円卓会議
On 28 January 1989, Pozsgay, as the first from ruling party, stunned the Communist establishment by labelling the 1956 Hungarian revolution not a counterrevolution but a "popular uprising". Pozsgay participated in the reburial of Imre Nagy in June 1989, which proved to be a catalyst event; the hard-line Károly Grósz was outranked by a four-member collective presidency (included Pozsgay) of the reformist wing within the MSZMP on 26 June 1989. The ruling communist party began discussions with the opposition groups within the framework of the so-called Round Table Talks. Jointly with Otto von Habsburg, Imre Pozsgay was the sponsor of the Pan-European Picnic of 19 August 1989, where hundreds of East Germans who were visiting Hungary were able to cross the previously impenetrable Iron Curtain into Austria.