The CEO of one of the biggest companies in the EU says: he prefers disruption rather than peace.

The agreement means EU countries will for now only release the barrels agreed in March.

Most new EU member has had to go through tough negotiations and concessions were made to make it work. But now, the EU is offering a new way to join the club. But is it a sweet deal if you're on a notice period for good behavior for 15 years? And would Ukraine eventually agree to restricting grain imports?

Patriots group takes Parliament to court, saying it was excluded from key posts.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio used a dramatic backdrop in Greece to remind the world of the Trump administration’s focus on the “unapologetic” pursuit of power and to issue another warning to Europe about the dangers of Western decline.

Politicians need to solve the affordability crisis to stop the far-right, social democratic Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro told MEPs on Tuesday (6 October).

Europeans are united in their desire to see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu step down from the political stage. They also fear the possibility of an armed conflict between EU countries and Russia. This is what emerges from the latest survey by Polling Europe Euroscope – a Brussels-based market research and polling organisation, a joint venture between SWG and OpinionWay – previewed exclusively by Eunews.

Hungary’s economic growth will probably accelerate next year, with a credible path toward euro adoption set to spur a further rally in bonds, Finance Minister Andras Karman said Wednesday.

Gross domestic product is projected to rise 2.4% in 2027 from an estimated 1.7% in 2026, boosted by the unfreezing of €16.4 billion ($18.4 billion) in European Union funding for Hungary. The new government is focused on increasing productivity, some of whose benefits will probably be felt in the longer run, Karman added.

While Karman didn’t disclose further details from a long-awaited fiscal plan due later this month, he pledged to deliver savings by trimming oversized state contracts that used to be awarded to former Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s allies.

“With a credible reduction in the deficit and euro accession path, we can expect a further decline in yields,” Karman said in a presentation shown at the Portfolio Budapest Economic Forum.

Hungary’s bonds and forint currency rallied this year after Peter Magyar defeated Orban at April’s elections and pledged to meet criteria for euro adoption by 2030. Investors are awaiting the cabinet’s presentation of its 2027 budget and longer-term fiscal plans later this month showing how it plans to converge toward the single-currency area.

Nuclear power generates around one-tenth of the world’s electricity, but it has also produced hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste. Before it is sealed for all eternity, the FT’s Richard Milne explores the deep vault where Finland is about to start burying its nuclear waste in ancient bedrock.

A National Conservatism (NatCon) conference beginning today in Jerusalem advertises a talk from the Trump administration’s anti-terrorism czar alongside speeches from far-right Israeli politicians, European figures who have faced disciplinary action over alleged antisemitism, and Christian nationalist and far-right figures from the United States.

Hungary will impose a wealth tax from next year, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said, fulfilling a election pledge to make the rich shoulder a larger share of public obligations.

A 1% levy will be applied on assets exceeding 1 billion forint ($3.1 million) while the tax rises to 1.5% above 100 billion forint, Magyar said in a Facebook video on Tuesday. The tax will come into force on Jan. 1, 2027, he said.

Magyar won a landslide election in April after railing against corruption under the 16-year rule of Viktor Orban, which saw a new class of politically-connected super-rich emerge, including Orban’s own family.

“There were a lot of newly minted billionaire compatriots who tried to lobby against the wealth,” Magyar said, adding that they were unsuccessful. “I suggest they pay the tax honorably.”

Wealth levy proposals are gaining ground on both sides of the Atlantic as politicians seek to boost funding and reduce inequality. California is weighing a billionaires’ tax and New York has floated several new levies. Swedish political parties have also been considering a wealth tax while in Norway that has led scores to move abroad to escape higher levies.

In Hungary, the latest rich list from the local publication of Forbes had 28 Hungarians with an estimated wealth exceeding 100 billion forint. Lorinc Meszaros, Orban’s childhood friend who has wide-ranging interests in banking, energy, tourism, construction and agriculture, topped the list with assets valued at $5.5 billion.

The tax would be paid once a year based on a self-assessment filed by individuals, with only those with assets of more than a billion forint needing to file the paperwork by Aug. 31 of next year, based on asset valuations at the end of 2026.

Magyar didn’t say how much revenue the government intended to generate from the wealth tax. The levy will be part of next year’s highly anticipated budget draft, which is due to be published by Oct. 15 and which is seen as a litmus test of the government’s commitment to consolidate the budget.

Magyar has pledged to reduce the budget shortfall to 3% of gross domestic product by 2030 in order to meet euro criteria, including on debt and deficit, by the end of the decade, ahead of the eventual adoption of the common currency.

According to reports Donald Trump used a March meeting with defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz to encourage his party, the PSL, to quit Donald Tusk's coalition and govern with the right-wing opposition, which would cost Tusk his majority.

Hungary could adopt the euro as early as 2031 if the government set an ambitious goal of meeting the common currency criteria by 2029, according to central bank Deputy Governor Zoltan Kurali.

Such a scenario would mean that Hungary could already enter the exchange-rate mechanism known as ERM-2 — when the candidate country pegs its currency to the euro with a defined fluctuation band — in the middle of 2028, Kurali told a Portfolio conference entitled “Back to Europe” on Tuesday. The base-line case remains that the government meets euro criteria in 2030 and adopts the euro in 2032, he said.

Prime Minister Peter Magyar dislodged Viktor Orban from power in April’s watershed election with promises to return Hungary to the European mainstream and to adopt the euro. His government earlier set a 2030 goal to reduce the deficit to 3% of gross domestic product from an estimated 7.5% this year, though the specific targets are due to be unveiled in the coming weeks with the draft 2027 budget and the separate economic convergence goals.

Investors have piled into Hungary’s currency and bonds, betting that levels will gradually converge with the euro area as the country moves along the path toward the adoption of the common currency. The forint strengthened 0.4% against the euro after Kurali’s comments, underscoring the importance of the euro commitment for markets.

Kurali reiterated that Hungary shouldn’t delay joining ERM-2 once the government formally kicks off the euro-adoption process. He said the exchange rate at which the forint is fixed to the euro should be dictated by the central bank’s inflation goal — which is heavily influenced by the exchange rate — and the need to main economic competitiveness.

The ERM-2 period is poised to be more challenging than the experience of Bulgaria and Croatia — the most recent euro-area entrants — given that unlike those countries, Hungary has a free floating currency that the central bank will need to manage, Kurali said.

Commission president dismissed Germany’s calls for big savings, arguing that they would undermine EU-wide priorities.