Visegrad Insight Podcast

In just three years, Ukraine scaled its annual defence production from roughly one billion euros to 50 billion euros. The EU Commissioner for Defence and Space argues that a combination of digital talent, demand-side doctrinal change and civil society mobilisation drove that transformation, and that the EU has not yet matched this model and therefore needs to bring Ukraine into its defence thinkin...

The conversation covers Péter Magyar's outreach to Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava, the proposed V4 plus Austria configuration and Magyar's wider ambition of adding four more partners, with Romania, Slovenia and Croatia named as candidates. Przybylski and Krekó weigh the strategic realignment between Poland and Hungary on Russia and Ukraine, the limits of that convergence over enlargement an...

Hungary has dropped its two-year veto on Ukraine's European Union accession, clearing the way for the first cluster of negotiations to open in mid-June. Recorded on 6 June 2026 in Cres, Croatia, on the sidelines of the Europe's Future Initiative fellows gathering, Wojciech Przybylski talks to Balázs Jarábik about the deal that ended the deadlock between Hungary and Ukraine. Jarábik is an a...

Drone incursions over the Baltic states have caused their first major political casualty: the collapse of Latvia's government following the resignation of Defence Minister Andris Sprūds. But is the political fallout proportionate to the actual threat? And what do Baltic societies make of it all? Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Dmitri Teperik, Resilient Futures Fellow at Visegrad Insight, joini...

What did Donald Trump actually achieve in Beijing, and what does it signal for Taiwan and the security of Central Europe? Wojciech Przybylski, Editor-in-Chief of Visegrad Insight, is joined by Marcin Jerzewski, Visegrad Insight Fellow and Head of the European Values Center for Security Policy think tank in Taipei, to unpack the outcomes of the Trump-Xi summit of 17–18 May 2026. They examine China&...

Bulgaria has its most decisive electoral shift in a generation. But who is Rumen Radev — reformer or risk? Wojciech Przybylski is joined by Spasimir Domaradzki, assistant professor at the University of Warsaw and Visegrad Insight Fellow, for an immediate post-election assessment recorded on 20 April 2026, less than 24 hours after the results. They examine Radev's two faces: his track record of...

Hungary’s historic parliamentary election on 12 April 2026 produced a landslide result, with Peter Magyar's Tisza party winning a supermajority with 136 seats in the 199-seat National Assembly and leaving just 57 seats for Viktor Orbán's Fidesz–KDNP. Almost 80 per cent of Hungarians cast a ballot, with a narrow majority voting for change. In this episode, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Lu...

One year after US President Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff announcements, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Elisabeth Braw, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of Goodbye Globalisation, about the accelerating unravelling of the global trading order. They discuss whether globalisation can be reprogrammed, why China is winning the game of economic statecraft, how the U...

As Hungary ramps up pressure over oil transit, sanctions and European support for Kyiv, Yuliia Dziuba joins Wojciech Przybylski to explain how these moves are received in Ukraine. From the Druzhba pipeline dispute to Viktor Orbán’s political calculus, this episode examines whether Budapest is merely obstructing or actively weakening European solidarity at a critical moment in Russia's war agai...

Poland is withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention and debating landmines on its eastern border. At the same time, nuclear ‘sharing’ ideas are resurfacing as Europe scrambles to rebuild deterrence. In this episode, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Agata Kleczkowska, assistant professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a Resilient Future Fellow, about where securit...

Budapest is accusing Kyiv of delaying repairs to the Druzhba pipeline and threatening to restrict electricity and diesel exports to Ukraine while blocking EU measures to support Kyiv. But are these decisions really made by Viktor Orbán in Budapest, or are they shaped elsewhere? In this episode, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Visegrad Insight fellow Zsuzsanna Szabó, an energy and geostrategy exper...

In this Visegrad Insight podcast, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Sigita Struberga (Latvian Transatlantic Organisation, Organisation Women for Security) about what the 2026 Munich Security Conference revealed about Europe’s strategic direction, defence-industrial reality and the eastern flank’s expectations of partners. We discuss: – Why ‘national interests’ rhetoric is back and what it means for...

Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Maria Repko, Deputy Director at the Centre for Economic Strategy in Kyiv, about how Ukraine’s economy functions under winter blackouts, missile attacks and a war-driven defence industry boom. In this episode: – What daily life looks like in Kyiv at -20 degrees with rationed electricity and broken heating – Why Ukrainians reject the ‘resilience’ label and what it obs...

President Petr Pavel accuses Foreign Minister Petr Macinka of blackmail, triggering what may become an emerging constitutional crisis. In this videocast, Wojciech Przybylski and Pavel Havlíček discuss what the scandal means for Czech foreign policy, defence spending and the stability of Andrej Babiš’s coalition, including the influence of the ‘motorists’ movement and Filip Turek. Read the text ver...

Wojciech Przybylski talks with Radu Albu-Comanescu (Babeș-Bolyai University, Visegrad Insight Fellow) about what the World Economic Forum revealed about geostrategy, defence and the new rules of engagement from Washington, with uncomfortable implications for Central and Eastern Europe. In this episode: – Why this Davos felt ‘geopolitically consistent’ – Reactions to the ‘Board of Peace’ idea from...

Is 2026 the last year of war or the first year of peace in Europe? In this Visegrad Insight online discussion, Monika Sus and Wojciech Przybylski map out the key forecasts for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 2026 and beyond: where democratic security is most vulnerable, and what ‘war fatigue’ and hybrid warfare can do to elections and institutions. The conversation weighs plausible 2026 scenar...

In this Visegrad Insight podcast episode, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Anna Gielewska of  ⁨@vsquare_project⁩  about a cross-border investigation with Front Story and Context Romania. They discuss alleged undeclared online support linked to Romanian far-right politician George Simion during Karol Nawrocki’s presidential campaign, what can and cannot be proven, and why Poland’s rules on in-kind s...

Does the European Union have an ‘intelligent’ green strategy that is failing in practice while Hungary pursues a ‘dumb’ one that seems to work? In this episode of the Visegrad Insight Podcast, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Hungarian journalist Vilmos Weiler about the surge of Chinese and Korean battery investments in Hungary and what this means for European competitiveness, economic security and...

Wojciech Przybylski unpacks the new United States national security strategy and its ‘chaotic hypocrisy’ towards Europe, then turns to Hungary to ask what an honest energy transition would really look like. In conversation with Ada Ámon, executive director of the Budapest Climate Agency, this episode explores: – How deeply Hungary is locked into Russian oil, gas and nuclear fuel– Why successive go...

Why is Ukraine plastered across Hungary’s billboards and campaign ads as if it were on the ballot itself? And what does Viktor Orbán really gain from keeping Volodymyr Zelensky in the minds, hearts and social media algorithms of Hungarians? In this episode of the Visegrad Insight Podcast, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with Viktória Serdült, journalist at  HVG  in Budapest, about how Ukraine became th...

In April 2026, Hungarians go to the polls again. The choice is framed as ‘war and peace’ by Viktor Orbán, and ‘corruption and oligarchy’ by Péter Magyar. But is Hungary’s real problem that its oligarchs are not independent tycoons at all, but extensions of the state itself? In this Visegrad Insight videocast, Wojciech Przybylski speaks with two insiders of Hungary’s economic and political transfor...

In this episode of the Visegrad Insight Podcast, Tomasz Kasprowicz speaks with Andreas Treichl, chair of Erste Foundation and former chief executive of Erste Group Bank, about the future of banking, capital markets and pensions in Central and Eastern Europe. Learn more about Europe Future Forum: https://europefuture.forum/⁠ 📌 What is inside this episode: Why Central and Eastern Europe was unfairl...

Finland’s Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, Jarno Syrjälä, joins Tomasz Kasprowicz, Vice-President of the Res Publica Foundation, to unpack how smaller European states navigate a harsher economic security environment. We discuss European Union trade unity under stress, the US–China rivalry, China’s rare earth leverage and why dialogue and flexible processes still matter. We also co...

Economic security alert. Wolfgang Münchau, co-founder and director of Eurointelligence, and author of ‘Kaput: The End of the German Miracle’ book, pulls no punches in an exclusive interview with Wojciech Przybylski – Germany’s mercantilist miracle is over, China now out-competes on quality, and Europe’s economic security hangs by fragile threads. From rare-earth chokeholds to failing diversificati...

What do 94% of Poles dream about in 2025 – and how are their fears shaping the future? Next to the weekly democratic and economic security outlook, in this episode of the Visegrad Insight Podcast, recorded live at the Freedom Games in Łódź, Maia Mazurkiewicz – CEO of the PZU Foundation, part of the biggest Polish insurance company – unveils the first-ever comprehensive report on the dreams of Pole...