András Tóth-Czifra
@minczifra
Political & security analyst. 🇪🇺🇭🇺🇺🇸. FPRI Eurasia fellow, Delphi GRC fellow. Bear Market Brief contributor. Ex-CEPA, ESI. Posts about 🇷🇺, 🇪🇺, illiberalism & its limits. My own views. Здесь вам не Toth. www.noyardstick.com minczifra.substack.com
I can't stress enough that there is no direct proof but given that the Trump administration has repeatedly openly admitted having plans to meddle in European politics to help illiberal parties, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that the US had something to do with the Ceuta incident.
I'm back at one of my favorite European cities and a regular scene from a former life for a couple of days and really enjoyed the moment when, returning to France from Germany on my early morning run, a magnificent white stork greeted me on the border.
The Hungarian public broadcaster is showing this message now, after its news service was temporarily shut down: "Public broadcasters must not lie. We apologize for having done so for years. The public broadcaster will undergo changes to make its news service independent and credible."
One of the greatest joys of being in Europe is seeing these guys soar and occasionally strut.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: ✅ Cool names ✅ Cool fan song ✅ Leading at halftime
Treasury data on regional budgets in the first 3 months of 2026 was published yesterday. As expected, quarterly tax payments changed the picture somewhat, but overall the decline of corporate tax receipts has continued. This is a Q1 2025 - Q1 2026 comparison in (non-consolidated) regional budgets.
Of all the dystopian ads that now flood the subway, this is the most revolting kind. No, "Devin" is not a software engineer, you lying shits, it's at best a probability machine with a lot of computational power. And if the ad is so full of lies, I wouldn't have high hopes for the product either.
I've seen 98 bird species just in Brooklyn in a little over four months this year and peak migration is just beginning. New York *is* a bird city. 🐦
A mere week after Hungary's election, people are drawn to the winner: 66% of voters who have a party say they'd vote for Tisza, only 25% wd support Fidesz, according to Median, the pollster that predicted the election result almost completely precisely. Reminder: this was 55.3 - 36.7 on April 12.
Re: pragmatism between the new Hungarian government and Russia - I missed this RIA op-ed on Friday, reacting to Magyar's announcement that the new government would audit Rosatom's Paks II project, with a not-so-subtle warning at the end. ria.ru/20260417/ros...
As embassy votes are counted in Hungary, they have already resulted in Tisza winning an additional SMD - and may still give seats to the party. Here are the results of an exit poll conducted by Magyar Vándor in 10 countries among embassy voters. www.magyarvandor.com/exitpoll26/?...
According to Wikipedia, it's the 82nd most common surname. Magyar is the 35th with roughly twice this many people.
Kremlinologists (Karmelitologists?) - note also the placement of the flags.
Orbán concedes and focuses on Hungarians voting from neighboring countries (and supporting Fidesz overwhelmingly) as his team looks on shellshocked. The man on the far left, János Lázár (in a political sense actually far right) will be angling for the party. Mark my words.
On the Day of Hungarian Poetry (A Magyar Költészet Napján), from Nádasdy Ádám (1947-2026)
The latest seat estimate by the Median pollster (one of Hungary's most reliable, historically) forecasts a two-thirds supermajority for the opposition in this week's election. If this happens, Fidesz is set to suffer the same kind of defeat as the (now basically defunct) Socialist Party did in 2010.
I was really hoping Sindarov wouldn't draw today, just to avoid this on the scoreboard and disappoint millions of Gen Z kids. Alas.
Another opinion poll (21 Kutatóközpont) shows a significant split between Tisza and Fidesz 11 days before the election. Crucially, however, the extreme right Our Homeland, a potential coalition partner for Fidesz, gets into the parliament according to this survey.
A new survey by Medián, Hungary's most reliable pollster gives a 23-pt edge to the opposition Tisza over Fidesz. Party leader Péter Magyar has recently started talking about what Tisza would do with a 2/3 supermajority which is within their reach if these numbers are accurate 444.hu/2026/03/25/a...
After almost a decade of decrease, driven by federal credit policy, the amount of more expensive bank loans in regional debt also started growing in 2024, and last year it tripled. More than 50% of the debt of 13 regions, including ones struggling with expenditures, now consists of market loans.
Updated map chart based on the latest granular Treasury data for 2025.
They are really desperately trying to hammer this message, however. Take a look at the set of a new show on the government-financed propaganda TV M1, entitled "The horrors of war", which, the presenter stresses, "the government wants Hungary to stay out of". Almost no mention of who started the war.
In my recent article for Riddle I warned about the risks regions relying on metallurgy face regarding their cash flows in 2026. The Kremlin-adjacent CSR has a new report on the creeping crisis of the industry (see below profitability figures). www.csr.ru/upload/ibloc...