Warm welcome for Chinese president contrasts with rest of EU, with up to 18 cooperation agreements expected Hungary has rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping in a show of warmth that contrasts with wariness in the rest of the EU about China’s stance on trade, global politics and human rights. On the third and final stop of his first European tour in five years, Xi was given a ceremonial welcome by Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, at Buda Castle, in Budapest, before talks with Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian prime minister, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has sought to deepen ties with Beijin ..read more

Chinese president hails two countries’ friendship before his arrival, after visiting Pyrenees with Macron Chinese flags adorned highways as Serbia got ready to give a home-from-home welcome to Xi Jinping, contrasting tensions on the first leg of the Chinese president’s six-day European tour over a potential trade war with the EU. Xi prepared for his arrival in Belgrade on Tuesday night by hitting out against Nato for its 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in the Serbian capital, in which three Chinese journalists were killed ..read more

On his first visit to Europe since 2019, Xi is set to meet with Emmanuel Macron before heading to Serbia and Hungary President Xi Jinping has lauded China’s ties with France as a model for the international community, as he arrived in Paris for a rare visit against a backdrop of mounting trade disputes with the EU. French President Emmanuel Macron is set to urge Xi to reduce trade imbalances and to use his influence with Russia over the war in Ukraine. Xi is due to meet Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Monday ..read more

Péter Magyar, who is running in European elections, has shot to prominence by pledging to end corruption A rising challenger to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has held what he has called the largest countryside political demonstration in the country’s recent history on the latest stop of his campaign tour that has mobilised thousands across Hungary’s rural heartland. About 10,000 people gathered in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, in support of Péter Magyar, a political newcomer who has shot to prominence in less than three months by pledging to end official corruption an ..read more

China’s president arrives as EU anti-subsidy investigations and tensions over espionage, Ukraine and Taiwan continue China’s president, Xi Jinping, is to visit Europe next week for the first time in five years, in a tour that will take in the unlikely trifecta of France, Hungary and Serbia. The visit comes as China pushes to avoid a trade war with the EU, while attitudes towards Beijing in the bloc are hardening after multiple spying scandals and China’s ongoing support for Russia in the war in Ukraine ..read more

Civil liberties network warns of decline across the bloc as a result of harm or neglect by governments Media freedom is declining across the EU and “perilously close to breaking point” in several countries, a leading civil liberties network has said, highlighting widespread threats against journalists and attacks on the independence of public broadcasters. The Berlin-based Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) said in its annual media freedom report, compiled with 37 rights groups in 19 countries, that alarming trends identified previously persisted in 2023 – although new EU-wide legisl ..read more

Exclusive: Hungary’s PM and EU’s most isolated leader says he is pursuing ‘friendship with everybody’ – particularly the former US president Europe’s most isolated leader was beaming. Standing in a hallway in Brussels, Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, spoke excitedly about the politician he hopes will change his political fortunes – Donald Trump ..read more

The father of the anti-fascist campaigner and Italian teacher, who has been in prison in Hungary for 14 months, says she is bearing up, despite being in conditions more akin to those found in a Nazi or fascist era. Ilaria Salis's case sparked diplomatic protests after she was brought to court in chains. She is now hoping to stand in the EU elections. Her father, Roberto Salis, has said she will not try to duck the trial if she is elected and gets immunity as an MEP. An MEP for Viktor Orbán's party, Fidesz, dismissed Salis's attempt to run as an MEP saying she 'wouldn't be the first c ..read more

Ilaria Salis, who was arrested in February 2023 after counter-demonstration at neo-Nazi rally, could be granted immunity An Italian antifascist activist held in prison in Hungary has accepted a candidacy in the European elections that could see her granted immunity and released from jail. Ilaria Salis, 39, a teacher from Monza, near Milan, was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 after a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally. She was charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme leftwing organisation ..read more

Hungarian conductor of modernist music who went on to compose operas with texts ranging from Three Sisters to Angels in America The Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös, who has died aged 80, is now best known for the 12 operas that he wrote during the last 25 years of his life. Before that, he played a leading role as a conductor specialising in the promotion of European musical modernism. Premiered in Lyon in 1998, the work that launched Eötvös’s career as a successful opera composer was Three Sisters. The libretto, written with Claus H Henneberg, reworks Anton Chekhov’s play into a ..read more