On 15 April 2026, Péter Magyar made an appearance on the Hungarian state channel M1, where he criticised the country’s media landscape and accused the government of overspending on propaganda. The claim is impossible to verify, but likely overstated.
Péter Magyar is the leader of the Tisza Party, who also became Hungary’s new prime minister in the aftermath of the 2026 elections. His party has been highly critical of Viktor Orbán’s government, arguing that it has prioritised strengthening its political power over public services such as healthcare and education.
Hungary’s media landscape became increasingly concentrated during Orbán’s 16 years in power, with pro-government actors controlling much of the press and public broadcasting.
During his appearance on M1, Magyar pledged to “restore the freedom and independence of the Hungarian press” and end what he calls “state’s illegal funding of propaganda”. He claimed the government spends 600 billion forints (~€1.69 billion) per year on “malicious, blatant propaganda”, adding that this money is missing from healthcare, while “30,000–40,000 people died this year from preventable diseases”.
To assess the claim, it is first important to define what “propaganda” means in this context.
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State communication or propaganda?
The framing of state communication as propaganda is not unique to Magyar. Other Tisza members have engaged in similar arguments, suggesting that money used on propaganda could instead be redirected to areas like healthcare, education, and social services.
The term propaganda can be understood as a subjective, normative label for state communication rather than a clearly defined, objective category. However, in Hungary, concerns about the objectivity of state communication have increasingly been raised. Based on the 2025–2026 campaign tactics and institutional behaviour, Hungarian state communication has evolved from conventional political messaging into a sophisticated propaganda apparatus.
This was echoed by Kata Horváth, Professor at the ELTE University and researcher at Mérték Media Monitor, who stated:
“Based on our research, it is certain to be said that the so-called public service media in Hungary is not working as a public service media. So we can constitute it as Fidesz propaganda.”
Examples include AI-generated war imagery, such as videos of executions and mourning families, engineered to activate fear and bypass rational deliberation. The government also distributed content through unofficial groups such as “Not Our War”, effectively sidestepping campaign finance regulations while flooding social media with messaging echoing official Fidesz positions. Most tellingly, complex geopolitical questions were reduced to a blunt binary: a vote for the ruling party meant “Peace”, while any alternative was portrayed as a mandate to send Hungarian soldiers to the Ukrainian battlefronts.
How much was spent?
Magyar’s claim that the government spends 600 billion forints per year on propaganda is difficult to verify, as it does not seem to be based on a single official or independently verified figure. It is unclear what is included in his exact definition of “propaganda” and which spending channels should be taken into account.
Also, the primary source where the data was derived from could not be verified. In the official statistical document depicting central government expenditures, only the support to public service broadcasting is specified in detail. For example, in 2024, the government reportedly spent more than 127 billion forints on public service broadcasting support. In the years 2022 and 2023, the budget was even smaller, approximately 110 billion forints per year.
Determining the exact scale of state propaganda since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022 is challenging, as the government promoted its agenda in different ways, affecting people’s everyday lives. Besides holding a stronghold on the national media landscape, it also used disinformation campaigns in the form of billboards, leaflets, mock referendums and AI-generated online content, among others.
Can this be verified?
Not all of Magyar’s claims are verifiable in an empirical way. The assertion that money is missing from the healthcare system presupposes a direct link between the government’s large communication budgets and healthcare funding, without providing supporting evidence. Similarly, the figure cited for deaths from preventable diseases appears in the same paragraph without Magyar explicitly establishing a causal connection. Both claims therefore fall outside the scope of this analysis.
Additionally, the accusation of “illegal financing” is a claim of a legal nature. At the time of publication, no judicial ruling or legal finding either at the Hungarian or European level exists to substantiate it. It therefore cannot be treated as an established fact.
By opting to use the phrase “per year”, Magyar also did not clarify the timeframe of the alleged spending. Since the war broke out in February 2022, however, the vulnerability and inflation of the Hungarian forint has substantially changed the country’s economy. Therefore, we have decided to focus on the last four years of Orbán’s mandate when looking at propaganda-related expenses.
Conclusions
Overall, while Péter Magyar’s statements reflect broader and well-documented concerns about the increasing concentration of media power in Hungary, his factual claim could not be verified. The exact boundaries between legitimate state communication and propaganda remain contested and difficult to define objectively.
Moreover, several of Magyar’s claims could not be empirically verified, as no evidence was provided to establish a direct link between government spending on propaganda, healthcare outcomes, or allegations of illegal financing.
Attempts were made to contact representatives of both the Tisza Party and Fidesz for a verification on the government expenditures, but neither party responded within a week.
In short, while it is true that the Hungarian government has spent a substantial amount on state communication during Viktor Orbán’s rule, Péter Magyar’s exact claim about 600 billion forints spent per year on propaganda could not be verified.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Ina Liklikadze, University of Georgia; Viktoria Murskaja, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Finland; Dewyn van Putten, University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Bence Adrián Horváth; Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Belgium; Martina García Ballesper, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
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