, and he made his march towards the center

right, became the unifier of the center right in Hungary in the late 1990s, and then ended up what a lot of political scientists called just an outright,

far-right leader, because after 2010 he unilaterally changed the political system

...