When Péter Magyar ended Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule in April, Berlin treated the result as more than a usual Hungarian election. Chancellor Friedrich Merz later called the Tisza Party’s landslide victory ‘an inspiration for the whole of Europe’, saying the political pendulum could swing back from the ‘illiberal or even authoritarian’ direction. Die Zeit went further, arguing that Germany should learn from Orbán’s defeat in confronting the rise o…