Donald Tusk is attempting to restore legitimacy to the country’s constitutional court. In a polarised country and continent, that carries political risks

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, must occasionally look towards Budapest and sigh. A landslide victory in elections last spring enabled Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, to act with ruthless determination to clean up the country’s politics after 16 years of corrupt Orbánisation. Mr Tusk, whose centrist coalition ousted the far-right Law and Justice party (PiS) in 2023, is similarly taking on the legacy of a government which undermined the rule of law and democratic norms. But his efforts have been relentlessly boxed in by the blocking tactics of Poland’s (PiS)‑backed president, Karol Nawrocki.

At the weekend, this standoff escalated into a crisis with wider implications for the European Union as well as Poland itself. Exasperated by Mr Nawrocki’s attempts to veto the appointment of new judges to the country’s constitutional court – which has been illegitimately dominated since 2015 by PiS‑friendly appointees – Mr Tusk backed the enforced appointment of a new head, and the suspension of the court’s president and vice‑president. Extraordinary scenes followed, as rightwing demonstrators massed outside the court building in the early hours of Saturday morning and Mr Nawrocki pushed past security forces to protest.

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From 1945 to 1989 security police relied on tens of thousands of spies to suppress dissent. To rebuild trust, their files will finally be made public

Hungary’s new government will on Wednesday reveal the names of tens of thousands of state informants from the communist era in an attempt to confront the past and rebuild public trust.

From 1945 to 1989, Hungary’s communist state-security services relied on an extensive network of informants to monitor society and suppress dissent. Some were blackmailed or coerced into reporting on neighbours, friends, colleagues and even family members; others were recruited through promises of various advantages.

Elections are never enough by themselves, but the stunning results from Serbia, Brazil and Hungary have given us hope in dark times

It is undoubtedly too early to declare victory, but the recent electoral defeats of Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić and Flávio Bolsonaro make me wonder: is 2026 turning out to be the year democracy slowly, but surely, fought back?

Even in Israel, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reigning bloc lost its parliamentary majority and saw the spectacular rise of Arab parties. Though the opposition may not be able to form a government yet, it does have the larger parliamentary bloc.

David Van Reybrouck is a Belgian author and philosopher laureate for the Low Countries. He is the author of Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, and the initiator of Democracy27

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Der Kommunikationsberater Gergő Papp seziert die Mechanismen des Machtwechsels in Ungarn und erklärt, wie Péter Magyar Viktor Orbán besiegte. Doch die Strategie Magyars ließe sich auch für andere Ziele nutzen.

Es gilt als eine der umstrittensten Maßnahmen der Orbán-Ära in Ungarn: das sogenannte Anti-LGBTQ-Gesetz unter dem Deckmantel des Kinderschutzes. Die neue Regierung hat nun einige Änderungen durchgesetzt.

Die Princeton-Professorin Kim Lane Scheppele erklärt, wie sich Ungarn von Orbán befreien konnte und warum sich aus der Wahl in Sachsen-Anhalt etwas Positives herauslesen lässt.

Maja T. wurde rechtskräftig wegen Gewalttaten in Budapest verurteilt. Weil die Auslieferung der non-binären Person nach Ungarn rechtswidrig war, wollen ihre Anwälte sie nach Deutschland überstellen lassen.