Digest of news from Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland
September 21 – September 27, 2026
Slovakia
1. PM Fico admits his coalition could lose its parliamentary majority
2. Opposition demands answers after German media link the Skyeton sabotage plot to Russian military intelligence
Analysis:
Robert Fico said his government could lose its slim majority over an internal fight inside the far-right, pro-Russian Slovak National Party (SNS), after party leader Andrej Danko demanded the resignation of Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba, whom SNS itself had originally nominated. Taraba has signaled he could form a breakaway faction if pushed out, which would strip Fico's three-party coalition of its majority in the 150-seat parliament. Fico responded by threatening to withdraw his own dismissal request for Taraba unless SNS resolves the dispute internally, effectively daring the party to choose between keeping its minister and keeping the government afloat.
Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, are demanding Fico personally address reporting by Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Russia's military intelligence directorate may be behind the arson plot against Ukrainian drone maker Skyeton's Slovak plant near Prešov.
Progressive Slovakia's Tomáš Valášek called it unacceptable that lawmakers learned of a possible Russian link from foreign media rather than their own government, and demanded Slovakia's Security Council be convened; the Christian Democratic Movement called for the same, plus a special session to review the intelligence service's own handling of the case.
Za ľudí MP Veronika Remišová went further, accusing Fico's "collaborationist policy" of turning Slovakia into a haven for Russian sabotage networks. SIS chief Pavol Gašpar pushed back against what he called premature conclusions, noting German authorities themselves haven't confirmed the Russian link, and said more details would follow once investigators rule out a false-flag operation.
A prime minister negotiating with his own coalition partner to avoid collapse and an intelligence chief asking critics to wait for confirmation before drawing conclusions about a Russian sabotage plot are, this week, the same government trying to manage two separate loss-of-control problems at once: one over its parliamentary math and one over its own credibility on Russia.
Czech Republic
1. Czech, Latvian, and Swedish spy chiefs expect more Russian sabotage, but disagree on invasion risk
2. Opposition forces a no-confidence vote over Babiš's budget, and loses anyway
Analysis:
Czech BIS director Michal Koudelka told The Guardian that beyond a likely rise in drone activity, Kremlin planning could include a limited incursion onto NATO territory bordering Russia within "months, not years," describing the current Russian approach as "escalation for de-escalation" designed to pressure Western societies into scaling back support for Ukraine. His Baltic and Swedish counterparts sounded more cautious: Latvia's Normunds Mežviets said there are no signs of an imminent attack, while warning that overstating invasion risk could itself serve Kremlin interests, and Sweden's Thomas Nilsson said Moscow shows no genuine interest in negotiations, treating peace talks as theater while it still believes it can achieve its goals by other means.
Czech opposition parties forced an extraordinary parliamentary session over Prime Minister Andrej Babiš's budget, which trimmed its planned deficit only slightly, to 386 billion crowns from 389 billion, while still marking a retreat from traditional Czech fiscal discipline that Babiš defends as necessary investment in infrastructure, healthcare, and defense. The no-confidence bid was never going to succeed, since Babiš's ANO-SPD-Motoristé coalition controls 108 of the chamber's 200 seats, and it fell to Parliament Speaker Tomio Okamura to schedule the debate his government was always going to survive.
Two intelligence chiefs disagreeing on how fast Russia might escalate and a budget fight nobody expected the opposition to win could represent the standard modern scenario for Czech politics. However, the spy chiefs' warning and the government's growing deficit sit closer together than they might appear: a country bracing for more Russian pressure is also the one loosening the fiscal discipline it might need to pay for defending against it.
Hungary
1. PM Magyar again rules out Ukrainian oil storage on Hungarian soil, and rebukes MOL directly
2. FM Orbán expects a minority-rights breakthrough with Ukraine by October
3. President Baka compares Ukraine's fight to Hungary's own 1956 uprising
Analysis:
Prime Minister Péter Magyar repeated that his government will not permit Ukrainian oil storage facilities on Hungarian territory, after Naftogaz and Hungarian energy company MOL signed a memorandum to explore building such capacity near the border. Magyar went a step further this week by confirming he personally told MOL chief Zsolt Hernádi the company's decision to negotiate with Kyiv without government consent was unacceptable, reminding Hernádi that the Hungarian state owns a quarter of MOL itself.
On a different track, Foreign Minister Anita Orbán told Index she expects a breakthrough within weeks on the long-running dispute over Hungarian minority rights in Transcarpathia, saying she now speaks daily with Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha and regularly with Ukraine's deputy prime minister for European integration, with legislation on Hungarian-language education rights expected to reach Ukraine's parliament no later than October.
President András Baka struck the warmest note of the week, telling the UN General Assembly that Ukraine's fight to preserve its independence echoes Hungary's own 1956 uprising against Soviet rule, and that the freedom Hungarians fought for then is the same freedom Ukrainians deserve now. He said Hungary wants diplomacy to end the war, but only on terms that respect Ukrainian sovereignty, warning that normalizing forced territorial seizure would leave every small country anxious about its own future.
The gap between Hungarian officials three different notes on Ukraine is a fair summary of where Hungary's relationship with Kyiv actually stands: warmer than under Viktor Orbán, but still calibrated department by department rather than settled as a single national line.
Romania
1. PM candidate Mureșan warns a PSD refusal could hand power to the far right
2. Georgescu's arrest reshuffles the odds for a PSD-AUR alliance
Analysis:
Prime ministerial nominee Siegfried Mureșan told Politico he will formally ask the Social Democrats (PSD) for support by the end of next week, framing their decision as a test of whether Romania's socialists behave as "responsible European social democrats" or deepen cooperation with the far-right, pro-Russian AUR, whose leader has openly discussed forming a government with PSD instead. PSD leader Sorin Grindeanu has not ruled that option out, having already joined AUR earlier this year to bring down the previous government, though he says his party could be persuaded to back Mureșan if he adopts ten PSD policy priorities. Mureșan, whose PNL polls at just 21% against AUR's roughly 35%, acknowledged that failure could force early elections he doesn't want but wouldn't rule out, warning that an AUR-influenced government would leave Romania "very friendly to Russia" and actively working to weaken the EU from within.
That calculation shifted this week when prosecutors reopened a public phase of the fraud case against Călin Georgescu, the far-right figure whose annulled 2024 presidential bid first fueled AUR's rise, arresting him on charges tied to roughly €1.1 million in alleged fraud. AUR calls the timing retaliation for refusing to back Mureșan, but the arrest also raises the reputational cost of any formal PSD-AUR pairing at the exact moment Grindeanu is weighing one, giving the pro-European camp a fresh argument to pull him back toward negotiations instead.
Months of parliamentary paralysis have already cost Romania a concrete price, including roughly €770 million in EU recovery funding tied to a public-sector pay law that missed its legislative deadline, and every week this drags on adds to a bill that a government finally in place could have avoided paying in the first place.
Poland
1. A drone near a US missile-defense base and a Russian helicopter's brief airspace violation test Poland's response
2. PM Tusk says inviting Putin to G20 risks rewarding Russian aggression
Analysis:
Poland's defense ministry confirmed that an unidentified drone violated a no-fly zone roughly a kilometer from the American missile-defense base at Redzikowo on September 15, after reports emerged that soldiers called Poland's 112 emergency line rather than intercepting it; officials said the drone, identified as civilian, never crossed over the base itself and was tracked throughout by air defense systems, though Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said he still expects a full report and corrective action if any gaps in the response are found. Days later, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter flying out of Kaliningrad crossed roughly 300 meters into Polish airspace near Braniewo for 42 seconds, prompting Polish fighters to scramble; the military called it further evidence that "Russia is once again testing our air defense readiness."
Separately, Tusk said he is uneasy about the United States inviting Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Miami, recalling that he warned Donald Trump against exactly this kind of format during Trump's first term, arguing it would hand Russia a symbolic justification for its aggression rather than move Ukraine closer to peace. "I fear any form of justification for Russian aggression against Ukraine," Tusk said, though he added Poland would welcome Putin's participation if it genuinely advanced peace talks rather than merely rewarding Moscow with a seat at the table.
A civilian drone that got close enough to an American base to trigger a 112 call, a Russian helicopter testing Polish radar for less than a minute, and a prime minister publicly second-guessing his own ally's diplomatic instincts on Russia describe a Poland managing pressure on two fronts simultaneously: one arriving through its own airspace and one arriving through what its allies decide to do next.