标签： Europe

In a historic parliamentary vote that marks the most significant shift in Hungarian politics in nearly two decades, Hungary’s 199-member national legislature approved a sweeping constitutional amendment on Monday to remove incumbent President Tamás Sulyok from office and advance a slate of political reforms designed to unwind the autocratic political system built by longtime former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The measure passed with overwhelming support, tallying 139 votes in favor and just six opposed. The outcome was all but guaranteed after current Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s pro-European center-right Tisza party secured a two-thirds parliamentary supermajority in an April landslide election, a mandate that gives the party full power to rewrite the country’s constitution and roll back 16 years of Orbán-era policy. Following the vote announcement, Tisza lawmakers erupted in a standing ovation, while all members of Orbán’s far-right Fidesz party boycotted the entire legislative session in protest.

Under Hungarian legislative rules, Sulyok — an appointee of the previous Orbán administration — has five days to sign the amendment into law. He has not yet publicly stated whether he will comply with the parliament’s decision, but Tisza leadership has already vowed to initiate impeachment proceedings against the sitting president if he refuses to sign. Magyar has long argued that Sulyok failed to uphold his constitutional duty as head of state by refusing to check Orbán government’s antidemocratic overreach during his tenure. Removing Sulyok was a central campaign promise for Magyar, and the prime minister has framed his party’s landslide election win as a clear voter mandate to follow through on that pledge. Sulyok has repeatedly rejected calls to resign voluntarily.

In a post-vote press conference, Magyar framed the amendment’s passage as a pivotal turning point for Hungarian democracy. “With this vote today, we have closed an era,” he said, confirming that the new government had formally “started the transformation of the Orbán legal system.” Beyond removing Sulyok — which clears the way for parliament to elect a new head of state aligned with the current government’s agenda — the amendment includes a package of structural reforms: it introduces new judicial oversight, establishes a special anti-corruption body tasked with investigating financial misconduct during the Orbán administration, and imposes a 12-year cumulative term limit for members of parliament.

Fidesz has decried the amendment as an “unprecedented” attack on Hungary’s democratic foundations. Last week, the party organized a public protest against the changes that drew roughly 3,000 attendees, though Orbán himself did not make an appearance at the rally. On the day of the vote, Orbán shared a provocative post to his Facebook page featuring a photo of Magyar with the ominous subtitle “Democratic Hungary: 1990-2026,” referencing the timeline of Hungary’s post-communist transition. The former prime minister was traveling to the United States on Monday to attend the final three matches of the World Cup, and has made limited public comments on the legislative push since the election.

While Hungary’s presidency is largely a ceremonial role, the position holds key constitutional powers: the president is responsible for signing all parliamentary legislation into law and can send passed bills to the Constitutional Court for judicial review. Tisza supporters have long raised concerns that Sulyok could use these powers to systematically block the new government’s reform agenda, making his removal a critical early priority for the administration.

Since taking office in May, Magyar’s government has moved rapidly to dismantle what the prime minister has labeled Orbán’s “mafia state,” removing dozens of political appointees and institutional leaders tied to the previous autocratic regime. The administration has already suspended the news division of Hungary’s public television and radio outlets, which Magyar argues operated as a state-run “propaganda factory” for Fidesz, and permanently closed the country’s controversial Sovereignty Protection Office — a body widely criticized by Orbán’s opponents as a tool to harass government critics and censor independent media.

Ahead of Monday’s vote, Fidesz caucus leader Gergely Gulyás claimed the amendment “breaks up the legal system, undermines the rule of law and restricts democracy.” Gulyás also announced he would step down from his position as caucus leader, as the new 12-year term limit would bar him from running for re-election in the next national parliamentary vote. Following the vote, Fidesz supporters organized a candlelight vigil outside the parliament building in Budapest to protest what they described as the “tyranny” of Magyar’s incoming reform government.

The United Kingdom has locked in a landmark new bilateral trade agreement with Switzerland that delivers sweeping improvements for British business professionals and leisure travelers, while cementing deeper economic ties between the two nations after Brexit. This deal, labeled by UK Trade Secretary Peter Kyle as the most consequential services trade agreement the country has ever negotiated, brings a series of tangible benefits that touch both everyday travel and long-term commercial growth.

One of the most immediate changes for UK travelers will be streamlined airport processing: starting as early as the end of 2026, holders of British passports will gain access to automated e-gates at Zurich Airport, with Basel and Geneva airports expected to confirm their own rollout timelines in the near future. Swiss travelers have already been able to use e-gates at UK airports for some time, making this change a reciprocal upgrade that cuts wait times for visitors. In addition to faster border clearance, the deal permanently eliminates mobile roaming charges for tourists and business travelers moving between the two countries, ending unexpected extra costs that plagued cross-border trips in previous years.

For businesses and professional services providers, the agreement locks in long-term certainty that previous temporary arrangements did not offer. A prior services mobility framework that allowed providers to work for up to 90 days in each country without a work permit was scheduled to expire in 2029, but the new deal makes this arrangement permanent. UK employees transferring to Swiss offices will also be able to work in the country for up to five years without undergoing strict economic needs testing, a regulatory change that is expected to benefit a wide range of professional sectors including law, accounting, and architecture, according to UK government officials.

On the macroeconomic front, the UK government projects that the new deal will boost annual British exports to Switzerland by £5.2 billion in the long term. Switzerland already stands as the UK’s sixth-largest export market for services, with total bilateral services trade hitting more than £30 billion in 2025. Roughly 800,000 British nationals travel to Switzerland for leisure and business each year, meaning a large share of travelers will directly benefit from the deal’s travel-focused reforms.

Officials emphasize that the new e-gate arrangement for UK travelers in Switzerland is independent of Switzerland’s alignment with the European Union’s upcoming Entry/Exit System (EES), a separate border reform that will also grant UK citizens access to EU e-gates. In a related development, UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander held talks with European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism Apostolos Tzitzikostas this week to coordinate on the rollout of the EU’s EES ahead of the busy 2026 summer travel season. The two sides agreed to work closely together to ensure border checks run as smoothly as possible for travelers during the peak period.

The new Switzerland agreement marks the latest in a series of independent trade deals struck by the UK following its exit from the European Union, joining previously completed agreements with the United States, India, the Gulf Cooperation Council, South Korea, and the EU. The deal comes as outgoing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer enters his final weeks in office, ahead of the planned transition to incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham. In a statement on the agreement, Starmer framed the deal as a win for both economic growth and everyday people.

“Whether you’re growing a business or travelling for work, this agreement is about making life easier and creating more opportunity for people across the UK,” Starmer said. “It means British firms will find it easier to sell their expertise in one of our most important markets in Europe, supporting jobs and investment here at home.”

BRUSSELS – European Union’s top foreign policy leader Kaja Kallas confirmed Monday that the bloc has successfully coordinated a €900 million ($1 billion) humanitarian and recovery aid package for the war-battered Gaza Strip, bringing together 65 participating governments and international organizations to back the effort. Among the key partners contributing to the fundraising initiative are the White House and the United Nations, marking a broad show of global collaboration on addressing Gaza’s deepening humanitarian and developmental crisis.

The announcement came at the conclusion of a newly scheduled meeting of the Palestine Donors Group, held in the EU’s capital Brussels. The gathering marked the second convening of the bloc’s Team Gaza Initiative, a targeted effort launched to marshal international financial and political backing for critical recovery projects across Gaza. These initiatives focus on rebuilding core public services and livelihood infrastructure, including sanitation systems and agricultural production capacity, for the enclave’s 2 million residents who have endured widespread destruction and protracted conflict.

Speaking after the meeting, Kallas emphasized the EU’s long-standing commitment to the Palestinian people, positioning the bloc as a leading global actor on Palestinian issues. “The EU is the most credible supporter for the Palestinian people. We are the largest donor and the strongest backer of the two-state solution,” she stated, reinforcing the bloc’s persistent diplomatic stance alongside its financial contributions to Gaza.

Prominent Russian anti-war opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin, who made an unsuccessful attempt to challenge incumbent Vladimir Putin in the 2024 national presidential election, has been taken into police custody, updates from his official social media channels confirm.

Nadezhdin was removed from his residential property and transported to a local police precinct in a town located west of Moscow on Monday morning. This arrest comes just several weeks after he formally declared his candidacy for September’s upcoming State Duma parliamentary elections. His press secretary confirmed the detention to BBC Russian in a brief statement, noting that authorities have not publicly disclosed a formal motive for holding Nadezhdin as of initial reporting.

The arrest follows a series of escalating regulatory actions against the politician. Just one week prior, Russia’s Ministry of Justice added Nadezhdin to the country’s controversial “foreign agent” registry. In the official designation, the ministry accused him of spreading disinformation about the Russian federal government and inciting public participation in unsanctioned public demonstrations. The foreign agent label already effectively barred him from appearing on the ballot for the September parliamentary vote, a restriction that preceded his Monday arrest.

Despite the mounting pressure, Nadezhdin pushed back against the regulatory actions in a public comment prior to his arrest. “What is there to say? I will continue to live and fight,” he stated. “This is unlikely to change anything in my political biography. I will continue to run for the State Duma and collect signatures.”

Nadezhdin first entered the global spotlight earlier this year, when he launched a 2024 presidential campaign centered on an explicit anti-war platform calling for an immediate end to the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine. In an interview with the BBC ahead of the election, he claimed broad public support from “dozens of millions of people” who rejected what he described as “Russia’s current track of authoritarianism and militarism.” If elected, he outlined, his first priority in office would be “to stop the conflict with Ukraine, and then to restore normal relations between Russia and the Western community.”

Nadezhdin’s relatively restrained criticism of Putin personally led some political analysts to speculate that the Kremlin might permit him to remain in the race to lend the 2024 election a veneer of competitive, democratic legitimacy. Those speculations proved unfounded, however: the Russian Central Election Commission blocked his candidacy just weeks before polls opened, ruling that more than 15 percent of the voter signatures he submitted to qualify for the ballot contained invalid or fraudulent entries.

Nadezhdin challenged the ruling in court, but was unable to overturn the decision. He was not alone among critics of the Kremlin: all other credible opposition figures were also blocked from standing in the 2024 presidential vote.

Putin ultimately claimed a landslide victory in the March 18, 2024 election, securing a fifth presidential term. A 2020 constitutional amendment reset Putin’s eligibility term limits, clearing the way for him to hold office until 2036, when he would be 83 years old. The next presidential election is formally scheduled for 2030.

In an interview earlier this year, as the Kremlin expanded internet restrictions affecting millions of Russian citizens and the country’s ongoing economic pressures deepened, Nadezhdin argued that public opinion was shifting. “People are beginning to understand that there is a direct connection between their everyday problems, like healthcare, food prices, problems with internet, and the politics of Vladimir Putin,” he told the BBC.

Today, the Kremlin maintains near-total control over Russia’s domestic political sphere, and no independent candidates have been permitted to mount a serious challenge to Putin’s governing authority. All major opposition figures who could offer voters a clear alternative to the current administration are either incarcerated, living in forced exile abroad, or have been killed.

LONDON – British law enforcement announced Monday that the fatal killing of veteran former British politician Ann Widdecombe is now being formally investigated as an act of terrorism, marking a sharp shift from the initial assessment of the case. Counter Terrorism Policing South East confirmed that a 28-year-old man, already detained on suspicion of murder, has been re-arrested on new charges suspicion of committing, preparing, or inciting terrorist activity.

The case took an unexpected turn after Devon and Cornwall Police’s initial conclusion last week that the killing was not linked to terrorism and showed no indicators of political motivation. Laurence Taylor, head of National Counter Terrorism Policing, explained that the reclassification came following the discovery of undisclosed new information and material evidence that warranted counter-terrorism officials taking over lead investigative responsibility. “We are pursuing multiple lines of inquiry to establish the full motivation for this attack,” Taylor stated in an official press briefing.

Widdecombe, 78, was discovered dead last week at her remote rural residence in a small village in southwest England, located on the edge of Dartmoor National Park. Police have not publicly released a formal cause of death, only confirming that the former lawmaker suffered “serious injuries” before her death. The attack is believed to have occurred around 12:30 p.m. last Wednesday; authorities were alerted to potential danger when Widdecombe failed to arrive for a pre-scheduled live television interview later that afternoon.

The suspect, who remains unnamed as he has not yet been formally charged with any crime, was apprehended this past Saturday in South Yorkshire, a county in northern England more than 320 kilometers from the site of Widdecombe’s death.

Over a decades-long career in British public life, Widdecombe established herself as one of the Conservative Party’s most high-profile socially conservative voices, known for her unapologetic stances opposing abortion and advocating for restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights expansion. She served as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1987 to 2010, and held the cabinet position of Prisons Minister under Conservative Prime Minister John Major’s government in the 1990s.

After leaving national parliamentary office, Widdecombe gained new mainstream popularity through appearances on two hit British reality television programs, *Strictly Come Dancing* and *Celebrity Big Brother*. She later returned to electoral politics, joining the pro-Brexit Brexit Party and serving a short term as a Member of the European Parliament before the UK completed its withdrawal from the bloc in 2020. Most recently, she joined the right-wing anti-immigration party Reform UK, where she remained a frequent media commentator and public spokesperson for the party up until her death.

Widdecombe’s killing sent immediate shockwaves across the British political establishment, where colleagues and opponents alike have remembered the contrast between her fierce, combative political rhetoric and her reported personal warmth, kindness, and sharp sense of humor in private settings.