Even though the victory of Zuzana Čaputová in the presidential elections in Slovakia is undeniably a positive development for the Central European region, it should not be perceived as a new macro trend.
Zuzana Čaputová, the Vice Chairman of Progresivne Slovensko, a Slovak liberal party, is very likely to become the first female president in the history of the country. Her success is one of many signs that liberals in Slovakia are growing stronger again.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has returned from his three-day visit to the USA. Given the similarities between the Czech and American leaders, the negotiations went, allegedly, better than well. As Babiš is often nicknamed “the Czech Trump”, it is actually surprising that the visit did not happen sooner.
Estonia has stood up to its reputation of the liberal Musterland in the region. The opposition center-right Reform Party secured a convincing victory over the currently governing center-left Center Party.
While the media focuse on the Kremlin’s “hybrid warfare” against the Western democracies or the Chinese social credit system controlling people’s everyday life through mass-surveillance, the illiberal state of Viktor Orbán is also doing its fair share to exercise information control via new digital powers.
It has been for over eight months since young investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnířová were brutally murdered in their own home. It was the first journalists ever to be killed in the history of the Slovak Republic.
This year´s topic is Europe+ and we are looking forward to stories on the added value of the European Union. What are the advantages of the European Union? What did the EU do well according to you – in general terms or in your personal experience?
We are entering a new era of influence operations in the cyber space. As global players such as Twitter and Google are joining the fight against the spread of hostile propaganda, Kremlin friendly trolls have no trouble adjusting to the new cyber rules and still keeping their activities one step ahead.
The two potential coalition parties (the ANO movement and the Social Democrats) have finally reached the consensus on how the country should look like under their second term of governance. But the fate of the coalition will be decided similarly as in Germany – by social democrats’ internal referendum.
At the press conference, Slovak Police President Tibor Gašpar admitted that the motive behind Kuciak’s murder was most likely connected to his ongoing investigation. At the time, Kuciak used to encourage journalists to turn to the police any time they felt endangered.
