"This is not a gathering of the defeated, but of those who have endured," Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the opening session on Thursday in Budapest. Other speakers included Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and the leader of the Austrian Freedom party Herbert Kickl. Orban relishes that "dissident" theme, while more mainstream European conservatives like Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, keep their distance. In Albania, Sali Berisha, the Maga-backed leader of the Democratic Party, lost this month's parliamentary election to the Socialist Edi Rama. The throne is even wobbling beneath Viktor Orban, the host of the conference in Budapest.