Hungarian PM’s First Foreign Trip to Poland Proves More Than Symbolic Reset

Polish PM Donald Tusk (R) and Hungarian PM Peter Magyar (L) attend a press conference after a meeting at Parkowa Complex in Warsaw, Poland, 20 May 2026. EPA/Pawel Supernak “It is not only Hungary’s return to Europe and real democracy,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared after meeting his Hungarian counterpart Peter Magyar in Warsaw on Wednesday, describing the latter’s April 12 election victory as “brilliant”. “It is also a sign of hope that the rule of law and decency in politics are no

Tusk’s liberal coalition, which came to power in 2023 after defeating the nationalist-populist Law and Justice (PiS) government, is widely viewed as a possible roadmap for Hungary’s post-Viktor Orban transition: restoring judicial independence, rebuilding relations with Brussels and unlocking frozen EU funds. The itinerary itself of the two-day visit underscored that message. Magyar arrived in Krakow on Tuesday morning, where he met Cardinal Grzegorz Rys before boarding a train to Warsaw, where he held talks with Tusk, President Karol Nawrocki and the speakers of both the lower and upper houses of parliament on Wednesday. On Wednesday evening, he will travel with Tusk to Gdansk to visit the European Solidarity Centre and meet former Polish president Lech Walesa – a deliberate invocation of Poland’s democratic mythology and the anti-communist Solidarity movement. But beneath the choreography of historical references and revived friendship rhetoric lay a more pragmatic agenda: security, energy and the future shape and direction of Central Europe after the Orban era. During the press conference after their closed-door talks, the two prime ministers repeatedly returned to the idea of restoring Central Europe’s political weight inside the EU. Tusk said both he and Magyar knew the EU “from the inside”, but wanted their region to regain its strategic significance “without any complexes”. The meeting also produced concrete declarations. While the two prime ministers addressed the press, broader delegations – including six cabinet ministers from each side – held parallel talks on European security, energy independence and post-Orban institutional rebuilding. Tusk pledged Polish support for Hungary’s efforts to reduce its continuing dependence on Russian energy, including, according to a Reuters report , possible cooperation on liquefied natural gas through Poland’s future LNG terminal in Gdansk. The two sides also voiced support for revitalising the Visegrad Group (V4) of Central European countries, whose relevance largely collapsed due to Orban’s increasingly pro-Kremlin positioning following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Magyar floated the idea of expanding regional cooperation beyond the traditional V4 format to include Austria, the Balkans or Nordic countries.

Key points

• Tusk’s liberal coalition, which came to power in 2023 after defeating the nationalist-populist Law and Justice (PiS) government, is widely viewed as a possible roadmap for Hungary’s post-Viktor Orb…
• The itinerary itself of the two-day visit underscored that message.
• Magyar arrived in Krakow on Tuesday morning, where he met Cardinal Grzegorz Rys before boarding a train to Warsaw, where he held talks with Tusk, President Karol Nawrocki and the speakers of both t…
• On Wednesday evening, he will travel with Tusk to Gdansk to visit the European Solidarity Centre and meet former Polish president Lech Walesa – a deliberate invocation of Poland’s democratic mythol…
• But beneath the choreography of historical references and revived friendship rhetoric lay a more pragmatic agenda: security, energy and the future shape and direction of Central Europe after the Or…