Human rights enforcement at the international and at the regional level is difficult, since it is mostly up to individual states to decide which rules they implement within their boundaries. Furthermore, coming up with rights that are universal in nature is a difficult task, therefore, legal documents tend to be rather general when dealing with this topic.
Globalization is an integral part of everyday life. However, so called “hyper-globalization” challenges national interest in favour of deeper integration. Academics debate what values governments should prioritize and how they should interact with the international community. Countries can either sacrifice too much to find a place in the world economy or may focus wrongly on domestic public opinion alone.
After a promising start the Hungarian political system could not turn into a liberal democracy. It is not a special occurrence, in some other “third wave countries” democratization slowed down or stopped as well. The democracy crisis has many reasons: fragmented political culture, economic problems, problematic challenges to fundamental rights.
In recent years, the LGBTIQ community in Hungary has suffered a great deal of discrimination as a result of governmental policies. Until recently the peak of this discriminatory wave against the above-mentioned minority group could be considered to be the law passed in December 2020 that ensures that only married couples are allowed to adopt children, apart from well-based exceptions.
Free press and freedom of speech are among democracy’s essential prerequisites; however, they should not be taken for granted. Published by the Republikon Institute, with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, The State of the Media in the Visegrád Countries provides a detailed insight into the media status in Central Europe.
Certain Western European politicians think that in Hungary and Poland the rule of law has been damaged to a degree that is not compatible with the values of the EU. Meanwhile, the politicians of the criticized countries argue that the rule of law can differ between countries and is hard to define.
The Republikon Institute, with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, organized an online conference on the situation of liberal thinkers and liberal voters in the Central and Eastern European region.
The Republikon Institute, supported by the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung für die Freiheit, is organizing a conference to discuss the state of liberal voters in the CEE region. In the first panel discussion, experts from the V4 countries will present the results of their latest research on the state of liberalism and liberal voters in their countries. We are curious to see what people think of liberalism and how parties could address liberal voters more effectively…
The current pandemic and the previous lockdown had effects on several areas of life, including work and social life. However, there is a rather neglected sphere which is rarely discussed in the media compared with other topics.
2020 was a special year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The introduction of the restrictive measures had a negative effect on both human rights and the economy – which is true for both Hungary and the Netherlands.
