In this blog, Dr Fanni Gyurko (Research Associate at the University of Glasgow School of Law) shows how the National Consultation exercise is instrumentalised to legitimise state capture in Hungary.
When arriving to Hungary at the Liszt Ferenc Airport, it immediately becomes obvious that the Government favours sending messages through visual images on murals and billboards. At the airport, the images that greet visitors – instead of pictures of tourist attractions – show families with children, parents, and grandparents, accompanied by the slogan: “Family-friendly Hungary” (Család-barát Magyarország, in Hungarian). As the visitor ventures into Budapest, they encounter a different type of messaging: now there are billboards presenting threatening villain-like figures in black and white, an atomic bomb, a man carrying a Hungarian flag up a hill, or a single question accompanied by an emoji – and on all of these billboards the coat-of-arms of Hungary appears, signalling their importance and legitimacy. These billboards dominate the city, sometimes there are three or more in a row, and the constant messaging is only broken up sometimes by (mainly) weight loss or food advertisements. In the countryside too, people cannot escape the billboards, as they are relentlessly everywhere – they are part of the Hungarian Government’s ‘national consultation’ exercise.
What are the National Consultations (NCs)?
The government claims that the NC exercise is a dialogue between itself and the citizens. Indeed, it uses public money to finance the expensive exercise and the surrounding campaign. But the NC does not qualify as a referendum, which would make it subject to strict legal oversight from the Constitutional Court, nor as an opinion poll, which should be based on methodologies and rigour that the NCs do not meet. Instead, critics argue that the survey, which is sent to all citizens by post (also available online), uses leading questions to legitimise extreme views and is set up in a way that capitalises on citizens’ anger, fear, and vulnerabilities.
A case study of one question, from the National Consultation 2023-24
The Government’s National Consultation (2023-24) on ‘Protecting our Sovereignty’ (Szuverenitásunk védelméről) focused on such highly salient topics as home fuel prices, support for Ukraine, Migration, and LGBTQ+ rights. The questions connected to these issues implied that the EU was challenging Hungary’s sovereignty, posing a direct threat to the citizens. Question 11 (below) serves as an example, of how the NC purposefully (attempts to) shapes citizens’ beliefs, impressions, and inclinations with regard to law.
Question 11: ‘They’ want to influence Hungarian politics from Brussels, and money sent from overseas:
Lately several different foreign organisations supported Hungarian political players with substantial monetary contributions, as well as the activist groups connected to them. This is ‘their’ way to force Hungary to change its point of view in significant questions. According to many people this is political corruption.
- Choice 1: The foreign influence needs to be stopped, even by pursuing stricter legislation / laws.
1,499,585 votes (98,15%)
- Choice 2: The current legislation is adequate.
28,214 votes (1.85%)
From the 8 million eligible voters, 1,545,628 people completed the survey, with 17,829 votes deemed to be invalid according to the Prime Ministers’ Cabinet Office (Miniszterelnöki Kabinetiroda). This information, and the question by question break down of the answer was published on the Hungarian Government’s website. There were no details provided on the method of analysis, or on the validity of the rest of the data. However, there is a statement provided on how the results should be understood: the Hungarian people decided with an “overwhelming margin” to say no to others making decisions about their lives, and that the Hungarian people are standing beside their county’s sovereignty.
The question starts with a well-used formula of the NCs’ framing: ‘They’ or ‘there are people’. But it is unknown to whom this refers, making the information unprecise, while at the same time somewhat threatening. It is clear, however, that ‘they’ are connected to Brussels – who are, in the Government’s interpretation, the ‘other’, the enemy. The political players referred to are opposition party members. Amongst the activist groups referred to, there are civil rights NGOs, and even Transparency International’s Hungarian Chapter. This is followed by the claim that these ‘foreign others’ are trying to influence Hungarian policies and state affairs. Finally, the question makes the claim that according to many people – who they are is unspecified – that this is corruption: the civil society organisations that are trying to protect the rule of law are implied to be corrupt.
The NC exercise tries to shape citizens’ understanding regarding the legitimacy of NGOs, and at a wider level regarding who has the right to monitor the state and the rule of law. The strategy appears to be: (1) plan the questions / topics based on what the Government perceives as the current threat to its main narrative; (2) exert power through re-framing the issues. In this instance this meant recognising that people are engaged with questions of political corruption, and then equating support for CSOs, and the political opposition, with that corruption. The aim is to influence and shape people’s understandings of fundamental principles and rights. In turn, the impact of the NC on citizens may be seen in terms of acceptance, or alternatively resistance, where the latter may deepen ‘legal alienation’.
Impact beyond the NC
Even before this NC on national sovereignty closed, in February 2024 the Government established the ‘Office to Protect the Sovereignty of Hungary’. This Office was started to investigate ‘activist’ groups, including Transparency International. When the legitimacy of the Office was questioned in a public debate, its head (Tamás Lánczi) said the following on their investigation of activist groups:
“You need to understand that you [activist groups] are not above the state. The legitimacy of the Hungarian state cannot be questioned. This is a 1000-year-old state, and your institution (NGO) is 20 years old, with no legitimacy. You try to justify yourself with legitimacy claims that you created, the claim that you are fighting for some bigger / better cause”.
Continuing the same narrative set out in the NC, Lánczi argues that only the state can legitimately investigate its own corruption.
The tool of ‘national consultation’ is a deep mechanism of state capture, where the Hungarian Government is actively influencing people’s meaning-making about their everyday reality, and through this influencing their perceptions and understanding of the law – in the Hungarian context and beyond. This raises more questions to answer in future research: How do we know if the NCs impact people’s thinking, and how does that influence their everyday life? Particularly, how do we know whether the NCs influence citizens’ understandings of law and legality?
As an epilogue, on 1 October 2025, Hungarian citizens eligible to vote found a letter from Viktor Orban in their post boxes, warning people that ‘there are politicians (clear reference to the TISZA, opposition party) who have made a ‘pact’ with Brussels, which will mean more tax for the Hungarian citizens’. Therefore, citizens need to protest this by filling in the new National Consultation.