As the Members of the European Parliament’s ninth term closed their books, we tracked the views of incumbent MEPs on authoritarian regimes. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to build an accurate picture of MEPs’ positions on authoritarian countries. We have analyzed 152 votes cast by MEPs between 2019 and December 2023 to determine the potential openness of these MEPs to authoritarian influence, particularly from Russia and China.
Bulgaria’s justice deficits have become an invariable part of local political discourse. Often, this leads to numerous statutory changes and rarely to a quality change of the environment.
More and more people claim that liberalism has lost its power and influence over people. It has become entangled in futile discussions, whereas it should set the tone and provide solutions to our current challenges. As a result, it has betrayed the trust of people who see neither the courage of thought nor the consistency of action. How can this situation be changed?
Paris will host one of the most important sporting events this year – the Summer Olympic Games. And the race is already on, with nearly half of all voters worldwide expected to go to the ballot box this year. Nine parliamentary elections will occur or already have occurred in European countries alone, with thousands of candidates competing for 720 seats in the European Parliament.
On June 9, Hungary held the elections for the European Parliament along with its local elections to choose mayors and councilors. The elections saw a record turnout of 58.1 %, but the most interesting election, the Budapest mayoral election with a turnout of 60.51%, resulted in a very high number of spoiled ballots, at 2.98%.
Israel’s human rights record is not untarnished, a fact which is amplified in the recent war in Gaza. It is right that Israel should be held accountable for its actions. However, this certainly does not mean that Israel does not have the right to defend itself against Hamas and other Iranian proxies, even if war measures are necessary. Nor should it relativize the horrors committed by the oppressive terrorists who attacked the civilians of a democratic country.
Hungary has been fined an unprecedentedly large amount for the severe violation of EU law over the rights of asylum seekers. However, this is not about Hungary’s stance against the oppressive EU as the Hungarian governing party Fidesz wants to depict but about the party coming at odds with its ever-swaying populist positions. Yet the Hungarian voters, rather than EU activists, should punish the Hungarian government.
Since the systemic transformation in Poland in 1989, public media have varied in the intensity of presenting the ruling camp’s viewpoint while simultaneously allowing opposing narratives. However, since the Law and Justice Party (PiS) took power in 2015, the media have fully become a propaganda tool for the government, thus reverting to their worst traditions from the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL) era.
It is true that the role of career public officials in resisting authoritarian state capture is not properly appreciated. As Kisilowski points out, for the far-right, the “deep state” of liberal professional bureaucracy is frequently viewed as a prime opponent of the authoritarian agenda.
2024 is a turbulent year in Hungarian politics, and this is especially true for the capital. New alliances have been formed, while at the same time, some previous cooperation has so broken down that the parties are running against each other.
