Author: admin

There was a bloodbath on the streets of Germany after two extended Lebanese family groups fought in a battle that reportedly involved 100 people in the city of Heiligenhaus. The two groups battled using machetes, knives, and other weapons, leading to a mass police operation that resulted in at least five serious injuries, including one that is life-threatening. Police made several arrests.

German police forces arrived from cities near and far, including Cologne, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Bochum, and the entire Mattmann district was deployed. Special operations units were sent to control the crowd and at least one police helicopter was utilized.

At around 7:50 p.m., large crowds began gathering at Harzstrasse in Heiligenhaus in North-Rheine Westphalia.

The street with the incident was reportedly covered in blood stains, with video showcasing chaotic scenes involving victims being wheeled away in stretchers.

The two groups reportedly punched, stabbed and used impact weapons on each other.

According to a police report, an intended divorce between two of the involved parties is believed to have triggered the incident.

“The situation was very chaotic in the early stages. We have brought in numerous forces to make the situation static and freeze,” said a spokeswoman for the police to Bild newspaper.

Police have locked down the local hospitals where the victims are being treated out of fear of further violence after more family members arrived. Riot police dispersed these family members from the scene and police protection units are guarding patients.

The area is known to be a hotspot for crime. Just a few weeks ago, there were major SEK police operations in Harzstrasse after 35-year-old Mahmoud M., the knife attacker in Bielefeld, was arrested for injuring five people in front of a bar.

The longest, mostly cloudless days have arrived, and Hungary’s domestic solar power capacity is now large enough to produce a significant amount of electricity. It may even be exported, but after dusk, Hungary is still forced to import. However, the long-term sustainability of the energy system requires, in addition to green energy, stable nuclear power plants, flexible gas power plants, expanding storage and a reliable network background.

Solar peak and evening shortage

“On Monday afternoon, around 1:15 p.m., thanks to the significant production of solar power plants, exports amounted to about 1,700 MW. In contrast, around 8:15 p.m., industrial solar power plants had already ‘gone to sleep,’ so they could only provide about 3 MW of capacity out of the installed 4,609 MW, so imports had already increased to 3,400 MW at this time,” nuclear energy expert Zsolt Hárfás noted in his Facebook post, and the numbers were similar in the following days.

As a basis for comparison, it is worth considering the country’s largest electricity producer, the 2,000 MW Paks nuclear power plant. From this perspective, exports account for 85 percent of Paks’ capacity, while imports account for 170 percent.

According to the expert, these figures also support the need for a further extension of the operating life of the Paks nuclear power plant and the Paks II investment. In addition to new gas power plant investments, the development of energy storage and the electricity grid is also important. All of the listed items are under implementation.

Large and stable nuclear power plant capacities

The operating life of the existing units of the Paks nuclear power plant is planned to be extended by another 20 years, after the current licenses of the four units expire between 2052 and 2057. The necessary legislation has already been adopted by parliament; the operating life extension process has begun and is expected to last a decade.

The investment costs exceed €1.5 billion, or about HUF 600 billion, as the renovation list of the facility, which was put into operation in the first half of the 1980s, includes approximately 250 items, including the modernization of the electrical and control systems.

Meanwhile, the Paks II investment continues, with units 5 and 6 of the Paks nuclear power plant, each with 1,200 MW, scheduled to start generating electricity at the beginning of the next decade. The role of these units in the electricity system is to continuously and stably produce large amounts of electricity.

Fossil flexibility for the green transition

There is also a need for gas-fired power plants that can be regulated quickly, even in a fraction of a second, to ensure flexibility. When solar power plants go out of production, something else must immediately take their place, and gas power plants are suitable for this. The greater the installed renewable energy capacity of a country, the more extreme production situations can develop. These can be partly managed by integrating gas power plants into the system, which play a balancing role.

There are currently two gas power plant projects underway in Hungary: 650 MW in the Mátra Power Plant and 1,000 MW in Tiszaújváros, which will be put into production within a few years.

Storage instead of export

When renewables produce so much electricity that we don’t use it domestically, there is an opportunity to export it. However, excessive overproduction can sometimes lead to negative prices on the stock exchange, which is obviously not ideal. It is better to store the excess electricity locally, which we can use when domestic consumption picks up. Prices also jump at this time, but we are not exposed to this if we can access the electricity in storage.

There is currently 100 MW of storage capacity available, which the Ministry of Energy plans to increase tenfold by the end of the decade, partly with the 50 billion forint support of the Jedlik Ányos energy program.

In addition, large companies are also known for their energy storage investments. Mavir, the Hungarian Electricity Transmission System Operator, recently handed over its first 20 MW/60 MWh capacity electricity storage facility in Szolnok.

Alteo already has three (in Budapest, Győr and Sopron), and E.On is now building a new one in Soroksár after Zánka.

The growing power plant and storage park, as well as the ever-increasing consumption, are increasingly using the transmission network, which, if it cannot cope, can easily lead to power outages. Mavir and the three network distribution companies (E.On , MVM, Opus Titász) have the responsibility to serve consumer needs with a transmission infrastructure of adequate capacity. Mavir is planning investments worth HUF 88 billion this year, and the distributors are also reporting continuous developments.

Hungarian farmers are being warned by Hungary’s opposition party in a very instructive tone to prepare for Ukraine’s EU membership. Orbán’s top electoral rival, Péter Magyar, featured his party’s agricultural expert, Lőrinc Varga, at a forum.

On Friday, June 20, a Tisza forum was held in Bonyhád, at which the party’s vice-chairman Márk Radnai, the party’s law enforcement expert Ruthenian-Szendi Romulus, and Lőrinc Varga also spoke.

“What is very important from a policy perspective is that this kind of Ukrainian influence can only be overcome from an efficiency of scale perspective,” said Lőrinc Varga in Bonyhád. The Tisza expert was barely veiledly criticizing Hungarian farmers with this, and spoke in an instructive tone about how they would change their operations in the event of Ukraine’s accession. Meanwhile, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi laughed, causing some to question why he would be laughing over what will clearly be a struggle for Hungarian farmers.

At Friday’s forum, Lőrinc Varga discussed at length what Hungarian farmers should do if Ukraine joins the EU:

“What is very important from a policy perspective is that this kind of Ukrainian influence can only be overcome from an efficiency of scale perspective. Imagine, we are talking about 500 hectares of fields in Ukraine, on average, not a farm, a field that the machine pulls out to collect, does the operation lines and goes on to the next one. In Hungary, the average farm size at the moment – ​​if I remember correctly – is 22 hectares, a farm, not a field. Let’s compare. We can only compete with Ukrainian agricultural production capacity if we think in terms of added value,” he said.

Varga, in his delivery, appeared to practically treat Ukraine’s EU accession as a fait accompli, and neither Ruszin-Szendi nor Radnai contradicted him on this issue. This is not surprising, because Vice President Márk Radnai himself announced the results of the Tisza Party’s opinion poll, according to which 58 percent of the participants were in favor of Ukrainian membership.

It is true that the turnout at the Tisza consultation did not reach half of the votes cast in the government’s opinion referendum, but it still serves as a reference point in Zelensky’s circles.

Moreover, Lőrinc Varga and his family are not far from public appearances and scandal. The agricultural expert’s mother, Zsuzsanna László-Varga, was the director general of the Tolna County Government Office. The former director general made headlines in 2015 when he assaulted Kálmán Horváth, the then government commissioner of Tolna County, at a gas station. The case was covered in the press, and the county daily newspaper also reported on it:

According to information, Zsuzsanna László-Varga got into a conflict with the Tolna County government commissioner at a gas station in Paks. A fight and shouting match occurred, which an eyewitness recalled, Teol.hu wrote.

Lőrinc Varga first appeared in the Tisza Party this year, as an agricultural expert in addition to organizing events. For example, at the first congress of the Tisza Party, agricultural engineer Szabolcs Bóna, soil renewal consultant Attila Kökény, and farmer Lőrinc Varga from Bonyhád sat next to Péter Magyar at the agricultural policy roundtable.

It is worth noting that another advisor to Péter Magyar, György Raskó, previously argued in favor of Ukraine joining the EU. According to the Tisza Party agricultural expert, “Ukraine’s successful resistance against the barbaric eastern hordes represents the hope, future, and renaissance of Europe.”

In his post, György Raskó directly wrote, “Ukraine will be Europe’s eastern bulwark.”

If Ukraine does indeed join the EU, it poses a significant challenge not just for Hungarian farmers, but also for all of the bloc’s farmers. Ukraine has tremendously larger plots of land, which has led it to traditionally be called the “breadbasket of Europe.” That includes 41.3 million hectares of land being used for farm production, including 32.7 million hectares of arable land.

There are massive economies of scale in Ukraine that are not available, for instance, in Hungary, which features more family farms and smaller plots of land.

If Ukraine obtains EU membership, it will also dramatically alter its market and allow for international institutions to buy up farmland. These corporations could consolidate farmland and create even more efficient operations, which would harm EU farmers further due to a glut of exports.

This article is published courtesy of Poland’s Ordo Iuris Centre for Research and Analysis

• The Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruled on June 10 that the EU Directive establishing the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) is incompatible with the Polish Constitution, as it was adopted beyond the powers granted to the European Union by Poland.

• The Tribunal’s reasoning fully aligns with the proposal of the Ordo Iuris Institute in this regard, presented in its report on the possibility for Poland to withdraw from the European Green Deal.

• The effects of the ruling remain an open question. On the one hand, repealing the act implementing the ETS Directive may expose Poland to penalties imposed by the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU); on the other hand, it may serve as a clear signal, potentially inspiring representatives of other Member States to oppose the Green Deal.

Ordo Iuris report proposing to repeal the Green Deal through the Constitutional Tribunal

In early April, the Ordo Iuris Institute published a report indicating the legal means by which Poland could free itself from the European Green Deal (here in Polish). One of the proposals in the report was for the Constitutional Tribunal to declare the Green Deal incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. However, since the Constitutional Tribunal does not have competence to directly review secondary EU law, Ordo Iuris proposed that the ruling should formally take the form of a so-called “scope judgment.” In other words, according to the authors, the Tribunal could rule that the relevant EU Treaty is incompatible with the Constitution to the extent that it serves as the legal basis for a given legal act (regulation or directive). The Polish Constitutional Tribunal is undoubtedly competent to review the compliance of international agreements with the Polish Constitution – this follows directly from Article 188(1) of the Polish Constitution.

Substantively, the incompatibility with the Constitution would lie in the fact that these legal acts were issued in violation of the principles under which Poland conferred powers on the European Union. It should be emphasized that the European Union holds no powers other than those conferred on it by the Member States through its founding treaties (this is the “principle of conferral”). What, specifically, would the violation of these principles consist of in this case?

It is a matter of having issued secondary legislation without achieving unanimity in the Council of the European Union – the body composed of representatives of Member States’ governments, whose consent is required for the adoption of EU regulations and directives. According to Article 192(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the adoption of EU legal acts in the field of the environment that primarily have fiscal implications or significantly affect a Member State’s choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply requires unanimity in the Council. However, none of the acts falling within the scope of the Green Deal were adopted in this manner, but rather through the ordinary legislative procedure, requiring a 55% majority in the Council.

Constitutional Tribunal ruling K 10/24 in line with Ordo Iuris’ argumention

The Ordo Iuris Institute’s proposal was undoubtedly bold, and it was uncertain whether Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal would adopt it and thereby risk confrontation with EU institutions. However, on June 10, the Tribunal decided to adopt it in full.

Specifically, in case K 10/24, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled: “Article 192(1) in conjunction with Article 192(2)(c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (OJ 2004 No. 90, item 864/2, as amended), interpreted in such a way that the unanimity requirement of the Council is limited to measures whose primary intended result—arising from their purpose or content—is to significantly affect the Republic of Poland’s choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply, is incompatible with Article 2, Article 7, Article 8(1), Article 90(1) in conjunction with Article 4(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.”

The essence of this ruling can be summarized as follows: adopting the Directive establishing the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) without achieving unanimity in the EU Council is incompatible with the Polish Constitution. The Tribunal further emphasized that: “It is not possible […] to adopt a pro-constitutional interpretation of primary EU law that negates the fundamental principles of this organization: the principle of conferred powers, the principle of loyalty and mutual cooperation, or the principle of subsidiarity.” In other words, the Tribunal indicated that Poland, by transferring (under Article 90 of the Constitution) certain competences of state authority to the European Union, did not agree for EU bodies to unilaterally expand the scope of those competences without any control by Poland. The Tribunal also stressed that transferring any competences to the European Union cannot result in Poland losing its sovereign status—including energy sovereignty.

Effects of the ruling – what next?

The effects of the ruling require clarification. First, it should be recalled that EU directives require implementation, meaning that in Poland, the ETS functions not directly on the basis of the directive but on the basis of the Act of 12 June 2015 on the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme.

Regarding this act, the Tribunal noted: “The ruling does not apply to the provisions of the Act of 12 June 2015 on the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme and the executive acts to this Act, as these were not indicated as the subject of review in this case.” At the same time, however, the Tribunal called on the legislative authority, i.e., the Sejm, to take appropriate action to implement the ruling—in practice, to repeal the said act.

What, then, will be the consequences of the ruling under EU law, which is, understandably, not bound by decisions of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal? As the Ordo Institute indicated in its report, Poland essentially has three options.

The first and most far-reaching—hence the least likely—is to leave the European Union.

The second is to remain in the Union, repeal the implementing act, and accept the possibility of penalties being imposed on Poland by the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU for non-implementation. This would require calculating which would be more costly for Polish citizens—paying penalties or applying harmful EU solutions that fundamentally contribute to rising energy prices.

Finally, the third option would be to work towards repealing the directive at the EU level—either through the legislative process or via proceedings before the CJEU. This would undoubtedly be the most advantageous solution. Its success, however, depends on decisions by external actors, beyond Poland’s control.

In any case, the fact remains that the Constitutional Tribunal has sent both EU institutions and citizens and politicians in other Member States a clear signal that opposition to the Green Deal is both possible and legally justified. If this ruling is followed by actions from the Polish political class, both domestically and at the EU level, aimed at implementing it, one can hope—as the Ordo Iuris Institute expressed in its report—that this signal will not be isolated but will inspire similar actions in other countries. The emergence of an international coalition opposing the Green Deal, particularly one supported by the current US administration, could force EU institutions to review their stance and revise the adopted measures, particularly by abandoning the utopian goal of making the economy climate-neutral by 2050.

Belgian conservative-nationalist Dries Van Langenhove has again been sentenced on appeal to one year in prison as a suspended sentence for what the judge said were violations of the Racism and Negationism Act.

The sentence stems from racist memes that were not even posted by him, but by members of a group chat he administrated seven years ago.

The sentence was delivered today by the Court of Appeal in Ghent, although Van Langenhove does not accept the sentence, and the case now goes into cassation.

On X, Van Langenhove simply wrote, “Guilty. 12 months in jail. Madness.”

Guilty. 12 months in jail. Madness.

— Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove) June 20, 2025

He later clarified upon receipt of the written verdict that the custodial sentence “appears to be a suspended sentence,” which he suspects is “most likely because the prisons in Belgium are literally full of illegal migrants.”

“Most people don’t realize that the end result of such a sentence is the same. One politically incorrect tweet can now put me in jail. One meme sent by someone else in a group chat I am in can turn the suspended sentence into an effective one. This suspended sentence is the gravest form of censorship they could pursue and an effective way to kill activism,” he added.

I just received the written verdict. It's very long so it will take time to analyse everything, but the 12 month prison sentence appears to be a suspended sentence.

The irony is that I have been fighting against mass migration for well over a decade now, and it has gotten me a… pic.twitter.com/8aeAxzXsLz

— Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove) June 20, 2025

Last year, Van Langenhove was sentenced to a one-year prison sentence and a fine of €16,000. He would also be sentenced to be deprived of his right to stand for election for a maximum term of 10 years, but he appealed this verdict in a lower court.

Van Langenhove ran a chat in 2018, but a broadcast from Pano news outlet showed how members exchanged thousands of potentially racist and sexist messages. This included several hundred memes or internet cartoons.

Van Langenhove contended they were jokes and indicated he did not post anything himself. Seven members of the group chat faced criminal prosecution.

Notably, the case in a country like the United States would have never gone to trial due to freedom of expression enshrined in the constitution. However, Belgium and a range of EU countries have not only beefed up hate speech laws but are also using them to prosecute political dissidents and anti-immigration activists, with Van Langenhove now one of the most high-profile targets.

After several delays, the Court of Appeal in Ghent delivered its sentence today.

Van Langenhove was convicted of violations of the Racism and Negationism Act, but the court argued that since the facts date from seven years ago, they merit a lighter sentence. The one-year prison sentence is fully postponed, and the fine is still €16,000. Van Langenhove will also not be deprived of his civil rights.

“It is a black day for free speech, for Flanders, and for Europe,” said Van Langenhove when he came out. “Me, my family, and my environment have been terrorized for humor in a private chat group for seven years. Unfortunately, the court never wanted to listen to me, even now.”

The court, however, found that Van Langenhove cannot use humor as a defense “if the real intention is to incite hatred.”

“In the private Facebook and Discord group, by the way, not only jokes and cartoons were sent, but also many other, ordinary messages that show that Shield & Friends (the chat group’s name) apparently and repeatedly proclaimed discrimination and racism.”

The court argued that even though Van Langenhove did not send the messages, he was responsible.

“He didn’t have it removed, even though he had the option to do so,” said the Court.

It rejected that VRT journalists manipulated the content of the messages, which Van Langenhove claimed.

The Court of Cassation will now review the legality of the judicial decisions, but will not examine the facts themselves. In most cases, the court determines whether the trial should be repeated.

“If necessary, I will then go to the European Court,” said Van Langenhove. “I certainly don’t give up the fight.”

Van Langenhove was on trial with five other defendants, who will receive 80 hours of work and fines of €1,600. However, two others will be sentenced to three years in prison with deferment.

One defendant who expressed regret was convicted, but his term will be suspended under separate conditions.

The case has been broadly watched as a litmus test on free speech conditions in Europe, with the European model focusing less on freedom of speech and more on controlled speech, especially on issues related to race, sex, and immigration.

Furthermore, questions have been raised about how access was obtained to the chat group in the first place, with allegations that a hack attack was conducted.

A member of the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) is now criticizing the practice of “church asylum,” which he says is a violation of European law.

Alexander Throm, the domestic policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, said that in these cases, the migrants in question are not even being deported back to their home countries, but are instead headed to the EU countries where these migrants were first registered.

“What’s remarkable is that almost all of these church asylum cases—there were around 2,300 or 2,400 such cases across Germany last year—are so-called Dublin cases,” Throm told RTL/ntv’s Frühstart program on Wednesday. He said they are not being sent home, but “returned to the EU country actually responsible for their asylum procedure, i.e., a safe country where a proper asylum procedure is guaranteed.”

Church asylum is the controversial practice where churches shelter migrants from deportation on church grounds; however, nearly all of the migrants who arrived in Germany passed through many safe countries on their way. As a result, Germany has the right to deport many of them back, including to countries like Poland, Italy, and Greece, under the Dublin rules.

“I believe the churches are taking the wrong side here,” Throm said. He said they were undermining EU law “by keeping people in church asylum so long that the time limits have expired, then they are also undermining European law.”

Now, he is calling for the state’s handling of church asylum cases to be rethought, “especially in Dublin cases.”

There is no actual law preventing the state from removing the migrants who are under deportation violations, but there is a “tacit agreement,” according to Welt, that protects these migrants.

The Church has increasingly resorted to using church asylum to shield migrants. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) reported that in 2024, there were 2,386 cases, a jump of 300 compared to 2023.