Hungary’s new government signals hope for Roma rights after Orbán era

A group of young Roma boys in black bow ties stood beneath the ornate arches and royal frescoes of Hungary’s parliament building. Moments after Péter Magyar was sworn in, ending Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule, the musicians performed the unofficial anthem of Hungary’s Roma community, leaving many lawmakers wiping away tears.

It was an extraordinary moment that blended nationwide hope for change with long-standing aspirations of the country’s most marginalized community. Roma rights activists have seized the opportunity, urging the new government to ensure the symbolism translates into tangible reforms.

Hungary, home to one of Europe’s largest Roma populations at roughly 8%, now enters a post-Orbán era that many across the continent are watching closely.

Observers cite encouraging signs. The new parliament includes a record number of Roma lawmakers: four in Magyar’s Tisza party and one with the right-wing nationalist opposition, Fidesz. Roma artists played a prominent role during the daylong inauguration ceremony.

“Never before have Roma been such an integral part of a nation at a state or national event as they were at the ceremonial opening of the new parliament,” wrote Stephan Müller, an adviser on international affairs with the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. “This gives cause for hope that it will not remain merely a matter of symbols, but that real change will indeed take place.”

A recent letter to Magyar, drafted by about 50 Roma professionals from various sectors in Hungary, urged the government to acknowledge long-standing discrimination against Roma, take action to protect their rights, and ensure equal access to opportunities.

“We told them that the regime change can only be successful if they do it hand in hand with the Roma,” said Aladár Horváth, one of Hungary’s most prominent Romany rights campaigners and an architect of the letter.

During the past 16 years, as Orbán and Fidesz sought to conjure fears of an imagined “other,” their targets often included Roma.

“It was a situation of social Darwinism,” said Horváth, a former Liberal politician who in 1990 became the country’s first Romany MP. “A fascist-like social and economic situation prevailed. And Roma were the ones who suffered the most as a result.”

Roma advocacy organizations were dismantled, state protections for the community eroded, and laws protecting them were trampled upon. A case in point is Romaversitas, founded by Horváth in 1996, which helps Romany youth acquire vocational skills and post-secondary schooling.

During Orbán’s time in power, the Roma-led group was classified as a threat to national sovereignty, leaving it grappling with bureaucratic hurdles and contemplating its future in Hungary, said Ildikó Török, the organization’s managing director.

“We were unable to secure funding domestically,” she said. “We worked under constant intimidation; it destroyed our mental health.”

Fidesz’s approach to Hungary’s 800,000-strong Roma population was often top-down, said Krisztián Kőszegi, a Roma Tisza lawmaker who, in a first for the community, has become one of the deputy speakers of the national assembly.

Tisza would work to change this approach, he said. “We want to work in collaboration and address the issues facing Roma in every sector, from social policy to healthcare, education, housing and the justice system,” he added. “We are civilians, teachers and healthcare workers who lived the previous system and saw its shortcomings.”

Poignant hints of what could lie ahead were woven through Saturday’s inauguration as Kőszegi and another Roma lawmaker took their oaths in Romany languages, and Roma singer Ibolya Oláh performed “Magyarorszag,” a patriotic song she had stopped singing years earlier in protest against attacks from Fidesz supporters and the far right.

But it was the Sükösd Roma Child Choir, performing “Zöld az erdő,” known to many as the unofficial Roma anthem in Hungary, that stole the show and epitomized widespread hope that things could be different.

Magyar had met the choir during a November visit to their village of 3,000 people, a two-hour drive south of Budapest. After one of the young musicians told Magyar he hoped to visit parliament one day, the leader promised an invitation if Tisza won the election.

After Tisza’s landslide victory, the promise became an invitation to perform. As the nation tuned into Saturday’s inauguration, with tens of thousands following outside parliament, the performance marked a bright spot in a long-fraught relationship between Roma and the Hungarian state.

It also, however, laid bare lingering discrimination: six lawmakers from the far-right Our Homeland party walked out of parliament just as the choir began.

Magyar later described the walkout as an “utterly unacceptable act,” but the far-right party — which has been linked to a vigilante group accused of anti-Roma violence — insisted they had protested the decision to play the EU anthem in parliament.

For decades, civil society groups have flagged deep discrimination, particularly regarding segregation of Roma in schools. In 2024, as the EU announced an investigation, a spokesperson noted that Roma children were “disproportionately overrepresented” in schools for children with disabilities.

The consequences were wide-reaching and long-lasting, said Đorđe Jovanović of the European Roma Rights Centre, adding that segregation “denies them the opportunities to succeed and traps yet another generation in deprivation and poverty.”

Anger over the issue has long simmered in the Roma community. The political tipping point came earlier this year when a senior Fidesz politician targeted Roma while explaining why he did not see migration as a solution to the country’s labor shortage.

János Lázár cited Roma people, using a racist slur to refer to them, saying “someone has to clean the bathrooms on the inter-city trains.”

Roma responded with political force in the election, said Mensur Haliti, vice-president of the Roma Foundation for Europe. “Roma in Hungary punished those who used them and exploited them, while offering a change to those who are seemingly new,” he said.

After the election, an analysis by the Roma for Democracy Foundation examined voting patterns in areas with significant Roma populations and found that Roma votes appeared to play a role in flipping multiple seats from Fidesz to Tisza.

“They gave a chance to Magyar,” said Haliti. “But this was not because they believe he will carry out miracles. They are very cautious.” How Magyar and his Tisza government respond, he said, “will set a precedent for the treatment of Roma minorities across Europe.”

This view was echoed by Müller of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. “The real work, beyond the symbols and speeches, begins now, and it is a herculean task,” he said. “But I have hope, like almost everyone in Hungary, that things will get better.”

He added: “One first step that I really liked is that a group of Roma children managed to get fascists to leave the parliament. Keep it up.”