„With the fall of Hungary's Western-style, pluralistic democracy, the time is right for the United States to reinstate Radio Free Europe's Hungarian-language broadcasts. Hungarian would then join 28 other languages in which Radio Free Europe transmits its programs on radio stations in countries of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Asia and the Balkans. The president of one of these countries told one of us last year that he begins every morning by listening to RFE's summary of the news.
While Hungary is a member of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, it is at risk of becoming a constitutional dictatorship and a pariah in the West. Its hastily adopted new constitution has no meaningful provisions for checks and balances. All branches of government and all independent institutions, including the judiciary, are controlled by Orban and his party for nine years with automatic renewal for many more similar terms.