The closure of Radio Free Europe is a point where the interests of Trump, Orbán, and Putin converge

Thursday, Nov 27, 2025

HVG

USAGM cuts funding to Hungarian media outlet Szabad Európa, citing US foreign policy shifts and domestic issues.

🔗 Read the article on hvg.hu

[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

The Hungarian independent media outlet Free Europe’s Hungarian news section ceased operations on November 21st after being supported by the US Global Media Agency (USAGM) since 2020. The agency’s funding was threatened by a Trump administration decree aimed at reducing government agency budgets. Despite initial efforts to secure continued support, including a court order for additional funds, hundreds of staff were placed on unpaid leave and external contracts terminated. While the US courts did not prohibit the reallocation of funds, they allowed for structural changes within Free Europe. The article critiques Donald Trump’s actions, suggesting his policies align with authoritarian tendencies and that his stance against Free Europe is partly due to its content challenging Hungarian government figures like Viktor Orbán. Furthermore, the text argues that Hungary’s press freedom has continuously declined, concluding that without internal reforms, the country risks remaining in a soft authoritarian system aligned with Russian interests.

🔗 Read the original article

Previous page Liberal or conservative – which way are young people in Europe leaning?
Next page The governments of Poland, Latvia, and Romania are calling for a coordinated European response to Russian sabotage actions and drone attacks

© 2026 Pulse - Europe beyond the beat


PULSE is an initiative for cross-border collaborative journalism in Europe co-funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement n. PO 4500158093.

PULSE is an initiative coordinated by OBCT that has been promoting intensive journalistic cross-border collaborations in Europe since 2024. Its main aim is to help strengthen the European public sphere by reporting on and telling stories from new and diverse perspectives.

At the heart of PULSE are 10 leading national news outlets (Delfi – Lithuania, Deník Referendum – Czechia, Der Standard – Austria, EfSyn – Greece, El Confidencial – Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza – Poland, HotNews – Romania, HVG – Hungary, Il Sole 24 Ore – Italy, Mediapool – Bulgaria) and three transnational organisations, including OBCT , n-ost and Voxeurop .

Additional outlets and journalists are involved as associate partners, including EUobserver , Føljeton (Denmark), H-Alter (Croatia), Levila (Estonia), Rubryka (Ukraine), and The Journal Investigates (Ireland).

PULSE is driven by a sort of virtual transnational newsroom made up of journalists from all the publications involved. It collaboratively produces new journalistic content on European issues on a daily basis, coming in many different languages. The editorial output amounts to over a thousand publications per year, mostly in article form.

PULSE also runs 4 thematic networks open to any European journalist interested in crucial issues such as EU enlargement, relations between the EU and other global powers, the EU’s green transition, or media and the information society. These networks function as online communities and periodically publish calls for pitches.