Today, I have some very bad news. Yes, this is the end of democracy in Poland. Yesterday (2015 parliamentary elections), the votes of Poles began this process, today it is in the middle, and tomorrow (2019 parliamentary elections), it may end with the death of the free Republic of Poland as we know it.
I’m writing this article from the point of view of a Czech libertarian. It’s meant for foreigners, not necessarily libertarians, to get a better grasp of Czech politics than what they can get from their usual sources of information.
Viktor Orbán gave his traditional annual speech, underling the need to strengthen Christianity, building Christian democracy in Hungary, while fighting liberalism. Christian Democrats surely cringe upon hearing this line of thought, leaving us all to wonder what an illiberal Christian democracy ought to look like.
We have reached the end of a three-year-long war in the media waged against Hír TV – the biggest anti-government television broadcaster in Hungary. The main battle took place between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and oligarch Lajos Simicska, the owner of Hír TV, right before the TV conglomerate was conquered.
Promotion of democracy, human rights, market economy, and rule of law was extremely important, but it had really brought much more diffused results than anticipated. Structurally, the EU is very well suited to play one of the leading roles.
The Law and Justice party did not win the election in 2015 because it had had a good political program, but because those who were supposed to defend freedom turned out not to be too devoted to their cause.
This title of this article might ruffle the feathers of all those who think emerging comparisons between Brussels and Moscow are somewhat “crossing the line”. Buckle up, as the following paragraphs will show you why such collations are by no means an exaggeration.
Since the beginning of 2015 Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist Fidesz government has produced one hate campaign after another, targeting migrants, the EU (or rather, “Brussels”), American financier George Soros and institutions connected to him, and even the UN.
Intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement when done right are one of the fundamental conditions for innovation and competition. Ukraine’s strategic documents list protection of IP rights among policy priority. However, the implementation of IP-related reforms remains slow.
While the Member States still have at least the sole jurisdiction in criminal matters, they maintain a good deal of sovereignty. Once an EU “federal” criminal framework begins to take root, it won’t take long before we will all be committing three EU felonies a day.
