Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said he speaks to his counterparts in Russia, Serbia, Israel, the United States and Turkey both before and after EU meetings on foreign affairs. “I speak not only with the Russian foreign minister, but also with the U.S., the Turkish, the Israeli, the Serbian ones, and our other partners before and after the meetings of the Council of the European Union,” Szijjártó said at a campaign rally Monday evening. “The situation is that many decisions are being made in the European Union that influence the relations and cooperation of Hungary with other countries outside the EU,” he said, adding: “That’s what foreign policy is about. Perhaps I’m saying something rough, but diplomacy is about us talking to leaders of other countries.” A report at the weekend in the Washington Post claimed Budapest maintained close contacts with the Kremlin throughout the war in Ukraine and that Szijjártó used breaks during EU meetings to update his Russian counterpart.  Szijjártó on Sunday accused Donald Tusk of “spreading lies and fake news” when the Polish prime minister wrote on X that the revelations about calls with Russia were not a surprise. “We’ve had our suspicions about that for a long time,” Tusk said. Hungary’s Europe Minister János Bóka also denied the report, telling POLITICO: “It is fake news that is now being spread as a desperate reaction to [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s] Fidesz gaining momentum in the election campaign.” The reports are “greatly concerning” as trust between member countries and the bloc’s institutions is fundamental to the EU’s functioning, Commission foreign affairs spokesperson Anitta Hipper said Monday. The Commission is waiting for “clarifications” from the Hungarian government, she added.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music In der Linkspartei tobt ein bitterer Kampf um die Deutung des Nahostkonflikts. Während die „alte Garde“ um Gregor Gysi den Schutz Israels als Staatsräson verteidigt , formiert sich an der Basis und in Landesverbänden wie Niedersachsen ein radikaler antizionistischer Flügel. Wie die Parteispitze versucht, das zu moderieren und dabei womöglich den moralischen Kompass verliert, analysiert Gordon Repinski. Janis Ehling, Bundesgeschäftsführer der Linken, stellt sich im 200-Sekunden-Interview der Frage, wie tief der Riss wirklich geht und wie man in der Partei eine klare Grenze zum Antisemitismus ziehen und gleichzeitig wieder zusammen finden kann. In Brüssel beginnt ein entscheidender EU-Gipfel unter extremem Zeitdruck. Kanzler Friedrich Merz und Frankreichs Präsident Emmanuel Macron müssen ihre Differenzen beiseite legen, um den „Dauer-Blockierer“ Viktor Orbán zur Freigabe der 90-Milliarden-Hilfen für die Ukraine zu bewegen. Hans von der Burchard berichtet aus Brüssel über den deutsch-französischen Motor, die Drohungen von Donald Trump und die europäische Antwort auf die eskalierende Lage im Iran. Unseren Podcasts ⁠„Inside AfD“ findet ihr hier⁠ und ⁠„Power & Policy“ hier⁠. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

Hungary is pressing the European Union to suspend tariffs and extra duties on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus as the war in Iran threatens to drive up global food prices. Such a move would boost a key source of revenue in funding Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In a letter to European commissioners on Monday, Hungarian Agriculture Minister István Nagy warned that rising global fertilizer prices and supply uncertainty exacerbated by the war in Iran risk squeezing EU farmers and pushing up food costs. He called for the levies on Russian and Belarusian products to be temporarily reduced to zero, warning that Hungary could face lower crop yields if access to cheaper imports remains restricted. The country produces only nitrogen fertilizers domestically and relies on foreign supplies of phosphorus and potash. The EU tightened duties on fertilizers from Russia and Belarus in 2025 after imports rose in the years following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The increase raised concern that Russia was redirecting gas exports hit by sanctions into fertilizer production to sustain export revenues. Russian shipments to the EU were still worth around €2 billion last year, but volumes fell sharply in early 2026 as the new levies began to bite. Iran’s effective blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is driving up the cost of fertilizer by tying up supplies of both the fuel and raw materials needed to produce it. Budapest is also pushing the EU to relax its ban on Russian gas to ease price pressures — an idea roundly rejected by Brussels.

Moscow is set to regain an official national pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, the prestigious international contemporary art exhibition held every two years in Italy — marking Russia’s return following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Biennale Foundation onWednesday confirmed the participation of the Russian Federation in its 61st International Art Exhibition. “In response to the communications and requests for participation from Countries, La Biennale di Venezia rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art,” it said. “La Biennale, like the city of Venice, continues to be a place of dialogue, openness, and artistic freedom, encouraging connections between peoples and cultures, with enduring hope for the cessation of conflicts and suffering.” Italy’s Ministry of Culture said the foundation “decided entirely independently on the Russian Federation’s participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition in Venice, despite the Italian government’s opposition.” Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco defended the decision, telling Italian media that the exhibition is “a space of truce” where art prevails over geopolitics. He confirmed that Russia, Iran, Israel, Ukraine and Belarus will all be present. Mikhail Shvydkoy, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for international cultural cooperation, told media that Russia’s participation was “further proof that Russian culture is not isolated, and that attempts to ‘cancel’ it — undertaken for the past four years by Western political elites — have not succeeded.” Ksenia Malykh, co-curator of the Ukrainian pavilion at the Biennale, told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne that Russia’s return to major international art events did not come as a surprise to Ukraine’s cultural community. “Everyone who has been involved in international cultural projects over the past four years is not very surprised, unfortunately, because Russia has been finding ways to get into important venues in one form or another all this time,” she said. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys wrote on X that “there can be no return to business as usual with a murderer and a terrorist. Russia continues its large-scale war against Ukraine … The decision to roll out the red carpet to Russia’s dark cultural diplomacy is abhorrent.” The development comes as international sporting bodies also begin reopening doors to Russia, with athletes competing under the Russian flag at the Winter Paralympics in Italy this month.

Moscow denied responsibility for the death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, two days after five European governments said new forensic analyses pointed to poisoning by frog toxin. According to Russian state news agency Interfax, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday: “We do not accept such accusations, we do not agree with them, we consider them biased and unfounded. And we strongly reject them.” Navalny died in prison in Russia in February 2024. Authorities said he suffered from “sudden death syndrome,” an umbrella term for many different causes of cardiac arrest. On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom said analyses of samples from Navalny’s body detected epibatidine, a highly toxic substance derived from the poison of South American dart frogs. “Given the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death,” the joint statement said. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had also dismissed the claims over the weekend, calling them “merely propaganda aimed at diverting attention from pressing Western issues.” Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, told attendees at the POLITICO Pub in Munich last weekend: “He was killed. He was very young — less than 50. He spent his last years in torturous conditions … Putin killed him.” She thanked the countries that supported the forensic investigation. Navalny had survived an attempted poisoning in 2020, which he said was carried out by Russia’s internal security service, the FSB. Russia denied involvement.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Today’s angry and discombobulating geopolitical landscape is giving rise to noticeably more acrimonious diplomatic exchanges than seen in preceding decades — even sharper than during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term. This is likely just a reflection of the times we live in: Roiled by shocks and uncertainty, even world leaders and their envoys are on edge. And social media doesn’t help keep exchanges calm and respectful either. Measured speech doesn’t go viral. If you want attention, be disparaging and abrasive. Let’s take Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s carefully crafted speech at Davos last week. Carney earned a standing ovation from global and corporate leaders as he bewailed the unfolding great-power rivalry, urging “middle powers” to act together “because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Yet, it was Trump’s free-wheeling, sharp-edged speech with its personal criticism of fellow Western leaders — including a jab at French President Emmanuel Macron — that roared on social media. This shift away from traditional diplomatic etiquette toward more confrontational, seemingly no-nonsense and aggressive public-facing communication is very much in keeping with populist styles of leadership. And it’s now shaping an era where antagonistic communication isn’t just tolerated but celebrated and applauded by many. Trump is very much a man of his times. And it’s time Europe finally caught on. Aside from Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin is also often known to use colloquial and crude language to attack Western and Ukrainian leaders — though noticeably, he never uses such language with Trump. In an address last month, Putin referred to European leaders as podsvinki — little pigs. And before invading Ukraine in February 2022, he used a vulgar Russian rhyme to insinuate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needed to be raped. China, too, has been noticeably more menacing in its diplomatic speech in recent years — though it tends to eschew personal invective. The shift began around 2019, when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi instructed envoys to display a stronger “fighting spirit” to defend Beijing from supposed Western bullying. The abrasive style led to the more aggressive envoys being dubbed “wolf warriors,” after a blockbuster movie in which Chinese commandos vanquish American mercenaries. But driving the trend are Trump and his aides, who can go toe-to-toe with anyone when it comes to put-downs, slurs or retaliation. And if met with pushback, they simply escalate. Hence the avuncular counsel of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Europeans on the Greenland-related tariff threats last week: “Sit back, take a deep breath, do not retaliate.” But here’s the curious thing: While the Russians and Chinese use such language to target their foes, Trump and his senior aides reserve much of their invective for supposed allies, namely Europe with Canada thrown in for good measure. And they’re utterly relentless in doing so — far more than during his first term, when there were still some more traditionally minded folks in the White House to temper or walk back the rhetoric. This all seemed to reach its pinnacle in Davos last week, where it seemed belittling European allies was part of virtually everything the U.S. delegation said in the Swiss ski resort. Bessent couldn’t even restrain himself from insulting Swiss-German fare. And U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik appeared almost gleeful in infuriating Europe’s leaders with his combative remarks at a VIP dinner which, according to the Financial Times, not only sparked uproar but prompted European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde to leave the event early. “Only one person booed, and it was Al Gore,” said the U.S. Commerce Department in a statement to media. But others at the event — around 200 people — said there was, indeed, some heckling, though not so much because of the content of Lutnik’s criticism, some of which Europeans have also made about net zero, energy policy, globalization and regulation. According to two attendees, who asked to be granted anonymity to speak freely, it was in reaction to the contemptuous tone instead. Likewise, Trump’s delegation — the largest ever brought from Washington to Davos — didn’t miss a beat in pressing America First themes, making it clear the U.S. would prioritize its own economic interests regardless of how it affects allies. “When America shines, the world shines,” Lutnik said. China, too, has been noticeably more menacing in its diplomatic speech in recent years — though it tends to eschew personal invective. | Pool photo by Vincent Thian/EPA As the forum unfolded, however, U.S. Vice President JD Vance insisted that what was fueling such criticism wasn’t hatred for the old continent, but that it was more a matter of tough love. “They think that we hate Europe. We don’t. We love Europe,” he said. “We love European civilization. We want it to preserve itself.” That in itself seems pretty condescending. Tough love or not, Europe-bashing plays well with the MAGA crowd back home who feel Europeans are the haughty ones, lacking gratitude, freeloading and in dire need of subordination — and squeals of complaint merely incite more of the same. To that end, Zelenskyy made a telling a point: European leaders shouldn’t waste their time trying to change Trump but rather focus on themselves. Time to stop complaining about America First and get on with putting Europe First.

Union und SPD treffen sich erstmals in diesem Jahr im Koalitionsausschuss mit Fokus auf Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, Resilienz der Demokratie und den Schutz kritischer Infrastruktur. Nach dem Brandanschlag auf das Berliner Stromnetz einigt sich die Koalition auf das zwischenzeitlich in den Innenausschuss verwiesene Kritis-Dachgesetz. Es soll das Land besser schützen. Was drin steht, bespricht Gordon mit Jasper Bennink von POLITICO “Industrie und Handel am Morgen”.  Im 200-Sekunden-Interview erklärt Alexander Throm, innenpolitischer Sprecher der Unionsfraktion, warum bei der Infrastruktur die Sicherheit künftig Vorrang vor Transparenz haben soll.  Dazu geht es nach Sachsen-Anhalt: Sven Schulze soll zum neuen CDU-Ministerpräsidenten gewählt werden. Mit knapper Mehrheit. Rasmus Buchsteiner ordnet die Lage vor Ort ein. Zum Abschluss: Eindrücke vom Wirtschaftsgipfel der WELT im Axel-Springer-Haus. Zwischen Reformdruck, neuer politischer Tonlage und der Frage, wie stark KI Politik und Wirtschaft beschleunigt. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski:Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 information@axelspringer.de Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

European leaders descend on Brussels this evening for a crunch summit with the transatlantic relationship top of their agenda. U.S. President Donald Trump backed down Wednesday from his most belligerent threats about seizing Greenland from Denmark, but that hasn’t assuaged European concerns about America’s posture toward Europe. It’s another busy day in Davos too, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaking and Trump potentially set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And if that wasn’t enough, Trump’s everything envoy Steve Witkoff is headed to the Kremlin for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Whew. Strap in.

BRUSSELS — The European Union is on track to get nearly half its gas from the United States by the end of the decade, creating a major strategic vulnerability for the bloc as relations with Washington hit an all-time low. New data shared with POLITICO shows Europe is already importing a quarter of its gas from the U.S., a figure that is set to soar as the bloc’s total ban on Russian gas imports is phased in. It comes as an increasingly belligerent U.S. President Donald Trump flirts with seizing Greenland, a territory of Denmark, in a move that could destroy the NATO alliance and throw transatlantic relations into crisis. Tensions escalated over the weekend when Trump announced he would put new tariffs on European countries including France, Denmark, Germany and the U.K. until a deal to sell Greenland to the U.S. was reached, prompting calls for the EU to retaliate with drastic trade restrictions of its own. The EU’s growing reliance on imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas “has created a potentially high-risk new geopolitical dependency,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst at the the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the think tank that produced the research. “An over-reliance on U.S. gas contradicts the [EU policy] of enhancing EU energy security through diversification, demand reduction and boosting renewables supply,” she said. Alarm over this strategic weak spot is also growing among member countries, with some EU diplomats fretting that the Trump administration could exploit the new dependency to achieve its foreign policy goals. While “there are other sources of gas in the world” beyond the U.S., the risk of Trump cutting off supplies to Europe in the wake of an incursion in Greenland “should be taken into account,” one senior EU diplomat told POLITICO, who like others in this article spoke on condition of anonymity. But “hopefully we’ll not get there,” the official added. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the EU went to drastic lengths to wean itself off Russian natural gas, which in 2021 made up 50 percent of its total imports but now accounts for only 12 percent, according to data from Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank. It accomplished this largely by switching imports of pipeline gas from Russia with liquefied natural gas shipped from the U.S., which at the time was a firm ally. The U.S. is already the biggest exporter of LNG, and its product now accounts for around 27 percent of EU gas imports, up from 5 percent in 2021. France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium are the largest importers; non-EU member the U.K. is also a major importer of U.S. LNG. A raft of new deals with U.S. energy companies could raise that figure to as high as 40 percent of the EU’s total gas intake by 2030, and to around 80 percent of overall LNG imports into the bloc, according to data from IEEFA, a U.S. nonprofit that promotes clean energy. CHANGES AFOOT Despite efforts to switch away from fossil fuels, Europe still relies on carbon-emitting natural gas for a quarter of its total energy needs. Gas is used to generate electricity, heat buildings and power industry. European consumers and manufacturers already face some of the highest energy costs in the world, `making it hard for the EU to refuse cheaper gas from the U.S. despite Washington’s threatening language. An LNG tanker unloads Egyptian liquefied natural gas at the Revithoussa terminal near Athens. | Nicolas Koutsokostas/NurPhoto via Getty Images EU countries have already committed to diversifying their gas imports under new laws passed last year, but officials warn this will be difficult to achieve in the short term, given that the global supply of LNG is limited to just a few countries. They’re pinning their hopes on new production in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, expected in 2030. On top of the future energy deals — including a commitment to buy €750 billion of U.S. energy products as part of last year’s trade agreement — the EU is set to pave new inroads for U.S. gas under a sweeping overhaul of Europe’s energy infrastructure. For instance, the EU has restated its commitment to two major gas pipelines that will connect Malta and Cyprus to mainland Europe, which could facilitate still more flows of American gas. The U.S. is also looking to build a pipeline linking Bosnia to EU-member Croatia. ‘NO ALTERNATIVE‘ To some, the EU’s growing dependence on U.S. gas highlights that it should hasten its transition to renewables as a replacement for fossil fuels. Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, a Socialist EU lawmaker, said demand for natural gas has fallen sharply across the bloc as the green transition picks up, even if demand for U.S. LNG is increasing as an overall proportion of intake. “If we have the courage to keep calm and carry on making profitable investments in efficiency and renewables, we will reduce EU gas demand so much that we will reduce our dependence on U.S. LNG, even as we fully phase out Russian gas,” Pellerin-Carlin told POLITICO. The lawmaker also argued that Trump was unlikely to weaponize LNG supply to the EU as Russian President Vladimir Putin had done, since it would severely damage the interests of key Trump donors in the U.S. LNG industry, who are desperate to find new buyers to absorb soaring supply of the fossil fuel. The issue of U.S. LNG dependence is addressed by a broader EU commitment to energy diversification that was baked into a wider ban on Russian gas set to take effect this year, according to diplomats familiar with the matter. The official line, however, is that the U.S. remains a “strategic ally and supplier,” one of the diplomats said. “The dependence is certainly there, but we’re kind of stuck where we are,” said one European government official. “There’s really no alternative.”

Mark Leonard is the director and co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and author of “Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics when the Rules Fail” (Polity Press April 2026). The international liberal order is ending. In fact, it may already be dead. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said as much last week as he gloated over the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro: “We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power … These are the iron laws of the world.” But America’s 47th president is equally responsible for another death — that of the united West. And while Europe’s leaders have fallen over themselves to sugarcoat U.S. President Donald Trump’s illegal military operation in Venezuela and ignore his brazen demands on Greenland, Europeans themselves have already realized Washington is more foe than friend. This is one of the key findings of a poll conducted in November 2025 by my colleagues at the European Council on Foreign Relations and Oxford University’s Europe in a Changing World research project, based on interviews with 26,000 individuals in 21 countries. Only one in six respondents considered the U.S. to be an ally, while a sobering one in five viewed it as a rival or adversary. In Germany, France and Spain that number approaches 30 percent, and in Switzerland — which Trump singled out for higher tariffs — it’s as high as 39 percent. This decline in support for the U.S. has been precipitous across the continent. But as power shifts around the globe, perceptions of Europe have also started to change. With Trump pursuing an America First foreign policy, which often leaves Europe out in the cold, other countries are now viewing the EU as a sovereign geopolitical actor in its own right. This shift has been most dramatic in Russia, where voters have grown less hostile toward the U.S. Two years ago, 64 percent of Russians viewed the U.S. as an adversary, whereas today that number sits at 37 percent. Instead, they have turned their ire toward Europe, which 72 percent now consider either an advisory or a rival — up from 69 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, Washington’s policy shift toward Russia has also meant a shift in its Ukraine policy. And as a result, Ukrainians, who once saw the U.S. as their greatest ally, are now looking to Europe for protection. They’re distinguishing between U.S. and European policy, and nearly two-thirds expect their country’s relations with the EU to get stronger, while only one-third say the same about the U.S. Even beyond Europe, however, the single biggest long-term impact of Trump’s first year in office is how he has driven people away from the U.S. and closer to China, with Beijing’s influence expected to grow across the board. From South Africa and Brazil to Turkey, majorities expect their country’s relationship with China to deepen over the next five years. And in these countries, more respondents see Beijing as an ally than Washington. More specifically, in South Africa and India — two countries that have found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs recently — the change from a year ago is remarkable. At the end of 2024, a whopping 84 percent of Indians considered Trump’s victory to be a good thing for their country; now only 53 percent do. Of course, this poll was conducted before Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and before his remarks about taking over Greenland. But with even the closest of allies now worried about falling victim to a predatory U.S., these trends — of countries pulling away from the U.S. and toward China, and a Europe isolated from its transatlantic partner — are likely to accelerate. Meanwhile, Washington’s policy shift toward Russia has also meant a shift in its Ukraine policy. And as a result, Ukrainians, who once saw the U.S. as their greatest ally, are now looking to Europe for protection. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images All the while, confronted with Trumpian aggression but constrained by their own lack of agency, European leaders are stuck dealing with an Atlantic-sized chasm between their private reactions and what they allow themselves to say in public. The good news from our poll is that despite the reticence of their leaders, Europeans are both aware of the state of the world and in favor of a lot of what needs to be done to improve the continent’s position. As we have seen, they harbor no illusions about the U.S. under Trump. They realize they’re living in an increasingly dangerous, multipolar world. And majorities support boosting defense spending, reintroducing mandatory conscription, and even entertaining the prospect of a European nuclear deterrent. The rules-based order is giving way to a world of spheres of influence, where might makes right and the West is split from within. In such a world, you are either a pole with your own sphere of influence or a bystander in someone else’s. European leaders should heed their voters and ensure the continent belongs in the first category — not the second.