Society

The Federal Republic of Germany, with its 16 states, has a federal structure. The states possess extensive powers, especially in the area of education. State parliaments make important decisions affecting the lives of young people in Germany. On November 8, 2024, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom participated in an expert hearing in the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, invited by the liberal FDP parliamentary group.

The German housing market is in deep crisis. Building permits are declining, cancellations are increasing, and consequently, fewer and fewer projects are being completed. This shrinking supply meets persistently high or even rising demand. The effects of this imbalance are immediately evident in rent price developments. Recently, significant rent increases have been observed, especially for new leases in Germany’s major cities.

Natural disasters have a remarkable ability to expose both the weaknesses of systems and the depths of human nature. The recent floods in Poland not only destroyed homes and infrastructure but also revealed something far more valuable: society\'s ability to mobilize and provide aid on an unprecedented scale. In a digital age dominated by social media and technology, solidarity has found new channels of expression.

We do not like to lack anything in our daily lives. We do not like scarcity. Or, to put it even more strongly – we hate it. But what would happen if scarcity disappeared, and we began to lack scarcity? It is also worth looking at scarcity from a philosophical, less quotidian point of view, which allows us, among other things, to see everyday life itself in a different light.

War is male. Men decide on war, men manage war, men plan, conduct, and end wars. Men declare peace. In the world of war, a woman is an addition, a not very useful element, getting in the way, complicating things, getting emotional, crying, longing, being weak, being unnecessary, undermining the point of this masculine clash.

The June 2024 EU elections had a tremendous influence on the political landscape throughout Europe. That was especially the case for Polish liberals, since after the Civic Coalition secured new European Parliament seats, the Nowoczesna Party obtained four new MPs in the Polish Sejm, including Aleksandra Kot, the youngest member of the Polish Parliament.

The Bologna Declaration marked a milestone in European education. However, despite the ambitious goals of the Bologna Process, numerous issues have arisen. At the end of March 2024, the European Commission introduced a new approach: plans for a European university degree. But how realistic is this proposal?

For most of us, it becomes a frequent, increasingly common, everyday experience that causes anxiety, tension, or simply a bad feeling when a politically charged public topic is discussed during a conversation. We can also say that this phenomenon has become an integral part of Hungarian reality. In most cases, this sentiment is triggered by the fact that we find it increasingly difficult to contrast our opinions or narratives with other points of view.

The EU recently adopted a directive to tackle the gender pay gap by introducing new bureaucratic obligations for employers. Similarly, the EU is pushing on other issues in the fight for gender equality, for example in the area of the low proportion of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects, which reaches 33%. Consequently, women make up the same proportion (33%) of employees in technical sectors.

\"In what myth does a man live nowadays? (...) What is your myth – the myth in which you do live?\" – once asked Carl Jung. The answer that I/we live in a story probably would not satisfy the master, but... for now, I have no other. They lead us through life from event to event, interweaving between what is important to us, edifying or ruinous; between moments when we wonder who and what we are for; when we choose the direction we decide to go.