Hello from Budapest
#69
Dear Friends of Democracy,
I am currently travelling through diverse southeast Europe: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
The journey started yesterday, further north, at Prague’s main station.
I took the night train to Budapest. What a wonderful trip! You board the train at 10 pm and get out at 8 am in Budapest (see video below of the arrival). In the meantime, you sleep in freshly made beds and have breakfast onboard.
(The night trains of the Czech railway „České dráhy“ are in no way inferior to those of the European market leader ÖBB from Austria.)
However, observed from a political perspective, it was, in a way, a downhill night train ride.
We boarded the train in a parliamentary democracy „in which political rights and civil liberties are generally respected“. Czechia gains 92 out of 100 points on the index from the NGO Freedom House.
While sleeping, we went through Slovakia with its recently elected populist government of Prime Minister Robert Fico and his party, Smer and missed a pleasing presidential election night there. Yesterday, pro-EU ex-minister Ivan Korcok beat Slovak Prime Minister Fico’s ally to set up a run-off presidential vote.
We woke up in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, a country slipping into autocracy. Freedom of House gives Hungary only 65 points and writes: „Since taking power in the 2010 elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Alliance of Young Democrats–Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) party has pushed through constitutional and legal changes that have allowed it to consolidate control over the country’s independent institutions.“
That’s sad. At least Budapest resists. Its mayor, Gergely Karácsony, has beaten the far-right prime minister’s candidate in the last election, vowing to prove to the rest of Europe that there is more to Hungary than the politics of its far-right prime minister.
There is always hope. You'll find it if you look for it.
✊,
Johannes Eber
