crisis

For over three decades, the position of the Constitutional Tribunal seemed to be solidly grounded in the Polish institutional landscape and the pluralistic public discourse. However, with the recent demolition of the Tribunal, we are faced with an end of an era.

After decades of optimism we should start imagining Europe without the EU. If we do not fix that project and make it successful, it may turn out to be mortal. The EU does not need a major structural overhaul or another treaty change. It needs a change of attitudes.

The government of Hungary spent the last few years informing the people with flyers, political surveys and billboards, that the “illegal immigration” is becoming a bigger problem day to day. During this process, lots of misleading or simply incorrect facts came out, not only abut the migrants, but even about the EU itself.

Since the people believe in the static concept of the state, they believe it is a birthright to determine entry into this belief system. They believe the state border is the moral entity of which they are a part, and they judge newcomers accordingly.

If we don’t want the xenophobic biases to become self-fulfilling prophecies, preparations to be made prior to the arrival of refugees need to go far beyond increasing the number of beds in refugee camps. A successful integration of refugees requires a complex and coherent system

The equality should be analyzed within the scope of access to the things which are important for every human being. Ensuring the access to all this what determines the quality of life, does not have to be seen as the amount of income and discrepancies in income.

“An experiment of austerity” and “blackmailing” are just a few of the many fanciful epithets employed by the members of SYRIZA and socialists to create a “syrizophrenic” picture of what is going on. However, the true reasons of and solutions for the crisis have already been known for a long time.

Following the Greek tragedy, there is a search for ways to prevent crises of similar magnitude from happening. Different state representatives are coming up with different solutions on how best handle such situations. What the eurozone needs are more voices advocating for the benefits of competition.

The euro indeed plays a major role in the Greek drama, but the ultimate cause of the Greek economic turmoil lies somewhere else. The real problem is that the architects of the euro used it as a turbo that was meant to speed up the integration engine of the eurozone, while encouraging other European countries to do so as well.

In the last five years, Piraeus Bank has lost 97% of its value and Eurobank (indeed, an apt name) an astounding 99.8% of the value. Their market value is currently five times lower that the market value of the Uber company. However, the Stock Exchange has not reached the historic low of the year 2012.