Part I — Situation overview

Today, on 20 September 2026, voters go to the polls in two German states: Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The stakes are not regional. According to Portfolio’s summary, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the latest measurement by the INSA polling institute put the AfD (Alternative for Germany, the German far-right party) at 37 per cent and the Social Democratic SPD at 35 per cent. According to a survey by the public broadcaster ZDF, however, the Social Democrats have already taken the lead by 37 to 36 — a year ago they were still at 19 per cent. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats may reach 6–7 per cent in the same state, which would be the party’s weakest result in any state or national election in its history. They may not even enter the legislature in Schwerin. In Berlin the Left (Die Linke) stands at around 21 per cent, the CDU at 20 and the AfD at 18. The precedent is two weeks old: in Saxony-Anhalt the AfD won 39 seats in the 83-member state legislature with 44 per cent of the vote, but in the absence of an absolute majority the formation of a government has been deadlocked ever since.

On the last day of the campaign the topic turned into foreign policy. According to reports by Portfolio and Telex, Kirill Dmitriev, special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin for investment and economic cooperation, published a public post on the platform X on Saturday — a day before the election — writing that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania “will flourish again” if, together with the AfD, affordable and reliable gas returns through Nord Stream. The post replied to a post by Alice Weidel, co-chair of the AfD. Reuters — cited by 24.hu — also reported that the AfD and the Russian economic envoy may hold talks in March 2027. The AfD’s official programme is the resumption of Russian gas deliveries; Russian pipeline gas is currently subject to EU sanctions, and of the two pipelines damaged in September 2022 only a single branch remains operable. The framing of the topic in the Hungarian press was unusually uniform: Magyar Nemzet too weighed up Merz’s farewell, while Portfolio wrote that in the event of a result without a seat in Mecklenburg the chancellor would have to fight for his political survival within the CDU.

MIAK’s reading: this is not a colourful item of German domestic politics but a change in the external conditions of Hungary’s foreign policy and economic policy room for manoeuvre. Germany is the largest target market for Hungarian exports and the main backbone of the order chain of Hungarian industrial production; prolonged governmental uncertainty in Berlin would appear in the Hungarian budget too, through the Hungarian growth path. And the Russian gas offer is precisely the formula whose Hungarian version MIAK has been criticising for years: cheaper energy in the short term, openness to blackmail in the long term. If this criticism is a matter of principle, then it applies to a German actor as well — if it is voiced only when a Hungarian government does it, then it was not a principle but party politics.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three works illuminate the three layers of the topic. Henry Kissinger (German-born American diplomat and foreign policy thinker, US Secretary of State between 1973 and 1977) writes in his book World Order (2014) that for much of its history Germany has been either too weak or too strong for the peace of Europe — the order of the continent has therefore always depended on how the German middle power fits into its environment. This proposition also holds for today’s situation: it is not German strength but German uncertainty that destabilises. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman (a Russian economist and an American political scientist respectively, researchers of modern authoritarian rule) show in their book Spin Dictators (2022) that today’s autocrats work not with open violence but with manipulation, media influence and apparently non-political matters. Alongside this they regularly seek partners across the western political spectrum. A Russian message promising economic prosperity, published the day before an election, fits precisely into this handbook. The European Union’s Global Strategy (2016) provides the normative framework of the Hungarian answer. Under “principled pragmatism”, a foreign policy decision rests at once on a realistic assessment of the strategic environment and on declared values. The principle is therefore not applicable selectively. The detailed treatment of the literature — by author, with quotations — is in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. The first creates a regular, public assessment of the external conditions, the second makes the energy dependence yardstick independent of the actor, and the third prepares Hungary’s EU bargaining position for a changing German domestic politics.

3.1 An annual, public “external conditions report” on the main risks to the government’s room for manoeuvre (first edition in the first quarter of 2027)

MIAK proposes that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade prepare and publish each year a short report of no more than thirty pages on the external circumstances on which Hungary’s economic and foreign policy room for manoeuvre depends. The report’s mandatory content: the domestic political risks of the largest partner economies and their transmission to Hungarian trade in quantified form (for German exposure, as a share of Hungarian exports and of industrial supplier turnover); the breakdown of the energy procurement structure by source; and the list of matters on the EU decision-making agenda that affect Hungary, together with the coalition partners available on them. The report should not be a statement of facts without assessment: every risk should have an identified threshold value and a response laid down in advance. This is the institutionalised output of the KP13 geopolitical situation analysis capacity, and at the same time the practical vehicle of the annual coherence review prescribed by the KP4 doctrine. Kissinger’s balance thesis (see 6.4.1) is not an abstract historical observation in this framework: it tells us that the weakness of the largest partner is just as much a risk as its strength, so both must be measured.

3.2 An actor-independent energy dependence yardstick — the same threshold for everyone (together with the 2027 energy policy report)

MIAK proposes that the government lay down a public, numerical yardstick for the share of energy imports coming from a single source, and apply that yardstick in the same way to every actor’s proposal — whether the proposal comes from a Hungarian governing party or from a German opposition party. The yardstick should consist of two elements: an upper limit on the annual share of natural gas and crude oil imports from a single country, and a mandatory impact assessment before any contract that would raise that share. The impact assessment should cover the security-of-supply risk, the legal exposure to EU sanctions and the term of the contractual exposure. Guriev and Treisman’s analysis (see 6.4.2) shows precisely that for these actors an economic offer is not about the economy but about a channel of political influence — the decision must therefore be taken on the basis of the structure of dependence, not the momentary price of the offer. The yardstick is the most concrete application of KP4 principled pragmatism: public, laid down in advance, and independent of the person making the proposal. It is a supplement to the HV11 strategic communication and information defence programme point: in future, an economic promise from a foreign state actor published the day before an election should be documented by Hungarian analytical capacity and named for what it is — an attempt at influence.

3.3 An issue-based coalition reserve for the period of German domestic political uncertainty (continuous, with semi-annual review)

MIAK proposes that Hungarian EU policy should not rest on a single partner in Berlin. If the German government is in a domestic political crisis for months, German support will become unpredictable in the EU dossiers important for Hungary — cohesion funds, agricultural policy, energy market regulation, enlargement. The practical task: for every such dossier the government should identify at least two alternative coalition partners, and record what it can offer in return. This is the operation of the KP17 issue-based coalition building programme point, supplemented by the KP11 strategic balance policy: the aim is not to devalue the German relationship but to ensure that the Hungarian position does not become hostage to a coalition dispute taking place in a single capital.

The three proposals share one principle: external circumstances cannot be influenced, but preparation can be. The European balance described by Kissinger is today a question not of power blocs but of predictability in decision-making — and predictability is the only resource a medium-sized country can produce by its own decision.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Economy Knowing German exposure in figures makes the Hungarian export shock foreseeable; budget planning can be prepared with a sensitivity annex The report in itself does not protect against a fall in demand; if the figure brings bad news, political pressure may weigh on its publication
Foreign policy The actor-independent energy yardstick increases the credibility of the Hungarian position at the EU table A public, numerical threshold may tie the government’s hands in the case of a favourable bilateral offer
Security policy Documenting foreign influence attempts strengthens societal resilience Overuse of the “influence” label in domestic political disputes may devalue the concept
Society A readable report repeated annually reduces the sense that foreign policy decisions are unpredictable If the report is written in professional jargon, it will not reach the reader and will become a mere formality

The main trade-off lies between transparency and negotiating flexibility. An energy dependence threshold laid down in advance is a constraint visible to the negotiating partner too — this may weaken the bargaining position in a particular transaction, but it strengthens long-term credibility. In MIAK’s view the balance lies where the threshold is public but the procedure for exceptions is also fixed: the government may depart from it if it justifies the decision with a prior, public impact assessment. The proposal tips to the risk side if the report becomes an instrument of government communication — which is why its indicators must be laid down in advance, in legislation, rather than chosen anew each year.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

MIAK proposes the following key performance indicators (KPIs) for monitoring. These are proposals, not government decisions — from them it will be visible whether the direction is right:

  • Whether the external conditions report appears in the first quarter of 2027, and whether it contains a quantified value for German trade exposure (yes/no, then repeated annually).
  • Whether the annual share of natural gas imports from a single country is on a declining path, measured annually (source: the energy balance of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) and Eurostat).
  • Whether the number of alternative coalition partners identified for EU dossiers reaches two per dossier, with semi-annual review.
  • The number of documented and publicly named foreign influence attempts and the average lead time of identification.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request to the government in a single sentence: let there be an annual public report on the external circumstances on which Hungary’s room for manoeuvre depends, and a yardstick for energy dependence laid down in advance and applied equally to everyone. The German election taking place today is not a Hungarian matter, but its consequence will be — the only question is whether it reaches us prepared or by surprise.

Two of MIAK’s foundational values are at stake in this topic. Being ideology-free, because criticism of rebuilding Russian energy dependence is only an argument if it is voiced regardless of whether the proposal comes from a right-wing or a left-wing, a Hungarian or a German actor; if the yardstick changes with the person making the proposal, then it was not a yardstick but a position. And data-drivenness, because today there is hardly any quantified, public Hungarian document on foreign policy risk — we usually learn of exposure afterwards, from its effect. The proposed report reverses this: first we measure, then we decide.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

The economic segment gave the most detailed and the least framed coverage. Portfolio separated the domestic political stakes of the state election from the Russian gas offer in two distinct articles, and in both cases published primary sources (the INSA and ZDF measurements, the Kremlin envoy’s own post). The paper also presented the CDU’s possible sub-threshold result through its consequence: it referred to the situation within the party and to the chancellor’s position, without dramatic labelling.

The left-liberal and public-affairs segment put the influence dimension at the centre. Both Telex and 24.hu made the Reuters report their focus, that is, they ran the news not to the election result but to the planned talks between the AfD and the Russian side. Beyond this, 24.hu brought two further frames: a regional report on how locals experience the advance of the far right, and an analyst’s comment interpreting the strengthening of the German far right as a systemic crisis. This segment therefore foregrounded not the question “what will the figures be” but “how did we get here”.

The pro-government conservative segment dealt not with the far-right advance but with the Christian Democratic failure. Magyar Nemzet’s headline anticipated Merz’s farewell, and it treated the CDU’s result as the chancellor’s personal political balance sheet. The Russian gas offer received substantially less attention in this segment. The framing was thus about the position of the German conservative mainstream rather than the AfD — which is in itself a legitimate point of view, but the foreign policy layer of today’s news is left out of it.

What was missing from all three segments: the quantification of the Hungarian transmission. Not one piece of coverage asked what months of prolonged uncertainty in Berlin would mean in forints for Hungarian industrial orders. This gap is precisely the one the report proposed in Part III would fill.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, AfD / SPD (INSA) 37% / 35% INSA measurement, Portfolio, 20 September 2026
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, SPD / AfD (ZDF) 37% / 36% ZDF measurement, Portfolio, 20 September 2026
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, CDU 6–7% INSA/ZDF, Portfolio, 20 September 2026
Berlin (Linke / CDU / AfD) 21% / 20% / 18% INSA measurement, Portfolio, 18 September 2026
Saxony-Anhalt, AfD (September 2026) 44%, 39 seats out of 83 Portfolio, 20 September 2026
Population of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania / gross domestic product (GDP) per capita 1.6 million people / ~USD 36,000 Portfolio, 20 September 2026
Planned talks between the AfD and the Russian economic envoy March 2027 Reuters, 24.hu, 19 September 2026

After the bomb attack of 26 September 2022 against the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, one branch of the second pipeline remained operable; Russian pipeline gas is subject to EU sanctions (Portfolio, 19 September 2026). These figures belong to the Hungarian policy debate because the trade diversification target of the KP11 programme point — that no single country’s share should exceed 15 per cent — is not met today in the case of German exposure, and recording this fact publicly is the first step.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Foreign policy (programme points) — KP4 principled pragmatism provides the basis in principle for the actor-independent yardstick, KP11 strategic balance policy the trade and energy diversification target value, KP13 geopolitical situation analysis capacity the institutional background of the report, and KP17 issue-based coalition building the reserve-partner logic for EU dossiers;
  • Defence (programme points) — HV11 strategic communication and information defence covers the documentation and naming of a pre-election economic offer from a foreign state actor;
  • Environment and climate (background material) — the diversification of energy imports and the phasing out of Russian dependence also determine the cost structure of the climate policy transition: the return of cheap fossil energy worsens the return on transition investments.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Henry Kissinger: World Order

In analysing the European settlement after the Congress of Vienna, Kissinger formulates a proposition that also holds today. The order of the continent was lastingly unstable because the German space was at times too weak to defend itself against outside intervention and at times too strong for its neighbours not to combine against it:

“In that sense Germany has for much of history been either too weak or too strong for the peace of Europe.”

Kissinger states this historical pattern not as a moral judgement but as a structural observation: the condition of the German middle power always rearranged the room for manoeuvre of the surrounding countries, regardless of what German policy intended. Translated to today’s Hungarian situation: the primary source of Hungarian risk is not the direction of German policy but the unpredictability of German decision-making. A coalition deadlock or a chancellor crisis in Berlin slows EU decision-making and supplier orders just as much as a German government programme unfavourable from a Hungarian point of view. That is why MIAK proposes that the external conditions report should measure not only the partner’s political direction but also the stability of its decision-making.

📖 Source: Henry Kissinger: World Order — Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

6.4.2 Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators

The central thesis of the authors’ book is that today’s authoritarian leaders work with the toolkit of manipulation rather than of fear: apparently non-political matters, media influence and economic promises together replace what open repression used to accomplish. In the preface the authors write that recent events have not refuted but confirmed this picture, and that “many are still consulting the spin dictators’ handbook” to this day. They also emphasise separately that these actors “continue to be keen to join international institutions, so as to be able to manipulate them at will” — that is, influence building takes the form of using existing institutional and political channels rather than of open confrontation.

A message promising prosperity, published the day before an election, fits precisely into this pattern: it is neither a threat nor a covert operation, but a public economic offer that the receiving party can use as its own campaign message. The Hungarian lesson is twofold. First, the answer is not censorship but naming and documentation — which is why MIAK proposes extending the HV11 programme point to such cases. Second, in assessing an economic offer the yardstick is not the price promised but the structure of the dependence created, because that dependence will become an instrument of later political bargaining.

📖 Source: Sergei Guriev – Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators (Hungarian edition: Spindiktátorok)

6.4.3 European Union: A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy

The EU’s founding foreign policy document provides the normative framework of the Hungarian proposal. The strategy lays down the guiding principle of decision-making as follows:

“We will be guided by clear principles. These stem as much from a realistic assessment of the current strategic environment as from an idealistic aspiration to advance a better world. Principled pragmatism will guide our external action in the years ahead.”

The wording links two requirements: a realistic assessment of the situation and declared values. According to the document the two are not alternatives but two mandatory elements of a single decision-making procedure. The logic of MIAK’s proposal follows from this. The realistic assessment is the external conditions report — without it the “interest” is only a supposition. And the declared value is the actor-independent energy dependence yardstick — without it the “principle” is only rhetoric. The KP4 programme point transposes this EU principle into Hungarian practice, with the addition that the annual coherence review should itself be public.

📖 Source: European Union: Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe — A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy

6.5 International comparison

There are several established practices for the regular, public assessment of external conditions. Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper, published every five years, publicly records foreign policy priorities and the assessment of the situation behind them; Japan’s annually published Diplomatic Bluebook gives a detailed justification for foreign policy decisions. These documents are the operational versions of Kissinger’s balance thesis: they do not influence partners’ behaviour, but they make one’s own decision-making predictable. From the point of view of the energy dependence yardstick, the practice of the Baltic states is instructive: they ended reliance on a single source in gas supply not on the basis of market prices but on the basis of security-of-supply thresholds laid down in advance — that is, they did precisely what MIAK proposes: they took the decision on the basis of the structure of dependence rather than the momentary price.

Foreign policy

  • KP4 — Principled pragmatism doctrine
  • KP11 — Strategic balance policy
  • KP13 — Geopolitical situation analysis capacity
  • KP17 — Issue-based coalition building in the EU

Defence

  • HV11 — Strategic communication and information defence

Proposed new programme point: Annual external conditions report — for the Foreign policy area, as the public output of the KP13 analytical capacity.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 20 September 2026 — topic 4):

  • [Portfolio] Sorsfordító szavazáson dől el, hogy tovább menetel-e a német szélsőjobboldal — https://www.portfolio.hu/global/20260920/sorsfordito-szavazason-dol-el-hogy-tovabb-menetel-e-a-nemet-szelsojobboldal-teljesen-elszabadulhat-a-pokol-863848
  • [Portfolio] Oroszország együttműködést ajánlott a német szélsőjobboldali AfD-nek — https://www.portfolio.hu/global/20260919/oroszorszag-egyuttmukodest-ajanlott-a-nemet-szelsojobboldali-afd-nek-863904
  • [Telex] Még kormányon sincs az AfD, már az oroszokkal tárgyalna olaj- és gázvásárlásról — https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2026/09/19/afd-nemetorszag-targyalas-az-oroszokkal-olajrol-gazrol (the article was not publicly downloadable)
  • [24.hu] Reuters: Az AfD Putyin emberével tárgyalna a gázszállítások újraindításáról Németországba — https://24.hu/kulfold/2026/09/19/reuters-afd-putyin-oroszorszag-targyalas/
  • [24.hu] „Ha az AfD irányít, nem akarok itt élni" — szembe tud nézni Szász-Anhalt a választási eredménnyel? — https://24.hu/kulfold/2026/09/20/afd-szasz-anhalt-nemetorszag-szelsojobb-dw/
  • [24.hu] Scheiring Gábor: Amit a tűzfal kitakar — német szélsőjobb mint rendszerválság — https://24.hu/kulfold/2026/09/18/scheiring-gabor-tuzfal-nemet-szelsojobb-rendszervalsag/
  • [Magyar Nemzet] Szomorú vasárnap vár a CDU-ra — közeleg Merz búcsúja? — https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2026/09/nemet-tartomanyi-valasztasok-cdu-friedrich-merz
  • [ATV] Rezeg a léc Friedrich Merz kancellár alatt — https://www.atv.hu/videok/rezeg-a-lec-friedrich-merz-kancellar-alatt/
  • [Népszava] Két vasárnapi tartományi választás dönt Friedrich Merz sorsáról — https://nepszava.hu/ (title-level reference only)

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Henry Kissinger: World Order — Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History
  • 📖 Sergei Guriev – Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators (Hungarian edition: Spindiktátorok)
  • 📖 European Union: Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe — A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP4, KP11, KP13, KP17)
  • MIAK policy area: Defence (programme points; programme point ID: HV11)
  • MIAK policy area: Environment and climate (background material)
  • MIAK press monitor, 20 September 2026 — topic 4, score: 88/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • Eurostat — Hungarian–German foreign trade turnover and energy balance data series
  • KSH — foreign trade in goods broken down by country group
  • ZDF Politbarometer and INSA — German electoral polling

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