Orbán tried to reframe the election around geopolitics, parading his friendships with Trump and Putin – but that backfired.

The 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election marked a significant turning point in the country's relationship with the European Union. The victory of Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party signaled a potential departure from the governance model that had characterized Hungary's political landscape for over a decade. Observers have suggested that the new administration's stated commitment to strengthening democratic institutions, enhancing judicial independence, and addressing corrupti

Orbán began vilifying the EU, often comparing Brussels to the Soviet Union, even while receiving massive amounts of EU money, and resisting pressure to reverse democratic backsliding. From 2014 until 2022, Hungary was one of the biggest beneficiaries of EU funds. Orbán could navigate the EU system really well: get all the money and get away with his political shenanigans. https://apnews.com/article/hungary-orban-eu-elections-reforms-brussels-budapest-69868c03330a50c679050bf58

Further evidence is emerging of direct collaboration between members of the Hungarian government and the Kremlin regime. I spoke to the Polish centre-left weekly news magazine ont he chances for regime-change in Hungary. https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/swiat/2337781,1,orbn-przelicytowal-i-szuka-ratunku-kolejne-rewelacje-o-zwiazkach-rzadu-wegier-i-moskwy.read

A series examining higher education under the Trump administration raises the question: why Orbán and Trump have targeted higher education. The Boston-based online newspaper talks to various experts and those professors, who have personally experienced these attacks. https://www.masslive.com/news/2025/12/sand-in-the-gears-what-mass-can-learn-from-the-higher-ed-crackdown-inspiring-trump.html?gift=39bb7cab-fbc4-4534-b94f-bdbf53af7867

"Scholars need to prepare students with emotional skills and not only with technical skills to survive the job market" Interactive workshop on the theme: „Centering the human experience”

How the Orbán regime destroyed the institutional self-defence mechanisms of the working class, including the deliberate fragmentation of trade unions, in some cases their partial co-optation, and an overall repression of labour rights and workers’ ability to organise. https://www.equaltimes.org/trade-unions-in-the-long-shadow-of?lang=en

Netanyahu visits Hungary. EU 'deeply regrets' decision as Prime Minister Viktor Orban refuses to enforce arrest warrant for Israeli leader. Discussion in the UAE’s flagship international outlet. https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/europe/2025/04/03/hungary-to-withdraw-from-international-criminal-court-as-netanyahu-visits/

During his campaign, Donald Trump and his Republican Party promised to transform American democracy into an autocracy. The United States' peculiar electoral system allowed his proposal to succeed. His margin of victory was very narrow in both the popular vote (which is not decisive) and the Electoral College (which is decisive). https://www.elnuevodia.com/opinion/con-acento-propio/la-autocracia-trompista-triunfante/?templateId=OT3HWJU9FRSI&templateVariantId=OTB2HAZL1TSY&exper

„You can’t protect democracy if you’re not offering a really inclusive social and economic agenda." I’m a huge supporter of liberal democracy and institutions, but you can’t really protect those cherished liberal institutions by just talking about how important it is to have a constitutional court and how important media pluralism is. The overwhelming majority of people don’t really think in these terms. They are concerned about inflation and real wages and unemployment and i

SHOCKING WARNING FROM HUNGARIAN DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT Hungarian pro-democracy movements are warning Americans about what to do with Trump's next term. We talk about why we have to fight Trump with everything we have if we want to keep Democracy alive in America.

"Gábor Scheiring, a former member of the Hungarian parliament, wrote in a new essay for Politico Magazine that Orbán “consolidated media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure and loyal billionaires.” In the US, he wrote, “liberal-minded billionaires should not sit idly by as they did in Hungary, watching the right take over the media.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long touted his friendship with US President-elect Donald Trump, but the new ultra-conservative incoming vice president, JD Vance, is particularly aligned with Budapest. https://www.euractiv.com/news/orbans-new-friend-in-the-white-house-jd-vance/

Trump is part of a wave of populist, ring-wing candidates who have pushed aside mainstream parties and ideologies, tapping into the frustration of working-class voters over issues like trade and immigration that mainstream parties have failed to resolve to their satisfaction. In Hungary, Slovakia, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and other European states, right-wing populist parties have either come to power or made a strong showing in recent elections.

What is driving populism? Why has the populist vote in Europe ballooned from roughly ten percent at the turn of the millennium to one in three lst year? https://euobserver.com/66623/economic-hardship-drives-the-populist-vote/

"A compromise works if you want to work within the same values," says Scheiring, who is a political economist at the Italian University of Bocconi and who in the past served as an opposition politician in the Hungarian parliament. "But Orbán changed the game. And it has taken a long time for European politicians to get through

Prime Ministers Morawiecki and Orbán close ranks on their respective countries' veto of Community funds, but show possible avenues of exit to unlock the money. "The government's position does not reflect the whole of Hungary," analyst Gabor Scheiring says by phone. He warns: "In the short term, Orbán may not need an injection of money like Spain or Italy, because the Hungarian economy is in better health, but in the long run the picture can be complicated."

The decimation of indigenous industry in central and eastern Europe has created a low-wage hinterland on the fringes of the highly developed core, writes Carl Rowlands. If the societies of central-eastern Europe are indeed in transition, it is very unclear what the destination will be.