@MCC_Budapest on X, 10 March 2026
Politicians, scholars, and commentators gathered in Budapest on Tuesday, March 10, for the MCC Budapest Summit on Reclaiming the West, hosted by Mathias Corvius Collegium, to address the long-term decline in the West’s global influence.
Participants debated whether Western nations could reverse this trajectory through renewed emphasis on sovereignty, national identity, and democratic accountability.
Among the keynote speakers was British conservative political commentator Matt Goodwin, who warned of a growing democratic deficit across Western democracies.
Goodwin argued that freedom of expression in the United Kingdom is under increasing pressure and criticised moves by the Labour government to introduce a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ for public institutions. He also pointed to a parliamentary debate about limiting jury trials, saying such changes risk undermining long-standing legal traditions.
More broadly, he said many citizens across Europe feel excluded from major political decisions on issues such as migration, energy policy, and the economy. According to Goodwin, power has gradually shifted towards technocratic institutions, courts, and international bodies that operate beyond direct democratic control.
He added that similar concerns had fuelled Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. He argued that national conservative movements across the West are seeking to restore political authority to voters and national governments.
Goodwin also raised concerns about immigration and demographic change in Britain, citing government projections that indicate major shifts in the country’s population composition over the coming decades. Without policy changes, he warned, these trends could undermine social cohesion and public trust in democratic institutions.
Mass immigration is destroying the UK. By 2063, white British citizens will be a minority. By 2070, the share of the country that is foreign-born will be over 60%, up from 19% today. The share of Muslims will rise from 6% to 25-30% by the end of the century unless there is change. This is not speculation but based on the government’s own data.
#MCCBudapestSummit is back! We kicked off the conference with opening remarks from @zoszalai.
— Mathias Corvinus Collegium (@MCC_Budapest) March 10, 2026
Why do these debates matter? Because the cultural inheritance of the West is not something to waste, but something to preserve and pass on to the next generations.
As he noted, we love… pic.twitter.com/HPr6Ee7Vk0
Security issues were also a major theme of the summit. Israeli policy analyst Or Yissachar argued that Western nations must be prepared to defend their freedoms more forcefully in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment.
Referring to the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Yissachar said that decades of attempts to avoid large-scale conflict had ultimately failed to deter aggression. He stressed that alliances between Israel, the United States, and several Arab states are now crucial to countering the threat posed by Iran.
According to Yissachar, Iran’s support for armed groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis poses a challenge not only to the Middle East but also to Western societies. If diplomatic pressure and sanctions prove ineffective, military action becomes necessary to prevent the expansion of Iranian influence, he said.
A contrasting perspective was offered by Michael von der Schulenburg, a former United Nations assistant secretary-general and current member of the European Parliament. Schulenburg criticised the frequent use of military interventions by the United States.
He argued that hundreds of foreign interventions since the end of the Cold War had rarely achieved their stated goals of promoting democracy or stability. Schulenburg also warned that military strikes on Iran without a United Nations mandate could encourage other countries to pursue nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence.
Debates about the future of the European Union also featured prominently at the summit. Boglárka Bólya, Hungarian Ministerial Commissioner Responsible for the Promotion of Sovereignty Reform of the European Union, said crises in recent years had often been used to justify greater centralisation of power in Brussels.
Anthony Gilland, Chief of Staff of MCC Brussels, argued that political elites in Europe were wary of strong national communities, and governments and institutions were reshaping societies through migration and ideological influence. “What they’ve done is change the population through mass migration and through multiculturalism, educating people about why they are wrong,” he said, adding that the promotion of LGBTQI ideology was part of this trend.
Analyst Nikolay Pavlov criticised the ideological bias in European research funding. Referring to the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, he said that research associated with right-wing perspectives is effectively excluded from eligibility and receives no funding. It would therefore make sense for patriotic forces to create a right-wing research programme outside the institutional framework of the EU to support policy-making.
Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also argued that the expansion of EU powers had occurred without sufficient public consent. “In 1975 the British public voted to stay in the European Economic Community, something very different from what it later developed into as the European Union,” he said. “European populations had no say in most of how the EU has developed.”