Marine Le Pen returns to court on 13 January as her appeal trial gets under way, challenging a conviction that bars her from holding public office for five years. At the centre of the case is whether the sanction is proportionate to the offence she was found guilty of.
Argentina has repaid the full $2.5 billion drawn under its currency swap agreement with the United States, a move praised by Washington as proof of Buenos Aires’ improved financial stability. Hungary is negotiating a similar arrangement with Washington ahead of the parliamentary election in 2026, positioning an American swap line as insurance against market turbulence and political risk.
Viktor Orbán opened the year with a two-hour international press conference, declaring that 2025 marked the definitive end of the liberal world order and the dawn of an ‘age of nations’. Promoting Hungary’s ‘peace economy’, opposition to war-driven policies and EU migration plans, he framed the coming election as a decisive civilizational choice.
‘Though several borders separate the modern states of Hungary and Lithuania, Hungarian readers will find some common history…’
Director General of the Center for Fundamental Rights Miklós Szánthó warned that Hungary’s Tisza Party is preparing austerity measures ‘Generation Z has only read about in history books,’ including tax hikes and privatization plans. He also argued that Europe is escalating the conflict in Ukraine while the rest of the world is seeking peace.
From Hungary to the United States, and from Sweden to Slovenia, 2026 will be a defining election year with consequences far beyond national borders. As conservative and populist forces challenge entrenched elites, several key votes are set to reshape Europe’s political balance and test the durability of the global right’s recent momentum.
As Britain slides further into Labour-led authoritarianism, free speech is rapidly fading away—unless protestors are shouting about Palestine.
Russia’s claim that Ukraine attempted a drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence has cast a shadow over fragile peace talks just as negotiations appeared to be nearing a breakthrough. While Kyiv denies the allegation and Washington urges caution, the incident risks hardening positions in Moscow and derailing momentum towards a settlement.
‘The leaders of the most successful small or medium-sized countries tend to be acutely aware of the dexterity required to maintain security…it seems very unlikely that they and others like them will get lost in their own imagination or succumb to the self-fulfilling fatalism of the postmodernist cosmopolitan mind that gave birth to the “end of history”, the “rules-based liberal international order”, and all the rest of that dangerous nonsense.’
Viktor Orbán says Hungary helped derail Brussels’s plan to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine, crediting behind-the-scenes diplomacy and Belgium’s leadership in forming a blocking minority. He warned that asset seizure would provoke Russian retaliation and argued the decision spared Hungary heavy costs at a critical political moment.