Se la porta che, secondo Mosca, è aperta è in realtà chiusa, lo è da questa parte – e non è stata Roma a chiuderla di propria iniziativa.

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Un Valdai fuori sede

Quello che racconterò in questo articolo è meno tecnico e più personale del solito. Si tratta delle informazioni raccolte in alcune giornate di dialogo, confronto e, a quanto pare, una domanda “scandalosa” che è diventata lo scoop dei media europei, perché ho chiesto al Presidente della Federazione Russa, Vladimir Vladimirovic Putin, cosa ne sarà dell’Europa.

Potete trovare il video integrale del discorso di Vladimir Putin al Valdai qui.

Il mio intervento e le risposte di Putin le trovate qui.

Quest’anno il Valdai non si è riunito a Soči. Gli inviti spediti in estate indicavano ancora la città sul Mar Nero, poi a fine agosto gli organizzatori hanno comunicato il trasferimento nella regione di Mosca. Secondo il Meduza, a pretendere lo spostamento è stato il Servizio federale di protezione, preoccupato dalla minaccia dei droni ucraini dopo un’estate di attacchi alle raffinerie della costa. Il dettaglio logistico ha un suo peso. La guerra, di cui al Valdai si parla sempre nel linguaggio del sistema internazionale, entra ormai anche nell’organizzazione materiale del forum.

La XXIII Riunione annuale si è svolta dal 28 settembre al 1° ottobre sotto un titolo che a un europeo suona quasi come una domanda personale: «Responsabilità per il futuro: i limiti del possibile o possibilità senza limiti?». L’apertura è stata affidata al rapporto annuale del Club, Keep Calm. Lo Stato e la responsabilità per il futuro, che gli autori presentano con una strizzata d’occhio a Kubrick come un manuale per smettere di preoccuparsi e imparare ad amare il disordine. Seguivano nove sessioni tematiche, una sessione speciale e, l’ultimo giorno, la plenaria con il Presidente.

Sono arrivato da italiano e da europeo, sapendo che in quelle sale le due qualifiche pesano in modo diverso. Nel corso della settimana ho parlato, in maniera particolare, con quattro interlocutori di alto livello: Sergej Karaganov, Maksim Oreškin, Sergej Lavrov e, durante la plenaria, Vladimir Putin. Le prime tre conversazioni si sono svolte a margine delle sessioni e le restituisco dai miei appunti, nella sostanza e non parola per parola. Il quarto scambio è pubblico e documentato dalla trascrizione, dalla quale cito direttamente.

Presi uno per uno, i quattro dialoghi dicono cose che chi segue il dibattito russo conosce. Messi in fila disegnano qualcosa di più preciso: una diagnosi condivisa sull’Europa e quattro modi diversi di trarne le conseguenze. E, soprattutto, un futuro per niente luminoso.

Karaganov: l’Europa come origine del male

Sergej Karaganov è tra i fondatori del Club Valdai, presidente onorario del Consiglio per la politica estera e di difesa e da anni la voce più radicale del realismo russo. Con lui la conversazione è partita subito dal punto più duro. L’Europa, ha detto, è la radice di ogni male. Se venisse distrutta, nessuno ne sarebbe addolorato. Un conflitto nucleare tattico sul suo territorio non coinvolgerebbe altri attori. Gli europei hanno avuto tutto il tempo per trovare una soluzione ai propri problemi; ora che hanno scelto di prepararsi alla guerra contro la Russia, è troppo tardi per offrire loro un’altra possibilità.

Devo essere sincero, non sono mai stato un fan di Karaganov, spesso ho trovato le sue posizioni troppo radicali e all’antica. Ma a partire da un caffè dopo pranzo insieme, per poi proseguire in una settimana di dialoghi, ho scoperto che la pensiamo in maniera molto simile e che le sue posizioni non sono affatto banali. Chi ha letto i suoi interventi recenti riconosce la linea. Nel giugno 2023 Karaganov aveva sostenuto pubblicamente che la Russia dovesse abbassare la soglia d’impiego dell’arma nucleare per restituire credibilità alla propria deterrenza e indurre l’Occidente a ritirarsi dal conflitto ucraino. Una parte di quell’impostazione è poi entrata nei documenti ufficiali: i Fondamenti della politica statale della Federazione Russa nel campo della deterrenza nucleare, aggiornati nel novembre 2024, trattano come attacco congiunto l’aggressione di uno Stato non nucleare condotta con la partecipazione o il sostegno di una potenza nucleare.

Nelle sue parole convivono però tre affermazioni di natura diversa, e conviene tenerle separate. La prima è un giudizio storico-civilizzazionale: l’Europa come matrice delle grandi catastrofi della modernità, dalle guerre mondiali al colonialismo. È una tesi che Karaganov argomenta da tempo e che si può contestare, ma appartiene al terreno dell’interpretazione. La seconda, che nessuno piangerebbe l’Europa, è una previsione sulle reazioni altrui; per quel che ho potuto osservare in quei giorni, trova ascolto in una parte non piccola dei partecipanti asiatici, africani e latinoamericani. La terza è un’ipotesi strategica e regge tutto il resto: un’escalation nucleare in Europa resterebbe confinata all’Europa.

Su questo punto la letteratura sulla deterrenza discute da settant’anni e le prove empiriche, per fortuna, mancano. Il dato che complica l’ipotesi è interno all’Europa stessa. Francia e Regno Unito dispongono di arsenali nazionali, e nel marzo 2025 Parigi ha aperto formalmente il dibattito sulla dimensione europea della propria dissuasione. Un conflitto nucleare «solo europeo» presuppone che due potenze nucleari europee restino a guardare. È l’assunto più fragile dell’intera costruzione, e lo è indipendentemente da come si giudichino gli altri due.

Va poi ricordato che Karaganov non parla a nome del governo. Al Valdai rappresenta il polo del dibattito russo che spinge il Cremlino verso posizioni più nette, e una delle sue funzioni è proprio spostare il confine di ciò che si può dire. Letto così, il suo «troppo tardi» è un’indicazione di tendenza più che di dottrina.

Oreškin: il mercato che non c’è più

Con Maksim Oreškin il registro è cambiato del tutto. Vice capo dell’Amministrazione presidenziale, già ministro dello Sviluppo economico e poi consigliere economico del presidente, Oreškin ragiona per flussi e bilanci. La sua formula è stata secca: l’Europa è finita. Sul mercato energetico non esiste più una competizione che possa reggere, perché Cina e India occupano ormai il primo posto tra i clienti della Russia. E non vi sono ragioni per investire in un salvataggio europeo, dal momento che agli europei, fino a oggi, non è interessato trovare una soluzione pacifica e ragionevole. La domanda che gli avevo posto nell’incontro con i partecipanti del Valdai era stata: “Considerando che non è più disponibile il gasdotto Nord Stream 2, perché è stato sabotato, avete intenzione di trovare un nuovo sistema di trasporto energetico, sempre che l’Europa si riappacifichi e la situazione diplomatica torni positiva?”. La sua risposta netta – e forse brutale – è come un pugnale di verità che viene piantato nella coscienza di ogni abitante dell’Europa.

«Finita» va inteso in senso tecnico. Oreškin non parlava direttamente della civiltà europea ma dell’Europa come controparte: un mercato che ha smesso di essere centrale per la Russia e che quindi non giustifica concessioni politiche per essere riconquistato. Dopo il 2022 il greggio russo ha trovato in Cina e India i suoi principali acquirenti, mentre Bruxelles, con l’accordo tra Consiglio e Parlamento europeo del dicembre 2025, si è impegnata ad azzerare entro il 2027 le importazioni di gas russo, gasdotto e GNL compresi. L’interdipendenza energetica che per mezzo secolo aveva tenuto in contatto Europa e Russia anche nei momenti peggiori della Guerra fredda è stata smontata da entrambe le parti. Il ragionamento di Oreškin ne registra la conseguenza più semplice: chi non è più il cliente principale non ha più leva. Queste sono le leggi del mercato, e né a Londra, né a Berlino, né a Bruxelles ci sono più politici o gruppi di potere che possano dire alla Russia “che cosa fare”.

Il rovescio è noto anche a Mosca. Un mercato dominato da due grandi compratori consente loro di imporre sconti, e la sostituzione dell’Europa con l’Asia ha un costo in termini di prezzo e di accesso alle tecnologie. Ma nella logica che mi è stata esposta la domanda non è più se l’Europa convenga alla Russia. È quanto costerebbe tornare a farla convenire, e la risposta implicita è che quel costo spetta agli europei.

Lavrov: la porta chiusa a «questo» assetto

Con Sergej Lavrov il discorso si è spostato dall’economia alla diplomazia, senza cambiare la conclusione. L’Europa, ha detto, ha avuto molte possibilità di ristabilire un dialogo con la Russia e ha preferito alimentare lo scontro diretto. Ora è tardi per tornare indietro: sono stati superati tutti i limiti e con l’attuale assetto europeo non c’è modo di tornare alle relazioni precedenti.

Vorrei che ci soffermassimo un attimo sul peso di queste parole. Chi conosce Lavrov sa che è un politico capace di pesare ogni parola con una grande intelligenza, anche in contesti più rilassati come il Summit del Valdai. “I limiti sono stati superati”. Sarebbe inutile fare l’elenco di questi limiti, perché sono talmente evidenti a davanti agli occhi del mondo intero, che sarebbe solo una perdita di tempo. Ma lo sguardo con cui Lavrov ha parlato dell’Europa, quello non lo dimenticherò mai. Lo ho incontrato molte altre volte, ma in questa occasione c’era qualcosa di diverso.

Il ministro ha alle spalle un elenco di occasioni che la diplomazia russa richiama con regolarità: gli accordi di Minsk, le bozze di trattato sulle garanzie di sicurezza consegnate a Stati Uniti e NATO il 17 dicembre 2021, i negoziati di Istanbul della primavera 2022. La lettura russa di ciascuno di questi passaggi è controversa, e in Europa la si contesta. A me interessa qui un altro elemento, una qualificazione che riletta dopo la plenaria si è rivelata la chiave dell’intera settimana. Il ritorno è impossibile con questo assetto europeo. Non con l’Europa, con il suo assetto attuale, ovvero la UE e la NATO. La chiusura riguarda una classe dirigente e un’architettura istituzionale, non i Paesi che ne fanno parte.

Quanto è stata abusata la pazienza russa, mi chiedo, per arrivare a dire queste cose? La letteratura classica russa ci regala degli esempi mirabili di come i politici russi siano capaci di prendere tempo, ignorare, pazientare. E non si può negare che ciò sia stato costantemente l’atteggiamento della classe dirigente russa negli ultimi anni di conflitto. Per giungere a dire che il limite è stato superato – cosa che dirà poi anche Putin nella sessione plenaria del summit – vuol dire che non ci sono più forze da sprecare nell’attesa paziente; vuol dire che l’Orso è stato svegliato dal suo letargo nel momento sbagliato; vuol dire che le conseguenze di queste azioni avranno un peso epocale.

Un’altra cosa ha aggiunto Lavrov: “Siamo pronti a colpire l’Europa in maniera esemplare, non come abbiamo fatto in Ucraina”. Segnatevi queste parole, cari amici europei. Rileggetele e meditate sul loro peso. Non serve aggiungere altro.

Un professore italiano fa una domanda a Putin

Veniamo ad uno dei momenti più pericolosi della mia carriera. La plenaria si è svolta, come da tradizione, con il presidente russo e la moderazione di Fëdor Luk’janov. Ho preso la parola e ho posto una domanda in due parti:

«Vengo dall’Italia, Paese che attualmente non ha buoni rapporti con la Russia. In quanto europeo, vorrei chiederle: quali condizioni porrà la Russia per elaborare un nuovo sistema di sicurezza per i Paesi europei? E, se immaginiamo un’Europa post-Unione Europea, lei la considererà come parte di un grande partenariato eurasiatico oppure, a suo avviso, Stati Uniti e Russia saranno sempre in competizione per questi territori?»

Putin ha cominciato dalla seconda parte, e l’ordine non è casuale:

«L’Italia si trova per l’appunto in Europa e io parlo di partenariato eurasiatico: va da sé, quindi, che considereremo e già consideriamo anche l’Italia un partner eurasiatico.»

Subito dopo ha chiarito che il destino dell’Unione Europea, e la permanenza dell’Italia al suo interno, «non è affar nostro». Mosca non intende nemmeno discuterne, perché qualunque parola in merito verrebbe letta come un tentativo di disgregare l’UE, «mentre noi non vogliamo disgregare un bel niente. Noi vogliamo soltanto costruire e cooperare».

Sulle condizioni per un nuovo sistema di sicurezza la risposta è stata netta: «non abbiamo alcuna condizione preliminare». L’ostacolo, nella sua ricostruzione, sta dall’altra parte. Alcuni politici europei ritengono inammissibile che un singolo Paese apra un dialogo con la Russia, e Putin ha definito questa pretesa un diktat più forte di quello dell’epoca sovietica. Il paragone è stato costruito con cura: l’URSS era uno Stato unitario e fortemente centralizzato, le cui Repubbliche facevano parte di un’unica compagine statale; l’Unione Europea in teoria non lo è, ma in pratica si comporta come se lo fosse. «A noi non lo vieta nessuno, siamo pronti.»

A quel punto Luk’janov è intervenuto con una provocazione da moderatore esperto: visto che a Bruxelles lo vietano, non converrebbe contribuire un po’ alla disgregazione dell’UE, così da trattare più facilmente con i singoli Paesi? La risposta è arrivata senza esitazioni: «Ma non serve, si disgregheranno da soli.»

Poi Putin si è rivolto direttamente a me. «Il nostro collega italiano lo sa meglio di noi», ha detto, e ha cominciato a fare i conti: debito pubblico italiano al 140%, deficit intorno al 3%, in altri Paesi europei vicino al 5%. Le cifre erano arrotondate ma non lontane dal vero. Secondo Istat ed Eurostat, a fine 2024 il debito pubblico italiano era pari al 135,3% del PIL e l’indebitamento netto al 3,4%. Il senso del passaggio, comunque, non stava nei decimali. Tutti i problemi cominciano con l’economia: il tenore di vita cala, i disoccupati aumentano, i cittadini delle principali economie europee lo avvertono sulla propria pelle, e questo, ha detto, «mina anche le fondamenta stesse dell’Unione Europea. Ma non è affar nostro, noi non c’intromettiamo».

La chiusura ha riproposto l’offerta in forma simmetrica: dialogo con l’Unione nel suo complesso, se l’Unione lo desidera, oppure con i singoli Paesi, senza condizioni preliminari. «Ma di condizioni preliminari non devono essercene neppure da parte europea.»

Provare a comprendere la grandezza di queste parole, l’equilibrio politico che ne traspare, la forza di uno statista che ha a cuore non solo il bene del proprio Paese, ma anche quello di un intero altro continente, è un vero esercizio di apprendimento di cosa sia la Politica.

Ascoltatevi l’intero intervento di Putin e capirete come, in meno di cinque minuti, sia possibile fotografare la decadenza dell’Europa intera, sotto tutte le sue sfaccettature, e allo stesso tempo ribadire, con malinconia, che la Russia ha fatto di tutto per dare il proprio aiuto. Ma le scelte degli europei sono degli europei, sotto qualsiasi bandiera essi si trovino. La Russia rispetta e rispetterà sempre i principi fondamentali della propria politica estera e della propria tradizione politica. Nessun messianismo miracoloso, nessun salvatore improvvisato.

L’Europa, anzi gli europei di questa Europa, cosa hanno intenzione di fare?

Rileggendo gli appunti di viaggio

Rileggendo gli appunti al ritorno, la prima cosa evidente è la convergenza. Lo stratega, l’economista, il capo della diplomazia e il Presidente hanno espresso, ciascuno nel proprio linguaggio, lo stesso giudizio: l’Europa attuale ha esaurito il proprio credito presso Mosca. La seconda cosa evidente è che da quella diagnosi ognuno ricava una conseguenza diversa.

In Karaganov la conseguenza è coercitiva e ha un tono quasi escatologico: l’Europa ha avuto la sua occasione e ciò che segue non è più affare di diplomazia. In Oreškin è indifferenza contabile: l’Europa non vale l’investimento necessario a recuperarla. In Lavrov è una chiusura diplomatica circoscritta, rivolta all’assetto e non ai popoli. In Putin, infine, la porta torna aperta, ma verso gli Stati e non verso Bruxelles, accompagnata dall’attesa che l’erosione economica faccia il resto.

La contraddizione apparente tra il «troppo tardi» dei primi tre e il «nessuna condizione preliminare» del quarto si scioglie proprio nella qualificazione di Lavrov. Ne risulta una linea coerente, che chiamerei di bilateralizzazione: Mosca non tratta con l’Unione come soggetto politico finché la sua dirigenza resta quella attuale, offre ai singoli Stati membri canali senza precondizioni e lascia che siano le difficoltà interne europee a rendere quei canali attraenti. Il riferimento all’Italia come partner eurasiatico «già oggi» va letto dentro questa cornice: non è una cortesia, è l’indicazione di quale interlocutore Mosca preferisce.

Non posso certo affermare che i quattro interlocutori d’eccezione si fossero messi d’accordo, è ovvio, ma questa convergenza l’ho trovata veramente “profetica”. Il Valdai è da sempre il luogo in cui il dibattito russo mostra la propria ampiezza davanti a un pubblico straniero. Posso dire che sono compatibili e che si rafforzano a vicenda: la durezza di Karaganov fa apparire moderata l’offerta di Putin, i numeri di Oreškin rendono credibile che Mosca non abbia bisogno di fare concessioni, la formula di Lavrov tiene insieme la chiusura e l’apertura.

La crisi dei debiti sovrani del 2010–2012 produsse il Meccanismo europeo di stabilità e l’unione bancaria; la pandemia produsse Next Generation EU e il primo debito comune su larga scala. Nell’Unione le crisi hanno generato almeno tanta centralizzazione quanta frammentazione. «Si disgregheranno da soli» è dunque una scommessa, non un’osservazione, anche se la scommessa costa poco a chi la fa: se l’Unione regge, Mosca ha comunque offerto il dialogo; se cede, ha già pronti i canali bilaterali.

Gli indicatori da seguire nei prossimi dodici-diciotto mesi sono abbastanza chiari. Il primo riguarda le visite bilaterali a Mosca di capi di governo dell’Unione oltre ai precedenti di Viktor Orbán nel luglio 2024 e di Robert Fico nel maggio 2025. Il secondo è la tenuta dell’unanimità nei rinnovi semestrali delle sanzioni, dove basta un veto per aprire una crepa. Il terzo sono le deroghe nazionali al calendario di uscita dal gas russo. Il quarto, il più significativo per noi, è l’eventuale apertura di un canale strutturato da parte di una grande capitale, Roma inclusa.

Cosa mi porto a casa? Da italiano, la frase che porto con me non è quella sulla disgregazione, è l’altra, «già consideriamo anche l’Italia un partner eurasiatico». Contiene un’offerta e un’osservazione rivolta a noi. Se la porta che Mosca dice aperta è chiusa, lo è da questa parte, e a chiuderla non è stata Roma per una decisione propria.

Per quanto tempo un Paese con un debito oltre il 135% del PIL possa permettersi di lasciare ad altri la decisione su chi può parlare con chi, a Mosca nessuno me l’ha chiesto. È una domanda che mi sono portato a casa da solo. E la risposta la conosce ogni italiano di retta coscienza, ogni europeo che abbia ancora un cuore.

Growth potential across Central and Eastern Europe has fallen sharply from the levels seen around EU accession, with ageing populations, weak productivity, Chinese competition and slower German industry increasingly testing the region’s economic convergence.

The economic model that transformed Central and Eastern Europe after EU accession is losing momentum, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is warning governments that structural reforms are needed if the region is to continue narrowing the income gap with Western Europe.

Carlos Mulas-Granados, the IMF’s regional representative, said on Tuesday that medium-term growth potential across Central and Eastern Europe had declined to around 2.5 per cent, compared with roughly 5 per cent before countries in the region joined the European Union.

The slowdown does not mean that every economy is stagnating. Poland continues to grow faster than much of Western Europe, while the Czech economy has recovered from recent shocks. The concern is instead about the underlying rate at which these economies can expand once temporary fiscal stimulus, EU funding and post-crisis recoveries are stripped out.

Several of the forces behind the region’s earlier success are becoming weaker.

EU accession opened access to the single market, attracted foreign investment and integrated Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary deeply into European industrial supply chains. German manufacturers in particular moved production eastwards, taking advantage of lower labour costs, skilled workforces and geographic proximity.

That process generated rapid gains in productivity and incomes. It cannot simply be repeated.

Demographics are one of the most immediate constraints. Working-age populations are shrinking across much of the region while ageing increases spending requirements for pensions, health care and social support.

The IMF’s country assessments illustrate the problem. Its assessment of Poland says demographic pressures are mounting even as labour productivity remains comparatively strong, and calls for higher labour participation, better skills and deeper capital markets.

In Slovakia, the Fund expects growth of only 0.9 per cent this year and says adverse demographics and weaker productivity are weighing on the medium-term outlook. The economy remains particularly exposed to manufacturing and the automotive industry.

The Czech Republic faces a similar structural constraint. The IMF estimates its medium-term potential growth at around 1.8 per cent, with population ageing and modest productivity gains limiting further convergence.

External conditions have also changed.

Germany, the region’s principal industrial partner, has experienced prolonged weakness in manufacturing. Central European producers therefore face softer demand from the market around which many of their supply chains were originally built.

At the same time, China has moved from being primarily a source of imports and components to a direct competitor in sectors where Central Europe has substantial industrial exposure, including cars, batteries, machinery and electrical equipment.

That combination is particularly difficult for economies built around export-oriented manufacturing.

The problem overlaps with the wider European competitiveness debate. EU Today reported in July that only 15.7 per cent of the reforms recommended in Mario Draghi’s competitiveness report had been fully implemented at that stage, with important work still outstanding on capital markets, energy and investment.

For Central Europe, progress on those issues has a direct bearing on growth. Smaller national capital markets make it harder for companies to finance expansion. Fragmented energy systems add to industrial costs, while limited access to venture capital can restrict the development of businesses outside established manufacturing sectors.

There are significant differences between countries. Poland’s larger domestic market gives it more insulation from industrial weakness elsewhere and the IMF expects relatively strong growth. Hungary has faced a different combination of weak investment and fiscal constraints, while Slovakia’s dependence on car production leaves it particularly exposed to changes in the European automotive sector.

EU funding remains an important source of investment across the region, particularly for infrastructure and modernisation. But EU transfers cannot by themselves replace improvements in productivity.

The IMF’s argument is therefore less about an immediate recession than about the end of an unusually favourable period of convergence.

Central Europe entered the EU with lower wages, substantial scope to import Western technology and a powerful incentive for Western European manufacturers to move production eastwards. As those gaps narrow, future growth depends more heavily on innovation, skills, investment and domestic productivity.

The region is still converging with Western Europe. The question raised by the latest IMF warning is how quickly that process can continue once the economic advantages that powered its first two decades of EU membership become less powerful.

The Commission is “going a bit too fast” in unlocking €4.2bn and restarting the Erasmus+ student exchange programme in Hungary, according to budget committee MEPs.

The EU froze its financial assistance to Hungary in 2022 due to concerns about rule of law breaches and misappropriation of funds by Viktor Orbán’s government.

Green MEP from Germany, Daniel Freund, told EUobserver he “would have taken a more staged approach to not release everything in one go,” admitting that the reform agenda of Péter Magyar’s new government still has some way to go.

The commission’s proposal to unlock part of the €16.4bn in funds available to Hungary requires the green-light from the EU council, representing member states, one month after its announcement on 23 September.

Freund said that he was “happy about the changes we have seen” following his visit to Hungary on 1 October.

“Hungary needs this money, I also want Hungarians to have this money, since for years it was just going to Orbán and his cronies,” he said on Tuesday (6 October).

However, Freund and other MEPs on the fact-finding mission found that “the same risks of corruption exist,” and “there are new laws that are still fragile in their implementation,” French socialist and democrat Jean-Marc Germain told reporters in Strasbourg on Monday. 

The Parliament can serve as a pressure point, although the decision on funds is largely in the hands of the commission and the council.

“There is no real political pluralism in Hungary, which may in the long run be a reason for worrying,” he said, adding that most companies are still owned by the same few people as during Orbán’s rule.

The tone is different on the other side of the political spectrum.

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Ukraine and Moldova could advance to two further stages of their European Union accession negotiations as early as next week, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has said, provided Ukraine approves legislation addressing minority-language education.

The European Union could open two additional negotiating clusters with Ukraine and Moldova next week if the Ukrainian parliament passes legislation intended to address concerns over education rights for national minorities.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos confirmed the possible timetable on Monday following a meeting of the EU-Moldova Association Council in Brussels.

Asked whether further intergovernmental conferences could take place this month, Kos said the next two clusters could potentially be opened during meetings in Luxembourg next week.

The condition is passage by the Verkhovna Rada of legislation dealing with educational rights for national minorities, an issue that has been central to Hungary’s objections to further progress in Ukraine’s accession negotiations.

Kos said during the Commission’s recorded press conference that Brussels was aware of the Ukrainian parliament’s procedures and hoped the legislation would be approved. Member states would then have to complete their own procedures quickly.

A draft law covering education rights for indigenous peoples and national minorities was registered in the Verkhovna Rada on 1 October.

The legislation is intended in part to address Hungarian demands concerning the use of minority languages in Ukrainian schools, particularly by the ethnic Hungarian community in Zakarpattia.

Hungary has repeatedly linked support for Ukraine’s EU accession process to those issues.

Ukraine and Moldova formally opened accession negotiations in 2024 and have since moved into the detailed cluster-based process used to organise negotiations over the EU acquis.

EU Today reported in June that the two countries had moved into the first substantive stage after political agreement allowed negotiations on the “fundamentals” cluster to proceed.

That cluster covers areas including the judiciary, fundamental rights, public administration, democratic institutions, public procurement and financial control.

Unlike most negotiating areas, the fundamentals cluster remains open throughout the accession process and is normally closed last.

The possible opening of two additional clusters would therefore mark another practical step in a process that remains dependent on unanimous support among EU governments at key stages.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has said he hopes adoption of the minority-education amendments will remove the remaining basis for Hungary to block the next steps.

The negotiations have also become linked increasingly closely to the wider security relationship between the EU and Ukraine.

EU Today has followed the accession process as Kyiv and Chișinău seek to keep negotiations moving despite political resistance within the bloc.

Brussels continues to stress that accession remains merit-based and conditional on reforms.

Kos said on Monday that both Ukraine and Moldova were delivering reforms in difficult circumstances and described them as being among the four front-running candidate states.

The Commission is due to publish its annual enlargement reports on 28 October, providing a detailed assessment of progress across individual negotiating chapters.

Moldova has set itself a target of being ready to complete negotiations by early 2028, although any final accession date would depend on the member states.

The country has also been moving closer to EU structures outside the formal accession negotiations.

Kallas said on Monday that the EU had committed €1.9 billion under its Growth Plan for Moldova and was releasing another €157 million tranche. Moldova has joined the Single Euro Payments Area and is moving towards inclusion in the EU’s mobile roaming area.

Ukraine’s path is more politically complicated because of both the war and recurring disputes with individual EU members.

The next immediate test is parliamentary: whether Kyiv can pass the education amendments quickly enough to allow EU governments to approve the next negotiating stages in Luxembourg.

The European Parliament’s debate on Monday, October 5th, comes at an awkward moment for Brussels. After years of confrontation with Viktor Orbán, the European Commission now believes Hungary has done enough to justify releasing €4.2 billion in cohesion funding and restoring full access to Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.

The question before MEPs is therefore deceptively simple: have the conditions really been met, or has Brussels simply found a convenient political moment to declare victory?

The answer matters well beyond Hungary. The original dispute was not some abstract quarrel over Brussels etiquette. In 2022, the EU suspended €6.3 billion in Hungarian cohesion funding after identifying deficiencies in public procurement, conflicts of interest, corruption controls and the effectiveness of prosecutorial action. The conditionality mechanism was deliberately designed to make access to EU taxpayers’ money dependent upon safeguards for the rule of law and the protection of the EU budget.

That principle is important. If membership of the EU means anything, it cannot mean that governments receive billions regardless of whether public money is properly administered.

But Hungary has changed politically. Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule ended with Péter Magyar’s decisive election victory in April. Magyar campaigned partly on repairing Hungary’s relationship with Brussels and unlocking the billions frozen during the Orbán years. His government subsequently notified the Commission that it had implemented the required reforms.

The Commission has now accepted that argument — albeit partially. Its September 23rd proposal says Hungary has addressed the rule-of-law breaches affecting the EU budget, citing improvements in public procurement, the anti-corruption framework, prevention of conflicts of interest and prosecutorial effectiveness. If the Council approves the proposal, €4.2 billion in cohesion commitments will be reinstated and Hungarian students and researchers will regain full access to Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.

That is a substantial political prize for Magyar, and a substantial test for the EU.

The danger for Brussels is obvious. Having spent years insisting that European money must not subsidise corruption or institutional capture, the Commission cannot now appear to have changed the rules simply because a more congenial government has arrived in Budapest.

There is, however, an equally serious danger on the other side. If Hungary has genuinely implemented the reforms demanded by Brussels, continuing to withhold money would make the conditionality mechanism look less like a defence of European values and more like a political punishment system. That would be profoundly damaging. Rules that apply only to governments Brussels likes are not rules at all.

This is why Monday’s debate matters – and the €4.2 billion is only part of the story.

The Commission has made clear that other Hungarian funds remain blocked. Around €3.5 billion is affected by a separate mechanism, including approximately €2.7 billion linked to horizontal conditions concerning the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, including academic freedom, LGBTI rights and asylum.

Meanwhile, Hungary is still seeking access to roughly €10 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The new Hungarian recovery plan includes measures on anti-corruption, public procurement, transparency, judicial independence and stakeholder participation, with payments tied to the achievement of specific milestones.

So this is not a clean victory for either side.

For Magyar, the release of €4.2 billion demonstrates that his strategy of accommodation with Brussels is delivering tangible results. For the Commission, it provides an opportunity to demonstrate that conditionality can work: reforms are made, the Commission verifies them, and money is released.

But the real test will come afterwards. Brussels must monitor whether the reforms survive political pressure. Anti-corruption bodies must remain genuinely independent. Public procurement must be transparent. Prosecutorial safeguards must work in practice rather than merely on paper. And the judiciary must be capable of challenging the government when necessary.

That is where the European Parliament should concentrate its fire. The temptation will be to turn Monday’s debate into another referendum on Viktor Orbán. That would be yesterday’s argument. Orbán has gone. The more important question is whether Hungary’s new government has actually dismantled the machinery that generated the dispute.

There is a wider lesson here for the European Union.

Conditionality can only work if Brussels is prepared both to withhold money when standards are breached and to release it when standards are met. Anything else undermines the credibility of the entire system.

The Commission says Hungary has crossed that threshold. The Council must now decide whether it agrees.

MEPs should therefore resist both triumphalism and cynicism, if the reforms are real, Hungary should get its money.

If they are cosmetic, Brussels should keep the cheque in the drawer.

Brussels Moves to Release €4.2bn to Hungary as Magyar Unwinds Orbán-Era Dispute

Some expected a change in Hungary’s pro-Russian foreign policy after Viktor Orbán’s fall. But they failed to take into account the domestic political pressures on Hungary’s prime minister Péter Magyar.

An unexpected source of tension in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations came at a meeting of the newly formed ‘Carpathian Eight’ (C8) in late September. At the meeting in Kyiv, PM Magyar was embroiled in a sharp exchange with Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha, who criticised Budapest for not taking part.

Magyar responded to Sybiha by claiming that Hungary had been included in the C8 without his consent.

“To claim that a sovereign country is a member of an international cooperation (Carpathian Integration) without prior consultation or consent of the country concerned is completely unacceptable,” Magyar said on social media.

This comes after Hungary-Ukraine relations began to improve rapidly following the formation of the Tisza government in May.

Under Orbán’s government, relations had fallen to a historic low, raising the prospect of escalation. In June, Magyar announced that he had reached an agreement with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on settling the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, hailing it as a historic deal.

Ukraine’s Deputy PM Vsevolod Chentsov informed me that legislation on minority education rights will be submitted to Parliament. I welcome this step after weeks of 🇭🇺🇺🇦 expert consultations. Thank you to all Hungarian and Ukrainian colleagues for their constructive work. Looking…

— Anita Orban (@_OrbanAnita) October 2, 2026

Since June, however, Hungary has repeatedly blocked Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations, arguing that progress on settling the rights of Hungarians in Transcarpathia has fallen short of expectations.

Orbán’s Fidesz party previously used the same argument to block Ukraine’s integration efforts.

Three months after the so-called historic agreement, Ukraine’s foreign minister Sybiha wrote that although Orbán had lost the election, Orbánism (a policy based on isolation and obstruction) prevailed in Hungary.

“Orbanism has done no good, neither to Hungary nor to the broader region, in the past — and it will not do anyone any good moving forward,” said Sybiha on social media.

Domestic Hungarian politics can explain the dispute.

MOL, an oil company, signed a memorandum with Ukraine’s Naftogaz at the C8 meeting on the possible establishment of Ukrainian oil storage facilities in Hungary.

The deal was criticised by Fidesz politicians, and Magyar’s government strongly distanced itself from the deal, too. Fidesz may have contributed to Magyar entering the dispute over C8 participation so very forcefully.

What is the Carpathian Eight?

In August, Zelensky announced the creation of the C8 to bring together countries from the wider Carpathian border region. The Ukrainian president said its members would focus primarily on the economy, security, the environment and investment.

Ukraine described it as a project intended to strengthen cross-border cooperation even with countries that do not provide it with military aid. Alongside Ukraine were to be Romania, Serbia, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, Austria and Hungary.

Michal Lebduška, an analyst at the Association for International Affairs in Prague (AMO), said that it was one of many regional initiatives. While he did not believe it would trigger “major cooperation”, it could nevertheless be important.

The inaugural summit of the newly formed C8 was held last month (18 September) in Bukovel, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, around 160 km from both the Slovak and Hungarian borders. Zelensky called it “an important beginning” and thanked the countries of the Carpathian region for being among Kyiv’s most reliable allies.

From Ukraine’s perspective, however, the meeting had mixed results. On the one hand, several leaders travelled to Bukovel in person, lending the gathering greater diplomatic weight. Polish PM Donald Tusk, Romanian president Nicușor Dan and Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić all attended in person.

On the other hand, the remaining countries sent lower-ranking representatives. Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico had initially indicated that he would attend, and was originally due to meet Tusk. At the last minute, however, he announced that he could not attend the summit due to sudden illness.

Slovakia was ultimately represented by Marek Eštok, state secretary at the foreign ministry.

Andrej Babiš’s Czech government all but completely ignored the initiative. As Respekt magazine wrote, Babiš declined the opportunity to visit Ukraine and did not send any representative to Bukovel.

So Czechia was represented at the summit only by opposition deputy Senate president Jiří Drahoš.

And Austria was ultimately represented by Christine Schwarz-Fuchs, president of the Federal Council.

Hungary sent Ádám Ceglédi, the acting chargé d’affaires at the Hungarian embassy in Kyiv, as the Hungarian foreign ministry confirmed to Telex.

Ukraine expected stronger support

“There are many different forms of cooperation in this region: the Visegrád Four, the Slavkov format and the Central European Initiative. Ukraine is interested in improving its relations with some countries,” Péter Techet, a foreign-policy analyst and researcher at the Institute for Danube Region and Central Europe in Vienna, said.

According to the analyst, Ukraine may have hoped that Orbán’s fall would bring a clear shift in Hungary’s Ukraine policy. Anita Orbán, as foreign minister, has confirmed this by pursuing a foreign policy moving away from Russia.

However, Ukrainians did not take Magyar’s domestic political interests into account.

Magyar panders to anti-Ukraine crowd

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More than a year ago, we launched our Hungary Briefing, a weekly round-up of the election campaign. Since the historic vote in April to remove Viktor Orbán, the series has followed the new Tisza government and its first moves in office. This week’s topics:

• Two ministers from Orbán’s government have been held in custody.
• Former prime minister Orbán may have ordered the detention of Ukrainian cash couriers.
• The newly established National Asset Recovery and Protection Office has begun work.
• The European Public Prosecutor’s Office could also help recover stolen funds.

It has been an eventful few days in Hungarian public life. Efforts to hold former officials accountable are gathering pace: two former ministers have been remanded in custody over suspected breaches of fiduciary duty involving billions of forints and the acceptance of bribes.

The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office (NVVH) immediately took over four cases and began investigating them, including the visa business linked to Orbán’s brother. Meanwhile, a chief prosecutor who resigned from his post claimed in an open letter that Orbán himself had ordered the detention of Ukrainian cash couriers.

Two ministers from Orbán’s government have been held in custody

“The landing is beginning as part of ‘Operation Purgatory’,” prime minister Péter Magyar announced on Monday (28 September) morning. Later that morning, Hungary’s parliament lifted the immunity of Miklós Seszták, an MP and former development minister from the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP); Balázs Hankó, an MP and former culture and innovation minister from Fidesz; and prime minister Magyar.

Prosecutors requested that Hankó’s immunity be lifted on suspicion of breach of fiduciary duty: he is suspected of causing losses of 17 billion forints (€46.5m) to the state budget. Authorities are investigating Seszták on suspicion of accepting bribes and other offences. The former minister and the then chief executive of Hungarian National Asset Management are suspected of receiving approximately 12.6 billion forints (€34.2m), in bribes through an intermediary between 2015 and 2018.

Magyar himself requested the lifting of his own immunity after the deputy prosecutor general asked the speaker of parliament to initiate the procedure over an incident in June 2024. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, Magyar deliberately dropped the phone of a man filming him into the Danube, an act it classifies legally as theft.

After the vote on his immunity, Seszták went to the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office, where he was taken into custody. He said he had committed no crime and wished to give a statement. On Wednesday, a court ordered the former minister’s remand in custody.

Hankó initially waited in the Fidesz parliamentary group’s office for police to take him away. Under the rules, however, he should have presented himself at the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

Under the Act on the National Assembly, police may enter the parliament building and take action there only with the speaker’s specific permission, while the Parliamentary Guard may neither forcibly bring him before the authorities nor take coercive measures against him. Parliament speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer therefore firmly called on Hankó to leave the building and cooperate with the investigating authorities.

Hankó subsequently held a press conference with his wife and children present, claiming that he was the target of a politically-fabricated case and declaring his innocence. He finally accepted the summons at 7.20 pm and left parliament, setting off to give a statement amid carefully-staged scenes. Orbán’s social media page live-streamed the entire episode (while the Fidesz leader was in Belfast cheering on Hungary’s national football team).

In a statement, prosecutors said that Hankó and his associates had used National Cultural Fund resources for purposes other than those prescribed by law on 1,079 occasions between 3 September 2025 and 30 March 2026.

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A blacksmith, a groom, a soldier, a slave: the faces and stories of these and other inhabitants of an ancient Roman city in modern-day Hungary have been brought back to life with astonishing accuracy in a new exhibition in Budapest, the Associated Press reported in July (as cited by BTA). The exhibition, which runs until […]

A metal detector has pulled a small lead statuette of Venus Pudica out of a forest in the Buda Hills, northwest of Budapest. It is the first religious object recorded at the Roman village of Pilisszentiván–Hárs erdő, a rural settlement in the province of Pannonia. Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) has been excavating it for four […]

The former prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, has denounced a new political offensive against his Fidesz political formation following the arrest and 30-day pretrial detention for Miklós Seszták, a lawmaker and former national development minister under Orbán.

A Budapest court on Wednesday ordered 30 days of pre-trial detention for Seszták following a corruption investigation that may just be beginning of a wave of prosecutions targeting the former Orbán government.

Orbán accused Magyar’s Tisza government of “neo-communist tactics.”

“The Tisza authoritarian rulers are raising taxes, fuel prices are soaring, and they are wrecking the Hungarian economy. Authoritarianism creates new victims every day. Today it’s them, tomorrow it’s you. They would rather stage political theatre than face reality. Our message to every Hungarian is this: the Tisza authoritarian rulers will not break our patriotic community. We will not let them. They cannot imprison half the country,” he continued.

Neo-communist tactics. The Tisza authoritarian rulers are raising taxes, fuel prices are soaring, and they are wrecking the Hungarian economy. Authoritarianism creates new victims every day. Today it’s them, tomorrow it’s you. They would rather stage political theatre than face reality. Our message to every Hungarian is this: the Tisza authoritarian rulers will not break our patriotic community. We will not let them. They cannot imprison half the country.

— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) September 28, 2026

An investigating judge at the Buda Central District Court found sufficient grounds to suspect official bribery and other offenses and said detention was needed to protect the inquiry, the Budapest Metropolitan Court announced. The ruling is not final. Seszták’s lawyer filed an appeal, and the former minister has maintained his innocence.

Exclusive: ‘The situation is dire’ – The Trump administration has largely abandoned Hungarian conservatives amid mass purges, warns editor-in-chief of Hungary Today

The order came two days after parliament voted 139-0 to lift the immunity of Seszták and another Orbán-era minister, Balázs Hankó. Fidesz and its Christian Democratic People’s Party allies boycotted the session and called the proceedings political persecution.

Prosecutors and the newly created National Asset Recovery and Protection Office allege that between 2014 and 2018, Seszták accepted bribes totaling hundreds of millions to more than 11 billion forints (€30 million) from construction contractors tied to state bus company Volánbusz and other projects, together with a former state asset-management official. Seszták has called the accusations baseless.

Balázs Orbán, the former prime minister’s political director, compared the events to 1950s political prosecutions and to cases against conservative politicians in Poland.

“This is the political arbitrariness of the communist 1950s, unfolding in Hungary in real time. You can watch it live on @PM_ViktorOrban’s Facebook page: a former Hungarian minister is being arrested following a direct and public demand by Péter Magyar, the Hungarian Prime Minister backed by Brussels,” he wrote.

This is the political arbitrariness of the communist 1950s, unfolding in Hungary in real time. You can watch it live on @PM_ViktorOrban’s Facebook page: a former Hungarian minister is being arrested following a direct and public demand by Péter Magyar, the Hungarian Prime Minister backed by Brussels.

— Balázs Orbán (@BalazsOrban_HU) September 28, 2026

Magyar’s government rejected the accusations. Officials are attempting to present the probes as an effort to examine alleged corruption from Orbán’s 16 years in power. Magyar noted that a former minister had been placed in pretrial detention for the first time since 1990.

“This is the first time since 1990 that a former minister has been arrested. He is suspected of bribery,” wrote Magyar.

The court has placed @PM_ViktorOrban's former minister and current member of Parliament, Miklós Seszták, in pre-trial detention. This is the first time since 1990 that a former minister has been arrested. He is suspected of bribery involving 12 billion forints.

— Magyar Péter (Ne féljetek) (@magyarpeterMP) September 30, 2026

Fidesz vice president and MEP Kinga Gál called Sept. 28 “a dark day for Hungarian democracy” and accused Magyar of turning police and prosecutors against political rivals.

A dark day for Hungarian democracy. In another chapter in the political witch hunt against right-wing politicians, the Tisza majority in the Hungarian Parliament stripped MPs and former ministers Balázs Hankó and Miklós Seszták of their immunity.Balázs Hankó is the target of a politically fabricated case. We never thought we would see such times return to Hungary. Shameful. The Hungarian PM is pressuring police and prosecutors while building a new political police force to pursue his political opponents. He is trying to silence the opposition and dismantle the rule of law. We condemn it in the strongest terms.

— Kinga Gál (@_KingaGal) September 28, 2026

MEP András László said the cases are based on the “political instructions” from the prime minister.

The era of political show trials are back!  Today the authoritarian rule in Hungary reached a new low. The judiciary is acting on the PM's personal instructions.

— András LÁSZLÓ MEP (@laszloan) September 28, 2026

Seszták was taken into custody Monday after walking into the Central Investigative Prosecutor’s Office, saying he intended to give a statement. The new Asset Recovery Office, which began operations Sept. 27, took over the case. His lawyer has argued that parts of the detention process were irregular.

Neither Seszták nor Hankó has been convicted, and both deny wrongdoing.

–

The post ‘Neo-communist tactics’ – Former PM Viktor Orbán warns of wave of political repression after arrest of his former minister appeared first on Remix News.

The Hungarian conservative media landscape is in the process of being bankrupted, gutted, or co-opted by the new Hungarian government under Péter Magyar. However, there remain a few holdouts, including Daniel Deme, who serves as the editor-in-chief of the English-language Hungarian news outlet Hungary Today as well as the German-language Ungarn Heute. Deme describes a “dire situation” brought on by a climate of fear, radical purges, mass layoffs, and little to no aid from key allies, including the Trump administration.

What is the current state of the Hungarian media landscape? How does it compare to the situation under the Orbán government?

Under the Orbán government, there were claims from the left that there were no media freedoms here, that journalists were persecuted. None of that was true. I’d say there was already a 60-to-40 split in the media landscape toward the left’s benefit at that time. But a difficult situation arose from the fact that Hungarian conservative right-wing media wasn’t independent enough, and that was really the case. It was very much talking to its own bubble.

I don’t think it was controlled by the government or presenting a government-controlled narrative. I think it was voluntary. But I think the culture of Hungarian conservative journalists was such that they wanted to stick to the central narrative, which was very close to the government.

On the other hand, you had foreign-funded left-wing media outlets. There were a few exceptions that survived commercially, but in very many cases they were funded by the Open Society Foundations and by the Norwegian Oil Fund. There’s a Norwegian radical-leftist sort of fund that is feeding the Hungarian liberal and woke environment, NGOs, and media outlets.

EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration has largely abandoned Hungarian conservatives after Viktor Orbán’s loss, warns @daniel_deme_HU in an interview with @RMXnews.

“So, I think the State Department of the Trump administration is shooting itself in the foot by leaving this… pic.twitter.com/vOAE8iajro

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 21, 2026

And of course they were funded by European funds as well—awards, grants. So after the elections, the money that came from government advertising—by the way, they advertised in the left-wing media very heavily as well—just stopped immediately. And from week one, there was a purge of Hungarian right-wing media outlets. It wasn’t just the money that was taken away; the institutional standing was as well.

For example, the largest media conglomerate, Mediaworks, immediately started firing hundreds and hundreds of staff. What we haven’t even seen during communism: it wasn’t just that they removed the former Orbán government’s media managers from these public media outlets—they actually destroyed them. They shut them down.

And it was just outright scary, as if a foreign occupying force had arrived and shot our TV towers to pieces. One day we turned on our TVs and there was a blank screen. There was a black screen with an inscription that the “public media shouldn’t lie, and we are sorry that we lied for years, and this is going to change.” And that was it. That was it for weeks and weeks on end.

At the same time, it also happened with Radio Kossuth, a national institution. That’s a radio station that we used to listen to even during communism. And suddenly they switched it off. They just put some classical music on 24/7, and old people have complained to me that they used to turn it on in the morning and switch it off in the evening when they went to bed. It used to be part of their lives, and then there’s nothing. And now the only public television is completely turned into a Tisza Party mouthpiece.

There are a handful of surviving right-wing publications that, frankly, have not learned their lesson, in my opinion, about how to analyze Hungarian public and political life, and are very much continuing in the same line as before.

There are new shoots, I would say. It’s very hard to tell which ones are going to survive and which ones are not. And this is the situation when you realize one staggering fact: if you find yourself a media manager or an editor-in-chief, you start looking for funds and trying to survive, and you realize that there are no foundations, no grants for national, conservative, patriotic media in the world—anywhere.

Meanwhile there are dozens and dozens of rich funds for liberal, woke media that is spewing propaganda from Brussels or from the Democrats’ set of opinion-makers. So it’s amazing. There were two Hungarian foundations that sponsored some of the patriotic and conservative media in the country. They have both been shut down now and are now controlled by the Péter Magyar government.

So the situation is dire.

On the one hand, the conservative media has completely disappeared. We do not have a single conservative political daily on the newsstands now. Not a single one. Magyar Nemzet, which used to be everywhere, is now nowhere to be found. It has gone into weekly print production. And on the other hand, when you go onto social media and LinkedIn, you see ubiquitous adverts for left-wing journalists at left-wing outlets everywhere. They’re expanding. It’s like a golden age for them.

That’s a pretty dramatic transition. How many people would you estimate have now been laid off in the Hungarian media landscape since Tisza, since Magyar, won?

I would definitely estimate it near 1,000 people. And you have to understand that the Hungarian media landscape is fairly small, and these are almost exclusively members of either the public broadcasters or conservative media—almost exclusively. People have been fired in a completely absurd manner, without any justification, without any wrongdoing on their side. Not even only people who had been biased toward the Fidesz government. Even when they fired the managers of the public media, MTI, they found replacements, a couple of media managers well known in the business, and they were appointed.

One of them was supposed to be the manager of the news department at the Hungarian News Agency, and someone pointed out on social media—I think on Facebook—that yes, he had worked for the left, and he had also worked for right-wing media like Hír TV. Péter Magyar left a single comment on Facebook under one of these comments saying, “I don’t think so.”

The next day, the guy was called into the office of his boss and fired on the spot. When they found out that he had worked briefly at one of the conservative news TV stations, he was fired on the spot and removed. That’s all it takes today: just a short comment on Facebook from our new neo-Stalinist leader, Péter Magyar.

You said there’s not a single foundation in the entire world that supports conservative media in Europe. Liberal institutions outside Hungary were pretty active supporting numerous liberal and left-wing institutions, media outlets, and so on with money—taxpayer money from Europe and corporate money from various corporations, foundations, and so on. Now, where are the Americans? Where is the State Department? Where are the foundations? What is your opinion on this particular issue?

Well, on the one hand, the State Department launched in July a grant for free, sort of conservative institutions in Europe—$5 million, I think, for the entirety of Europe. And I think they have received more than 1,000 applications. Whoever I spoke to, from Italy to Poland, everyone was applying. We applied as well. But it’s a ridiculous amount. $5 million is basically the price of a single bomb in Iraq. So this was just a drop in the ocean.

And I have managed to speak to members of the American State Department—I do not want to describe any more closely who they were—and I basically just asked what they thought about this. And they said, “You’re on your own. You have to fight this fight from your own resources. We have to respect the will of the people.”

And this is very gentlemanly, you know. This is a very noble position from the State Department. They do not want to interfere in other people’s countries. But I have to add very quickly that this is not the way the Democrats see it, or money groups and oligarchs connected to the Democrats. The left does not have these sorts of scruples toward Europe and is continuing to fund the Hungarian far-left media and NGO networks. There’s a glut of funds for them. So I think the State Department of the Trump administration is shooting itself in the foot by leaving this space empty, leaving the Hungarian conservative network to wither. In four years, when they come back, where they used to have allies—honest allies and friends—where they used to have an infrastructure of pro-American political and economic circles, they will have nothing. They will only find NGO networks and political networks that are 100% allied either with the Democrats or with networks funded from the other side of the world, from the East.

I’ve tried to explain this to American diplomats and opinion-makers: there’s been a huge void created after the elections. This void is going to be filled very, very quickly. And if you do not move fast enough, you will find that others will recognize the potential in this network—and so they did. And I do not want to mention the names of the countries, but they are not the United States’ geopolitical allies, let’s say that.

What do you think the motive is from the State Department there? Is it that there are still a lot of left-wing holdouts in the State Department who are directing policy, or do you think this is the conservative mindset of letting the free market work? If the conservative outlets can generate ad revenue and play in this kind of private market, then those are the outlets that deserve to survive. And if they can’t, then they deserve to die.

I think there could be some of this, but the State Department is very well known to be the bastion of the Democrats in the international field. It is still completely dominated by left-wing activist foreign policy. You just have to look at U.S. embassies and their appointments from local talent, or the communications of some of their ambassadors.

We don’t even have an ambassador in Hungary, which kind of shows that our status is not as important for Washington as it probably used to be, or as it should be. You have to remember that Viktor Orbán stood up for Donald Trump in the darkest years and months of the lawfare, when he was being photographed in police stations, when he was getting his mugshot taken by police. Viktor Orbán was the only foreign leader who stood up and paid enormous political capital, invested a lot of political capital, into defending Donald Trump personally and stood by the Republicans in these dark periods.

With Hungarian conservatives face growing persecution, where is Donald Trump?

"You have to remember that Viktor Orbán stood up for Donald Trump in the darkest years of and months of the lawfare when he was being photographed in police stations, when he was getting his… https://t.co/Wtlujt32u2 pic.twitter.com/HmHbkdVx9H

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 23, 2026

And yes, there was a lot of support from the United States before the elections, from JD Vance and Marco Rubio, even from Donald Trump himself. Not the support that we needed. What we needed, first of all, was a good look into the far-left financial networks that are tilting the Hungarian political sphere toward the left, toward Brussels, and toward the Democrats. And the other thing was action on the giant tech firms like Facebook, Google, etc., who are openly censoring Hungarian and European media content, influencers, etc. And they’re doing it so blatantly that we expected the new White House to crack down on this undemocratic, biased behavior. And this didn’t happen.

Do you feel that now that Orbán is out of power, the US is actually betraying the Hungarian conservatives?

I don’t think they’re betraying us explicitly. I think there is a recognition of the seriousness of the situation, but I haven’t heard a single word from Republican circles expressing dismay or concern about what is happening in Hungary, and there’s plenty to be concerned about regarding what has happened in the last four months.

What we’ve seen in Hungary being done by the Tisza government is unprecedented in Europe, even in left-wing countries, even in partial democracies like Germany. There’s persecution of right-wing influencers, etc. I’m not going to go into details, but the U.S. State Department is completely silent about this, and I would say now is about time to open their mouths and take a hard look at what’s going on in Hungary.

Orbán invited JD Vance at a sort of inopportune time for his own election campaign. This had already been after the bombing of Iran, and there was a pretty big energy price increase right before Orbán went to the polls. Some people even said that this may have contributed to a larger loss for Orbán in the end. What is your opinion?

Whether the visits by JD Vance or Marco Rubio helped or not, I think they didn’t sway Hungary either way. They were very much welcomed by the Hungarian conservative networks, and I don’t think any of the Tisza Party’s potential voters changed their minds about voting for Fidesz because they understood how important the support of the American administration is. It is very, very important, but they had their minds made up already, and I don’t think these high-level visits changed anything in any way.

You have to separate Fidesz’s campaign performance from what really happened, the result of the elections. There was such an incredibly violent, intensive, and aggressive communication campaign from Tisza’s international and domestic supporters that throughout my 25 years in communications I have not seen anything like this.

We had the Ukrainians close our oil pipeline, Brussels withheld the European funds from the Orbán government, the Polish secret services were spreading fake news about Viktor Orbán, the British intelligence services were fairly active in Hungary, and on Facebook and Google the salvos of thousands of comments in our comments sections and everywhere else were coming from bot farms and paid influencers. And it was just amazing. I don’t think any society could have resisted this intensity of disinformation and demagoguery that we saw in the elections.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that Fidesz had a terrible election campaign, and it’s kind of universally understood even among conservatives that they really messed up their election campaign, and everyone is paying a very high price for this.

Since the election, I’ve seen polling that shows Fidesz tanking even much further than their election results, and Tisza seems to be more popular than ever. This is about four months in now. What realistic chances do you see of the conservatives coming back to power, and how will the Hungarian media landscape—without a real conservative voice, or not much of one going forward—even present the conservative or right-wing viewpoint?

I think some of those polls are right, and maybe not to the extent that they are showing, but Tisza’s popularity has actually grown since the elections and Fidesz has fallen back. That’s partly because Viktor Orbán was such an incredibly dominant personality in Fidesz, and his removal from the political scene is a huge hit for Hungarian conservatives.

And his replacement, János Bóka, is a young and very well-informed and competent person, but I don’t think he’s a full replacement for Viktor Orbán, and some are skeptical about his charisma, etc.

Fidesz’s performance since the elections can only be described as sketchy, and we are expecting Fidesz to do much more than they are doing. And there’s, of course, the other right-wing party, Mi Hazánk, Our Homeland. They are to the right of Fidesz, and very brave and vocal, and they are organizing demonstrations and are very active in parliament as well. They are getting into debates with Péter Magyar, but when it comes to voting, they almost always vote with Tisza.

They even voted for the so-called Asset Recovery Office, which is an absolute betrayal not just of their voters, but of conservative Hungary as well. That’s just a huge misstep. So they are not to be relied on. I think the only solution we can hope for is the emergence of a new conservative party, but we do not even see the sign of anything happening yet, and it seems Hungarian conservative circles are still in shell shock post-election.

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European governments are racing to blunt a fuel shock that even some analysts now refuse to forecast, as Brent crude holds near $100 a barrel and diesel prices climb across Europe.

The international oil market has been expensive for months. What has changed is the confidence of the people paid to explain it. JPMorgan told clients on Sept. 17 that, for the first time since fighting began around Iran about seven months earlier, its commodities team no longer has a baseline view of how the disruption ends. 

“We simply don’t know how to model the endgame,” the bank’s analysts wrote, after several economic thresholds they once assumed would force a diplomatic off-ramp, including oil above $100 a barrel, had already been crossed.

‘Diesel the most expensive ever! This may be just the beginning’

The bank said a Brent price near $90 would have been consistent with known supply and demand in September. Futures instead traded around $100 and higher as traders priced the risk of further losses that no one can yet measure. By Monday, front-month Brent was still hovering near $99 a barrel.

Inventories are doing little to cushion the blow. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said prices are likely to stay elevated until Middle East oil trade is restored and stocks can be rebuilt. The International Energy Agency’s September report put the scale of the drain in starker terms: observed global inventories fell another 95 million barrels in August, taking the cumulative draw since February to 507 million barrels, or about 2.8 million barrels a day. World oil supply is now projected to average 100.7 million barrels a day in 2026, down 5.7 million from a year earlier.

Diesel shortages are acute

In some countries, such as Hungary, there is a major imbalance in terms of available energy sources. Crude held in strategic storage remains ample, but diesel is quickly running out. Data from the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association show gas oil stocks at 520.3 kilotons at the end of January and about 390 kilotons at the end of both July and August. That thinner diesel cushion matters in a country where more than 1.3 million passenger cars run on the fuel and the regional market is competing for the same scarce imports.

Pump prices have already moved. Official and commercial trackers put Hungarian diesel around 701 forints a liter in late September on some official series and closer to 730 forints on daily station averages — well above the roughly 593 forints recorded at the end of June. The original worry in Budapest was not whether prices would rise, but how quickly 800 forints would stop looking like a distant ceiling.

Diesel price explodes to record highs across Europe

That speed is not a mystery to central bankers. Bank of Slovenia research covering euro-area data from 2005 through 2026 found that a 10% rise in Brent lifts pretax diesel and gasoline prices by about 6.5% and 6.2%, respectively, over the longer term. A large share of the increase shows up at stations within the first two weeks — faster than the physical chain of shipping, refining and wholesale delivery would suggest. 

The European Central Bank has reached a similar conclusion and added an unwelcome twist: refinery margins can amplify the shock. During the spring spike, Brent briefly reached $138 a barrel while diesel at the refinery gate jumped to $197. ECB staff later estimated that refining margins were contributing about 41 euro cents a liter to euro-area retail diesel in mid-September, and they told reporters those diesel margins may not peak until October.

The way down is slower than the way up. Taxes, refining and transport costs, inventories, margins and local competition all delay relief when crude finally eases. That asymmetry is why governments are acting now, before higher fuel bills work through freight, food and services and lift broader inflation.

Europe-wide crisis

The policy dilemma is the same from Lisbon to Warsaw: protect households and trucking firms without writing a blank check for fossil-fuel consumption. Europe has answered with a patchwork rather than a single rule. Some governments cap retail prices. Others cut excise taxes, sometimes below the European Union minimum. A third group aims help at farmers, haulers and other heavy users. A few still let global prices hit consumers with no cushion at all. The result is that the same barrel of oil can produce pump prices that differ dramatically at the pump across Europe.

Will Germany run out of gas this winter? Experts and energy executives warn of dire scenarios

Here are just a few examples of what Europe looks like in this regard.

• Austria has been running a mineral-oil tax cut of 1.9 euro cents a liter into the end of September. 
• Belgium has implemented an official price ceiling. 
• Croatia cut diesel excise duty by another 3 cents, taking it 10 cents below the EU floor; Zagreb says the average diesel price is 1.91 euros a liter instead of 2.26 euros without the intervention. 
• Cyprus is offering an 8.33-cent discount through Nov. 30. 
• Luxembourg is absorbing 5 cents of the pump price from July through December. 
• Malta is using direct state aid to keep prices below the euro-area average. 
• Portugal decided on Sept. 17 to recycle extra value-added tax receipts from more expensive fuel into tax relief worth about 1.3 billion euros through year-end. 
• Slovenia posted official maxima of 1.748 euros for gasoline and 2.012 euros for diesel in the week of Sept. 22-28. 
• Spain has kept an excise cut below the EU minimum through Sept. 30. 
• Italy reduced and capped diesel duty into early October. 
• Montenegro and Serbia combine retail caps with lower excise taxes.

Targeted aid is running in parallel

• Greece extended a 10-cent-a-liter diesel subsidy into October and is preparing a heating-oil package. 
• France steered relief to agriculture, high-mileage workers and construction rather than a blanket cut. 
• Ireland is rebating duty for commercial haulers and bus operators. 
• Spain added a 402 million-euro program for truckers on top of its general tax reduction. 
• Italy is offering carriers a tax credit for earlier extra costs.

Larger packages are still moving through parliaments

Germany will cut energy tax by 14 cents a liter from Oct. 1 through year-end, about 17 cents once lower VAT is counted, in a 2.5 billion-euro package. 

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said drivers who depend on a car every day “are reaching their breaking point.” 

Berlin is also talking with the oil industry about a temporary price cap modeled on Luxembourg or Belgium, aimed at Jan. 1, 2027. 

The Czech government will restore a station-margin ceiling from Oct. 1, cut diesel duty to the EU minimum and cap retail margins at 2.50 koruna a liter. 

Poland has floated a 60% levy on oil companies’ extra profits to finance about 4 billion zlotys of price relief, though the plan faces parliamentary and constitutional hurdles.

The International Energy Agency has described the response as global, not merely European. In a matter of months, the number of countries applying fuel subsidies rose from 16 to 38, and the number cutting energy taxes rose from 40 to 57. Pew Research Center, drawing on IEA tallies from mid-June, counted 113 countries that had taken at least one energy-cost measure after the Iran war, including tax changes in 55 countries and fuel subsidies in 32. The agency’s own warning is implicit in those numbers: governments are treating the symptom at the pump because they cannot reopen the Strait of Hormuz from a finance ministry or end the war in Ukraine.

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Péter Magyar’s government has officially announced a foreign policy break with Viktor Orbán’s course; however, this rhetorical shift toward the European consensus poses serious risks for Hungary due to the country’s continued critical dependence on Russian energy resources. On August 25, 2026, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar published guidelines for Hungary’s delegation […]

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister since 2010, faces an election dogfight. Behind in the polls, he has been effectively endorsed by both the Kremlin and the White House, and a host of conservative world leaders. As wars in Iran and Ukraine exacerbate the fissures that have weakened NATO, as well as the U.S.’s relationship with the European Union, this is an election that is being followed with bated breath in Washington, Moscow, Kyiv and Brussels. 

Before the elections on April 12, a scandal engulfed the Hungarian government. On leaked recordings, foreign minister Péter Szijjártó can be heard deferentially acquiescing to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and passing on information from EU meetings. Szijjártó appeared willing to help the Kremlin’s cause in Brussels, to remove oligarchs and their relatives from the EU blacklist, and to block efforts to aid Ukraine. Hungary’s advocacy for the Kremlin’s agenda culminated in its recent veto of fresh sanctions on Russia and over $100 billion in loans to Ukraine. On X, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk wrote that while “Hungary is and will be in the European Union, Victor Orbán and his foreign minister left Europe long ago.” And the Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin described Szijjárto’s calls with Lavrov as both “sinister” and “alarming.”

Szijjárto alleged that “foreign intelligence services, with the active involvement of Hungarian journalists, have been intercepting my phone calls.” It is a plot, the Hungarian government claims, to influence the upcoming polls. Orbán directly blames Ukraine for seeking to unseat his government. The opposition, led by Peter Magyar, has a healthy lead in the polls and describes the Hungarian government’s closeness to the Kremlin as “treason.” According to European intelligence reports, Moscow sent a three-person team to Hungary, overseen by Putin confidant Sergei Kiriyenko who ran an operation to interfere in the Moldovan election back in September. His tactics encompassed “vote-buying networks, troll farms, and on-the-ground influence campaigns.” A Kremlin-linked media consultancy, facing EU sanctions, was hired to dismiss Magyar as a Brussels stooge and portray Orbán as the only candidate strong enough to to be treated as an equal by world leaders, as evidenced by the strength of his relationship with Trump. 

Despite a war with Iran that doesn’t appear to be going entirely to plan, the U.S. president took time out to back Orbán with enthusiasm and at considerable length on Truth Social. Trump said Orbán was “a true friend, fighter, and WINNER.” JD Vance, the vice president, is scheduled to visit Hungary on April 7, just five days before the election. And secretary of state Marco Rubio went to Hungary in February. It is now part of the U.S. National Security Strategy to work towards “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.” To that end, notes the U.S. government, “the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.” Orbán speaks MAGA’s language on immigration, traditional values and the Christian essence of Western societies. He is, like Putin and Trump, in MAGA’s view, an implacable opponent of secular, progressive, globalist politics as symbolised by Brussels.

Orbán, the longest serving current head of government in the EU, has become a figurehead for populist, nationalist movements across the world. The recent CPAC Hungary summit was attended by several of these leaders including France’s Marine Le Pen, Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders,who called Orbán “a lion on a continent led by sheep.” Latin American leaders close to Trump , including Javier Milei of Argentina and Jose Antonio Kast of Chile, also attended. Milei, who gave the longest speech at the summit, said Orbán was “a beacon for all… who refuse to accept that the West's destiny is one of managed decline.” This international network, with the United States and Russia included, has a vested ideological interest in seeing Orban continue to remain a thorn in the EU's side. 

But what can Brussels do? The answer, it appears, is not much. The EU is consensus driven; it needs all its parts to act in concert, giving holdouts like Orbán considerable power to hold the whole bloc hostage. But given Orbán’s prominence as an ideologue, when Hungary blocks sanctions or delays support for Ukraine, it is more than a single nation going rogue. Alice Weidler, co-chair of the far-right AfD, the largest opposition party in the German Bundestag, was among those who spoke at the CPAC Hungary conference last month. Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, is an Orbán ally. On April 19, Bulgaria will have its eighth general election in just five years. Former president Rumen Radev’s new Progressive Party leads the polls and shares Orbán’s pro-Kremlin, anti-EU inclinations.

So polarized is the Hungarian election, that right wing groups are deploying their own observers from Argentina, Austria, the Czech Republic, Kenya, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Serbia, Tanzania and the United States to monitor proceedings. EU observers have said the Hungarian government controls the national media and a recent documentary alleges that a desperate government is resorting to vote-buying, gerrymandering and intimidation tactics. It’s hard to see how either Orbán or Magyar will accept the election result without protest, unless the margin is crushing. But, given Trump’s disdain for NATO allies and the EU, an Orbán election defeat would be a much-needed victory for European unity. 

A version of this story was published in this week’s Coda Currents newsletter. Sign up here.

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