Stand Up! Fighting Illiberalism: Protests in Slovakia and Hungary
Thomas R Ullmann
June 1, 2025
The background, an ironic history
In the popular imagination of the Cold War, both Czechoslovakia (comprising modern day Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Hungary stood out as the most restless and rebellious nations behind the Iron Curtain. Czechoslovaks poured into the streets during the Prague Spring of 1968 against dictatorship, only to be crushed by Soviet tanks. A dozen years earlier, in October 1956, Hungarians had gone even further, taking up arms against the Stalinist régime in Budapest before Moscow re-established control with tanks and an iron fist.
These experiences nourished durable civic myths, that ordinary citizens could bend the arc of history and that Moscow’s dominance was neither inevitable nor permanent. When communism collapsed in 1989, both societies looked westwards, rushing to embed themselves in Euro-Atlantic structures-first NATO, then the European Union-believing that liberal democracy was the only logical destination. Regression was at no point evident.
Three decades later, that destination suddenly looks less secure. Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia have embraced a form of illiberal politics that challenges Brussels, courts Moscow, and curtails domestic checks and balances. It is thus somewhat paradoxical that two countries who resisted communism the most, who sought eagerly to join a union of liberal nations, have since elected governments seeking the complete opposite with ties to the Kremlin.
Hungary, Orban and the rise of authoritarianism
Born in 1963 and initially celebrated as a liberal firebrand in the 1990s, Viktor Orbán co-founded Fidesz as a youth party demanding Soviet withdrawal. By 1998 he had become prime minister, presiding over a broadly centrist government. Electoral defeat in 2002 pushed Fidesz into a long spell of opposition, during which Orbán began- gradually at first -to recast the party as a nationalist, Christian-conservative movement.
Hungarian and international observers overwhelmingly identify 2014 the year of Viktor 1
Orbáns 26 July address at the Bálványos (Tusnádfürd) Summer University in Bile Tunad, Romania was the public ’point of no return’ when he openly embraced an illiberal model of government[5]. In that speech Orbán first described the Hungarian state he was ’building’ as illiberal, held up Russia, Turkey and Singapore as successful examples, and urged a clean break with Western liberal norms.
Since returning to office in 2010 Orbán has rewritten the constitution, stacked the Constitutional Court, and turned state and private media into reliable cheer-leaders. Polling shows that his core electorate is older, rural, and economically insecure; surveys in 2024 listed immigration, national sovereignty, and the cost of living as top concerns. These anxieties were weaponised during the 2015 refugee crisis, when police used tear gas and batons at the Röszke border crossing and vigilantes assaulted asylum seekers on camera[11].
International watchdogs now classify Hungary as only partly free[6], while the European Com mission continues to freeze portions of cohesion and recovery fundsabout 20 billion remained suspended as of early 2024[7].
Slovakia turns away from Brussels
Slovakia’s democratic backsliding has begun later but been faster and no less dramatic. Robert Fico, first elected premier in 2006, mixed social populism with pragmatic Euro Atlanticism. His resignation in 2018, after the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak, seemed to close that chapter. Yet voters returned him to power in September 2023 at the head of a coalition sceptical of sanctions on Russia and openly hostile to independent media.
Within months the government halted military aid to Ukraine, threatened to block Kyiv’s EU accession, and floated the idea of withdrawing from NATO’s integrated command. Fico’s high-profile trip to Moscow in December 2024 symbolised this pivot[12]. Polling by Ipsos in early 2025 showed a split electorate: urban voters prioritised rule of law and EU alignment, while rural districts in the east emphasised energy prices and cultural conservatism[15].
The Commission has already warned that fresh rule-of-law proceedings could endanger 68 billion in cohesion funds, though 799 million was released in late 2024 after limited judicial reforms[14].
Rage against the machine: the rise of Hungarian protests
Street politics never disappeared in Hungary, but they intensified after 2014. Key milestones include the mass mobilisation against the proposed "internet tax"[8], the occupation of public squares to defend the Central European University in 2017[9], and nationwide teachers’ strikes beginning in 2022[10]. The movement broadened in 2024 when Péter Magyar, a former insider, led tens of thousands through central Budapest calling for an end to corruption.
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Protests in Slovakia, pre-empting Hungarian authoritar ianism
Pro-EU protest traditions date to February 2018, when 60 000 Slovaks held vigils under the banner "For a Decent Slovakia". The current wave erupted on 23 December 2024 under the slogan "Dos bolo Ruska" (Enough of Russia), triggered by Fico’s Moscow visit. Weekly gatherings peaked at roughly 60 000 in Bratislava’s Námestie Slobody on 24 January 2025[13] and spread to 28 municipalities.
Opposition parties Progressive Slovakia (PS), Christian Democrats (KDH), and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) lend logistical support, but rallies remain officially non-partisan. Organisers prioritise EU flags, Ukrainian symbols, and references to the 1989 Gentle Revolution. Unlike in Hungary, police responses have stayed mostly restrained, though government rhetoric paints protesters as foreign agents.
While Hungarian protests chip away at a decade-old illiberal super-structure, Slovak demonstrations aim to prevent one from consolidating. The social bases also differ: Hungarian marches skew urban and middle-class but increasingly attract rural teachers and health care workers; Slovak rallies draw a cross-regional coalition united by geopolitical rather than economic grievances.
The most recent protests
By late May 2025 momentum in both countries showed signs of fatigue, yet neither movement has disappeared,
• Hungary The May 2025 demonstrations against a draft "Sovereignty Protection" bill widely likened to Russia's foreign-agent law drew an estimated 10 000 participants despite police intimidation[2]. Civil-society groups such as the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and student network ADOM provide organisational backbones, while independent news portals like Telex livestream events to a politically polarised audience.
Organisers now plan a 3 km "human chain" encircling Parliament on 1 June and have announced weekly vigils until the vote.
• Slovakia-"Slovakia is Europe" rallies on 9 May 2025 drew several thousand demonstrators in Bratislava and five other cities, protesting Premier Fico’s Moscow visit.
Street leaders have paused further marches until after the 12 June European-Parliament election, aiming to convert past turnouts peaking at an estimated 60 000 in January into pro-EU votes.
This tactical shift from mass rallies to electoral mobilisation will determine whether either campaign can still force policy reversals in Budapest or Bratislava.
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EU funding, and the veto problem
The architects of EU enlargement assumed that once inside, member states would keep moving towards deeper liberalisation. The treaties therefore made entry arduous but offered no workable way to force exit, or even a reliable suspension mechanism, for wayward democracies. This weakness is becoming ever more prescient.
In response, conditionality tools introduced after 2020 allow Brussels to freeze structural and recovery funds when the rule of law is threatened. They have had mixed results: Hungary lost 1 billion permanently in January 2025, yet 10 billion was released in 2023 after Orbán lifted a veto on the 50 billion Ukraine Facility. Critics complain that the Commission has created a market for vetoes, enabling small states to trade EU foreign-policy unanimity for cash. Effectively this has become a very effective means of blackmail for a state whose interests have diverged from the norm.
Fico is already signalling that Slovakia might block future sanctions against Russia unless cohesion money continues to flow. Such transactional bargaining underscores the systemic risk: a handful of illiberal governments can paralyse the Union’s external agenda while being shielded from expulsion.
This all comes at a time when Russia is unleashing some of the most intense attacks on Kyiv of the war, whilst European support is ever more critical in the face of an untrustworthy US government.
The outlook
Historical precedent suggests that sustained, broad-based civic mobilisation can topple entrenched regimes yet success is far from guaranteed. In Hungary, Orbán’s electoral super majority, gerrymandered districts, and media dominance impose daunting structural barriers. In Slovakia, the ruling coalition is slimmer, but opposition fragmentation and information echo-chambers complicate electoral arithmetic.
Democracy is most prone to crumbling when the electorate finds its loss inconceivable, leading to the entrenchment of anti-democratic structures that are stubborn to reversal.
If the protests falter, Brussels will face a profound legitimacy dilemma: how to defend its normative core when internal challengers exploit institutional loopholes. Conversely, a victory for the protesters would revitalise the EU’s transformative narrative and reaffirm 1989’s unfinished promise. Either way, the streets of Budapest and Bratislava have become test laboratories for the future of European liberal democracy. It cannot be understated how destructive these regimes could be for the EU project as a whole.
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An advert, near Bratislava, Slovakia selling fireplaces with the slogan
’even the most expensive fireplace will be cheaper than gas’ showing a
soviet soldier by the fire. Taken by Thomas R Ullmann, 2015
Streets of the Slovakian capital Bratislava, a modern city only 80km
(approx. 50 miles) from Vienna, Austria. Taken by Thomas R Ullmann, 2015
References
[1] Reuters, Tens of thousands march in Budapest against Orban, April 6, 2024.
[2] Associated Press, Hungarians rally in mass protest against bill allowing blacklisting of Orbán critics, May 18, 2025.
[3] Euronews, Slovakia at critical crossroads as protests threaten pro-Moscow Fico, March 21, 2025.
[4] Centre for European Reform, Freezing EU funds: An effective tool to enforce the rule of law?, February 2025.
[5] Government of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Speech at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University, 26 July 2014, Bile Tunad.
[6] Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2025: Hungary Country Report, 2025. [7] Reuters, Hungary open to using EU budget for Ukraine aid package, January 29, 2024.
[8] Reuters, Around 100 000 Hungarians rally for democracy as internet tax hits nerves, October 28, 2014.
[9] BBC News, Hungary CEU: Protesters rally to save university, April 2, 2017.
[10] Reuters, Protesters throng central Budapest in support of Hungarian teachers, October 5, 2022.
[11] Reuters, Hungarian police fire water cannon and tear gas at migrants, September 16, 2015.
[12] Reuters, Putin meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas contract nears end, December 22, 2024. [13] Reuters, Slovak protests grow in rebuke of PM Fico’s Russian tilt, January 24, 2025. [14] Euractiv, EU mulls freezing Slovakia’s funds for rule-of-law violations, October 2024.
[15] Reuters, Slovakia’s SMER party holds lead before Sept. 30 election, poll shows, September 21, 2023.
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