Introduction
On April 12, Hungary voted, and since then young people, many of whom were voting for the first time, have been blamed. Based on earlier turnout rates, young people had not seemed interested in politics, yet this time a significant wave of mobilization took place. I found two possible reasons that may explain this shift, and in this article I examine the social, economic, and other conditions that produced this remarkable level of participation, as well as what shaped young people’s new political consciousness.
Author: Olga Nádra
The young people who actively took part in political change today were born around 2008, during the global financial crisis. During this period, adults in Hungary were losing their jobs en masse, while still having to repay the installments on the foreign currency-based loans they had taken out earlier. As layoffs became more frequent, many were no longer able to meet their payment obligations. Moreover, foreign currency loans were not used exclusively for housing. Many people refinanced their unfavorably structured student loans with foreign currency loans, while others took them out for business development, car purchases, or home renovation. By 2010, the situation had deteriorated to the point where repayments had become impossible on a mass scale, and the crisis affected virtually every social class. This was not the problem of a narrow group, but a systemic crisis that struck families in very different life situations alike. Families and livelihoods were destroyed, while meaningful state intervention only appeared years later, around 2013. At that point, the loans were converted into forints at an extremely high exchange rate, as a result of which these families are still paying the installments to this day while living in rented apartments. Parents and grandparents who had offered up their properties as collateral lost them, or now see half their pensions taken by bailiffs. These young people grew up watching the money that should have been spent on them continue to flow into the pockets of banks and enforcement agents, while they themselves were forced into mere survival due to the lack of a financial safety net.
Dr. László Marczingós is one of the few Hungarian lawyers who consistently fought for legal remedy on behalf of families burdened by foreign currency loans and brought these cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union. It was his persistence that made it possible for the issue of legal remedy to be pushed to the forefront in Strasbourg, at the EU court. Although he effectively did the work in place of the Hungarian state, the state has still not incorporated that ruling into legislation, and so the families who suffered losses have, unfortunately, still not received meaningful compensation.
The generation that grew up during the foreign currency loan crisis also faced serious challenges in education. Because of their families ’financial collapse, many dropped out of quality education, did not receive adequate support, and had to navigate their futures in an atmosphere of uncertainty and stress. Education, therefore, was not simply a source of knowledge for them, but one of the most decisive factors shaping their chances of upward mobility, their sense of self, and their identity. In this situation, education became the space in which young people came to understand that they had to act for their future, and it was out of this self-reflection that their present political decisions were born.
In 2016, when the Tanítanék Movement, together with István Pukli, held its historic protest, these young people, then 12 years old, were standing at the threshold of choosing their paths. The movement raised its voice on issues that directly shaped their future. Its demands included restoring autonomy and freedom, re-establishing the professional independence of teachers and institutions, free choice of teachers and subjects, reducing administrative burdens so that teachers could focus on teaching, easing the pressures on students, cutting the amount of material they were expected to learn, introducing more realistic requirements, creating genuine professional dialogue between the government and teachers, restructuring or abolishing KLIK, the centralized school district authority, and strengthening professional governance. These demands in 2016, when these young people were on the verge of choosing their educational paths, fundamentally shaped their awareness and the generational commitment that ultimately led to their current political decision. But change never came; instead, the government reformed education in other ways. It made the continued operation of CEU in Hungary impossible and prepared the model change that took place in 2021, which resulted in Hungarian higher education being excluded from the Erasmus program. Public education has not become a priority since then.
This election, then, was not decided by billboard campaigns, not by influencers of their own age appearing on social media, and not by political rallies either. These young people were formed instead at family dinner tables where three generations shared the burdens of the system. It is precisely this deep generational trauma that explains why they do not see escape in loans, in student debt, in workers ’loans, or in low-interest state credit schemes. That is why they cannot be accused of passivity: what they have learned is that their real future cannot be built on debt, but on the courage to stand up for their own fate, to understand it, and not to let anyone force the failures of the past onto them.
As I was writing, many other thoughts concerning young people came to mind, for example, the willingness to have children and the need to explore housing problems, and these are the issues I intend to examine more closely next.
Cover photo credit: ChatGPT
Olga Nádra is a social worker and a specialist in gerontology and mental health. She completed her studies at Kodolányi János University. She has more than fifteen years of practical experience in elderly care as well as in supporting people with psychiatric conditions. Her work is grounded in empirical insights gained in the field, through which she engages with questions related to mental health, care systems and the social welfare system. She believes strongly in lifelong learning and therefore continues to deepen her professional knowledge through ongoing training and research.
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