Green political issues have become more important, but the Hungarian Greens have failed to gain a foothold.

The story of Europe’s green parties are often very similar. They spent decades in opposition as moderately popular one-issue movements, then green issues and particularly climate change became a hot political topic in the second part of the 2010s, which elevated them to the first tier of politics. 

But while Germany’s and Austria’s Greens ended up in government, Hungary’s Magyarország Zöld Pártja (LMP), a green party founded in 2009, failed to gain a foothold, even though Hungarians too became more and more concerned about climate change. A shocking 2022 poll by UNICEF showed that 90% of people aged between 13-25 are experiencing anxiety about climate change. LMP were also well positioned to become a popular party because other larger opposition parties failed to deliver on their promises in 2018 to beat Viktor Orban’s party – Fidesz