Reading time: 2 minutes
During his keynote address on day two of the Battle for the Soul of Europe Conference in Brussels, Balázs Orbán, Political Director to the Prime Minister of Hungary and Chairman of MCC's Board of Trustees, warned that the European political elite is using the war in Ukraine to push further centralisation at the expense of national sovereignty and free speech. He argued that the current EU leadership is incapable of ending the conflict through diplomacy and is instead strengthening technocratic control. The day opened with remarks by John O’Brien, Head of Communications at MCC Brussels, who urged participants to defend Europe as a civilisation built on nations, culture, and the freedom to speak truthfully.
Earlier plenary and keynote sessions focused heavily on speech, identity, and institutional power. Mathieu Bock-Côté, Sociologist and Public Intellectual, described European institutions as being absorbed into a project of social engineering driven by mass migration, radical ideology, and the policing of speech. In the free speech panel, Alice Cordier, President and Co-founder of Collectif Némésis, linked public insecurity and women’s safety to migration policy, while Thomas Fazi, Journalist and Author, warned that EU-backed content regulation and fact-checking networks amount to institutionalised online censorship. Claire Fox, Member of the House of Lords and Director of the Academy of Ideas, described the expansion of police powers over online speech in the United Kingdom as the legalisation of cancel culture. In the migration sessions, Fabrice Leggeri, MEP and Former Director of Frontex, called for dismantling the current asylum system and strengthening returns, while Eoin Lenihan, Independent Journalist, warned that Ireland is facing social breakdown under de facto open borders, and António Tânger Corrêa, MEP and Vice President of Chega, said border failure is accelerating Europe’s cultural and historical decline.
The afternoon turned toward political power, youth, and culture. Matt Goodwin, Political Scientist and Author, portrayed the United Kingdom as undergoing a demographic and political transformation driven by mass migration and institutional bias, while Thierry Mariani, MEP, said nationalist forces now possess real governing potential in Europe. Youth speakers including Édouard Bina, President of La Cocarde Étudiante, and Sara Silva, Co-founder of A Cruzada, called for greater mobilisation of young conservatives across Europe. The final sessions featured Miriam Cates, TV Presenter at GB News, and Balázs Hidvéghi, Deputy Minister and Parliamentary State Secretary in the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, both of whom argued that traditional morality, national identity, and cultural institutions are under systematic attack. Across the day, speakers repeatedly returned to the message that Europe is now facing a decisive struggle over sovereignty, speech, borders, and its civilisational identity.
