In recent decades, Europe has faced many challenges, one of which is the demographic crisis. The ageing and declining population, labour shortages and emigration pose a major challenge for almost all European countries. The importance of demographic trends cannot be overestimated, as they will have a major impact on Europe’s future position.
For years the EU dismissed peace talks as premature. When Hungary pushed for negotiations, it was vilified. Now, with Donald Trump launching talks without them, Brussels is scrambling to claim a role it once rejected.
‘The Supreme Court has stated that, on average, it now takes 15 years for a citizen to have their case heard, a stark increase from 1.5 years before the reform. Despite billions spent by European and American taxpayers, not only have the metrics worsened, but Albanian citizens are now receiving less justice.’
Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has once again ranked Hungary as the most corrupt member state of the EU, placing it alongside Burkina Faso and Cuba for the third consecutive year. However, this time, we exactly know the reason why. Our commentary.
‘Trump’s actions, like them or not, can be seen as an application of a highly contested “unitary executive theory”—an expansive interpretation of presidential power that aims to centralize greater control over the government in the White House. Trump’s measures, however, reflect the constitutional philosophy of the Founding Father who effectively created the American system, Alexander Hamilton.’
‘Whereas in pre-modern Western culture pride and self-respect were derived from involvement in family, community, work and religion, individuals are nowadays left with nothing but their individualism and inner experiences…When this is insufficient, many people attempt to find their salvation…in materialism and consumption, which have become the primary culturally accepted forms of meaning.’
‘The Criminal Code now stipulates that sexual crimes against people under 18 shall never lapse. To make the legal consequences of these heinous crimes even more severe, people convicted of imprisonment for such crimes shall not be released on probation. Perpetrators of these crimes will not be able to obtain parole, reintegration custody, or a certificate of good conduct.’
‘The Ministry of Security, like other Eastern European services, kept a tab on almost every workspace and its “characters of interest” through the pervasive use of civilian informants. “Anti-state activity” was not necessarily stifled with apparent repression; the “black car” did not necessarily come for “wrongdoers”, but they were relentlessly bullied into submission by making the everyday life of them and their families unbearable.’
‘Hungary remains a major source of electricity and fuel for Ukraine and has carried out its largest humanitarian operation to date, hosting around one million Ukrainian refugees. Furthermore, the Prime Minister himself has stated that it is in Hungary’s utmost interest to always have a viable Ukraine between Hungary and Russia…’
‘For me, this isn’t about politics. It’s about the young girl who gets up at 5 in the morning for training, hoping that one day her hard work will be enough…This executive order is a step toward ensuring that female athletes—past, present, and future—don’t have to question whether their chances are truly equal.’
‘Across the Atlantic, MAGA eagerly awaits the rise of MEGA, seeing in the European right a responsible and reasonable partner—unlike those who have cooperated with and been funded by the globalist elite. There will likely never be a better moment for MEGA to emerge.’
‘Socialists and liberals are afraid of losing power, and for some time now they have been blaming political opponents for influencing electoral processes or government agendas through external forces. This is indeed what has happened: but it is not the conservatives who have to be blamed; it is the leftists themselves who claim to be acting in the name of a “greater good”.’
Some of the largest Western mainstream media outlets have been caught red-handed in the growing scandal surrounding USAID, with POLITICO, The New York Times, and others accused of receiving funding from the controversial agency. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressed his gratitude to US President Donald Trump for ‘uncovering and putting an end’ to USAID’s foreign interference.
‘While trade with Russia is usually condemned in principle, even Ukraine, the victim of Russian aggression, allowed the transit of Russian gas and oil to Europe for economic reasons until a few weeks ago. Politics can never escape economic and geographical realities, and why should Hungary be an exception?’
‘The truth of the matter is that the Chinese will not allow themselves to be entrapped by Western and non-Western foreigners alike as they did during the “Century of Humiliation”. Xi is determined more than ever to have China emerge as the greatest power on earth, thus seeing the U.S. not as a partner but as an adversary that is equally determined to do everything it can to ensure he fails.’
In this piece, I, the author, argue that UEFA should do away with the new Swiss system league phase for the Champions League. Instead, they should replace it with four groups of nine teams, which would play each other once in the group stage, with four advancing from each group to the Round of 16 in the end.
‘Given the loss of security and economic credibility of the Western powers in 2008–2009 from a Central European perspective, and the serious economic and energy security challenges Hungary was facing at the time, it was an understandable and legitimate step to begin building pragmatic relations with Moscow 15 years ago and to set the stage for an eastward opening…’
‘Over time…scientific knowledge, combined with an emerging class of industrial capitalists, proved capable of improving material conditions for many as well as profits for the few. This lent scientific knowledge an aura of being a superior form of knowledge, one capable of providing organizing principles for all manner of human endeavours beyond its immediate remit, including education itself.’
‘After 20 years of left–liberal rule, Fidesz’s goal was to stimulate the creation of a much more balanced and pluralistic environment in all segments of society and a country less dependent on any form of foreign influence. In the eyes of ordinary Hungarians, none of the experiences described above called into question the benefits of EU and NATO membership or the conviction that Hungary’s place is in the West.’
‘Students have moved from being political change agents to being themselves the object of political change. Rather than imposing their ideas on the world, they are to obey edicts from radical lecturers and diversity officers. To accommodate these developments, objective measures of what students know are replaced by more subjective measures of their own personal and psychological development.’
‘One is constantly reminded of Hallstein’s [Stresa] speech when analysing the turbulences of the recent years in Europe’s fields and countryside towns, occasionally bringing the distinct view of columns of tractors and piles of hay to the polished streets and thoroughfares of European capitals. And, out of the several farmers’ movements that have swept the EU since 2022, few dialogue so much with Hallstein as the Polish one.’
‘Across various European nations conservative and right-wing parties have capitalized on issues like immigration, national identity, and dissatisfaction with traditional political establishments to gain substantial electoral support…without the epochal change on 6 November 2016 in the United States, these shifts in Europe would have taken much longer.’
By voicing his support for AfD on his platform and challenging the taboo of German national guilt, Elon Musk has emerged as a key figure in the right-wing party’s gradual dismantling the ‘firewall’ that mainstream parties have upheld against it for years.
Elon Musk’s gesture at one of President Trump’s inaugural balls is getting a lot of mainstream media coverage, with many comparing it to a Nazi salute. However, such associations tend to not stick with the public at all by now, as proven by the events leading up to the 2024 US presidential election.
‘As the assisted dying question turns once again into a contestation of intolerable pains and grotesque moral outrages, we should take a moment to think of a bigger picture. To recall that it is a man-made instrument. It is not designed to bring us harmony, closure, peace on earth, or salvation.’
U.S.-led Western society has been tainted by the LGTBQ+ policies to the point of redefining the institution the family. It was, thus, reassuring to hear the president say: ‘As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.’
‘Hamas may leverage the prisoner releases to come to power. It has hammered out, to its own liking, a deal to take place over many months so as to build up enough strength to take control of the West Bank. This is similar to the deal the U.S. made with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, infamously known as the Taliban on 29 February 2020, in Doha, Qatar, by the first Trump administration.’
The protagonist of the 2024 film The Brutalist is brilliant architect László Toth, who leaves Hungary in the aftermath of the Holocaust to rebuild his life in the United States. While Toth never existed, his character is based on two great Jewish Hungarian pioneer architects: Marcel Breuer and Ernő Goldfinger.
‘By maintaining a flexible and multi-vector foreign policy, Hungary can remain a keystone state, mediating between various global powers while safeguarding its economic and strategic interests against the uncertainties of a shifting global order.’
‘When Brussels’ antagonism was previously limited to Hungary and Poland, it was easier to frame Budapest and Warsaw as isolated cases. However, this narrative is rapidly collapsing. It won’t be long before Brussels finds itself in opposition to the majority of member states and the will of their electorates.’