There is a stir of various political sentiments towards the European Union in recent years. Euroscepticism takes a number of forms and takes hold among various European societal actors, while after Brexit the integration project is gaining a momentum and public support for the EU is on the rise. In this paper, we analyze politics under this Janus-faced manifestation of EU sentiments as developed by the Orban-led Hungarian government. We argue that the Orban government at the same time leads a de-Europeanization campaign which strategically undermines EU core values both in Hungary and at the EU level, while upholding European integration in the form of legal compliance. We analyze through two most-different cases in the Hungarian context-- central bank’s foundations and the (de)segregated education of the Roma minority—how under the two overlapping words of de-Europeanization and EU compliance politics plays out in the form of a delicate contestation of and adaptations to this dual reality on the part of local actors (i.e., civil society and opposition parties). We conclude that the complex political process as its unfolds in Hungary can be understood as a distancing from the existing European Union legal and normative frameworks and an endeavor to reinvent “Europe,” rather than to shed it altogether. Thus, what we are seeing is a form of “gulyas” Europeanization—if you will—and is a project of reconstructing the future of Europe. The overlapping worlds and contestations are manifestations of this fluid process.
