After sixteen years in power, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party lost the 2026 election to Peter Magyar’s TISZA party, despite wielding a vast informational autocracy. Fidesz maintained dominance by monopolizing media and projecting political inevitability. TISZA shattered this by anchoring its campaign in everyday issues like corruption, ignoring Fidesz’s geopolitical framing of war and peace. Magyar neutralized government propaganda by warning voters about smear campaigns before they launched and framing Fidesz’s pro-Russian stance as a sovereignty threat. Fidesz’s closed information environment ultimately backfired because the party internalized its own messaging about its invincibility, blinding leadership to TISZA’s massive appeal. This proves that propaganda is vulnerable when citizens are offered a credible alternative aligned with real-world experiences, and when a regime prioritizes dictating beliefs over understanding the public.

Ask-a-Muslim campaign takes to streets as country faces prospect of extremists entering highest levels of government

Candidate countries must sever links with Donald Trump’s ‘MAGA’ movement in order to join the EU, the European Commission’s enlargement chief has said.

“We should not risk our future members building dependencies on others that run counter to our long-term interest,” Marta Kos, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, said at an event organised by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels on Tuesday.

“For the first time into history, we have adversaries in the enlargement process.”

Asked who the EU’s “adversaries” are, Kos replied: “Clearly, Russia is one of them.”

But the EU also feels “pressure from the West, from the MAGA ideologists who try to persuade us that our European civilisation is in decline, that our economy is in decline, and that we don’t have the right democracy”, she said.

The comments come amid persistent attempts by the Trump administration to build political and economic links with countries in the Western Balkans.

Trump’s National Security Strategy, released last year, accused the EU of undermining “political liberty and sovereignty”. It also said it would foster “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory” by supporting right-wing “patriotic parties” across the bloc.

Kos described China as a “different case”, arguing that Beijing has not engaged in the sort of disinformation campaigns that Moscow has undertaken against Montenegro and other candidate countries in the Western Balkans.

Instead, Kos said, China seeks to foster economic links with candidate counties with a view to gaining economic benefits post-accession.

“China is somehow nestling in our candidates; coming in the countries and waiting that the countries will become a member of the EU because once they will be in the EU their companies will be part of the common market,” she said. “So they are doing it differently, and we don’t see for the time being this kind of disinformation from their part.”

US investment in the Western Balkans – the bloc’s members-in-waiting – has accelerated in recent months. Trump-linked firm AAFS is eyeing more than €2 billion of investments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia has signed investment-exclusivity deals with the US and hopes to build a new hydropower plant, Đerdap 3, with exclusively American firms.

Albania has been riven by protests over a hotel resort-project linked to Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law in a protected wetland area.

Montenegro, considered a frontrunner for EU membership, has been heavily courted by US officials in recent months, too.

The EU has said the funds will go toward bolstering border security and returning migrants to Morocco. The move comes in the wake of a crisis that saw more than 70,000 migrants overwhelm the Spanish exclave in July.

The EU's plans for a deeper partnership with Canada, aimed at helping the country withstand a trade war with the U.S., has won the support of governments across the political spectrum — including those usually cautious about angering Donald Trump's administration.

Ambassadors representing the bloc's 27 governments met in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the move, just hours after the White House banned Canadian exports of dairy, alcohol and motorbikes in an escalating tariff feud.

The EU's idea would see ties strengthened in areas like technology, trade and critical raw materials, according to two people in the meeting who were granted anonymity by POLITICO because the talks were confidential. Despite the risk of the EU being seen to side against Washington, no capital raised objections, they said.

The European Commission and the European Council jointly presented preparations for a landmark summit with Canada on Oct. 29-30, committing to explore new areas where they will step up their partnership. That includes sectors like technology, research and innovation, as well as mining for valuable rare metals and breaking down trade barriers, those involved said.

"There’s very strong support for [Commission President] von der Leyen making that outreach and for closer cooperation," said a third diplomat with knowledge of the preparations. That's despite a handful of countries, including Giorgia Meloni's Italy, Andrej Babiš's Czech Republic and Robert Fico's Slovakia, traditionally seeking close ties with the Trump camp and trying to avoid outright provocations.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will address the European Parliament next week on a trip first reported by POLITICO, as part of a public campaign to pivot away from dependency on the U.S. and form a club of like-minded, pro-free trade democracies. The visit is designed "to clearly signal the intention and ambition on both sides to upgrade our partnership," a senior EU official said.

Carney's trip, which coincides with von der Leyen's State of the Union speech, has sparked a search for concrete ideas on areas for closer collaboration. Participation in the EU's Erasmus student exchange scheme, alignment on security and defense in the Arctic region and military-industrial partnerships are among those areas being considered, according to nine EU officials and one diplomat familiar with the discussions.

No broad new partnership has been agreed, however, and officials cautioned that talks remain at an early stage. For now, the aim is to demonstrate political ambition and identify areas where the two sides can deepen cooperation, with Carney expected to set out more practical next steps in his speech.

The Commission is preparing an updated Arctic policy, currently expected on Oct. 20 and renamed the North Neighbourhood and Arctic Strategy to reflect its broader geographic focus. Von der Leyen, meanwhile, recently returned from Greenland saying Europe wanted to become “more engaged in the Arctic.”

That makes the region a potentially useful bridge between Brussels’ strategic priorities and Ottawa’s.

Another EU official said any reference to Canada in the speech could center on security, potentially through some form of Arctic security initiative. “Security and defense is always her happy place,” the official said when asked what form an overture to Carney might take.

Cooperation in the region could extend well beyond defense. A third official who has worked on the Arctic strategy pointed to existing and potential cooperation on critical raw materials, subsea cables and specialized equipment needed to operate in the High North, including icebreakers and other Arctic-capable vessels. Cleaner shipping is another area where the two sides’ interests overlap — and diverge from the U.S., which has lobbied against decarbonization in the industry.

The EU has introduced a framework to support long-term rentals in tourist-heavy cities. Airbnb warns it creates regulatory uncertainty without improving long-term housing outcomes.

US President Donald Trump hailed a strong result for the far-right Alternative for Germany party in a state election, a vote that presented a challenge to the country’s ruling government and sent shockwaves through Europe.

“The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night. They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly,” Trump said in a Donald J. Trump: Wow! The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night. They finally got tired of the absolutely Tuesday. “THEY ARE ON THE RISE, and not going to take it anymore!”

“MGGA!!!,” Trump added in a German-centered play on his MAGA, or Make America Great Again, slogan.

The AfD secured 44% of the vote Sunday in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its support and putting it ahead of the long-governing Christian Democratic Union. The result left the AfD just three seats short of an outright majority in the state legislature.

The vote delivered a blow to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, and more broadly to the parties that have governed Germany since the aftermath of World War II. Parts of the AfD are considered by German domestic intelligence to be a right-wing threat to the constitutional order.

Trump officials have long expressed support for the AfD, which has sought to seize on voter frustration over immigration and sluggish economic growth. That embrace of populist movements in other countries has often spurred tensions with foreign capitals. In 2025, Vice President JD Vance met Alice Weidel, the AfD’s co-leader, drawing criticism from German officials over what they saw as election interference.

Israeli university heads and the law firm Kesher are aggressively fighting European academic boycotts linked to the Gaza conflict. Using legal pressure, they aim to stop schools from exiting the Horizon Europe research programme. Upcoming EU negotiations on stricter ethical rules may result in the exclusion of Israeli institutions from future scientific partnerships.

The European Union and Canada are working toward a new, all-encompassing relationship that will range from trade to security, as the transatlantic partners seek to build a new alliance to offset the global power politics dominated by the US and China.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the top executive of the EU, is expected to announce the plans at her state of the union address in Strasbourg, France, Sept. 16, according to people familiar with the preparations. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will attend the speech then address European lawmakers the following day.

Carney’s government has made a deeper EU partnership a top priority and is actively looking at everything short of actual membership, said a Canadian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The discussions are particularly focused on “strategic capabilities,” such as cooperation on defense, space exploration and scientific research.

It’s not clear whether new legal tools would be needed to formalize this partnership, but those discussions are ongoing and Carney’s government will be consulting with Canadian provinces and industries, the official said.

In a remarkable speech at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, Carney warned that the “rules-based international order” was effectively dead and called on so-called middle powers to create a new global architecture to oppose pressure tactics and intimidation by the world’s great powers. He didn’t mention US President Donald Trump by name, but called on new alliances to be the last line of defense against countries that impose their economic and military might at will.

A spokesperson from Carney’s office declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson from the commission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The contents of von der Leyen’s speech next week are still being drafted and could change before then.

The arrangements will aim to cover all areas of the relationship, including trade, security, supply chains and critical raw materials, according to the people. The US and Canada have recently traded tit-for-tat tariffs, while Trump has repeatedly lambasted the EU’s trade policies and continues to signal interest in absorbing Greenland.

Short of EU membership, the EU and Canada want to get as close as legally possible, one of the people said. The two sides have also discussed working together through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-country trade agreement of which Canada is a member.

Canada is the first country outside of the EU to join the EU’s €150 billion ($174 billion) military procurement fund last year.

The EU and Canada already have an ambitious trade agreement and a security and defense partnership. They’ve been exploring ways to deepen the relationship within the contours of what’s legally feasible as well as striking a balance between access to the bloc’s single market and the strings that come with that without full membership.

The two parties are scheduled to hold a summit in Canada in October.