well having read all your posts for which I thank you, it seems to me that generally speaking for the most part, you all did in fact not move to Hungary 'for political reasons'.
Leaving aside those who were moved there by their employer and had little choice in the matter, what were your reasons for making the move.?
As a UK ex pat living in France I am often asked that question and I would love to know what attraction Hungary has for Brits.

p.s. I disagree with most of what has been said regarding NATO etc, but I think discussion of that would be best left to another thread. I simply used my views on that as a possible reason for me to consider a move to Hungary.

I moved here for two reasons:
1) I fell in love and married a Hungarian lady. That meant visiting Hungary every year to see her family. They took us out everywhere and treated us to a meal at the end of the day. It was reciprocated when they visited us in England.
2) My NHS pension isn't enough to support two of us in the UK. My Hungarian wife always found it difficult to find jobs paying a decent wage due to the fact she had no British qualifications but she did acquire qualifications to teach British Sign Language. She had a good job at Lewisham College teaching BSL, three to four times a week, then the government cut the funding and had to find another teaching job. Despite being very reliable and committed to teaching for a whole year, she'd start with just one class per week and towards the end of the academic year she'd be teaching four classes per week, but come September it was back to one class per week, then the same cycle was repeated whereby she'd been teaching four classes, come September back to one! So we'd had enough of being messed around!

​​​​​​A mixture of reasons, resulting from, on the one hand, disillusionment with the UK and on the other the attractions of Hungarian society (for want of a better word), politics is in the mix but not a dominant factor. - all acquired from working & holidaying here, on & off, for some years before making the permanent move. Economics (the bang for my buck) did play a small part. Unlike many of our contributors neither of us have Hungarian blood.

Having said that, do bear in mind that we live in Budapest and that is not the same as living outside! We are retired and find life very easy, more importantly we are, and have always been, treated with the utmost kindness and consideration, even at official level.

Now I love France but can't imagine living there, or life being as easy - I may be wrong about that. Similarly, we thought (briefly) about Portugal (having had many happy holidays there) but only briefly, holidaying, yes, living there, no, not for us!

Disillusionment with the UK. I can understand that. On 22nd this month we'd have been here four years. We've only made new friends past two years. First two years it seems we were caught in the crossfire between Hungarian friends falling out with each other. Suffice to say our fifth year is going to be good!

It takes time - but that's ok!

on your point about disillusionment ..... I often thought ... look this is pretty easy to resolve but the powers that be sat on their hands and did zilch! It seems decisions were driven by politicians taking the opposite view because they didn't like who was driving the change!

I arrived in Hungary via South Africa and France Outre-Mer some 17 years ago. I looked at several EU countries including Spain where I'd once lived and France where I have family. I wanted my own home with a reasonable sized garden somewhere in the countryside, something I certainly couldn't afford in the UK. And for me personally I didn't want to live somewhere popular with other ex pats. I narrowed the choice down to either Slovakia or Hungary but finally settled on Hungary as purchasing property was much easier. I ended up buying a traditional village house on half an acre of land in what was then a remote village in Northern Hungary for just under £6000. No kitchen, bathroom or toilet, Gas but no inside water and the electric wiring was highly suspect. I lived in chaos surrounded by rubble for the next year whilst the house was renovated. I'm the only Brit for miles around, although living close to the border we do have a few Slovakians living either in my or neighbouring villages.

I've never regretted my decision.Hungary is such a peaceful country and although my Hungarian leaves much to be desired I find Hungarians are very understanding and helpful. To me an added bonus is being able to "pop" over the border into a neighbouring country for the day ... or more, taking my two dogs with me.

Off topic but only slightly as sense of humour could be a factor in moving to Hungary -

Classic piece of Hungarian humour

Had to pick up an order from our Butcher lady (Henteslány) this afternoon, called first to check her bank machine is working - "Yes, yes, it's fine, only the airport has been affected



​​​​​​⠀‹This!

As to myself I have both Deaf and Hearing friends. Sorry If you feel offended I've called you Hearing. It's part of Deaf culture! I've found our Hearing Hungarian friends more trustworthy!

if you can't trust your friends they are not your friends

Not offended by that!

True!

Thank you.

Back to the original question
anyone moving to Hungary for political reasons?
I doubt that anyone from western Europe will be moving to Hungary for political reasons. IMO most if not all will be moving for life style choices.

On the other hand my wife left Hungary for political reasons twice, once as a child with her family in '56. They were placed in a refugee camp in Austria until a country was found who would accept them. They managed to get a sponsor in England and so were allowed to go there. Once there her father was given a job (not offered - given, no choice) How different to todays (mis)management of the migrant crisis across Europe (inc. UK)

After 10 years half her family decided to return to Hungary (prompted by divorce) where she lived for about 10 years by which time she had become totally disillusioned with the corruption and control exerted by the state, she managed to get a passport for a holiday (passports had to be approved by the local party leader) and went on her 'holiday' to England not to return until the regime changed. (of course she was given a prison sentence in her absence for failing to return which was later cancelled with an amnesty)

Following the downfall of the Ceaușescu régime in '89 which followed the change in Hungary and as we as a family were wanting a change we came to Hungary on a couple of visits to see if the changes were sufficient to allay her fears about returning. She decided she could cope with Hungary as it had become, and although the process of change was still incomplete as a family in 1994/95 we decided to move to Hungary - The rest as they say is History. This move was a life style choice.

There are, I would venture to suggest, a lot of people who would want to move for political reasons from the dictator régimes of Russia, China N. Korea and Iran if only those countries allowed proper freedom of movement. Very few seem to want to move from the 'west' to these countries. Perhaps renault could explain why.