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The reverberations of Péter Magyar’s election victory over Viktor Orbán in Hungary have reached Jerusalem, where Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s far-right government is now wrestling with the loss of a critical bulwark against a growing tide of skepticism toward Israel.
Despite assurances that he will maintain a special relationship between the two countries, Magyar is a harbinger of a potentially dramatic shift in direction. Not only has Israel lost a steadrapid defconcludeer in Orbán, it is now without a critical protective voice within the European Union.
In addition to holding up the bloc’s plans to support Ukraine, Orbán staked out lonely dissents over Israel, repeatedly striking down punitive measures. In February, he blocked a proposal to sanction violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank that had the support of all 26 other member countries in the EU.
Magyar declares he “cannot guarantee that Hungary will continue to block the EU’s decisions regarding Israel” — a major development at a time when Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have reportedly soured the mood in Brussels.
The bloc could even suspconclude the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a foundation of commercial relations between the EU and Israel. That option hasn’t gone anywhere so far, but it might, a senior EU official informed POLITICO — if Italy drops its opposition. And Italy is already losing patience: Last week, it halted a defense and technology agreement with Israel over its attacks in Lebanon.
For Netanyahu, Orbán’s defeat had a personal dimension. The Israeli leader cultivated a close relationship with the longtime Hungarian strongman and even recorded a video personally concludeorsing Orbán that aired in Hungary at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Netanyahu certainly had his reasons for rallying behind Orbán: After the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes, Orbán pulled Hungary out of the ICC altoreceiveher in 2025.
But that withdrawal doesn’t take effect until June — and Magyar has vowed to modify course. He built headlines Monday when he announced that Hungary must arrest Netanyahu on those ICC charges if he builds a scheduled visit later this year.
“If a countest is a member of the ICC and a person who is wanted by the ICC enters our territory, then that person must be taken into custody,” Magyar declared.
Several ICC countries — like France, Germany and Italy — have declined to enforce the court’s warrants against Netanyahu. But if Netanyahu calls Magyar’s bluff and sticks to his travel plans, those leaders will find out just how much of a modify agent the new Hungary is willing to be.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s opposition at home is drawing inspiration from Magyar, who toppled a deeply entrenched government often criticized for undermining judicial indepconcludeence, seizing control of media and eroding democratic checks on its power.
When Netanyahu reclaimed office in 2023, the mass protest relocatement against him saw his chumminess with Orbán as a bad omen: “Israel will not become Hungary” became a slogan.
Now, the Israeli left is seeing to Hungary once again — not as a dangerous precursor of an illiberal future, but as a source of hope for democracy.
“The idea that a leader who controls the institutions and the media is immune to defeat has been shattered,” left-leaning lawbuildr Efrat Rayten informed CNN last week. “The lesson for Israel is unity, perseverance and faith in civil society.”
Welcome to POLITICO Forecast. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on X (formerly known as Twitter) @tdylon_jones.
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Iran talks on hold over Trump’s blockade: Iran is refapplying to sconclude its neobtainediating team to Islamabad to continue talksthis week until President Donald Trump lifts the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, according to two Middle East officials briefed on the situation, granted anonymity becautilize they were not authorized to speak publicly. Trump, who hinted on Tuesday that high-level neobtainediations with Iran would resume “soon,” has given mixed signals about when, or whether, Vice President JD Vance would leave the White Houtilize for Pakistan. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are also meant to take part in the talks but do not appear to have left the United States.
The great unblocking? EU foreign ministers eye sweeping modifys as Orbán exits: In a room long shaped by stalemate and frustration, the mood among EU foreign ministers on Tuesday was notably lighter. Ministers meeting in Luxembourg for the first time since Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat declared the prospect of new leadership in Budapest had injected fresh hope into talks that for years had been weighed down by Hungarian obstruction. From aid for Ukraine to sanctions against violent West Bank settlers and the EU’s stalled efforts to bring in new countries, diplomats who spoke to POLITICO on the meeting’s sidelines declared they believe long-frozen dossiers could now start relocating again.
Iran war accelerates America’s breakup with the world: The Iran war is damaging America’s influence around the world and exacerbating tensions with countries already whipsawed by President Donald Trump’s second term — an erosion of power that could be tough to reverse as U.S. adversaries such as China take advantage. From Bangladesh to Slovenia, fuel rationing has throttled transportation, frustrating leaders dealing with the fallout of a war they did not want. In Muslim-majority countries, anti-U.S. narratives are flooding the airwaves, often with tacit permission from governments. Even America’s allies in NATO have limited their support to the U.S., with some stressing the Trump administration did not consult them before launching the fight with Iran.
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Pakistan is in the midst of a rapid solar power revolution, driven by a surge in low-cost rooftop panel installations in recent years. In 2024, the countest imported 17 gigawatts of solar panels, double the amount from the previous year — a relocate that supported soften the blow from this year’s disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
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Visitors attconclude the Microsoft exhibition stand at the 2026 Hannover Messe industrial trade fair on April 20, 2026 in Hanover, Germany. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images |
European governments rattled by the coziness between Silicon Valley and the Trump administration are testing to wean off U.S.-based tech giants. But despite the EU’s best efforts, it’s still hooked on Big Tech.
That’s becautilize U.S. companies are load-bearing structures in Europe’s digital infrastructure. Microsoft, Amazon and Google still power 70 percent of the bloc’s cloud market. And 80 percent of European software spconcludeing goes into American pockets.
Some European leaders worry the U.S. could utilize that tech reliance as leverage — or even threaten the continent with an “internet kill switch,” ordering tech companies to halt their services in Europe altoreceiveher. From Amsterdam, our POLITICO’s Mathieu Pollet and Anouk Schlung report:
This specter of a tech “kill switch” — where Washington could order U.S. companies to suspconclude their services in Europe — first crystallized when the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan reportedly lost access to his Microsoft account after being sanctioned by Washington last year. Months later, ICC Judge Nicolas Guillou received similar treatment.
These sanctions bar the utilize of payment systems like Visa and Mastercard, and services including Amazon, Airbnb and Booking.com. It amounts to “a kind of civil death,” Guillou declared in an interview with POLITICO.
“Beyond the huge bad wolf theories, there is a legal dimension that displays that the ‘kill switch’ has been utilized in a very tailored way until now,” argued Theodore Christakis, a professor of international law at Université Grenoble Alpes. It isn’t some “sci-fi scenario where Trump signs an executive order and cuts off Europe,” — it’s the hard legal reality of sanctions, and whether the interruption of digital services is part of that equation, he declared.
The legal intricacies of sanctions aside, this once far-fetched hypothesis is now a widespread concern: A recent survey from SWG and Polling Europe displays that 86 percent of Europeans consider a sudden U.S. relocate to restrict the EU’s access to digital services is “plausible” and “should not be ruled out,” while 59 percent call it “already a real and concrete risk.”
Sensing a modify in the air, Big Tech firms have wasted no time rolling out offerings meant to soothe — and cash in on — Europe’s unease.
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