Moldova Teeters, Czechia Awaits
Weekly briefings on the life of The New European Capital of Conservatism.
Budapest This Week
The brand new Ludovika Centre for Turkic Studies is celebrating its inauguration with a mini-conference on Turkic things, 9AM-5PM, today.
Also today: from 4PM till 6:30PM, the MCC Scruton Café hosts a talk about In The Face of Woke Obscurantism. The title is the same as that of a book criticising the hostile, mindless tone within latter-day French academia. It was withdrawn by its publishers in March of this year — after much mindless hostility towards it.
Could it be ten years already? Wednesday and Thursday, the MCC in Széged is hosting a big international conference on The Tenth Anniversary of the European Migration Crisis. See Comings & Goings for the cast list.
What’s Based
Moldova's Pro-EU Government Risks Losing Majority
Moldova holds its parliamentary elections next Sunday, September 28. Right now, the country's governing pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) seems likely to lose its majority to EU-critical groups.
Here are the top five facts you need to know:
1 — 101 seats in the Moldovan parliament are up for grabs. The key challengers are the incumbent PAS, the left-wing Patriotic Bloc and the centrist Alternativa alliance.2 — PAS are likely to win on Sunday, but probably without enough seats to retain their majority. 3 — Not all polling takes into account votes by Moldova's big diaspora. Polls that only include locals have Sandu's PAS trailing the Patriotic Bloc by 1 %. 4 — Moldova's diaspora are the kingmakers. Maia Sandu only managed to retain the presidency due to the diaspora ballot. 5 — Sandu is already claiming Russian interference. She's described Moscow as waging 'hybrid warfare' against Moldova, via Russian Orthodox priests and online bots.
Other News
Paper of the Week
Defence Techno-Industrial Bases in Hungary and the United States
Once, the supply chain between government and the defence industry was largely about manufacturing companies. Steel and ballistics. Today, almost everything has a sensor, a transponder, a microchip, and an algorithm. That old idea of a Defence Industrial Base, embodied by BAE or Northrop, is giving way to a Defence Techno-Industrial Base, embodied by Palantir. Given that extra complexity, how can countries weave together a defence industry of private partners fit for this new age? American Wade Atkinson was with the Danube Institute over the summer. He has has produced a paper comparing the different DTIB environments of the United States and Hungary.
"The modern civilian analogy to the DTIB is increasingly called 'the Internet of Things.' Examples of the latter are sensors and computers guiding automobile maintenance and home heating, air conditioning, and security systems..."
Eyes & Ears
Comings & Goings
Coming: Many bigwigs will be in Széged for the MCC immigration conference. Highlights include: Ralph Schoelhammer, the clean-living Austrian professor Mohamed Farid, a member of the Egyptian Senate Abshir Aden Ferro, a Somali presidential candidate Nicolas Pouvreau-Monti, Director-General of the French immigration observatory Raphael Audouard, The Director of Patriots for Europe Pedro Dos Santos Frazão, Vice-President of Portuguese right-wing party Chega Eric Ruark, Director of Policy at the Federation for American Immigration Reform John Rouse, Senior Advisor at the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Simon Hankison, Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation
Alexander Cenusa, current chairman of the Swedish Conservative Student Union, and a writer for Riks, Sweden’s biggest alternative media outlet, will be in town on Thursday and Friday, for an AI event. He wonders if anyone wants a korsó or two.
City Life
Curtis Yarvin sat down with some of the DI team on Wednesday night at our favourite borozó, the titchy Communist-era Mátra, on Fő utca. He thoroughly enjoyed the sausages with bread and mustard, before proceeding to read out an entire 52 page Daniel Defoe treatise, exhorting Queen Anne to banish religious Nonconformists from England. It was certainly an education — and happily, the people at the next table also seemed to be into it.
It's the MCC Film Club, at Kino Mozi, tonight, with the film choice being The Witness. Showing starts 6PM. Register here.
Balná, "The Whale", is that big glass and steel curvy structure on the river, as you head towards Corvinus. This weekend, it is host to the Budapest Contemporary Art Fair, 25 - 28 September. A ticket is only 4000 Ft (bought on-site), and guided tours are available.
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Dates For Your Diary
Margaret Thatcher Centenary Conference, Budapest — 2 OctoberConservative Party Conference, Manchester — 5 - 8 OctoberBattle for the Soul of Europe, Brussels — 3 - 4 December “Kenyér és bor nélkül meghűl a szerelem."— Without bread and wine, love gets cold. NOTE: A previous version of this newsletter listed a different film being shown by the MCC Film Club. Apologies for any confusion!