Politics

The politics of Hungary takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Hungary is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The party system is dominated by the socialist Hungarian Socialist Party and the conservative Hungarian Civic Union or FIDESZ. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Republic of Hungary is an independent, democratic and constitutional state. Since the constitutional amendment of 23 October 1989, Hungary is a parliamentary republic. Legislative power is exercised by the unicameral National Assembly that consists of 386 members. Members of the National Assembly are elected for four years.

Executive Branch

The President of the Republic, elected by the National Assembly every five years, has a largely ceremonial role, but they are nominally the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and their powers include the nomination of the Prime Minister who is to be elected by a majority of the votes of the Members of Parliament, based on the recommendation made by the President of the Republic.

Due to the Hungarian Constitution, based on the post-WWII Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Prime Minister has a leading role in the executive branch as they select Cabinet ministers and have the exclusive right to dismiss them (similarly to the competences of the German federal chancellor). Each cabinet nominee appears before one or more parliamentary committees in consultative open hearings, survive a vote by the Parliament and must be formally approved by the president.

Legislative Branch

The unicameral, 386-member National Assembly (Országgyulés) is the highest organ of state authority and initiates and approves legislation sponsored by the prime minister. The National Assembly (Országgyulés) has 386 members, elected for a four year term. 176 members are elected in single-seat constituencies, 152 by proportional representation in multi-seat constituencies, and 58 so-called compensation seats are distributed based on the number of votes "lost" (i.e., the votes that did not produce a seat) in either the single-seat or the multi-seat constituencies. The election threshold is 5%, but it only applies to the multi-seat constituencies and the compensation seats, not the single-seat constituencies.

Judicial Branch

An eleven member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality. This body has never been filled completely and currently convenes with just nine members, which verges on incapacitation.

The President of the Supreme Court and the Hungarian civil and penal legal system they lead is fully independent of the Executive Branch.

The Attorney General or Chief Prosecutor of Hungary is currently fully independent of the Executive Branch.

Several ombudsman offices exist in Hungary to protect civil, minority, educational and ecological rights in non-judicial matters. They can issue legally binding decisions since late 2003.

Financial Branch

The central bank, the Hungarian National Bank has been fully independent between 1990-2004, but new legislation gave certain appointment rights to the Executive Branch in November 2004, which is disputed before the Constitutional Court.

Foreign Relations

As with any country, Hungarian security attitudes are shaped largely by history and geography. For Hungary, this is a history of more than 400 years of domination by great powers (the Ottomans, the Habsburg dynasty, the Germans during World War II, and the Soviets during the Cold War) and a geography of regional instability and separation from Hungarian minorities living in neighbouring countries. During the Communist period, Hungary maintained treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria. It was one of the founding members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact and Comecon, and it was the first central European country to withdraw from those organisations.

Since 1990, Hungary's top foreign policy goal has been achieving integration into Western economic and security organisations. Hungary joined the Partnership for Peace program in 1994 and has actively supported the IFOR and SFOR missions in Bosnia. The Horn government achieved Hungary's most important foreign policy successes of the post-communist era by securing invitations to join both NATO and the European Union in 1997. Hungary became member of NATO in 1999, and member of the EU in 2004.

Hungary also has improved its often-chilled neighbourly relations by signing basic treaties with Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. These renounce all outstanding territorial claims and lay the foundation for constructive relations. However, the issue of ethnic Hungarian minority rights in Slovakia and Romania periodically causes bilateral tensions to flare. Hungary was a signatory to the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, has signed all of the CSCE/OSCE follow-on documents since 1989, and served as the OSCE's Chairman-in-Office in 1997. Hungary's record of implementing CSCE Helsinki Final Act provisions, including those on reunification of divided families, remains among the best in eastern Europe. Hungary has been a member of the United Nations since December 1955.