Are Hungary's reforms a step too far?

„This time, we drink from delicate Herend porcelain decorated with butterflies and flowers. A former liberal himself, Viktor Orban has become the man whom liberals in Europe love to hate.

For an hour-and-a-half, we speak, off-the-record. There is a lot to go through.

His government stands accused of autocratic, even authoritarian, moves to take over state institutions - most seriously the national bank - of trampling human rights underfoot and of destroying democratic checks and balances.

When the tape recorders go on for the last few minutes of our meeting, he quotes the Rolling Stones - »I Can't Get no Satisfaction«.

The song came out in 1965 when he was just two years old. Its lyrics sum up his own frustration, he says, and that of millions of Hungarians that the change of system, begun in 1989, was never completed.

That was the reason for Hungary's brand new constitution, which came into force on the first of January, he explains.

A constitution which, he and his party believe, finally launches Hungary on the right road.”