Hungary

The de facto end of Index, one of the last Hungarian independent media organisations, is one more thumbed nose to freedom of the press. The EU should make the granting of funds to Budapest conditional on its respect.

Disinformation is not always ideologically motivated. On the contrary, most fake news websites serve primarily to make money. The disinformation economy relies heavily on Facebook and Google Ads, a report on five eastern European countries shows.

The EU pays 75 percent of the cost to governments that repatriate their citizens through the EU aid mechanism due to the coronavirus epidemic. Tens of thousands of EU citizens have returned home this way.

The greatest casualty of the coronavirus crisis in Hungary has been human dignity, writes Anna Lengyel. And as long as the Orbán system remains in place, this crisis will prevail long after the virus is gone.