When Freedom House published its Freedom in the World 2026 report in March, it assigned Hungary a score of 65 out of 100 — Partly Free — continuing a decline that the Washington-based watchdog had been tracking for nearly two decades. [1]

The downgrade from Free to Partly Free actually came in 2018. By 2020, Freedom House's separate Nations in Transit report declared Hungary "no longer a democracy" — a hybrid regime in a grey zone between democracy and autocracy. [2] Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government dismissed the ranking as the work of the "Soros network."

Now that trajectory looks prescient. Hungary's score has fallen from 93 in 2005 — when it was a "democratic frontrunner" in post-Communist Europe — to 65 today, one of the steepest declines globally, matched in scale only by Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. [1]

The 2026 report identified media freedom, personal expression, and due process as the categories most damaged by 20 consecutive years of global democratic backsliding. Hungary appeared in every one. [1] Orbán's centralization of media, harassment of civil society, and adoption of rule-by-decree during COVID had already exposed what Freedom House called "the undemocratic character of Orbán's regime." [2]

The report counts 54 countries that experienced deterioration in 2025 versus just 21 that improved. Among EU members, Hungary's decline dragged the bloc's average score down from 94 in 2005 to 90 today.

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin