The Trump Effect: Viktor Orbán’s defeat shows that the threat of a split in Europe has sharply diminished

The cracks in the right-wing wave: culture wars and accountability

Viktor Orbán’s resounding defeat in Hungary represents the first of several key electoral events whose outcomes will illustrate the main trends shaping global political dynamics in 2026. As we noted in a recent review, the results of the Hungarian election, along with the US midterm elections and the Israeli elections scheduled for October and November, will serve as an indicator of how deep and destructive the trend of de-democratisation has become in established Western democracies in recent years (→ Re:Russia: Autocracy 2025). That said, it is the Hungarian and American elections that are particularly indicative of trends across the Euro-Atlantic space. From this perspective, Orbán’s defeat is a significant signal that materially increases the likelihood of a favourable outcome in this broader electoral stress test.

Just a year ago, at the height of the ‘storm and stress’ following Donald Trump’s return to the White House, when Elon Musk was dismantling elements of the democratic legacy of US domestic policy, and Trump together with J.D. Vance was reshaping its foreign policy contours, further advances of right-wing populism and the onset of a new era in European politics appeared almost inevitable. In February 2025, Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the second-largest faction in the Bundestag with 21% of the vote in federal elections. In March, far-right leader Herbert Kickl came close to becoming Austria’s federal chancellor, and in May the far-right Chega party emerged as the second-largest faction in Portugal’s parliament.

However, in the second half of the year, cracks began to appear in the rightward wave. Far-right candidates performed strongly in Poland (presidential election, June), Norway, and North Rhine–Westphalia (September 2025), as well as in the Czech Republic (October), but lost the presidential election in Romania (May 2025) and forfeited their parliamentary dominance in the Netherlands, which they had maintained since late 2023. The beginning of 2026, in turn, has opened a window of optimism for liberal Europe.

In France’s March municipal elections, the outcome was mixed. The far right secured one major city, Nice, and around 30 smaller municipalities, but lost in major urban centres such as Paris, Marseille and Lyon to centre-left coalitions. This demonstrated that anti-right electoral coalitions can be effective, while the traditional strongholds of liberal and centrist parties, namely large cities, have proven resilient to the rightward surge. Analysts caution, however, that this should not be interpreted as a reversal of the trend, but rather as evidence that the far right may have ‘hit a ceiling’, consolidating its position in peripheral areas without making gains in major metropolitan centres. Nonetheless, this offers grounds for cautious optimism that the country may avoid the election of a far-right president to the Élysée Palace in 2027.

At the end of March, Giorgia Meloni lost a constitutional referendum on judicial reform in Italy. Although the referendum concerned a partial reform of the Italian judiciary, its central provision was widely perceived as an attempt by the right-wing government to encroach upon the institution of independent prosecutors, who in the Italian tradition are closely associated with the most high-profile investigations into organised crime and political corruption. As a result, analysts note, the referendum effectively became a vote of confidence in Meloni’s government, as reflected in the relatively high turnout of 58%. The victory of the reform’s opponents thus dealt a significant and symbolic blow to her previously triumphant political trajectory.

But, of course, the Italian referendum is in no way comparable in significance to Orbán’s defeat, which brings an entire era in Hungarian politics to a close. It is clear that this outcome is rooted primarily in domestic dynamics: a general fatigue with 16 years in power, shortcomings in Hungary’s economic performance, and persistent corruption allegations. As Thomas Carothers, director of the ‘Democracy, Conflict and Governance’ programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has observed, these internal factors were decisive.

It should be noted, however, that Orbán was defeated by a political figure emerging from within his own party, who positioned himself within the right, albeit in a more moderate form. This largely explains the scale of the result: Péter Magyar succeeded in peeling away a portion of Orbán’s traditional right-wing electorate, while liberal Hungary consolidated behind him in a largely unified ‘anti-Orbán’ vote. However, Orbán’s defeat should not be conflated with a victory for ‘liberal Europe’. The traditional liberal opposition would have been unlikely to secure either such a decisive outcome or victory over Orbán’s Fidesz more generally. The election result should therefore be understood not as a reversal of the rightward trend, but as the defeat of a particular variant of right-wing populism and a recalibration of the broader ‘right-wing wave’.

Although the Hungarian election results should not be interpreted as signalling a return of ‘liberal Europe’, they do nonetheless represent a victory for democratic principles over the trend towards ‘populist autocratisation’ and a new form of European patrimonialism. Voters, including those on the right, mobilised against corruption, entrenched incumbency, and the concentration of power that has progressively weakened democratic checks and balances. In other words, the focus of the election was successfully shifted away from the polarisation associated with ‘culture war’ fault lines such as migration, identity, and traditional values, towards a democratic agenda centred on government accountability. This reframing made it possible to split the right-wing electorate along these lines. It is precisely this outcome that offers a lesson for future coalitions seeking to counter the conservative populism of new ‘strongman’ leaders.

The Right against the Right: the ‘Trump trap’ and a split in Europe

Perhaps the most significant medium-term implication of the election outcome is that it has substantially reduced the risk of a split within Europe. Paradoxically, this is in large part due to Donald Trump himself.

Orbán’s decisive defeat came against the backdrop of an unprecedented and norm-breaking campaign of support from the US president. Trump first intervened in Orbán’s campaign in November 2025, when, during a meeting in the White House, he lavished praise on the Hungarian prime minister and expressed strong confidence in his electoral success. In December and January, Trump published two letters commending Orbán’s patriotism and anti-migration policies, while promising expanded economic cooperation between Hungary and the United States. On 5 February, 24 March and 10 April, Trump posted on social media with extensive use of capital letters, urging voters to support Orbán and pledging economic backing for Hungary. And, on 8 April, he professed his admiration for Orbán over the phone during a campaign rally in Budapest addressed by US Vice President Vance. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Budapest in late February, promising extensive cooperation in the field of nuclear energy. None of this, including the exemption granted to Hungary from sanctions related to Russian oil purchases, appears to have had any discernible effect on Hungarian voters. The logic of material incentives and ‘geopolitical rent’, a recurring theme in Orbán’s political messaging, proved ineffective.

Immediately after the results of the Italian referendum were announced three weeks earlier, Arturo Varvelli, an expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Rome, suggested that Giorgia Meloni’s close relationship with Donald Trump had worked against her. This came amid widespread irritation among Europeans, including Italians, at Trump’s rhetoric towards Europe, his efforts to undermine European economic interests, and the war in Iran. Varvelli described this dynamic as the ‘Trump trap’. Structurally, the trap lies in the contradiction between the right-wing emphasis on prioritising ‘national interests’, which underpins their electoral appeal, and the demonstration of ideological affinity with Trump during his second presidency. This contradiction becomes acute in the context of Trump’s harsh and boorish rhetoric towards Europe and his disregard for its interests, which ultimately damages the national interests of European states themselves.

Far-right parties in France and Germany recognised the risks of this ‘trap’ much earlier. Despite ideological alignment on issues of migration and nationalism, Marine Le Pen’s ‘National Rally’ increasingly viewed Trump as a liability, as French journalist Cole Stangler noted in Foreign Policy from as early as September 2025. Following Trump’s speech in Davos in January 2026, with his reiterated claims on Greenland, both AfD leader Alice Weidel and Jordan Bardella of National Rally felt it necessary to voice their outrage. The far right ‘toughens stance on Trump to avoid ‘trap’ ahead of 2027 presidential election’, read the headline of Le Monde’s article on the subject.

Against this backdrop, Viktor Orbán’s political capital within Europe began to erode rapidly. Following the far right’s success in the 2024 European Parliament elections and Trump’s return to power, Orbán had come close to openly positioning himself as the leader of a new right-wing coalition in Europe, a principal opponent of European liberalism, and a key architect of an ‘alternative Europe’ foreign policy towards both Moscow and Washington, in deliberate opposition to Brussels. However, in the second half of 2025 and early 2026, European public sentiment began to shift. Europe increasingly found itself responding to two perceived threats, from Washington and from Russia. In a Euroscope survey conducted in February 2026 across 27 European countries (5,273 respondents, proportionally distributed by population), 70% described Russia as an ‘unfriendly’ country, while 51% said the same of the United States. The subsequent repositioning of far-right parties in Germany and France has effectively left little room for an ‘Orbán faction’, given his reputation as Trump’s emissary in Europe and a close associate of Vladimir Putin.

Although Hungary remains one of the more pro-Russian and pro-American countries in Europe, Orbán’s foreign policy credo is clearly losing resonance domestically. According to a survey conducted in early April, 28% of Hungarians surveyed believed the next government should maintain the current course towards the United States, 25% supported a decisive revision, and 30% favoured partial adjustment. Among supporters of Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, the latter two positions accounted for 39% and 46% respectively. Only 19% of those surveyed supported maintaining Orbán’s current approach to the European Union, while 43% favoured changing it and 25% supported adjustment. Even among Fidesz voters, only 44% backed preserving the status quo.

Thus, the significance of Orbán’s defeat lies not only in its potential to stabilise EU assistance to Ukraine, including unlocking the €90 billion loan that he had been blocking, but also in the way it undermines attempts by Washington’s MAGA administration to establish a foothold of allies in Europe and to divide the continent on fundamental questions relating to Ukraine and Russia. More broadly, the defeat reflects an emerging trend of renewed European solidarity, to which even far-right parties are increasingly compelled to adapt, a trend that has, paradoxically, been catalysed by President Trump himself.

For the Kremlin, this is nothing but bad news. Hopes that Orbán might lead and radicalise a revisionist faction within European politics, advocating a reassessment of policy towards Russia and Ukraine, have been significantly diminished. Equally unfavourable is the decline of Trump’s influence in Europe, which had similarly been aligned with such revisionist ambitions.