Zoltán Tarr, the No. 2 in Tisza, said the priority was to find “good managers” who could implement that change. He explained that another advantage of recruiting from corporate boardrooms — rather than hiring political veterans — was that the new ministers would not be tainted by previous government experience that would compromise their ability to slash back Orbán’s role in the state.
“We mostly go to the business world to find names because we have certain rules. We cannot deal with people with certain government ‘baggage.’ And that really limits the possibilities for us,” he told POLITICO in an interview.
Tarr added that trying to regain access to Hungary’s currently frozen EU funds would also require skills familiar to executives. “There will be a pragmatic relation with Ursula von der Leyen and Brussels … it’s like business, but mutually beneficial, for Hungary and the EU, and a keeping-your-word kind of business,” he said.
So far, only five names for a potential Cabinet have been confirmed, apart from leader Magyar, who would be prime minister.
Anita Orbán, who until January was public affairs director for Vodafone group and board chair of Czech chemical giant Draslovka, has been tapped to be the country’s new foreign minister, having been a high-level civil servant in the ministry between 2010 and 2015.
To lead the energy portfolio Tisza has picked Shell’s Global Executive Vice President István Kapitány, while for fiscal policy and budget it has picked András Kármán, a top manager at Erste, a Central and Eastern European banking group. The proposed future minister for agriculture, Szabolcs Bóna, is a top entrepreneur in the cattle industry. From outside the realm of big business, the planned minister of health, Zsolt Hegedus, is an orthopedic surgeon.
