Hungary’s new prime minister has pledged to change the constitution to remove from office most appointees put in place by his predecessor Viktor Orbán, including the country’s president.
Péter Magyar on Monday described the president, Tamás Sulyok, as unworthy of the post and an Orbán “puppet” who executed the long-time leader’s illiberal agenda. Sulyok, in office since 2024, has rejected Magyar’s request for him to step down by the end of May.
“Hungary does not belong to Tamás Sulyok, nor does it belong to Viktor Orbán,” Magyar told journalists on Monday. “We will modify the constitution … and will restore the rule of law and Hungarian democracy.”
Sulyok, a constitutional lawyer by training, has vowed to challenge Magyar’s attempt to remove him from office. He has also said he would ask the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters, to weigh in on the matter.
But he said he would co-operate with Magyar’s government in the meantime, including to sign necessary laws to fulfil EU conditions agreed last week to unlock more than €16 billion of funds frozen over rule-of-law concerns during Orbán’s term.
“The president fulfils his mandate according to the constitution,” Sulyok said at the weekend. “It is clear that there is a new political will to reinterpret the function of the president.”
He said calls for his resignation were “politically motivated, therefore constitutionally irrelevant” and can cause “worrisome” problems in the country.
But, he said, “there is no reason to fear that the president would block or hinder the democratically elected parliament”. The president, a largely ceremonial figure, can refuse to sign laws and refer them for review to the Constitutional Court, also stacked with Orbán appointees. Legislation can be slowed down, though not completely blocked, that way.
Magyar, whose conservative Tisza party has a parliamentary supermajority allowing him to change the constitution, has called for the resignation of the head of the Constitutional Court – chief prosecutor and Orbán loyalist Péter Polt – as well as the leadership of the State Audit Office of Hungary and the media regulator, among others.
One exception among the Orbán appointees is the governor of the central bank, Mihály Varga, whom Magyar has pledged to keep in office as central bank independence was “sacrosanct”. Magyar and Varga are holding their first meeting on Monday to discuss the economy.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026