Hungary’s election has done more than end Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. It has also removed what, over the past decade, had become a central organising figure for Europe’s nationalist right.

Orbán’s exit from the European Council will deprive like-minded leaders across the bloc of a figure who played a central role in aligning positions among allied governments. Without that anchor, analysts told me the European far right is likely to become more fragmented and less capable of acting in concert.

Others are unlikely to step into that role. Czechia’s Andrej Babiš and Slovakia’s Robert Fico remain influential at home, but neither has shown the same capacity to organise across borders. As Júlia Pőcze of the Centre for European Policy Studies put it, they lack the “organising power” Orbán once wielded. That leaves his former allies more exposed and less cohesive.

The implications are already visible in Slovenia, where the prospect of a comeback by right-wing populist Janez Janša is now viewed through a more constrained lens. Without Orbán as a gravitational centre, figures such as the former Slovenian prime minister are more likely to be shaped by Europe’s mainstream centre-right than to reshape it, Milan Nič of the German Council on Foreign Relations told me.

For now, Slovenia is navigating uncertain waters. PM Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement secured only a razor-thin lead, but coalition talks have become more fraught after the election of Moscow-friendly politician Zoran Stevanović as speaker of parliament. Stevanović has signalled plans to visit Russia and floated a referendum on Slovenia’s withdrawal from NATO.

Janša’s decision to back Stevanović is “alarming,” liberal Slovenian lawmaker Irena Joveva told me, and it raises questions over the bargains behind Janša’s possible return. “Is this the price that he is paying to come back?” she asked.

President Nataša Pirc Musar is expected to give the mandate to whichever candidate appears most likely to secure 46 parliamentary votes, though neither bloc has a clear path to a majority.

Even so, casting Janša as a successor to Orbán would be a stretch. He is firmly pro-Ukraine, and, while eurosceptic, remains committed to staying within the European People’s Party rather than breaking away from it. Slovenia’s finely balanced parliament would also leave little room for the kind of systemic overhaul Orbán engineered in Hungary.

Orbán is leaving the stage, and with him goes the figure who for years gave Europe’s national right coherence beyond national borders.

Magyar still banned by EPP

Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar’s MEPs return to the EPP next week as conquering heroes, but the Hungarian delegation remains barred from speaking for the group. The sanction, imposed by EPP chief Manfred Weber in January, followed Tisza’s refusal to defend the European Commission during a far-right no-confidence motion.

The ban runs until late July, meaning they will still be sidelined if Hungary comes up on the agenda later this month – as the Greens are expected to request. Read Eddy’s full story.