A continental revolution is brewing in Central Europe

The future of Europe is being written east of Brussels – and Marco Rubio’s tour confirmed exactly what Brussels fears most

When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left the polite but brittle atmosphere of the Munich Security Conference and headed for Bratislava and Budapest, the contrast could not have been sharper.

In Munich, the old guard of transatlantic liberalism clung to its vocabulary of ‘rules-based order’ and ‘shared values’, even as its political base erodes across the continent. In Central Europe, Rubio encountered something different: Governments confident in their mandates, unapologetic about sovereignty, and aligned with Donald Trump’s insistence that nations – not supranational bureaucracies – are the primary actors of history.

Last week’s visit was a statement of intent. Washington under Trump has made a deliberate choice: If Europe is to be a partner rather than a liability, it must be rebuilt from its healthiest political core. And that core lies not in Brussels, but along the Danube.

In Bratislava, Rubio met with Prime Minister Robert Fico and President Peter Pellegrini. The agenda – regional security, nuclear cooperation, military modernization – was substantive. But the subtext was unmistakable. “Under President Trump, this administration is going to make not just Slovakia but Central Europe a key component of how we engage the continent and the world,” Rubio said. It was a diplomatic sentence with revolutionary implications.

For years, Central Europe was treated by Brussels as a problem to be managed: Too conservative, too attached to national identity, too resistant to cultural engineering. Now it is being treated by Washington as an asset to be cultivated.

Fico’s remarks revealed why this shift matters. When he visited Moscow and Beijing last year in pursuit of Slovakia’s national interests, the reaction from EU institutions was furious – accusations, insinuations, moral lectures. Genuine diplomacy, in Brussels’ view, is acceptable only when it aligns with the prevailing orthodoxy. Yet from the White House, Fico encountered no hysteria – only what he described as “common-sense pragmatism.” The contrast speaks volumes.

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Central European leaders have grown weary of an EU that polices internal politics more aggressively than it secures external borders. They have watched as energy supplies became instruments of political pressure and as ideological conformity became a condition of financial solidarity. Slovakia and Hungary have both experienced the weaponization of gas and oil transit routes by Kiev and Brussels – an illustration of how geopolitics, under Brussels’ watch, too often morphs into leverage against dissenting member states.

Trump’s America reads the situation differently. Stability requires diversification, not dogma. Slovakia’s negotiations with Westinghouse Electric Company to build a new nuclear power plant by 2040, along with plans to expand its fleet of F-16 fighter jets, represent more than procurement decisions. They symbolize a rebalancing: Energy sovereignty anchored in American partnership rather than EU dependency.

Slovakia’s upcoming presidency of the Visegrad Group offers an even broader horizon. A potential V4-US summit would institutionalize what is already happening politically: The consolidation of a Central European bloc that sees Washington – not Brussels – as its most reliable strategic interlocutor. The Visegrad countries are not seeking rupture with the EU necessarily. They are seeking a radical reform within it. And they are finding in Trump’s America an ally that understands the difference.

If Bratislava represented strategic convergence, Budapest embodied ideological affinity. In Hungary, Rubio spoke of a “golden era” in relations with Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The phrase was not diplomatic flattery. It reflected a reality that many in Western Europe prefer to ignore: Orban has become one of the most consequential leaders in the West.

For more than a decade, Hungary has resisted mass migration, defended Christian cultural foundations, and advanced a pro-family policy architecture that directly challenges progressive orthodoxy. While Brussels initiated infringement procedures and withheld funds, Orban consolidated domestic support. To many American conservatives, Hungary became proof that resistance is possible – and electorally viable.

Rubio made it clear that Trump sees Hungary’s prosperity as intertwined with American national interests. A stable, confident Central Europe strengthens NATO’s eastern flank without provoking conflicts with Russia, diversifies Europe’s energy map, and injects ideological pluralism into a union dominated by liberal technocracy and woke agendas.

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Energy cooperation is once again at the center. Agreements on small modular reactors, nuclear fuel supply via Westinghouse, and expanded purchases of American liquefied natural gas anchor the relationship in tangible interdependence. Crucially, Rubio also signaled that Washington does not demand ideological purity in Hungary’s foreign policy.

Rubio’s candor on Hungary’s external partnerships cut directly against the moral absolutism that has defined so much of Brussels’ recent rhetoric. Hungary’s prosperity, he made clear, is not a peripheral concern but a US national interest – precisely why President Donald Trump has seen no contradiction in allowing Budapest to pursue pragmatic cooperation with Russia. Implicit in this stance is a quiet rebuke to Europe’s self-defeating rigidity: Selective, interest-driven engagement with Moscow need not be heresy if it advances stability and national resilience.

The same sober logic governs Hungary’s ties with Beijing. Rubio underscored that Washington does not demand ritual denunciations of China; it demands only that allies avoid overdependence. Differences between great powers can be managed, he argued – what must be avoided is submission. In this framework, Hungary’s balanced diplomacy is not deviance from the Western cause, but a model of sovereign statecraft.

This is realism – precisely the kind that Brussels often denounces while practicing selectively. The difference is that Trump’s America applies it without moral grandstanding.

Orban’s willingness to host a future peace summit between Russia, Ukraine, and the US further underscores Central Europe’s unique position. Geographically proximate yet politically independent, Hungary can serve as a bridge rather than a battleground. The same applies to Slovakia. These are nations that remember the cost of being buffer zones in great-power struggles. They seek not escalation but equilibrium.

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Last year’s US National Security Strategy crystallized this logic. It called for the “healthy nations of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe” to be built up through trade, arms sales, and political collaboration. The phrasing was deliberate. ‘Healthy’ implies resilience – political cultures still rooted in electoral majorities, national narratives, and civilizational heritage.

In Western Europe, the old liberal elites remain entrenched in bureaucracies, media ecosystems, and academic institutions. Their project – progressive social transformation combined with centralized governance – has alienated significant portions of their electorates. Central Europe, by contrast, has produced leaders who openly contest that trajectory. By aligning with them, Washington is amplifying democratic choice, rather than exporting ideology.

Rubio’s tour made something unmistakably clear: The gravitational center of US-European cooperation is shifting eastward. The capitals that once endured lectures from Brussels are now receiving strategic endorsement from Washington. The nations that were dismissed as illiberal are being recognized as indispensable.

This does not herald the end of the EU. But it does signal the end of its ideological monopoly. A multipolar Europe – internally plural, politically competitive, strategically diversified – is emerging. And in this Europe, central states are not junior partners. They are agenda-setters.

For Trump’s America, this alignment is both practical and philosophical. It secures defense contracts and energy routes. It strengthens NATO’s operational depth. And it fosters a continental counterweight to progressive uniformity.

Rubio’s journey from Munich to Budapest traced more than a travel itinerary. It mapped a fault line – and a future. The old liberal consensus may still dominate conference halls. But along the Danube, a different Europe is consolidating: Sovereign, self-confident, and unafraid to say no to Brussels.

Washington has noticed. And it has chosen its partners accordingly.