Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has proposed mandatory, unannounced alcohol and drug tests for MPs, and opposition parties Fidesz and Mi Hazánk have both voiced their support. Fidesz, however, added a pointed remark, saying it hopes the rules will apply to Prime Minister Péter Magyar as well.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar has proposed introducing mandatory, unannounced alcohol and drug tests for members of Hungary’s parliament, and the idea has received support from opposition parties Fidesz and Mi Hazánk.
The Fidesz parliamentary group confirmed its position in a response to Telex on Tuesday, adding: “We hope that the rules will apply to Péter Magyar as well.”
Mi Hazánk also backed the initiative, saying the party had previously supported the use of drug and alcohol testing.
The proposal follows a series of confrontations in parliament involving Fidesz MP János Pócs, whose behaviour Magyar criticised during parliamentary proceedings on Monday.
What prompted Magyar’s proposal?
On Tuesday morning, Magyar shared a video from one of his parliamentary speeches the previous day, in which he commented on Pócs’s conduct in the chamber. The Fidesz MP had reportedly been playing bingo during parliamentary proceedings and later held up a sign reading “nausea” after Magyar’s speech.
In the video, the prime minister called attention to Pócs’s behaviour and asked the Tisza parliamentary group to submit a proposal to amend parliament’s rules and the legislation governing its operation.
Magyar suggested that introducing mandatory, unannounced alcohol and drug tests would help establish whether substance use could explain what he described as Pócs’s increasingly poor condition.
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Fidesz and Mi Hazánk back the idea
Fidesz’s support comes with a clear political caveat. While endorsing the initiative, the party stressed that Magyar himself should also be subject to any new requirements. Mi Hazánk, meanwhile, said it supported the proposal because it had already advocated drug and alcohol testing in the past.
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Magyar has taken drug tests before
The prime minister has undergone drug testing several times during his political career, Telex recalls. In June 2024, Magyar took a drug test and challenged Tamás Deutsch, who was then Fidesz’s leading candidate for the European Parliament elections, as well as members of the government at the time, to do the same.
In March 2026, just weeks before Hungary’s parliamentary election, Magyar underwent another comprehensive drug test at a laboratory in Vienna. The results, published later that month, indicated that he had not consumed drugs in the preceding months.