Examining the past 20 years of the European Union is no easy feat, nor is evaluating the success of the recent members. Two decades is not enough, but it is sufficiently long to give a good overview of where the EU stands today and what lessons can be drawn from the integration process.
A recent scandal in Hungary led to the resignation of the President. The fiasco revealed what was already known by many: that the President, whose role is mostly ceremonial, is a figurehead used by the government to ratify bills.
The benefits of cash over card payments are that the government has less control over your finances. There is no chance of data mining.
Liberals in Europe should learn from Trump and Beeblebrox how to run campaigns, to be more out of the box, to dare to disrupt, and promise a change in “the system.”
The number thirteen is commonly recognized as an unlucky number. But for Hungarian businesspeople, the preceding number is worse, as the 12th is the deadline for paying taxes.
The gluttony of the holidays marks not only the end of your capacity to feast more but also the end of the year. Your stocks I am sure are full of presents, and you want to catch up with your reading list. Lest you are too efficient and devour all your books here are a couple of recommendations for the next year.
Classical liberals might not agree that the EU, the UK, and the US are capitalist places, given the mounting number of anti-business regulations and measures. On the other hand, critics of free markets need only look at the latest polls on what people want most for Christmas to frightfully barricade themselves against the hordes of money-thirsty capitalists behind the complete works of Marx and Co.
Europe has been built on the liberal values of democracy, rule of law, liberty, tolerance, and free markets. Yet it seems Europeans are forgetting what these values mean. “Know thyself” is a famous ancient Greek maxim, which Europeans do not seem to take to heart. A series of aggressive actions from Russia over the past decade were not enough for the EU to properly distance itself from Russian energy, until it invaded Ukraine.
The railway line between Budapest and the West-Hungarian town of Győr is being renovated to breathe new life into the struggling public railway system. Győr, incidentally my hometown, features two university buildings connected by a skybridge shaped like a railway car. As of recently, these few meters are the only reliable means of long-distance transportation that railcars can carry passengers in the country.
The Hungarian government is pandering to its elderly voters through nostalgia. However, unlike other populists who promise to bring back a glorious and nonexistent past, the Hungarian leadership is putting hammer and sickle to work on bringing back communism – an era when their pensioner voter base was young and when absolutely nothing functioned properly.
