History, Recent Developments

In 1989 the government provided a hero’s burial for Imre Nagy, eased restrictions on emigration, revised the constitution to provide for a democratic multiparty system, and changed the country’s name from the People’s Republic of Hungary to the Republic of Hungary. In March and April 1990 a coalition of center-right parties, led by the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), won a parliamentary majority in the nation’s first free legislative elections in 45 years. In May the new government took office, with Jozsef Antall as prime minister. After a referendum providing for direct presidential elections failed because of a low turnout, the National Assembly chose a writer, Arpad Goncz, as head of state.

Illness forced Antall to take periodic leaves of absence throughout 1993. He died in December 1993 and was replaced by Peter Boross, another leader of the MDF. In early 1994 the governing coalition lost considerable public support, and in May elections the Hungarian Socialist Party (formerly the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party) regained the majority of parliament. The party named Gyula Horn, a member of the former Communist government, as its choice for prime minister. Although it had a majority, in June the party formed a coalition with the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats, which had taken second place in the elections. The coalition commanded the two-thirds majority required to pass certain legislation. In August the new government introduced economic austerity measures aimed at reducing the debt level and making exports more competitive. Further such measures were introduced the following year. In June 1995 the National Assembly reelected Goncz for a second five-year term as president.

In foreign affairs, Hungary became the first Eastern European nation to join the Council of Europe in 1990, and in 1991 and 1992 the government signed declarations of cooperation with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, and Ukraine. Relations with neighboring Romania and Czechoslovakia were strained during the early 1990s over the treatment of Hungarian minorities in those countries, including some 1.7 million in Romania. Wars in the former Yugoslavia sent thousands of refugees fleeing to Hungary during this time, and by mid-1992 the number of refugees had reached about 100,000, and the Hungarian government was appealing to Western European nations for assistance.

In July 1994 Horn took a step toward reconciliation with Romania and Slovakia (formerly part of Czechoslovakia) when he offered to drop Hungarian claims on Slovakian and Romanian territory in return for a guarantee of safety for ethnic Hungarians living in those countries. In December Hungary and the other member-nations of the Council of Europe approved a Convention on the Protection of National Minorities; the convention provided for linguistic rights and the right to freedom of religion, among others; Hungary ratified the convention in February 1995. Also in 1994 Horn issued an official apology for Hungary’s role in the deaths of 600,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.

In 1995 Hungary was engaged in negotiations over the status of Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia, and in March the governments of Hungary and Slovakia signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation that guaranteed the rights of ethnic minority groups. In September 1996 Hungary and Romania reached agreement on a basic treaty that was ratified by Romania’s parliament in the fall of 1996 and by the Hungarian parliament in early 1997. President Goncz made an unprecedented visit to Romania in May 1997.

The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia concerning the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric project continued into 1997. The dispute stemmed from Hungary’s decision in 1989 to back out of a joint construction plan, which had been agreed to in a 1977 treaty. In 1993 the countries referred the dispute to the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands, for arbitration. In 1997 the court ruled that both countries had violated the 1977 agreement and ordered them to compensate one another and continue negotiations to resolve the conflict.

In February 1995 the Hungarian government adopted a law to compensate Jewish groups for their persecution during World War II. In April 1997 parliament amended the law to make Jewish survivors of the Holocaust eligible for lifetime annuities from a $23.5 million fund.

In May 1998 parliamentary elections, the Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party defeated the Hungarian Socialist Party, and Gyula Horn lost his position as prime minister. Fidesz leader Viktor Orban took over as prime minister in July and formed a center-right coalition government with the Independent Smallholders’ Party and the Hungarian Democratic Forum.

In April 2002 parliamentary elections, the Hungarian Socialist Party and its ally, the Alliance of Free Democrats, narrowly defeated Orban’s conservative coalition. Socialist Peter Medgyessy, a former finance minister, was sworn in as prime minister in May, leading a center-left coalition government with the Free Democrats. The new government’s program included pledges to increase pay for teachers and health-care workers, give tax relief to minimum-wage earners, and offer additional funds to people drawing pensions.