About us

Ágnes Hankiss is a writer, clinical psychologist and Member of the European Parliament since 2009. She has had a number of television programmes on political analysis and debates in the recent years. Following the fall of the Hungarian uprising and revolution in 1956, as a child, together with her mother and the families of the executed Prime Minister, Imre Nagy and others, she was deported to Snagov, Romania, and was kept in custody for more than 2 years.

She earned her university degree at the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. Later on she earned her PhD degree in Social Psychology. From 1974 to 1985 Hankiss worked as a distinguished professor of Social Psychology at the Faculty of Law of ELTE.

After the fall of communism, she was a deputy of FIDESZ (Alliance of Young Democrats) for the Budapest city assembly between 1990 and 1994. After that, between 1994 and 1998 she served as Political advisor for the leader of FIDESZ parliamentary group, József Szájer, now head of the FIDESZ delegation at the European Parliament.

In 1998 she was appointed Governmental Commissioner of the Europalia Hungaria, the year-long series of events presenting Hungary’s rich cultural heritage in Brussels.

Since 2000 she has been the director of the Hamvas Béla Cultural Research Institute, which she founded. Main research areas of the institute range from pressure mechanism of the communist system to the functioning of the communist state security to its heritage and afterlife in democracy today.

Ágnes Hankiss has been rewarded with several prizes in recognition of her literary achievements: „Future of Literature” Prize (1989); József Attila Prize (1992).

As an MEP, she is a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) and the Committee on Petitions (PETI), for which she also serves as Vice-chair.

She is the author of more than hundred essays and several books, among others:

Anatomy of Trust (essays)

Sad Farewell from the Prince (novel and film)

Tightrope Dance (essays)

Scientia Profana (short stories)

A Hungarian Romance (novel, was published in the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom)

The Map of the Soul (short stories)