Orban-Linked Conference Targets EU Corruption Scandals

Right-wing pop­ulists are cap­i­tal­iz­ing on EU cor­rup­tion scan­dals at the Bat­tle for the Soul of Europe con­fer­ence. On 4 Decem­ber 2025, Politi­co report­ed that the MCC Brus­sels think tank with close links to Vik­tor Orbán host­ed an event bring­ing togeth­er Budapest offi­cials with right-wing politi­cians to chan­nel pub­lic anger after the arrests of Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni and Ste­fano San­ni­no. The arti­cle begins:

Just a day after the EU was rocked by the arrest of two senior fig­ures in a cor­rup­tion probe, many at the Bat­tle for the Soul of Europe con­fer­ence — host­ed by MCC Brus­sels, a think tank with close links to Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán, and bring­ing togeth­er top offi­cials from Budapest with right-wing politi­cians, activists and com­men­ta­tors from across the con­ti­nent — said the time was right to chan­nel pub­lic anger at the estab­lish­ment. The lat­est cor­rup­tion scan­dal is “anoth­er sign of dou­ble stan­dards,” Balázs Orbán, polit­i­cal direc­tor to the Hun­gar­i­an prime min­is­ter and the keynote speak­er at the con­fer­ence, said in an inter­view with POLITICO.

Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-corruption-right-wing-populists-battle-for-the-soul-of-europe/

The Bat­tle for the Soul of Europe line­up is drawn almost entire­ly from the Euro­pean nation­al-con­ser­v­a­tive ecosys­tem, anchored by MCC’s Vik­tor Orbán-aligned insti­tu­tion­al net­work and the polit­i­cal forces grouped under Patri­ots for Europe. Its most vis­i­ble fig­ures — for­mer Czech pres­i­dent Václav Klaus, Pol­ish philoso­pher-politi­cian Ryszard Legutko, Fidesz polit­i­cal direc­tor Balázs Orbán, Chega vice-pres­i­dent Pedro Frazão, Rassem­ble­ment Nation­al MEP Vir­ginie Joron, VOX MEP Jorge Bux­adé Vil­lal­ba, and U.S. post-lib­er­al the­o­rist Patrick Deneen — are all estab­lished advo­cates of sov­er­eign­tist, cul­tur­al­ly tra­di­tion­al­ist, and anti-glob­al­ist pol­i­tics. Along­side them are senior MCC staff and move­ment-aligned insti­tu­tions, such as Ordo Iuris, The Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tive, and youth for­ma­tions such as La Cocarde Étu­di­ante. The result is not a cross-ide­o­log­i­cal gath­er­ing but an explic­it­ly curat­ed sum­mit of Europe’s nation­al-con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al class.

For the com­plete speak­ers list, go here https://soulofeurope.co/speakers

Speak­er bios:

• Václav Klaus
• Ryszard Legutko
• Balázs Orbán
• Patrick Deneen
• Vir­ginie Joron

Key Points

• Balázs Orbán, polit­i­cal direc­tor to the Hun­gar­i­an prime min­is­ter and keynote speak­er, stat­ed that the cor­rup­tion scan­dal is anoth­er sign of dou­ble stan­dards with cor­rup­tion-based tech­no­crat­ic elite mis­man­ag­ing pro­ce­dures, an ele­ment that is very strong and quite vis­i­ble to Euro­pean vot­ers, and what Amer­i­cans see from Europe.
• Pol­ish politi­cian Ryszard Legutko, co-chair­man of the right-wing Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tives and Reformists group, aimed at Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ursu­la von der Leyen, stat­ing the fish stinks from its head, with atten­dees tar­get­ing the deep-state web of civ­il ser­vice, NGOs, and cap­tured institutions.
• Con­fer­ence orga­niz­er John O’Brien stat­ed a cou­ple of years ago that peo­ple were scared to say cer­tain things about immi­gra­tion and envi­ron­men­tal extrem­ism, adding that, over the last few years, Europe has been shown to be dirty and needs to be cleaned up.
• Ger­man Greens MEP Daniel Fre­und coun­tered that the far right is not in any posi­tion to cred­i­bly cham­pi­on the anti-cor­rup­tion cause, stat­ing they are the prob­lem, not the solu­tion, and that the Patri­ots group vot­ed against almost every mea­sure that would strength­en the fight against corruption.

The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC): Hungary’s Hub for the Global National Conservative Alliance

The Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium (MCC) serves as the cen­ter of Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive activ­i­ty in Hun­gary and a key plat­form with­in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA). Fund­ed by a mas­sive gift of stock from Vik­tor Orbán’s government—valued at approx­i­mate­ly $1.7 bil­lion in 2020—the insti­tu­tion has spon­sored events and teach­ing posi­tions for promi­nent US right-wing fig­ures, includ­ing for­mer aca­d­e­mics Peter Boghoss­ian and Ilya Shapiro. Polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dorit Geva of Cen­tral Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty has described MCC as a “glob­al cen­tre for Orbán-style conservatism.”

The GNCA rep­re­sents an ide­o­log­i­cal coali­tion unit­ing right-wing and far-right move­ments world­wide under shared prin­ci­ples of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions. While Rus­sia ini­tial­ly sought to lead this move­ment, its role dimin­ished fol­low­ing the Ukraine inva­sion, allow­ing Hun­gary to emerge as the cen­tral bridge between Euro­pean and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives. Hun­gary’s cap­i­tal host­ed CPAC con­fer­ences in 2022 and 2023, fea­tur­ing speak­ers includ­ing Tuck­er Carl­son, Steve Ban­non, and Euro­pean far-right lead­ers from Spain’s Vox par­ty, France’s Nation­al Ral­ly, and Aus­tri­a’s Free­dom Party.

The MCC plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in dis­sem­i­nat­ing Russ­ian-style anti-LGBTQ pro­pa­gan­da and build­ing inter­na­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive net­works. A March 2022 report by the Hun­gar­i­an think-tank Polit­i­cal Cap­i­tal iden­ti­fied MCC as one of “the main Hun­gar­i­an actors build­ing and facil­i­tat­ing con­nec­tions to US actors”. It not­ed that the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment has “con­scious­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly instru­men­tal­ized” anti-LBGTQ rhetoric for polit­i­cal goals. The MCC Brus­sels branch, launched in Novem­ber 2022, has orga­nized events attack­ing “gen­der ide­ol­o­gy” and “can­cel cul­ture” while serv­ing as a meet­ing point for far-right reac­tionar­ies across Europe. The Glob­al Project Against Hate and Extrem­ism notes that MCC pro­vides stipends, net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, and fel­low­ships while reg­u­lar­ly pub­lish­ing stud­ies and orga­niz­ing groups on issues impor­tant to the Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist movement.

Exter­nal References:

• The Anti-Gen­der and Anti-LGBTQI Mobil­i­sa­tion in Hun­gary and Poland (Polit­i­cal Capital/Friedrich Nau­mann Foundation)
• Schol­ars fear influ­ence of Orbán-linked col­lege (Times High­er Education)
• Pro-Orbán Hun­gar­i­an Orga­ni­za­tions Are Spread­ing the Coun­try’s Author­i­tar­i­an Agen­da Abroad (Glob­al Project Against Hate and Extremism)

Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.