{"id":23959,"date":"2026-04-13T05:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T05:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/23959\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T05:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T05:03:17","slug":"this-week-hungarian-election-fall-out-von-der-leyen-calls-meeting-on-iran-and-eu-2028-34-budget-numbers-on-the-table-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/23959\/","title":{"rendered":"THIS WEEK: Hungarian election fall-out, von der Leyen calls meeting on Iran, and EU 2028-34 budget numbers on the table \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

THIS WEEK offers a weekly snapshot of the key developments in Brussels and across Europe over the next seven days, published every Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The aftermath of Hungary\u2019s elections on Sunday (12 April) marks a turning point in the country\u2019s political landscape, long shaped by prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s pro-Kremlin rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n, Europe\u2019s most prominent far-right, nationalist-conservative leader, and frequent obstacle to EU unity on Ukraine, has had his 16-year hold on power come to an end after conceding defeat.<\/p>\n

The European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, will aim to unpack the results on Monday.<\/p>\n

The political fall-out in Budapest comes at a volatile time amid a collapsing ceasefire between the United States and Iran as Tehran imposes a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and Israel continues to bombard Beirut and Lebanon.<\/p>\n

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has called on her 26 commissioners to convene on Monday (13 April) for talks on the Middle East conflict and its wider repercussions<\/a> for Europe.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This includes everything from energy to transport, migration to internal security, and all the policy areas that are impacted by the conflict. <\/p>\n

It also means debate on EU-China relations, initially scheduled for Monday, is now postponed to a later date.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, representatives from EU member-state governments will meet to further discuss the EU-US critical minerals strategy.<\/p>\n

Committees at the European Parliament are also convening. The development committee on Tuesday will discuss Lebanon, which is reeling from an Israel onslaught<\/a> to cripple the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Lebanese officials say more than 1,700 people have been killed by the Israeli attacks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another pertinent meeting is Wednesday\u2019s discussion on Iran\u2019s opposition, in the foreign affairs committee, with speakers including exiled Sakharov and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi<\/a>, who is spearheading a transitional justice committee to hold the regime accountable for their crimes.<\/p>\n

EU\u2019s 2028-34 budget?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, budget hawks on Wednesday will be watching a critical vote in the budget committee on an interim report on EU\u2019s long-term budget, also known as the multi-annual financial framework (MFF), which covers 2028-2034.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Should it go well, the vote will set the stage for the parliament\u2019s official negotiating mandate later this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the main scopes of this report is to set the parliament\u2019s position on the figures,\u201d says Siegfried Mure\u0219an, a centre-right MEP from the European People\u2019s Party, who is spearheading negotiations.<\/p>\n

Both Mure\u0219an and Portuguese S&D MEP Carla Tavares are pushing to slap taxes on US tech giants<\/a> in the hopes of generating revenue for the EU budget and at a time of collapsing relations with Washington.<\/p>\n

Temu grilled<\/p>\n

Thursday will see Chinese online-market Temu<\/a> grilled by MEPs in the internal market and consumer protection committee.<\/p>\n

The Chinese giant is under investigation in France for selling child-like sex dolls. It also came under scrutiny from the European Commission.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During the same day, the industry, research and energy committee will discuss how the EU\u2019s electricity and gas market integrates with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THIS WEEK offers a weekly snapshot of the key developments in Brussels and across Europe over the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[137],"tags":[280,292,7932,301,7197,290,7930,299,7195,291,7931,300,7196,403],"class_list":["post-23959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier4278","tag-identifier4293","tag-identifier4308","tag-identifier4313","tag-namehungary","tag-nameiran","tag-namerussia","tag-nameus","tag-termcodehungary","tag-termcodeiran","tag-termcoderussia","tag-termcodeus","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116395652527664174","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}