While Tisza’s landslide election victory offers an opportunity to rejuvenate press freedom after 16 years of backsliding, unwinding Fidesz’s media capture model will be complex, but essential for achieving wider democratic reform.
Jamie Wiseman
To truly restore media freedom in Hungary, the new government will need to go far beyond narrow amendments and cosmetic management changes. Reform of the country’s media framework in a way which safeguards press freedom requires systemic change – one that fixes the flawed media architecture put in place during Fidesz’s 2010-2011 media overhaul. It is from here that so many of the current issues stem.
A first legislative priority for the new Tisza government for media will need to be reform of the current laws regarding public media. In 2010, Fidesz passed Act CLXXXV on Media Services and on Mass Media, which unified the various public service broadcasters and state media entities under one centralised framework, placed under the politicised control of the state-run MTVA. Within this governance and funding system, management and senior editorial positions became deeply politicised and media institutions were deformed into audiovisual state propaganda tools.
Legislation overseeing the public media system needs to be replaced with a modern framework that guarantees independent public media, in line with Article 5 of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). These changes should ensure that national media regulation should be institutionally separated from public media governance, to limit the possibility of integrated institutional capture.
A second legislative priority should be addressing the law on media regulation. The current media regulatory system is also shaped by laws passed by Fidesz in 2010-2011 that created the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) and its Media Council. Under this centralised architecture, Hungary’s media regulatory system also became the most politically captured in the EU.
Within this legal framework, Fidesz repeatedly abused its two-thirds majority to nominate and appoint its candidates to all five seats on the Media Council. Under this leadership, a majority of media tender decisions over the past decade favoured outlets aligned with Fidesz, and the authority often prioritised pro-government interests in media mergers and frequency allocations. A clean break from this captured regulatory framework, and its replacement with an independent body, is essential.
A third priority for the new government should be a fundamental modification of the role of the state in the advertising market. Under Fidesz, the Hungarian state was one of the largest advertisers in the market. As there are no legal provisions ensuring fair and transparent distribution of state advertising, Fidesz, through the National Communications Office, allocated advertising based on political allegiance rather than objective criteria, warping the market in favour of a pro-government narrative.
The normalisation of state advertising practices for media and the defunding of state propaganda will cause a major realignment of the market. Propaganda media that survived off these bloated advertising funds will suddenly find themselves cut off. While larger pro-Fidesz TV stations and tabloids will probably survive this adjustment, smaller outlets fused to this financial system look likely to collapse. While this will be a bumpy process, ensuring fair advertising practices is central to normalising the market, creating a level playing field and bolstering media pluralism.
To ensure these three core issues are handled in line with EU standards, the blueprint for legislative and policy design should be the European Media Freedom Act. The EMFA has clear and mandated rules on public media, media regulators and state advertising that, if implemented in Hungary, offer the path forward for democratic reform. Hungary currently faces infringement proceedings from the European Commission over its lack of alignment with the regulation. For Tisza, dropping Hungary’s legal challenge against EMFA at the Court of Justice of the EU would be an early sign of goodwill to Brussels.
To guide this reform process, IPI has called on Tisza to establish a high-level parliamentary working group for media reform, supported by independent media experts, domestic civil society and academics. This working group should be tasked with developing a comprehensive and long-term blueprint and providing detailed input on legislative design. It should also ensure the development of media legislation in Hungary meets the highest democratic standards set out by the Council of Europe and the EMFA.
Beyond these three key pillars, IPI has outlined a further seven reform priorities for the Tisza government. This includes regenerating media pluralism and limiting media concentration, especially at the local level; providing accountability and safeguards for spyware surveillance of journalists; improving the legal climate and creating protections against SLAPPs; and guaranteeing fair access to information for the press.
Crucial also will be the immediate repeal of the Act on the Protection of National Sovereignty and the subsequent dismantling of the Sovereignty Protection Office. This institution represents one of the most serious threats to democracy, the rule of law and media freedom in Hungary. Since its establishment in 2023, the authority has systematically abused its powers in a discriminatory manner to target critical and investigative media that receive foreign grants or funding and falsely portray them as the agents of foreign interests.
