“He is an authoritarian from Brussels, so this is fine”: How Magyar Péter’s record looks from abroad

The Tisza government’s latest media measure, which also affected Mandiner, has prompted serious international and domestic reaction. The article presents the dispute as a test of whether a government that calls itself pro-European will tolerate media outlets it dislikes.

Rod Dreher, the article says, believes Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power had their faults. But he also argues that those years exposed what the Western mainstream leaves unsaid: protecting sovereignty, sealing the border and pursuing family policy were national interests rather than dictatorship. The fact that a government could lose an election, he says, also showed that the press was not under total control.

The Tűzfalcsoport takes a sharply different view of the Tisza government. It says the administration is not restoring market pluralism, but taking into its own hands the system it once criticized. In this account, Mandiner was not returned to the market but nationalized, while the prime minister directly judges and punishes the editorial office.

The article says Brussels and the European People’s Party remain silent because the government carries a pro-European label. But it argues that the real test of press freedom is how those in power treat publications they do not like. On that test, the Tisza government has failed in the Mandiner case.