European prosecutors have searched offices in Brussels and Strasbourg as an investigation into alleged misuse of parliamentary funds by the former Identity and Democracy group raises questions over financial liabilities inherited by Patriots for Europe.

European prosecutors carried out searches at the European Parliament’s offices in Brussels and Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, as part of an investigation into alleged financial irregularities involving the former Identity and Democracy (ID) parliamentary group.

The investigation concerns approximately €4.33 million in European Union funds that were allegedly improperly spent during the 2019–2024 parliamentary term. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that searches had taken place in connection with an ongoing inquiry into the use of EU funds by a former parliamentary group.

The premises searched are now occupied by Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament’s third-largest political group, which includes France’s National Rally, Hungary’s Fidesz, Italy’s Lega and Spain’s Vox. Patriots for Europe insists that it has no legal continuity with Identity and Democracy and denies being involved in the investigation.

Investigation into parliamentary expenditure

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened its investigation in July 2025 following concerns identified by the European Parliament’s financial administration about expenditure incurred by Identity and Democracy.

The former group, which dissolved following the 2024 European elections, included representatives of France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

According to details of the parliamentary financial examination subsequently reported in France, investigators are examining approximately €3.6 million in contracts awarded to external service providers, including businesses with political connections to parties represented within the former group.

The financial examination also identified more than €700,000 in donations to organisations whose activities were allegedly unrelated to the parliamentary group’s official functions.

The authorities are examining whether parliamentary resources were used in accordance with EU financial rules, including restrictions on using public money for national party-political activities.

These are allegations under investigation, not criminal findings. The EPPO has not announced convictions arising from the current inquiry, and the individuals and organisations concerned retain the presumption of innocence.

Earlier investigative measures were conducted in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy in June 2026. Wednesday’s searches mark a further stage in the proceedings.

Can Patriots for Europe inherit the liabilities?

The investigation has opened a separate dispute over whether Patriots for Europe could be required to repay money allegedly misspent by its predecessor.

Identity and Democracy ceased to exist after the 2024 elections. Several parties previously represented in the group subsequently joined Patriots for Europe, a new parliamentary formation that also brought together Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and Spain’s Vox.

Patriots for Europe maintains that the two groups are legally separate. Its representatives argue that the dissolution of Identity and Democracy ended that group’s institutional existence and that the present parliamentary organisation is not responsible for its predecessor’s financial affairs.

However, the European Parliament’s budgetary authorities have examined whether responsibility for outstanding liabilities can pass to a successor group.

An opinion approved by the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee in September considered the circumstances in which continuity between parliamentary groups might establish financial responsibility.

Such an assessment may consider whether members, administrative personnel, operational resources and other assets were transferred from one organisation to another.

The outcome could determine whether the current group is exposed to potential repayment demands, irrespective of whether its present members were personally involved in the expenditure under investigation.

No final determination of such liability has been established through Wednesday’s searches.

Political consequences in Strasbourg

The searches come at a time when Patriots for Europe has become a major political force within the European Parliament.

Its member parties have challenged EU policy on immigration, economic regulation and the distribution of powers between Brussels and national governments. National Rally and Fidesz are also influential actors in the domestic politics of France and Hungary respectively.

An investigation involving their parliamentary organisation is therefore likely to attract scrutiny beyond the immediate financial questions.

Nevertheless, the political influence of the group and the criminal investigation must be considered separately. The presence of prosecutors at parliamentary premises does not establish wrongdoing by the current group’s MEPs.

The case also raises broader questions about financial accountability within the Parliament, particularly when a political group dissolves following an election and its members establish a new organisation.

Unlike national political parties, European parliamentary groups receive funding specifically to support their legislative, administrative and political work inside the institution.

Those resources are subject to financial controls intended to prevent their diversion into activities that should be funded by national parties or other organisations.

Further proceedings

The EPPO is responsible for investigating and prosecuting offences affecting the European Union’s financial interests. It operates independently of national governments and EU political institutions.

The European Parliament has confirmed its cooperation with the authorities but has declined to comment on the substance of the continuing investigation.

Prosecutors must now assess the evidence obtained during the searches alongside financial records and material collected during previous investigative measures.

Any decision to bring criminal proceedings would depend on the evidence available and the relevant national and European legal requirements.

Separately, the Parliament will have to establish whether any recoverable funds are owed by the former group and, if so, which organisation is legally responsible for repayment.

For Patriots for Europe, the immediate issue is not only the progress of the criminal inquiry but whether the financial arrangements of a dissolved parliamentary group can create obligations for its successor.

Unorthodox campaign is challenging the ruling party’s 14-year reign with a bold democratic experiment

On a cool autumn evening, a team of Serbian student volunteers went canvassing in the housing estates of Krnjača, a Belgrade suburb. They were equipped with lanyards emblazoned with the word “victory”, a stock list of questions and a mobile app that mapped visited homes and the level of support in each.

The volunteers were part of a mass student movement, Student List, that has rocked Serbia with two years of constant protests. On Sunday, the group will represent the most serious challenge Aleksandar Vučić has faced in his 12 increasingly authoritarian years in power, by putting forward their own candidates in parliamentary elections.

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© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Over the past decade, Hungary has been a beacon for the ‘postliberal’ right, with pro-Trump thinkers making regular pilgrimages to Budapest. Now Orbán is gone, how will the movement adapt?

• A longer version of this article first appeared in The Drift

Espresso Embassy, a third-wave coffee shop in Budapest’s diplomatic and governmental quarter, is where visiting reporters and academics come to talk politics. On the way in for my morning coffee on 18 March, I passed a poster for Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party that had been vandalised with a marker pen: “the safe choice” had become “the certain way to get fucked”. From across the cafe, I spotted the American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum locked in conversation, possibly with a source. I heard someone exclaim: “Just like Mussolini!” It was election season in Hungary.

It was also a couple of days before Cpac Hungary, a satellite event of the US-based conservative conference. As members of the international right arrived in town, the notorious Orbánist thinktank known as the Danube Institute was hosting an event called On Censorship, Tolerance, the Left and God. The official line would be: bad, good, bad, good.

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© Illustration: John Kazior

© Illustration: John Kazior

© Illustration: John Kazior

Hungary stopped a Ukrainian Oschadbank armored convoy in 2026, held its couriers, and kept $82 million in cash and gold. The European Court of Human Rights has registered six applications from the bank's couriers, who say Hungarian police unlawfully detained and tortured them.

In March, Hungarian forces stopped two bank vehicles carrying cash and bank metals from Austria to Ukraine, with seven employees transporting $40 million, 35 million euros, and nine kilograms of gold. It happened just before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which then-prime minister Viktor Orban had built his campaign around a sweeping anti-Ukraine message, and lost.

Six of the employees filed with the court on 5 July 2026, and the court’s secretariat has now confirmed their registration and assigned each an official number, according to the bank. It expects a seventh courier’s application, alleging the same violations, to be registered too.

“The fact that the ECHR has accepted the complaint and opened proceedings indicates that there are reasonable legal grounds for the case, that it has legal merit, and that the court intends to examine it on its merits,” Oschadbank says.

The rights the couriers say Hungary broke

The complaints rest on two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 3 bans torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, while Article 5 guarantees the right to liberty and protects people from arbitrary detention, the bank notes.

During the detention, one courier, a diabetic former Security Service officer, was forcibly injected with an unknown substance, which his Hungarian lawyer confirmed he received despite his objections. He then suffered a hypertensive crisis, lost consciousness and was hospitalized, and Oschadbank confirmed that medical care came only after he passed out, The Guardian reported.

Oschadbank calls the registration an important step in defending its staff. Board chairman Yury Katsion said the bank will continue to protect the couriers’ interests and its own reputation, expects a legal assessment of the Hungarian forces’ actions and is grateful to partners for their support.

Why registration is a start, not a verdict

The cases are only at an early stage. Registration does not mean the court has found a violation or ruled the complaints admissible, as it must separately weigh the procedural conditions and the circumstances the applicants describe, Oschadbank stresses.

The incident itself, however, is documented: Hungary returned the seven couriers the next day but held the cash and gold for months, releasing the vehicles on 12 March and the money and gold by May.

EU ministers have reviewed reforms introduced by Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s administration but left the Article 7 proceedings against Hungary unresolved. The European Commission has acknowledged significant progress while warning that further changes are required to restore the rule of law.

The European Union has maintained its Article 7 proceedings against Hungary despite acknowledging significant improvements in the country’s rule-of-law situation since Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government took office earlier this year.

Ministers meeting at the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Tuesday, 13 October, reviewed reforms introduced by the Hungarian administration and received an updated assessment from the European Commission.

The proceedings, initiated by the European Parliament in September 2018, remain open eight years after concerns over judicial independence, corruption, media freedom and democratic accountability first prompted action under the EU treaties.

No decision was announced to terminate the procedure following the latest meeting.

Brussels acknowledges progress

European Commissioner Michael McGrath said ahead of the discussions that Hungary had made substantial progress towards addressing the institutional problems inherited from the administration of former prime minister Viktor Orbán.

Speaking in Luxembourg, McGrath acknowledged improved cooperation between the Hungarian government and European institutions.

However, he also indicated that the reform process remained incomplete, noting that the new administration had been in office for only several months.

The Commission’s assessment reflects the changing relationship between Budapest and Brussels following Magyar’s election victory and the subsequent introduction of reforms intended to restore judicial and institutional independence.

As EU Today reported in June, the change of government created an opportunity to resolve long-standing disputes over the condition of Hungary’s democratic institutions and the suspension of European funding.

The latest Council discussions indicate that the EU is prepared to recognise reforms already undertaken without automatically treating them as sufficient to close the Article 7 procedure.

An eight-year institutional dispute

The European Parliament initiated the proceedings in 2018 after raising concerns over developments affecting Hungary’s constitutional system, judicial independence, corruption safeguards and civil society.

Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union provides mechanisms for responding when a member state is considered at risk of seriously breaching the Union’s fundamental values.

Under its preventive provisions, the Council can determine whether there is a clear risk of such a breach.

More severe measures, including the possible suspension of certain membership rights, require additional procedures and higher institutional thresholds.

Hungary’s case has remained within the preventive stage, with successive Council meetings examining the country’s legal and political developments.

The Council’s account of the 13 October meeting confirms that Hungarian representatives presented measures intended to address concerns raised by the European Parliament and member states during earlier proceedings.

The Commission also briefed ministers on its latest assessment.

The meeting did not produce a formal finding that the outstanding concerns had been fully resolved.

Magyar faces the consequences of Orbán’s legacy

Since assuming office, Magyar has sought to reverse elements of the institutional structure established during Orbán’s lengthy premiership.

The reforms have included measures concerning public administration, judicial accountability and the relationship between national institutions and European law.

The new government has also attempted to improve relations with Brussels after years of disputes that affected EU budget decisions, sanctions policy and cooperation over Ukraine.

EU Today has previously examined Magyar’s programme of institutional renewal and the political difficulties involved in changing institutions shaped by the previous administration.

Reforming legislation does not necessarily transform the institutions responsible for applying it.

Judicial appointments, regulatory structures, public procurement procedures and anti-corruption enforcement may all require additional measures before the effects of reform can be fully assessed.

The European Commission must therefore consider not only the laws adopted by the new government but also whether the institutions concerned operate independently and effectively.

EU funding remains a separate question

The Article 7 proceedings are closely associated with wider disputes over Hungary’s access to European funding, although the relevant legal mechanisms are different.

During Orbán’s administration, the Commission and Council used financial conditionality procedures to restrict access to certain EU resources because of concerns affecting the protection of the Union’s budget.

Magyar’s reforms have opened the possibility of reversing some of those restrictions.

As EU Today reported in September, the Commission moved towards releasing €4.2 billion following changes intended to address rule-of-law concerns.

The financial decisions involve compliance with conditions attached to EU funding and can proceed independently of the Article 7 mechanism.

Consequently, the release of money does not automatically establish that all the institutional problems identified in the original parliamentary proceedings have been resolved.

Likewise, the continuation of Article 7 does not necessarily prevent the Commission from recognising progress under separate funding arrangements.

Who can end the proceedings?

McGrath addressed the possibility of terminating the procedure during remarks before Tuesday’s meeting.

He explained that the Commission could provide its assessment but did not have unilateral authority to bring the Article 7 process to an end.

In his recorded statement in Luxembourg, the Commissioner pointed to the responsibilities of the European Parliament, which initiated the case, and the Council, which has conducted the subsequent examination.

The institutional arrangements mean that improved relations between the Commission and the Hungarian government cannot by themselves dispose of the proceedings.

The Council must consider the reforms and the remaining concerns within the framework established by the treaties.

Political agreement among member states will consequently be required to determine how the process develops.

A changed relationship with Brussels

The latest discussions take place against a substantially different political background from previous years.

Budapest has recently withdrawn objections to further steps in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations following Ukrainian legislation addressing educational rights for Hungarian speakers and other national minorities.

The change has removed one obstacle to enlargement negotiations and reflects the government’s more cooperative approach towards other EU institutions.

Nevertheless, Hungary’s position on foreign policy and enlargement is distinct from the assessment of its domestic rule-of-law arrangements.

The Council’s examination remains focused on the institutional concerns that led to the procedure being initiated.

The Irish presidency’s summary of the October Council meeting confirms that ministers received an update rather than reaching a new formal determination.

The proceedings therefore remain open while the Commission and member states continue examining the measures introduced by Magyar’s administration.

The coming decisions will establish how European institutions respond when a new government undertakes reforms intended to reverse the conduct that originally led to action under Article 7.

For Hungary, the outcome will influence its relationship with Brussels well beyond the immediate debate over EU funding. For the Union, it will demonstrate how its rule-of-law procedures operate when political circumstances change and the member state concerned begins addressing previously identified institutional problems.

Was in Ungarn derzeit passiert, ist nur schwer zu verstehen. Dort tobt ein Skandal wegen eines banalen Vorfalls aus dem Jahr 2024, bei dem der heutige ungarische Regierungschef Magyar in einem Nachtclub einem Gast, der ihn filmte, das Mobiltelefon entrissen und in die Donau geworfen hat. Das entsprechende Strafverfahren war bereits eingestellt, wurde nun aber […]