Because Hungary had been strongly social democratic basically since WW2 (though much of that was behind the iron curtain), and they'd been hugely improving up to their entrance to the union, with only a little mistake of electing Orban once, before going back to a sane Premier.
And then 2010 arrived, and the entire country took a swing Hard Right and down shit street, but by that time they were already in.
The EU countries in general just cannot get over the right wing tendancies and xenophobia of which they are a deep cause. By exploiting developing countries and shitting toxins into the environment we make their countries worth fleeing from, and where else to flee than prosperous countries. They are only following the wealth that was extracted from their countries.
Our reaction is to act surprised and say "no room here, we're struggling too", after having voted for parties that will take the wealth and move it upwards away from the common people. So instead of using our "superior" education to vote for parties that want to redistribute wealth, we vote populist - people who find scapegoats in the poor. "Immigrants are the problem!", "Leftists are the problem".
Are you ignorant or just unwilling to accept that the cheap products you buy are made by children, minorities, and people living in abject poverty? Do you not know about the workers of fast fashion or are you just blissfully unaware? Have you never heard of the cobalt mines in Congo? Or are you conveniently ignoring it to buy yet another smartphone that will end up in a landfill in Asia because we ship our trash there?
Or do you just not give a fuck because you have to "take of me first"? Fuck the brown people right? Fuck the poors of other nations. They were born to make products for us, right? They have no right to try and flee the conditions we helped create and continue to create. They should just accept their fate and die as teenagers in mine while citizens of their age in exploiting countries can enjoy tiktok.
I'll just add that Fidesz (the right wing governing party) started out centrist in 1990. In 2010 they'd moved towards the right, but in a lot people's minds they were one of the big, reasonable parties since the end of Soviet control. And also just in general "the opposition".
The social democratic governing party also was inept and admitted as such (see Őszöd sleech).
So what happened was the left side of the spectrum lost all support, and what in many people's minds was the centrist or centre-right opposition picked it all up. Just over half the votes gave them a supermajority and from that point they gradually attained complete control over all institutions as a result.
We in Europe have a similar problem in Slovakia at the moment with PM Fico with a similar autocratic (and pro-Russian) approach. Europe will have to adapt to the rise of the extremists from the right (and soon from the left too?) and other global development.
Yeah, the article is really lacking in information.
My guess: tech-bro VC-backed start-up culture has clawed its way into every field by now. So in theory while it should have been pretty easy going for anyone selling and installing solar the last couple years, competitors might have more capital at their disposal. That in turn means faster scaling and rapid expansion (like over at Enerpal and 1komma5) as long as the money keeps flowing. Doesn't matter if you're profitable, you just wanna squeeze out the competition.
That appears to be working.
Although it could also just be Sonnen's expansion into the North American market being deemed more worthy of attention, who knows
Article indeed lacks details, but my guess would be that they bought the company in 2019 and loaded it with the bank debt from that purchase expecting that in a growing market and low interest rates the company would be able to pay back their own purchase.
But now a few years later, with more competition diminishing profits and higher than before interest rates on the loans, and suddenly it looks much less possible. Obviously Sonne will not admit to this, but such shady practises are sadly very common for company takeovers.
Finishing "third place" with 50 parlementarian more than before, and a minority big enough to block any left wing measure isn't a blow. It's a quasi victory
Europe
Heiß