Hungarian voters go to the polls on Sunday, but citizens around the EU have something at stake in the outcome.

Over his 16 years in power, Prime Minister Victor Orban has been drifting away from the European mainstream,

breaking with allies, clashing with institutions, and increasingly vetoing decisions at the EU level.

There's a sense here that if he goes, things might just move again.

Look, it's a bit of a gamble. After all, his challenger, Pater Magyar, is a former Orban ally.

So the hope is that he might simply be less inclined to pick fights with Brussels at every turn.

And Magyra isn't even the first serious challenger to Orban.

Last time around, the opposition united around a single figure, but Orban won anyway.

So what would push Hungarian voters to turn away from Orban this time around?

Why rally behind Magyar, a former Fidesse insider, a product of the same system he now wants

to dismantle? And if Orban does lose, what does that change for Europe?

Because, yes, Brussels might breathe a sigh of relief.

But whether Orban stays or goes, the EU will still have a system that allows one country to hold things up, especially in foreign policy, with a veto.

So are we looking at a real shift in how the EU does foreign policy? Or just a change in who gets to block it? I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of EU Confidential. Later in the episode, I'll speak

to my colleague Nick Vinnaker about whether a leadership change in Hungary would really make

EU foreign policy work again, or whether the problem runs much deeper, down to the way the EU

actually makes decisions. But first, my conversation with journalist Abigail Frizon. You might

recognize her name. She was part of the EU confidential team not long ago as a trainee. She left us to go

work on a very cool project. For months, Abigail has been on the ground in Hungary, filming a

documentary about this election. Let's hear from her now. All right, Abigail, it's great to see you.

Where are you right now? I can see these beautiful trees. Bring us there with you. Hi, Sarah. It's so nice to see you and hear from you again. I'm in Hungary right now, and I have been in the last two weeks. I am going back and forth between the capital, Budapest, to feel the temperature here, but also between rural areas where I'm meeting

with local campaigners and talking to them about how this campaign is going.

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