Mastodawn

NEW EPISODE

Europe’s been buzzing with elections lately - but this week, we’re focusing on arguably the most monumental election of 2026: On 12 April, Hungarians could choose to end Viktor Orbán’s 16-year reign.

Is the EU's most illiberal leader on his way out?

Listen here: https://www.europeanspodcast.com/all-episodes/the-end-of-orban

The end of Orbán? — The Europeans

It has been 16 years since Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party assumed power in Hungary – and it might have begun to feel like things could never change. But with a parliamentary election just around the corner, there’s now a glimmer – a hint! a twinkle! – of hope that Europe’s most illiberal government cou

The Europeans

Mārtiņš Bruņenieks Mar 26

@europeanspodcast is Orban more illiberal than Lukashenko? Anyway, off to listen to the episode.

Gabriel Pettier Mar 26

@papuass @europeanspodcast I assume they meant the EU rather than continental europe, Belaruss is not part of the former. Dunno how Orbán would behave if Hungary was outside of the EU, but Lukashenko sure is more of a dictator than him currently.

Vojtěch Horký Mar 26

@tshirtman @papuass @europeanspodcast Yeah, ‘European’ is to the EU what ‘American’ is to the US. Need to keep up the confusion.

The Europeans Mar 26

@VojtechHorky @tshirtman @papuass Apologies! You're all exactly right. I should have written: "Is the EU's most illiberal leader on his way out". I'm going to change it in the show notes, in the post and on the website.

Mārtiņš Bruņenieks Mar 26

@europeanspodcast @VojtechHorky @tshirtman thank you, this never meant to be a highly contested competition

@europeanspodcast completely unrelated pet peeve, but from a podcast called the europeans i'd expect a correct date format

The Europeans Mar 26

@Aethel apologies for the oversight - edited the post!

@europeanspodcast i...did not expect that. Thank you and apologies if i seemed rude. Damn...

Mārtiņš Bruņenieks Mar 30

@Aethel @europeanspodcast I had the same feeling - did I sound rude / reply guy / "actually".

We are a bit of a pedantic bunch on here (to say the least), but at least I generally get the feeling that it's well meaning rather than coming from a "gotcha" culture of sorts. But for sure though, it's can be easy to come across as unkind online even when it's well meaning!
@papuass @Aethel @europeanspodcast

The Europeans Mar 31

@sab @papuass @Aethel To be honest, it's a totally novel experience for us on social media to have people correct us and then immediately worry that they did it impolitely. Aaaaand that's what makes Mastodon different 🤗

@europeanspodcast @sab @papuass i usually expect no answer at all when im messaging a group/institution/official body so i takes me by surprise when i get an answer AND a correction i hoped for. Hence my assumption that ill never get a reply, thus my potentially ugh dry tone :) it does seem that its mostly sentient biomass here,as opposed to bots. A welcome change :)

Yeah, it's really unfortunate - we've come to expect "official" accounts are only doing one-way interaction, so we tend to treat them as the faceless bots we expect them to be. I feel a bit bad for whoever runs the @EUCommission account sometimes for the same reason.

It's a natural consequence of large social media platforms moving away from genuine interaction towards a broadcasting model, but it really takes a lot of effort to snap out of.
@Aethel @europeanspodcast @papuass

@sab @EUCommission @europeanspodcast @papuass precisely, this

Rafa Font 🌻 🇪🇺 🏀Apr 1

@europeanspodcast @sab @papuass @Aethel And the edit button. Thanks be given to John Mastodon for inventing it.

@europeanspodcast
Thank you, Katy, for saying "tenterhooks" rather than "tenderhooks"... 😁

Thanks for this episode! I really appreciate the discussion of the Tisza party - I have found it incredibly difficult to know how optimistic or not to feel about them, and it's great to hear the honest reflections of people who know much more than me about the subject.

In either case Orbán losing power would of course give cause for celebration in its own right. :)
@europeanspodcast

@europeanspodcast Thanks so much for covering this! It's strange to have so much international attention on our little country (though very normal on the Europeans ;) ), but at the same time it feels justified, as we know how this is bigger than just Hungary