East & Southeast Europe

The prime minister and his wife attended a show in Milan’s famous opera house, La Scala, on November 15. Coincidentally, one of the airplanes owned by the Hungarian military, which Orban had used several times before for official trips, flew to Milan on the same day.

Three influential businessmen close to Viktor Orbán have interests in almost every sector. Lőrinc Mészáros has almost doubled the number of his enterprises last year, the companies of Garancsi are soaring and Andy Vajna’s wealth grows exponentially.

The Hungarian government is financially supporting soccer wherever it can: new stadiums are being built across the country. Besides professional soccer, there is a huge amount of money spent on junior teams and training the new generations of soccer players as well.

The watchdog NGO Atlatszo revealed in September that Viktor Orban and the political and economic elite close to the government are using a €56-million luxury jet and a €21-million yacht. It decided to build an online tool where anyone can track the yacht and the jet in real time.

This week 476 media outlets became parts of the new Hungarian media holding controlled by pro-government forces. The name of the mammoth is Central European Press and Media Foundation. This infographic shows you what happened!

The Hungarian Government has identified its new target:  Index.hu, the country’s biggest independent news website, is now under the indirect control of government-friendly investors. Their journalists, in the meantime, have promised that they won’t give up without a fight.

Una Hajdari summarises the events around the year 1968 in Yugoslavia on the occasion of the 7th European History Forum. 

The year 1968 brought discomfort as well as inspiration to Yugoslavia. It was difficult to face something as ambivalent.

The 7th European History Forum took place in May 2018 at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. Speakers and guests from Germany, Eastern and Southeastern European countries discussed likenesses and differences according their respective historical classification of the events of the year 1968.

The armed conflict between Ukrainian authorities and Russia-backed militias in the Ukrainian Donbass region has already led to some 10,000 killed and 25,000 wounded civilians. Partly landmines are the cause.