The majority of Hungarians agree with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian government in not supporting Ursula von der Leyen’s second term as President of the European Commission. The vote in the European Parliament will take place on Thursday, 18 July, but it is far from certain that the current president will secure the 361 votes needed for re-election.
The left-wing, pro-war majority in the European Parliament refused to vote in favour of a proposal by Patriots for Europe (PfE) to condemn the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump. ‘Their intolerance forms the basis for politically motivated violence and threatens our democratic institutions,’ PfE First Vice-Chairman Kinga Gál pointed out after the vote.
In his remarks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., Danube Institute President John O’Sullivan argued that NATO’s success hinges on sustained US leadership, adequate defence spending by European members, and a clear strategic vision that adapts to contemporary security dynamics.
Vance is serving his first term in Congress as a Senator from Ohio, winning his seat in the 2022 midterm elections. The former marine and venture capitalist, whose 2016 autobiography Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller and was even made into a film, is quite knowledgeable about and apparently appreciative of several policies of the Hungarian government.
All indications suggest that Brussels simply cannot get over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission. In the latest development, 63 MEPs have written an open letter to EU leaders, urging them to strip Hungary of its voting rights in response to the prime minister’s ‘rogue’ diplomacy. Additionally, the European Commission has instructed its commissioners to skip informal ministerial meetings organized by the Hungarian EU presidency.
‘If Europe wants peace and wants to have a decisive say in the settlement of the war and the end of the bloodshed, then a change of direction must be worked out and implemented now,’ Balázs Orbán said in an interview with Magyar Nemzet. The political director of the Hungarian Prime Minister discussed Viktor Orbán’s recent peace mission and also commented on the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump.
While the media and European politicians representing globalist interests frequently voice doubts about the Hungarian Government’s ability to properly and democratically hold the rotating presidency, it should be noted that, in addition to the expertise and preparedness of the Hungarian Government, the person of Viktor Orbán, who has been head of government for fourteen years, is also a guarantee of economic and political stability and therefore of the success of the Hungarian Presidency.
‘The vast majority of Americans and various politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, have come out in support of Trump. Most of the statements have aimed to show unity rather than the usual mudslinging we typically see. Hopefully, we are able to learn and move on from this,’ Republican congressional aide Johnny Szani pointed out speaking to Hungarian Conservative. According to Szani, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has united America in a way that has not been seen in a long time. However, he believes this unity will not last long with the elections approaching.
Vox has broken its regional coalition agreements with the Popular Party (PP) in five regions, something that no other party has ever done in the history of Spanish democracy, as VOX leader Santiago Abascal announced on Thursday.
The cordon sanitaire as used by the EP today is not a reasonable political tactic to block parties that are radical beyond reasonable doubt, but a way for the political elite to block the will of the people, hollowing out the very purpose of democratic elections: to determine the political elite of the polis.
There is a lesser-known but in many ways much more influential pillar of the EU’s institutional system than the Commission, the Parliament, and the Council: the Court of Justice of the European Union, which is quietly but steadily building an ever closer union.
Just as in the presidential debate, Joe Biden failed to deliver an acceptable performance in his ‘big boy’ press conference this morning. The voices of discontent within the Democratic Party are growing louder. Whether the current president should step aside and hand his presidential candidacy to Vice President Kamala Harris remains to be seen in the coming days.
Political Director of the Prime Minister of Hungary Balázs Orbán had the opportunity to give a brief insight into his main ideas discussed in his two works on contemporary Hungarian foreign policy, The Hungarian Way of Strategy and Hussar Cut: The Hungarian Strategy for Connectivity, at the recent National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC. He delivered a comprehensive speech that basically critiqued neoliberalism and advocated for national conservatism instead.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission has prompted EU ambassadors to consider punitive measures against Hungary. According to POLITICO, the envoys criticized the country during a meeting that lasted for more than two hours on Wednesday, but they have not yet devised a specific means of punishment.
As Itamar Eichner phrased in his Ynet News article, ‘Without the opposition from Israel’s friends in the EU, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany, the EU might have already passed sanctions against Israel. Foreign policy decisions in the EU require consensus, which Israel’s allies prevent.’
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has defended Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s new EP political group, Patriots for Europe (PfE), stating that it is not a pro-Putin group. Meanwhile, the mainstream EP political groups are working to completely exclude PfE MEPs from parliamentary work for the next five years.
As more and more people from his own party call on President Biden to step aside, President Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election seems more certain by the day. However, how much can one trust polling data after what happened in 2016 and 2022?
A rare opinion piece has been published by Die Welt recently discussing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission that kicked off last week. The article concludes that Orbán ‘deserves a chance’ and is doing more for peace than those in Washington and Brussels who criticize him.
‘It took Hungary 14 years to achieve decisive changes in cultural education. Similarly, we will need time to create a substantial cultural and political movement to bring about meaningful legal changes.’
In December last year a new law created a distinct category for ‘EU minorities’ in Ukraine (such as the Hungarian and Romanian ethnic minorities) that now have access to more privileges than for instance the Russian minority. Later, as a sign of goodwill to better relations, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó visited Ukraine. Now, with the meeting between Orbán and Zelenskyy the two country’s relationship is officially warming up. If in the long-term Budapest does manage to considerably contribute to peace between Russia and Ukraine, as it clearly intends to, it might have a long-lasting positive impact on bilateral relations.
After just one week since its foundation, Patriots for Europe (PfE) has been officially accredited as a political group in the new European Parliament. With 84 MEPs from 12 member states, PFE has become the third-largest EP group and the biggest patriotic force in Europe.
The New Popular Front, an electoral alliance including the far left, has won the second round of the French National Assembly elections. Despite finishing third, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is the real winner of the elections, with the right-wing party becoming France’s largest party, strengthening its position in parliament, and looking ahead to the 2027 presidential elections with good chances.
A clip of PM Orbán of Hungary citing George Soros’ European migration plan published in 2015 in Project Syndicate was recently shared on the social media site X in reference to the election results in the United Kingdom and France, and garnered over 25,000 likes within 12 hours.
On the afternoon of 8 July, Patriots for Europe, the sovereigntist alliance recently founded by Viktor Orbán, Herbert Kickl, and Andrej Babiš, is to officially become a political group in the European Parliament. Over the weekend, several right-wing parties across Europe announced their accession. With the arrival of Marine Le Pen’s RN and, most likely, with Salvini’s League, Patriots for Europe are set to overtake Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) as third largest group in the EP.
The integration of the countries of the region into the EU is a decades-long process, the positive outcome of which is still to be seen. Thus, the number of Eurosceptics in the region has multiplied in recent years. As a consequence of the protracted accession negotiations, which have not even started for several Western Balkan states, some countries in the region have forged closer economic, political, and cultural ties with non-EU actors.
According to former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán aims to create ‘maximum discomfort’ for the new European Parliament with his newly established right-wing alliance, Patriots for Europe. Juncker harshly criticized the Hungarian PM as well as former US President Donald Trump in an interview with POLITICO.
By Wednesday evening it became clear that the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party would not join Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s new right-wing alliance, Patriots for Europe. Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party is showing a growing willingness to do so, which could set off an avalanche of changes from which Orbán could only emerge victorious.
US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman first praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for his trip to Kyiv, then harshly criticized him for ‘overtly and tirelessly’ supporting Donald Trump in the US presidential election race. According to Pressman, the partisan politicization of bilateral relations is dangerous and detrimental to the US– Hungarian relationship.
‘The Bukele model is turning the neoliberal approach on its head. It advocates for a strong state, with the leader—in this case, the president of El Salvador—as the all-important controller of decisions in determining the country’s future. The budget of the state has ballooned, starting with the heavy funding of security services while simultaneously investing in social services, from the creation of neighbourhood social centres to the augmenting of pensions and investing into getting the Bitcoin into circulation.’
‘Hungary is preparing for an exceptionally active EU Presidency,’ Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán notes in an opinion piece published by the Financial Times. In the article Orbán outlines the priorities of the Hungarian EU Presidency, with a particular focus on boosting European competitiveness.