Liberal self-importance led to “those few big victories” that the ideology claimed in the 20th century, such as suppressing religion, defeating fascism and Marxism and restricting nation states, he said. Schöpflin said “liberal order” has abandoned the majority of society and has labelled every attempt to discuss the problems of the abandoned portion of society as “populism”.

“These issues cannot be swept under the rug by simply declaring them as populism,” he said. Iván Bába, a university professor and foreign ministry state secretary under the previous Orbán government, said liberalism is not a universal ideology.

He said the appeal of the ideology is limited to a specific time period and specific places, arguing that it was successful mainly in Europe and in North America in the 19th and 20th centuries and that it had little impact on other civilizations such as the Muslim world, China or India.

“It is time to debate whether liberalism is fit to solve global problems.” István Szent-Iványi of the Hungarian Liberal Party said liberalism “is indeed in trouble, but it is too early to declare it a lost cause”.

He said there was a clear sense of frustration with liberalism in Europe, since the Western world has not been able to fulfil the promises “that made the ideology so attractive” in the first place.

He said this is not the first time that liberalism finds itself in trouble, arguing that it was threatened by communism, fascism and the Great Depression in the 20th century but still survived and became “inevitable” in the second half of the century.

The Western model is still attractive, Szent-Iványi said, arguing that millions of people from other cultures and hundreds of thousands of Hungarians have left their homes behind to live in the West.

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