Looking ahead to 2026 there aren’t many clear battle lines between national populism and establishment liberalism on the political calendar. Viktor Orban’s Fidez party faces elections in April. Although EU bureaucrats have done a great deal to make his life harder, it is now is difficult even for the political genius Orban to portray himself as an outsider to the system. His party is the Establishment and even surprised itself with its last electoral victory. But the challenging party Tisza is taking its second stab at power. It does so having firmed up its identity. It has nothing to do with the corrupt socialists that Orban defeated handily. And it is not quite like Civic Platform in Poland-a pro-EU party of the Atlantic Alliance. Tisza blends populist themes, including an attack on what it deems corruption in Orban’s government, with a less combative but not utterly supine stance towards Brussels.

Otherwise, there will be elections in Portugal in January. So far, the Iberian peninsula has been immune to true “anti-system” politics. But, a sizeable showing could be seen as a geographic expansion for populist forces.