🇭🇺 The World Through Hungarian Eyes - Foreign Policy Attitudes in Hungary in 2025 📊 Policy Solutions’ comprehensive foreign policy attitudes survey explores how the Hungarian public viewed the world in 2025. ✅ Read it here: www.policysolutions.hu/userfiles/el...

Useful backgrounder on U.S. ideological exclusion and deportation from @juliarosekraut.bsky.social, @tylermcbrien.com, @lawfaremedia.org—with bonus Helsinki Final Act reference. 1/ www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

Great analysis, a tidy 24 minutes.

"Nawrocki courted Braun, turning the antisemitic firebrand into a kingmaker. In order to prove his bona fides to Braun’s supporters, Nawrocki said he would end the annual presidential menorah lightings."

ICYMI: State Dept. Sr Advisor for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, young Mr. Samson, on CE, “building on the [NSS], building on the [VP’s] speech from February at the Munich Security Conference,” “golden age of U.S.-Hungary relations,” etc. etc. www.state.gov/digital-pres...

Poland will start producing anti‑personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War and deploy them on its borders with Russia and Belarus. It may also export some to Ukraine. Warsaw is currently in the process of withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of such mines.

🌍 Three days left to apply to the 2026 Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders Network (TILN) cohort! Are you ready to lead change and build inclusive communities across the Atlantic?

There’s really a lot going on in this story.

Am I sad that this egregious case of police brutality against Romani teens in Slovakia from 2009 is still dragging on in the year of 2025? Yes. Am I glad that there is another shot at justice? Yes. romea.cz/cz/zahranici...

Unsurprisingly, the latest scandal in Hungary about horrific physical and sexual child abuse at care facilities involves (but is not limited to) institutions with mainly Roma children

More on the Pecs case from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. (Sorry, I can't remember who 1st posted this.) @hungarianhelsinki.bsky.social helsinki.hu/en/wp-conten...

From the land of war-is-peace: Budapest Mayor charged with violating freedom of assembly for... assembling. Orban was humiliated by his Pride-ban failure and will now use select people as rhetorical punching bags until the elections (w/real consequences for those people). telex.hu/belfold/2025...

💡 Apply before December 19 to join the 2026 Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders Network (TILN) cohort! 📝 More info: buff.ly/117OUsR

⚖️ Nová šance na spravedlnost! Slovenský krajský soud zrušil osvobozující rozsudek policistů a nařídil nové projednání případu šikany romských dětí, který se stal symbolem selhání systému. 📢 Více v článku na Romea.cz: 1url.cz/@zahranici-s...

Daniel Rona: fields great Qs about the non-Fidesz, non-Tisza minor parties and about a significant target constituency: undecided women voters. youtu.be/swZ36J4g4KA?...

Zsofia Banuta: Hungary’s current legal framework and its institutions are inadequate to respond to electoral fraud and abuse which may surpass 2018’s “slew of irregularities and fraud”. youtu.be/swZ36J4g4KA?...

Daniel Hegudus: pushes back against erroneous assumptions regarding how Orban would have performed in hypothetically genuinely free&fair elections, posits such assumptions undermine election observation processes youtu.be/swZ36J4g4KA?...

Peter Kreko: “for the first time, Russia and the United States are united in their preference, with both President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump vocally supporting the Hungarian prime minister.” [!] youtu.be/swZ36J4g4KA?...

From @“gmfus.bsky.social : Hungary’s 2026 Elections: The Stakes and Challenges. Information, insights, analysis. Worth watching every second, but key food-for-thought for me: youtu.be/swZ36J4g4KA?...

"Absence is acquiescence: US can’t afford to step back from the global stage" Meaghan Mobbs, via The Hill thehill.com/opinion/inte...

From @“gmfus.bsky.social : Hungary’s 2026 Elections: The Stakes and Challenges. Information, insights, analysis. Worth watching every second, but key food-for-thought for me: youtu.be/swZ36J4g4KA?...

📣 Just published: The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism:(Un)uttered Sentences by FXB Roma Program Director @magdamatache.bsky.social! Pre-order on @routledgebooks.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/5v6hwuxh Read a short excerpt on Foreign Policy in Focus: tinyurl.com/4nzfx59w

💥Hungary’s opposition sees this as the clearest sign Viktor Orbán is bracing for election defeat: his MPs are pushing a law to shield the Fidesz-loyal president (Tamás Sulyok) from removal by a future parliamentary majority. Others think Orbán himself may want to become president instead of PM.

The U.S. threatens to leave the OSCE unless the organization reforms #OSCEMC2025 www.shrmonitor.org/the-us-threa...

Excellent reporting (in English) from Andras Szabo & Andras Petho, @direkt36.bsky.social, on the growing cracks in the Fidesz machine. www.direkt36.hu/en/kielezett...

Old tensions simmer just below surface as Tusk and Merz to meet in Berlin www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d... #Poland #Germany #politics

THREAD 1/6 Obviously, much of this is speculation, but I think #Orbán’s trip to #Moscow today — and his talks with Vladimir #Putin — should be seen primarily through the lens of yesterday’s Orbán–Vučić meeting, not last week’s peace-negotiation rollercoaster. @politico.eu

Some thoughts, in a hopefully more coherent form than my 300-character Bluesky posts hungarianobserver.substack.com/p/why-are-pe...

📣 Live now! FXB's Roma Program Director, Dr. @magdamatache.bsky.social has just launched her new book, The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism: (Un)uttered Sentences" during the MEMOROBIA conference: tinyurl.com/6w9bj9wt More information about the book: tinyurl.com/5v6hwuxh

📢 Have you registered yet? Join us for the MEMOROBIA Conference to hear @magdamatache.bsky.social, FXB Roma Program Director, present her upcoming book, The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism: (Un)uttered Sentences. November 24–25, 2025, hybrid format. Agenda and registration: hsph.me/MEMOROBIA

Excellent reporting (in English) from Andras Szabo & Andras Petho, @direkt36.bsky.social, on the growing cracks in the Fidesz machine. www.direkt36.hu/en/kielezett...

From chalk to a roar: Slovakia’s rain-soaked crowds revive the spirit of 1989 spectator.sme.sk/politics-and... #Slovakia

A #VelvetRevolution years in the making: What looked like a sudden uprising was the culmination of civic defiance, underground networks and a widening gap between the rulers and the ruled. spectator.sme.sk/politics-and...

17.11.1989 a 17.11.2025

“[T]he White House is said to be wary of throwing its full weight behind Orbán as he faces a potential revolt at the polls that could bring the opposition to power.”

A wonderfully reported profile of Peter Magyar, Orban's main challenger in the upcoming Hungarian election, by @lilirutai.bsky.social in @foreignpolicy.com:

Meanwhile, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Dem Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spearheaded a resolution calling on EU countries—name checking Hungary—to end dependence on Russian energy. 1/4 www.foreign.senate.gov/press/dem/re...

Slovakia’s Christian Democrats keep finding out that Robert Fico is still Robert Fico. spectator.sme.sk/politics-and...

Trump and Orban will meet at the White House today. David Pressman, former US Ambassador to the UN Security Council and Hungary, explains what Orban is doing in Washington, and offers a very strong take on what Trump and Orban really have in common. time.com/7332003/vikt...

Trump meets Orban again today. I previously observed: “When…the amb. to Hungary appointed by Donald Trump said that Mr Trump would love to have what Viktor Orbán has, he didn’t mean Viktor Orbán’s policies …

Stakeholders described a severely restricted media environment within which independent journalism operates, while also highlighting the deep political polarisation shaping the run-up to the expected April 2026 elections

These tactics - data breach of an opposition database used for "we know where you live" type of intimidation, threat of prosecution and national security inquiry, etc. - are depressingly familiar from Russia from the past 5-6 years. www.euractiv.com/news/orban-r...

My short comment in The Guardian about the important role of Blikk in the Hungarian media market. Ringier, the publisher of the tabloid was sold to a pro-government owner just a few days ago. Leaving of all international publishers was an unimaginable scenario after the 1990 political transition.

⚖️🗺️Our friends at World Justice Project just released the 2025 edition of the Rule of Law Index. Unsurprisingly, they found an accelerating decline in the state of the rule of law globally. Let's take a look at Central & Eastern Europe and how this trend plays out there. 1/

I still want to know: why did then-Hungarian president Katalin Novak pardon a convicted terrorist? Who, in the Orban government, moved that paperwork to her desk? edition.cnn.com/2023/04/30/w...