Adrian Buck’s Reviews > Orbán: Europe's New Strongman > Status Update

"Blocking European integration, thereby also assisting Russian's strategy" - Fidesz actively promotes EU accession for Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

"the Árpád flag with its five red and five white stripes" - four of each actually, this comes hot of the tail of the namecheck of the 'Momento' opposition group.

No discussion in this chapter of the amaxing turnaround in Orbáns relationship with multinationals (esp German car manufacturers) and their enormous contribution to the Hungarian political economy.

"Most of all, corruption paralyses the performance of our entrepreneurs, for wherever cronyism or bribery and not entrepreneurship are rewarded, there is no incentive to work harder and at the same time there is no trust" - no discussion of 'administrative violence' here, which may be the most important factor.

"One in seven [of the richest people in Hungary] is associated with the Fidesz regime." - interesting, I would have pit it much higher.

"yet, how vulnerable and how unsuccessful he is in daily events, in the minutiae of government, in his selection of his staff, in the motivation of an efficient and well cooperating team, in assigning tasks" - substantiation of this is sadly lacking.

"Yet despite this loss of 8 percentage points (in an election where 40 per cent abstained) Fidesz was still able to...retain...a two thirds majority." - It's hard to imagine that some change in voting system could alter this, some countries geographically and culturally tend towards a one party state.

"The response of the Hungarian public was silence and apathy. From this Orbán could draw but one conclusion: if such a drastic step [the confiscation of private pension funds] is possible without any counter reaction, then in such a society almost anything can be done." - it was an amazing moment, but what actually happened needs to be thoroughly analyzed, no cash changed hands.

"...in the case of constitutional amendments, the figure is more startling: nine out of twelve ... were fast tracked through parliament without any genuine debate or scrutiny." - one of surprising things for me about living in Hungary is how quickly and how completely the law can change. Changing the law is simply not taken as seriously as it is in the UK or the US.

"In the epilogue of his second book on Orbán, published in 2009, he wrote "Once he is in possession of a constitutional majority, he will this into an impregnable fortress of power..." - as discussed in the Economist this week https://www.economist.com/node/217706...