Following a spill of a green liquid on the grounds of the CATL battery factory in Debrecen (eastern Hungary), Hungarian authorities are taking action. The TISZA government is warning of serious health risks and putting pressure on the Chinese battery giant.

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The Hajdú-Bihar County Government [in Hungary] launched proceedings against the Chinese battery manufacturer CATL on Friday. The reason for this is an incident on the evening of May 5, 2026, in which the company discharged “green liquid waste” into the local sewer system in violation of regulations.

As an immediate consequence, the responsible water authority revoked the permit for the plant’s industrial wastewater pre-treatment. In addition, the company was legally required to clean the affected municipal sewage network as well as the stormwater drainage system.

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The incident has gained significant explosive power due to the shifting political power dynamics in Hungary. Zsolt Tárkányi, a TISZA MP from Debrecen, had previously alerted the public that dangerous chemicals had been detected in the liquid gushing from the ground—including the teratogenic solvent NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone), which is used in battery production. With the TISZA party behind them, these allegations now carry the weight of state authority.

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Archived

A worker died at the construction site of BYD‘s first European car factory in Hungary, the second death there this year, intensifying scrutiny of labour and environmental conditions at the Chinese automaker’s upcoming plant.

The Chinese national died after being struck by a truck at the site in the southern city of Szeged, the Csongrad-Csanad county police said.

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It was the second death at the site this year.

In mid-February, a worker was killed during a loading and crane operation on a Saturday shift.

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In May, a Chinese worker in his 40s survived after a truck ran over his leg, the ambulance service said, leaving him seriously injured but stable.

The incidents have sharpened attention on conditions at the project, which Magyar Hang has documented since March, when an industry source speaking on condition of anonymity described overcrowded vehicles without licence plates, roads covered in mud and water, dangerous ditches, fights among workers and labourers being ferried in vehicle boots.

The New York-based group China Labor Watch has alleged systemic abuses at the site, including excessive hours, withheld wages, opaque pay records and irregular use of visas.

Its director, Li Qiang, said Chinese workers laboured seven days a week, nine to 12 hours a day, often without rest days, with one worker’s annual overtime exceeding 1,200 hours.

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BYD has faced comparable allegations abroad, often centred on its contractors. In December 2024, Brazilian authorities halted construction of a BYD plant in Camacari, in the northeastern state of Bahia, after finding more than 160 Chinese workers hired by a contractor in conditions they described as “slavery-like.”

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The Szeged project has also drawn an environmental investigation. Hungarian authorities are examining claims that contaminated soil was moved from the construction site to farmland nearby.

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Authorities allege the company removed humus-rich topsoil without the required measurements or notification and spread it across about 20 hectares of farmland, a tenth of which was found to be contaminated with alkylbenzenes, according to local media.

The latest tests showed levels no longer above the legal limit, but affected farmers have been told to destroy crops grown on the land or face fines of up to 150 million forints ($490,000).

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Archived

Human rights NGO’s report says routine denial of war crimes and glorification of convicted war criminals form part of deliberate strategy to sow division and undermine democratic values.

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A new report published on Monday says denial of the war crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars is routinely used by those in power in Serbia to discredit opponents, civil society organisations and independent media, particularly during periods of political tension and public dissent.

The report by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia, covering 2025, documents widespread denial of the war crimes committed during the 1990s both by officials and institutions in Serbia.

The report, titled “State of Denial – Serbia 2025: War Criminals as Distinguished Citizens” (pdf), identified at least 110 instances of denial of war crimes committed during the 1990s and around 60 cases of glorification involving 10 convicted war criminals, as well as 50 cases of various forms of war-crimes denial.

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The report notes that, like in previous years, denial of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces remained the single most frequently denied crime in 2025, with 30 documented cases of denial.

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It says that as in previous years, representatives of the executive branch, from the President through to the Prime Minister and ministers and various institutions, are at the forefront of denying and relativising war crimes.

“We knew that the denial and relativisation of war crimes had become one of the central pillars of politics in Serbia. It is a primary tool for fomenting hatred … The past year was a clear example that the goal of denial and the misuse of the wartime past is, in fact, the destruction of our society’s democratic capacities,” said Sofija Todorovic, director of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia.

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The report identifies the death of convicted war criminal Nebojsa Pavkovic as the most significant example of war-crimes denial and glorification in Serbia last year. State institutions and pro-government media used his illness and death to portray him as a distinguished military officer while downplaying or denying the crimes for which he was convicted. Pavkovic became the first war criminal from the 1990s to be buried in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens, with full military honours, which the report describes as a “dangerous precedent”.

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Chauvinistic rhetoric against Croatian citizens, as well as Serbian citizens with dual citizenship, intensified in 2025. The report mapped five of the most indicative cases of rights violations and analysed more than 20 discriminatory statements made by high-ranking officials in Serbia and pro-government media that labelled Croatian citizens and Serbian citizens belonging to the Croatian minority as “Ustasha”, referencing the Croatian fascist organisation of the 1940s.

In his reaction to accusations against the government that it had used a sonic weapon at the opposition protest on 15 March, former Prime Minister Milos Vucevic stated that this was a lie “just as the crimes in Markale and Racak are lies.”

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Archived

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9685535

• Ukraine to decide who represents Europe in Russia talks, Zelenskiy says
• US responds “positively” to Ukrainian ask on air defence licenses, Zelenskiy says
• Trump plans to ask US arms firms to produce air defence missiles under license ​in Ukraine, Europe, Zelenskiy says

Ukraine will decide who represents Europe in any negotiations with ‌Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with Ukrainian media published late on Sunday.

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Zelenskiy said that Ukraine was discussed “at greater length than ever before” ​at a European Council meeting last week.

“We discussed Europe’s role in the dialogue with ⁠the Russians and what that role should be,” he said.

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“Europe will consider the format and propose several options, but Ukraine will decide who ​represents Europe in the negotiations. That is fair.”

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In March, the Washington Post uncovered court records alleging brutal conditions inside the car-maker’s Brazilian factory. That came just a few weeks before The World first reported on evidence of forced labor at the company’s new factory in Szeged, Hungary.

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An investigation conducted by the labor rights group China Labor Watch said the electric vehicle maker used a complex web of subcontractors that flew in Chinese migrant laborers to build the plant, alleging laborers consistently faced excessive hours, seven-day work weeks, withheld wages and fear of retaliation.

The probe prompted Hungarian officials to conduct their own investigation. The findings haven’t yet been released, but a spokesperson for the county office where the BYD factory is located told The World in an email that authorities have sanctioned three companies associated with the factory’s construction and imposed a fine on one of them.

“The [Csongrád-Csanád County] Government Office continues to regularly monitor compliance with occupational safety regulations and the matters raised in the report by China Labor Watch, and will, if necessary, enforce lawful and safe working conditions through further proceedings,” the spokesperson said.

For labor rights experts, Hungary’s response to the forced labor allegations is the latest example of countries taking a firmer stance against Chinese businesses operating abroad.

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Hungary’s investigation and recent actions by the Brazilian government — which sued BYD and officially added the company to the country’s forced labor list in response to labor issues discovered within the company’s Brazilian plant — mark a potential “sea change” in how nations are treating Chinese investment.

“With these kinds of migrant workers,” [Laura Murphy, a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom] said, “governments are realizing that they are responsible for those workers, and that, in fact, having exploited laborers from other countries undercuts the labor opportunities for their own workers, and also brings down the labor standards for the workers in their own countries.”

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According to Murphy, labor issues like those at BYD’s international plants are commonplace within China, and real change would have to come at the behest of local officials in Hungary — not Chinese companies themselves.

In recent weeks, there has been some indication that that could happen. Former Prime Minister Victor Orban, who cozied up to China and promoted BYD’s investment in the country, was ousted by voters in April.

The newly-elected Tisza party nowappears to be taking a firmer stance. Officials at the national level haven’t directly addressed labor issues at the BYD plant. But late last month, the country launched an environmental investigation into the factory that could pose a major problem for the company’s European expansion.

Archived

The management of the factory has previously faced accusations of forced laobur and inhumane working conditions.

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Opposition parties in [Serbia’s] Zrenjanin City Assembly announced that the tragedy that occurred last night at the Chinese Linglong tire factory in Zrenjanin, when a 20-year-old worker died, is “another picture of the catastrophic state of safety and working conditions,” reports the Beta agency.

“When organizations and opposition parties warned of numerous shortcomings and illegalities in the functioning of Linglong, Aleksandar Vučić’s regime claimed that these were lies. When the competent institutions of the USA and France banned the import of tires from this factory due to slave and forced labor, as well as the poor conditions in which workers work, Aleksandar Vučić’s regime turned a blind eye,” they stated in a press release.

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They added that the regime in Serbia “allowed the Chinese to turn a factory on Serbian soil into a territory where domestic laws do not apply and all previous workplace injuries are concealed from the public.”

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They also asked Mayor Sima Salapuri if he would now apologize to the citizens because, as they stated, he had previously laughed at all the criticism directed at occupational safety in Linglong.

The statement was signed by the Democratic Party, the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina - Vojvođani, the People’s Movement of Serbia, Serbia Center, and the Movement of Free Citizens.

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Democratic Party leader Srdjan Milivojevic has called Linglong a symbol of Vucic’s using Serbia as a means of trading.

“It is yet more proof that the price of Vucic’s trading the state is no longer paid only with polluted soil, sold out resources and humiliation of Serbia, but also with human lives,” Milivojevic stressed.

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Previously, in 2024, the German company MAN Truck & Bus, part of the Traton Group, which is owned by the German automobile giant Volkswagen, terminated the contract on the supply of tires from the factory of the Chinese company Linglong in Zrenjanin due to allegations of human rights violations during the construction of the factory, BIRN and the German Manager Magazine revealed.

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In 2025, following reports of labour exploitation at the Linglong factory in Zrenjanin, US Customs said it was halting all shipments of its tyres from Serbia.

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Spain’s Supreme Court has sentenced former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos, once a senior figure in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE), to 24 years in prison for his role in a corruption scheme linked to the award of face mask contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court also sentenced his former aide Koldo García to 19 years in prison and businessman Víctor de Aldama to four and a half years.

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The court found that Ábalos received a series of benefits in exchange for promoting business interests. These included a monthly payment of €10,000 for what were described as his “fixed expenses”, the payment of housing costs for a person in his inner circle and the hiring of two women linked to the former minister at public companies overseen by the Transport Ministry.

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The Supreme Court’s decision is particularly significant because it is the first major final conviction involving a former senior member of Sánchez’s administration.

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Archived

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Zapatero, who governed Spain from 2004 to 2011, was placed under formal investigation last month for alleged influence peddling in connection with the bailout of small airline Plus Ultra in 2021. Plus Ultra received €53 million of public money after the Covid-19 pandemic paralyzed global travel.

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Sanchez vowed to clean up Spanish politics when he took power in 2018 after the main conservative Popular Party (PP) was convicted in its own graft affair. But a two-year-long investigation into his wife Begona Gomez for alleged influence peddling had already shaken the government, with a decision to send her to trial potentially coming in days. Verdicts are also due in separate corruption trials of Sanchez’s former right-hand man Jose Luis Abalos and his brother David Sanchez.

Recent revelations about an ongoing police probe into a former Socialist activist suspected of leading a plot to sabotage investigations into Sanchez’s entourage have piled further pressure on the government. Amid the relentless stream of negative headlines, the Socialists have suffered four regional election drubbings since late 2025, in a possible precursor to next year’s national vote.

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Meanwhile, the president of the People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, links the Spanish government’s stance on China in Brussels to the influence of Zapatero and Huawei.

In recent months, EU institutions have intensified debates on the need to correct trade imbalances with Beijing, especially in sectors considered strategic such as clean technologies, electric vehicles, telecommunications, or critical raw materials … This strategy is particularly driven by countries like France, which have long called for a more forceful response to what they consider distorting trade practices and unequal access to markets.

“That Spain is the European exception with the company Huawei, we will someday know why. It is legitimate to wonder if this has to do with Zapatero’s entrepreneurial activities,” stated the Popular leader, referring to former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

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The statements come at a particularly delicate time for the Chinese company [Huawei] within European institutions. Over the last few years, Brussels has progressively tightened its scrutiny of critical infrastructures and telecommunications networks, promoting control mechanisms to limit potential risks associated with suppliers considered high-risk by some member states.

In this context, the Spanish position has generated debate among various European political actors, especially among those governments that advocate for a more restrictive policy regarding investments and technologies from China.

[It is noteworthy that Zapatero has also been a leading figure and co-founder of the Gate Center, a Chinese lobbying group in Spain.]

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Some experts claim that Zapatero case puts Europe’s “elite capture” problem back in the spotlight.

“The political and systemic risk is evident,” [Beniamino Irdi, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and board member of Decode39] said. Russia and China seek to acquire influence and strategic leverage inside Europe through gradual, long-term efforts designed to shape political decision-making, weaken institutions and expand their influence.

Regardless of where the investigation ultimately leads, the episode is likely to intensify a debate that is already growing across Europe: whether democratic institutions are adequately prepared to confront sophisticated foreign influence campaigns operating below the threshold of traditional espionage or coercion.

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Archived

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9679003

When a Facebook group dedicated to selling second-hand clothes or home fragrances suddenly starts posting about government scandals and geopolitical conspiracies, most users scroll past without a second thought. That, according to analyst Alfredas Chmieliauskas, is precisely the point.

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Chmieliauskas is co-founder of Repsense, a Lithuanian company that has been mapping how pro-Russian narratives spread across social media in EU member states. Its findings, based on monitoring activity in Lithuania, reveal a coordinated and sophisticated operation that reaches millions of people, often without them realising they are consuming propaganda.

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Repsense’s research … has identified near-identical playbooks operating in Armenia, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere – all tracing back to the same source.

"In Russia, topics are first broadcast through so-called influencers and media networks … They are then adapted for foreign audiences through local outlets.

It’s similar to information money-laundering: messages are tailored to local audiences. This is done by local influencers, some of whom are politicians. The line between politician and influencer is increasingly blurred."

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The common themes are strikingly consistent across countries: attacks on the government and democratic institutions; “traditional family values” framed against supposedly decadent Western ones; and narratives around the war in Ukraine designed to discourage support for Kyiv.

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"Hate speech is one of the tools – it works on certain demographics. There are at least five archetypes used to attack the situation around the Kapčiamiestis training ground, for instance.

One is distortion: the claim that Poland supposedly opposes the facility. Another is a seemingly rational argument: Lithuania already has nine training grounds, do we need another one? Then there are conspiracy theories, that preparations are being made for war with Kaliningrad. Another distortion frames it as anti-NATO: that this is not defence but force deployment. And another portrays it as a suicide mission for Lithuania, playing on fear."

The aim, says Chmieliauskas, is to attack from every possible angle and see what sticks. Hate speech is one of those angles. Repsense finds that the highest number of mentions in a hate context target Jewish people, particularly now with the heightened situation in the Middle East, a narrative that exists worldwide.

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On TikTok, Repsense identified influencers with large, apolitical followings – makeup tutorial creators, lifestyle accounts – who suddenly began posting political content aligned with pro-Russian narratives.

On Facebook, the company found commercial pages with names such as Home Fragrances and Second-hand Clothes that appeared to sell everyday goods but were interspersed with a steady stream of scandal stories and attacks on public figures.

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Chmieliauskas is sceptical about blanket bans, despite pressure in some European countries, notably Germany, to restrict certain groups and crack down on political propaganda online.

“I think the most effective approach is to respond to the messages being spread by propagandists and simply put better narratives out there.”

For law enforcement, he argues that mapping how messages spread can help build a picture of financial connections between individuals, the** ultimate goal being to follow the money and establish who is paying whom**.

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Archived

Thousands protested in Serbia’s northern city of Novi Sad on Saturday to mark the 2024 deaths of 16 people after a railway station ​awning collapsed and demand snap general elections.

Student-led anti-government protests that turned ‌violent at times spread across Serbia following the disaster, rattling the 13-year rule of populist Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party.

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Protesters, opposition and rights groups allege the railway station ​disaster was a sign of broader government mismanagement of construction projects and ​corruption.

In Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, thousands of protesters stood in ⁠temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) chanting “Victory” and jeering Vucic and ​SNS. Many carried banners and wore t-shirts reading “Students are winning.”

Activists from the student-led ​movement say they want to challenge Vucic and SNS in upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. Both are set for 2027, but Vucic has said he might call them early in the coming ​months.

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Serbia is a candidate to join the EU, but Belgrade is required to first improve its rule of law, including conditions for free and fair elections, the judiciary and ⁠root ​out corruption and organised crime. It also has ​to align its foreign policies with those of the bloc, including slapping sanctions on Russia over its ​invasion of Ukraine.

A Spanish court has ordered the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Begona Gomez, to stand trial by jury for corruption and banned her from leaving the country, according to a court order released Saturday, June 20. The case is one of several corruption affairs that have embroiled the Socialist leader’s family and former allies, threatening to topple his minority coalition government.

Judge Juan Carlos Peinado ordered Gomez to hand in her passport and to appear before the court twice a month until a verdict is reached in the case. the ruling said. The court said “instructions shall be issued to all border posts and civilian and military airports” to ensure Gomez complies with the ban on leaving the country.

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In his 84-page ruling, Peinado rejected the argument that the police who routinely provide protection to Gomez would prevent her from fleeing. Those officers “could either on their own initiative or following orders from their superiors” help “facilitate an escape that would make it impossible for the accused to be available to justice,” he wrote.

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Other corruption trials

Spain’s former Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was placed under formal investigation last month suspected of influence peddling, in connection with bailout of small airline Plus Ultra in 2021.

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Abalos, a former Socialist heavyweight and transport minister who helped propel Sanchez to power in 2018, is accused of pocketing kickbacks for handing out public contracts worth millions of euros for sanitary equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic. Sanchez, a composer and orchestra director, is accused of receiving preferential treatment in obtaining a public-sector job.

The cases have embarrassed Sanchez, who came to power vowing to clean up Spanish politics after ousting a conservative Popular Party (PP) government in a no-confidence vote over its own graft scandal.

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In recent months, corruption allegations have increasingly surrounded figures close to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, from his wife and brother to former senior officials of his party and even former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

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Other controversies have only added to the pressure. PSOE member Leire Díez is accused of seeking information and exerting pressure on judges investigating corruption cases involving the party, with support of party officials.

While Sánchez himself has not been implicated in any of the cases, allegations of bribery, leaked recordings, favouritism and political interference have combined to create a perfect storm around him.

The latest blow came with the investigation into former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero over his alleged links to Venezuela and the airline Plus Ultra. For the PSOE, the significance is not only judicial but also political. Zapatero remains the most prominent member of the party’s old guard. He is widely regarded as a totem of the Spanish left, and has consistently backed Sánchez.

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Whether the current allegations ultimately lead to convictions, exonerations or political dead ends, their impact is already being felt. They have weakened the government’s control of the political agenda, increased tensions among coalition partners, and fuelled speculation about the durability of the ruling coalition established in 2018.

There are echoes here of the final years of Felipe González’s premiership in the 90s, which was marked by corruption allegations and the GAL scandal. Those last years are often remembered as the slow decline of a long Socialist government and the prelude to José María Aznar’s victory in 1996.

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Archived

In another setback for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, his predecessor, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (2004-2011), a leading figure and ongoing influential presence within the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), was targeted by an investigation for influence peddling on Tuesday, May 19. The development sent shockwaves among the country’s Socialists, who are already reeling from a series of electoral losses and judicial scandals.

The Audiencia Nacional, the court responsible for sensitive cases in Spain, has summoned Zapatero for a hearing on June 2 to question him about the bailout of the airline Plus Ultra during the Covid-19 pandemic. This marks the first time in the country’s history that a former prime minister has been called to testify under such circumstances.

In March 2021, this modest airline, which at that time only served Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, received an emergency loan of €53 million in public funds from the Sanchez government, as part of a support package for companies deemed “strategic” during the pandemic. From the outset, the selection of this company, which maintained close ties with Venezuela, raised questions.

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Judge José Luis Calama has suspected Zapatero of being at the center of an alleged network of influence peddling and money laundering. According to the judicial order, the former head of government is accused of using his “high-level institutional and government contacts” to steer administrative decisions in favor of private interests. The judge alleged that he irregularly received €1.95 million in commissions, routed through “opaque financial circuits.”

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The judge also noted that “the intercepted communications reveal that the network operated both in Spain and abroad,” maintaining contacts with political leaders and economic operators in Venezuela, China, the United Arab Emirates and other countries “with the aim of influencing administrative decisions or facilitating large-scale business operations.”

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The investigation is the latest in a series of blows further weakening Sanchez. On May 17, the PSOE suffered its fourth regional defeat to the right in Andalusia since December 2025. Zapatero himself campaigned in the region, a socialist stronghold for more than four decades until 2019. Added to this is the José Luis Abalos affair. The former transport minister and trusted Sanchez ally, tried for corruption in public contracts awarded during the pandemic, is awaiting a verdict after his trial concluded on May 6.

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Archived

All clusters in the negotiation process for Ukraine and Moldova’s accession to the European Union could be opened in July, with the first cluster expected to be launched by the end of June. The announcement was made by European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, in Brussels.

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The first cluster could be opened in June, during the Cypriot rotating EU presidency, and the other five clusters are due to be launched in July, when Ireland takes over, the commissioner said.

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Until now, Ukraine’s progress has been blocked by the veto policy of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The change in leadership in Hungary brings in Peter Magyar, appointed prime minister on April 9, Europe Day, who supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity under international law but rejects any fast track to EU membership.

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