Danube Institute Podcast

In the fifth episode of Reflections from Budapest, we discussed the situation of Christians and churches in Poland with Jerzy Kwaśniewski, President of the Board and co-founder of Ordo Iuris Institute, Chairman of the Ordo Iuris Foundation Council. Even though around 90% of Polish society is Catholic, many young Poles started to turn against the institutional church. We asked him how he sees this phenomenon in Poland and how the government reacted to the growing number of attacks on churches.

We asked Juliana Taimoorazy, founder and president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize nominee about how she escaped from Iran to the US and what it was like to grow up in Iran as a Christian. She told us about how she was called to start her work to help persecuted Christians in Iraq and why she believes it’s crucial more than ever for more countries to follow the examples of Hungary and Poland to stand up and help Iraqi Christians in need.

We asked Father Rev. Prof. Piotr Roszak and Dr Przemysław Komorowski from the Laboratory of Religious Freedom about the situation of the Catholic  Church in Poland. According to a report made by the Laboratory of  Religious Freedom, in 2020, there were 280 cases of violations of the right to religious freedom throughout Poland. In 2021 the number of these attacks was over 150. The question may arise: how is it possible that there are violations against Christians in a country where,  according to statistical data, 87 percent of the population is Roman Catholic?

The Russian war in Ukraine all of a sudden completely changed the defence situation in Europe, imposing new threats and challenges on the European security system. While some of the countries replanned their military strategy and increased their military spending, others gave up their neutrality, and looked for powerful allies. In the next episode of The Matter of Perspective, the geopolitical podcast of the Danube Institute, we were discussing the situation of the defence sphere in Central Europe, together with Attila Demkó, Head of the Centre for Geopolitics at Matthias Corvinus Collegium, and Tamás Csiki Varga, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies at the University of Public Service. The podcast was moderated by Anton Bendarzsevszkij, Director of Research at Danube Institute.

Now, that the French presidential election is over and the country prepares for the legislative elections to be held this summer, it is timely to evaluate and look into the reasons behind the victory of Emmanuel Macron, the results achieved by Marine Le Pen and the prospects the various political parties have regarding the future. In this episode of Matter of Perspective Rodrigo Ballester, Head of the Centre for European Studies of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and Ákos Bence Gát, Head of communications and foreign affairs of the Danube Institute evaluate the current state of affairs in France. The discussion is moderated by Fanni Korpics, Research Fellow of the Danube Institute.

With the war in our neighborhood and its impact on the Visegrád Group, it is more important than ever to remind ourselves of the achievements and all the challenges we went through successfully in the past 30 years of cooperation within the framework of the V4. In this episode we discussed the main results of the V4 from the past and how the formation could bear the current challenges it faces to continue its success story. The moderator of the discussion is David Nagy, research fellow at the Danube Institute who hosted three experts: MCC’s research fellow Péter Dobrowiecki and researchers of the Danube Institute Péter Szitás and Tamás Orbán.

We asked Chris Costa, former special assistant to President Trump and senior director for counterterrorism at the White House, about the possible strengthening of Ukrainian identity as a result of the war, the Hungarian government’s position versus Russia, the revival of NATO’s Cold War containment policy, the crisis management strategy of the Orbán government and the new avenues for U.S. intelligence opened by the Ukrainian situation.

We spoke with Chris Costa, former special assistant to President Trump and senior director for counterterrorism at the White House, about his military and intelligence work, his experiences in the Middle East and North Asia, his work on tribalism, and his years with Donald Trump.

Religion, state and society - where we look at issues of religious conflict, religious violence and reconciliation. How did Hungary help more than 500.000 persecuted Christians to return or remain in their homeland? We asked the distinguished special guest of the first episode, Tristan Azbej, State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program.

Criminologist Simon Cottee discusses his 2021 book, Black Flags of the Caribbean: how Trinidad Became an ISIS Hotspot, and his new book, Watching Murder: ISIS, Death Videos, and Radicalisation, which will be published by Routledge in June 2022.