Hungarian Round Table Talks

The Hungarian Round Table Talks (Hungarian: Kerekasztal-tárgyalások) were a series of formalized, orderly and highly legalistic discussions held in Budapest, Hungary in the summer and autumn of 1989, inspired by the Polish model, that ended in the creation of a multi-party constitutional democracy and saw the Communist Party (formally the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party or MSzMP) lose its 40-year grip on power.

The talks originated in March 1989 as a meeting among opposition groups. At that point, longtime leader János Kádár had been removed from power for almost a year, and the Communists' Central Committee that month admitted the necessity of a multiparty system, with various groups like Fidesz and the Alliance of Free Democrats (SzDSz) having emerged. Mass demonstrations on March 15, the National Day, persuaded the regime to begin negotiations with the emergent non-Communist political forces. A week later, these new movements, at the initiative of the Independent Lawyers’ Forum, formed the Opposition Round Table (Ellenzéki Kerekasztal, EKA), designed to prevent the Communists from trying to maintain power by dividing the opposition, and to establish some degree of unity in the face of the regime’s own reform agenda. The table was composed of a small number of elite organizations, whose grassroots links were poorly developed and whose very existence stemmed in part from the collaboration of key Communist reformers. Specifically, it involved the SzDSz, Fidesz, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), the Independent Smallholders’ Party (FKgP), the Hungarian People’s Party (MNP), the Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Society, and the Democratic Trade Union of Scientific Workers. At a later stage the Democratic Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the Christian Democratic People's Party (KNDP) were invited.

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