Robert Fico

After Viktor Orbán's defeat at the polls and Washington's decision to phase out waivers for Russian oil, hopes are rising in Brussels that a package of sanctions against Moscow will finally be unlocked.

Thousands rallied in Bratislava and other cities on Tuesday, 14 April 2026, to oppose Prime Minister Robert Fico’s plan to scrap mail voting for Slovaks abroad, warning it could undermine democratic participation.

The Hungarian election has brought the Viktor Orbán era to an abrupt end. His defeat is set to transform the power dynamics at the EU table.

Protesters in Slovakia's capital and elsewhere in the country have denounced a plan by populist Prime Minister Robert Fico to scrap mail voting for Slovaks living abroad

Aleksandar Vučić snapped at Magyar, calling his comments about Putin playing Godfather to autocrats "foolish" and "stupid". The Hungarian Prime Minister-elect claimed the Russian leader pulls the strings in Serbia too.

Péter Magyar, the expected future Hungarian prime minister, won the general election in a landslide, unseating outgoing Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power and raising questions about whether Budapest will move away from Russian energy.

Robert Fico said ending sanctions on Russian energy imports would help tackle the energy crisis stemming from the war in Iran. What we know on day 1,502

Exclusive: Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia actively pursue regressive policies, watchdog finds

Relations between Hungary and Ukraine have deteriorated significantly over the past month. In early March, Hungarian authorities arrested seven Ukrainian bank workers who were transporting millions of US dollars worth of cash and gold through Hungary to Ukraine.

As the Hungarian veto on the €90 billion loan for Ukraine drags on, the European Commission has formally proposed an inspection to check the damage on the Druzhba pipeline at the core of the dispute.