It didn't get much media coverage, but at the beginning of July Policy Solutions, a Hungarian think tank, launched what has become an annual survey of how Hungarians view the world. It's findings vary from predictable to contradictory to shocking.
The opening illustration to the Policy Solutions study released in early July
There is an episode in the classic BBC sitcom “Yes, Prime Minister” where the scheming Sir Humphrey Appleby illustrates how pollsters create opinion survey questions to get the answers their backers want.
In this plot, James Hacker has just become the UK's prime minister and, keen as ever to win votes, envisions a new “grand design” to cut unemployment, boost national defence and save on government spending - all simultaneously.
But it's one grand design too much for Sir Humphrey, who is at his devious, unscrupulous best when it comes to thwarting it, as illustrated here.
I used to use this clip in my “writing articles” classes to help make students aware of the pitfalls in placing too much faith in surveys.
Not that I'm suggesting there is any such deviousness behind Policy Solutions' latest survey - certainly not consciously. But I do wonder if all the results are, shall we say: 'well based' and mean what they seem to mean at first sight.
Let's first look at some headline results from the 2024 edition of A Vilag Magyar Szemmel – The World Through Hungarian Eyes - which reveals how a sample of 1,000 Hungarians, each personally interviewed, see 'things foreign' as of March this year.
The subjects range across a vast swathe of issues, from their views on the country's Nato
membership and the Israel-Hamas war to their most - and least - popular foreign political leaders.
Top of the bill is where Hungarians see themselves in terms of “belonging”, and for most western Europeans, it's reassuring, sort of.
Well, maybe.
You see, an absolute majority of Hungarians (50%) believe that in terms of its values, Hungary has traditionally belonged to the West, and that’s the way they should keep it.
But, as the report puts it: “A mere sixth of all respondents (17%) took the opposing view.”
Hmmm. A “mere” sixth?
We - or perhaps better still, Hungarians - should remember that in 1989, the country still lived under a Soviet-imposed system which, while far from the worst in the eastern bloc, still had serious limitations in freedoms and living standards.
It meant, for example, that all males were legally obliged, by law, to undertake national service – a stint in the military of 12 to 18 months which most saw as an unpleasant and largely absolute waste of their time. (PM James Hacker might disagree, of course.)
It also meant citizens could taste grapefruit only when a shipment arrived from Cuba (maybe for eight weeks in any calendar year) and only buy a car – already outdated by western standards - after a four- five- or six-year wait.
True, they could buy eggs more or less every day, a luxury for many in countries further to the east, but only in paper bags, because the system could not produce efficient packaging, ie egg boxes.
So, thirty-four years after the collapse of this system, which existed simultaneously and in total contrast to that in Austria, just 125 miles distant from Budapest, one in six people today opine that the country does not belong to “the West”.
Moreover, since last year's survey, the share of those who support a western orientation has dropped by five percentage points, while the ratio of those who oppose it has increased by three points.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the non-stop anti-western rhetoric of the government, this negative trend towards the west is largely down to changes in outlook among Fidesz party supporters. Among them, although a relative majority, 37% still endorse Hungary’s western orientation, this is nine percentage points lower than last year's survey findings.
So far, so concerning. But I'd say it gets worse.
Slightly more than a quarter of Hungarians, 27%, said that it would be in their nation’s interest to intensify ties with Russia and distance themselves from the European Union.
True, this has barely changed since last year (when it was 26%), but as the report reminds us, “it is important to highlight that as compared to 2021, the share of those who advocate closer ties with Russia has doubled, from 13% to 27%.”
Apologies, but this slide is only available in Hungarian. The question posed is: In your view, how dangerous for Hungary are the countries listed below?
Answer strectch from green = absolutely represents 'no danger' - to dark red, representing 'serious danger'.
The countries, from the top, are Ukraine, Russia, China and the USA. You may note that regarding the latter, the leading power within Nato (of which Hungary is, of course a member) is regarded by 34% of Hungarians as a 'threat or serious threat'.
The study also reveals sharp changes in attitudes towards both Ukraine and Russia.
Asked which countries represent a threat to Hungary, 51% of respondents named Ukraine - up from 35% last year. (see slide above)
Again, this 16 percentage point change is driven by the perception of Fidesz supporters, of whom 61% now view Ukraine as the biggest threat to their homeland, up from 46% last year. (This, by the way, is the same Ukraine which voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons, along with the advanced bombers designed to deliver these devastating munitions, in the 1990s, according to an agreement signed in Budapest.)
In contrast, 46% of all Hungarians rate Russia as a threat or serious threat to Hungary (compared to 47% last year), with government supporters the most dovish: only one third (34%) view Moscow in such negative terms.
Given there is much more in this vein, it is little wonder that, as Péter Róna put it in an earlier guest post:
“Although I do not know what is on Viktor Orbán's mind, it is perfectly clear to me that his policies, his utterances, his speeches and gestures, the whole lot, are conducive not to keeping Hungary in the European Union, but on the contrary, to losing that status.”
At this point, I'll kind of fast forward to two results which I find more worrying than even those cited above.
(You can read the 12-page summary of the study in English here:
And the full report in Hungarian (all 87 pages of it) here:
Now, what do I find the most worrying results?
The Hungarian sample was asked about the effects of EU sanctions against Russia, imposed because of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Four out of ten respondents (40%) said that the sanctions had “backfired”, that is to say, they have hurt the EU economy more than Russia. (This is in line with government rhetoric.)
Almost exactly the same proportion, 41%, said that the sanctions have hurt Russia and the EU to the same degree.
Just 10% believe that the sanctions had hurt the Russian economy more.
Why do I find this worrying? Well, how does the average Hungarian – or anyone - know how to answer this with any certainty?
Even in pure 'factual' data-based assessments, I suspect few of the world's best economic think tanks would dare say that any numbers they could come up with were anything better than 'guesstimates', given the opaqueness of the Russian system.
Certainly, as a mainly business-economic journalist, I would not want to answer anything else but “I'm not equipped well enough to answer this question.”
In the survey, only 7% in fact responded with 'don't know/won't answer.
Finally (as far as this write up goes) there was a question, not particularly highlighted, asking if Hungary should aspire to being the leading military power in the central European region.
To this, fully one-third of respondents – 34% - said yes.
This notion, as far as I'm aware, was first touted around by Balázs Orbán, political adviser to the Hungarian prime minister (but no relation) in the New Year of 2023. And in the Policy Solution survey of that year, it garnered the support of 30% of respondents.
As my good wife said then, when I presented the 30% result to her: “But they don't know.”
And that is what, to me, is most worrying.
That one third of respondents don't know that they don't know, yet they should.
Military power is largely dependent on a country's economy, and even if Hungary's economy was strong (which it isn't), Poland, which has roughly four times the population living on a little more than four times the area of post-Trianon Hungary, will, of necessity - unless it wishes to be united once again with its 'brother' Slavs to the east - always have a stronger military than Hungary in this region.
To think otherwise is as delusional, if not more so, than Prime Minister James Hacker's grand design.