There is no energy crisis in the world, and experts do not expect one in the near future, regardless of the fact that the Persian Gulf may remain closed for quite a long time, says Mikhail Krutichin.
German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz: “…the climate crisis has robbed many people of their belief in the future of the planet. Russia’s attack on Ukraine shook Europe’s faith in the existing security order. The pace of economic growth is very limited and, in many Western democracies, governments have lost their capacity to act”.
“Like it or not, suffer it, my beauty”, joked Vladimir Putin about Ukraine, using a necrophiliac rape lyric, which prefigured war crimes, as Russian culture also seduced Western macho men.
Bulgarian public intellectual and political scientist Ivan Krastev interviewed on the post-Cold War ‘West’ and the future of Europe. ‘An obsession with European unity will no longer work. I do not believe that the European Union can cope with the challenges of the real world if we insist on having all 27 countries on board. We need a much more flexible structure. The future of the EU – if it is to succeed – is a strange mixture of integration and disintegration’, he warns.
German analyst Carlo Masala looks at whether Europe is behaving wisely towards Trump and if the world will actually allow it to arm itself.
![Hungarian political scientist Eszter Kováts: 'The whistleblowing in the final weeks of the campaign showed that the police and military weren't fully behind him [Viktor Orban]
Photo: Tomas Benedikovic](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/04/eszterkovats-2400x1601.jpg)
“He didn’t fall into Viktor Orbán’s culture war trap — like the opposition always did.” Hungarian political scientist Eszter Kováts explains the rise of Péter Magyar. The liberals and the mainstream rightwing European parties expect much more from him than he is ready to give, in her opinion. “But he will not be Orbán,” she says.
Hungarian journalist Alinda Veiszer reflects on the dismantling of public media, the pressures placed on reporters under Orbán’s system, and the stubborn forms of creative resistance that emerged.
László Mérő, the mathematician and psychologist turned public intellectual, says Fidesz’s rhetoric now echoes the language of the Third Reich and argues that the hatred shaping Hungarian politics has been consciously manufactured. In a wide-ranging interview, he reflects on Orbán’s transformation, the failures of the past 16 years, and why he believes the country could still change course.
Psychiatrist and writer Péter Hunčík argues that Viktor Orbán has transformed Hungary not only politically but psychologically, replacing civic autonomy with tribal loyalty, diffuse anxiety and a rewritten moral order. In this interview, he traces how power, myth, religion and fear have been used to remake both the state and society.
“They [US forces] would obey if an order came to pull back [from Europe], but it’s not something they would concur with,” said retired Italian admiral Gianpaolo di Paola in an interview with EUobserver.
Vitaliy Sych, editor of Ukrainian online media NV, talks to EUobserver (in an interview interrupted by 75 Shahed drones bombing Kyiv) about Russian losses and propaganda, the flock of Gulf leaders now wanting to buy Ukrainian military tech, Vladimir Putin’s mindset, the Druzhba pipeline and Viktor Orban.
In an escalation of Hungary’s campaign against independent media, award-winning journalist Szabolcs Panyi has been accused of “espionage” following his investigations into the Budapest-Moscow hotline. In this exclusive interview, Panyi warns that the Orbán government is officially importing the “Putin model” to criminalise investigative reporting, turning national security into a tool of political theatre.
![[Interview] One of Epstein’s youngest survivors: ‘I was 14, and I hoped the money I earned from sex would repair my relationship with my mother’](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/03/84b7c596-fd97-480b-b2d2-57b4a6810697.jpg)
Marina Lacerda was born in Brazil. She was eight years old when she moved to the United States with her mother. She was fourteen when she first stepped inside the New York residence of serial sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Mojtaba Khamenei’s election as Iran’s new supreme leader signals a hardline turn, stronger Revolutionary Guards, and rising risk of civil conflict. Experts warn his ascension marks the dynastisation of the Islamic Republic, exposing contradictions at the heart of the regime. “There is an alarming abundance of negative scenarios,” says Iranist Lenka Hrabalová.
Michal Onderčo, a nuclear weapons expert from the University of Rotterdam who recently published the book Europe’s Nuclear Umbrella, warns that due to the threat from Russia and the US pivot away from Europe, the era in which European leaders did not have to worry about the issue of nuclear deterrence has ended.
Michaela Moua, the European Commission’s anti-racism coordinator, is anxious. “Independent of what’s happening in the US, we’re seeing the normalisation of hatred and racism, and that is extremely worrying, as it can lead to violence and even death. We have already seen that,” she told EUobserver in an interview.
“The idea that you can send somebody or people to another country without individual assessment is a violation of basic refugee law,” human rights commissioner Michael O’Flaherty told EUobserver.
Ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian ambassador to the EU Vsevolod Chentsov warned that achieving peace with Russia requires real pressure on Moscow, cautions against normalising the war or engaging in ‘premature’ EU talks with Moscow, and sets the case for full EU membership.
The ‘frog’ poison that killed Navalny was hard to hide and likely made in a high-end lab, according to a Belgian toxicologist.
“There were more civilians killed and injured in 2025 than in the previous three years,” Bernadette Castel-Hollingsworth, who heads the UN refugee agency’s division in Ukraine, told EUobserver
