Hundreds of messages of support have been sent to the conservative Hungarian weekly Mandiner after Prime Minister Péter Magyar declared in parliament that the state would determine the newspaper’s future content once it returns to public ownership under recently adopted constitutional reforms.
Nearly 700 comments were posted in response to reports of Magyar’s remarks, with many readers expressing concern about press freedom and government influence over the media.
Several commentators accused the government of seeking to introduce political control over journalism, while others compared the statement to censorship associated with Hungary’s communist Rákosi-era.
One reader wrote that Magyar mistakenly believes he can acquire Mandiner’s readership along with the publication itself, while others questioned whether a government should have any role in deciding what newspapers publish.
The outrage stems from a debate held in the Hungarian parliament on June 15th, during discussions on the sixteenth amendment to the constitution.
Responding to criticism from opposition Fidesz MP Balázs Orbán, Magyar stated: “I understand that it hurts you that the joke newspaper Mandiner will now return to the state, and we will be its owners; we will have to determine the content that will appear there.”
The remark immediately triggered criticism from opposition politicians and conservative commentators, who argued that editorial independence should be protected regardless of a publication’s political affiliation.
Balázs Orbán, chairman of the board of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), which has owned Mandiner since January 2025, later responded on social media, saying that “even under communism politicians did not dare to formulate such ambitions so openly.”
The dispute is linked to a wider package of constitutional reforms adopted by parliament on Monday.
Among the measures is the abolition of the public-interest asset management foundations, a structure through which the state had transferred universities and other public assets into foundation ownership. Under the new constitutional framework, assets held by such foundations may revert to the state if the foundations are dissolved.
Fidesz MEP András László also criticised the prime minister, alleging that the government was attempting to interfere with press freedom. “The new PM wants nothing less than total control and political vengeance,” he wrote on X.
After going after the President of Hungary and trying to force him to resign, after constitutionally banning Viktor Orbán from becoming prime minister again, the new Hungarian PM clearly wants to interfere in the freedom of the press, too. This is what he said about conservative… pic.twitter.com/fRKJFbC29P
A former member of Viktor Orbán’s conservative Fidesz party, Péter Magyar came to power after winning the parliamentary elections in April. He and his centrist, pro-Brussels Tisza Party are eager to purge state institutions of Orbán-era officials and place all major centres of authority under the government’s influence.
Zoltán Kottász is a journalist for europeanconservative.com, based in Budapest. He worked for many years as a journalist and as the editor of the foreign desk at the Hungarian daily, Magyar Nemzet. He focuses primarily on European politics.
