EU

Finding a Slovak politician willing to comment on the new EU budget proposal is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Unfortunately, the topic dominating the news these days is more whether the Commission might halt the money pipeline over resolutions from the European Parliament. Yet, a meeting in Brussels has since taken place that could well decide the budget\'s fate.

The new government in Bulgaria is proposing a budget with a deficit of 5.7% of GDP, or EUR 7.2 billion. And this is happening in the country with the lowest unemployment in the European Union — the lowest since records began.

In general, no tax should be considered in isolation, which is why the taxation of individuals\' income must be aligned with the taxation of companies\' income, i.e., corporate tax. Put most simply, the system should tax similar activities and income in the same way, rather than allowing arbitrage/tax avoidance based solely on legal form.

Is the Visegrad Group still relevant? Is it expereiencing its renaissance after Péter Magyar\'s win in Hungary? What is the relationship between the Visegrad countries and Ukraine? What types of projects does the International Visegrad Fund foster and what is their relevance in terms of cultural cooperation? And can civil society funding be considered as part of democratic infrastructure?

For a long time under Orbán’s illiberal regime, the common sentiment on the street was that the EU should intervene to help Hungarians. This was, of course, unrealistic, and should the EU have intervened more, Orbán would have used it to get Hungary out of the Union. The EU, however, is still in the focus of sentiments on the streets.

Can Europe attain digital sovereignty? What are the limits of the EU\'s regulatory power? Is the dichotomy between sovereignty and a colony unavoidable? And what is Europe\'s digital grand strategy? Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Dr José Ignacio Torreblanca, a Senior Adviser and Distinguished Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

In early August 2025, the Ministry of Climate and Environment presented a draft act on extended producer responsibility (EPR). The draft raises serious concerns. The Ministry claims that the current system “does not deliver satisfactory effectiveness”. Meanwhile, in 2023 Poland’s packaging waste recycling rate was higher than the EU average. 

To understand why European identity runs deeper in the post-communist East, one must understand what “Europe” meant to societies that lived under the Iron Curtain. It was not merely a geographic area, but rather the name of liberation.

Platform workers in the Czech Republic are not, by and large, a captive workforce in need of rescue. They are people who have made a rational choice to work flexibly, on their own schedule, for income that suits their circumstances. Good regulation should make that choice safer and more transparent. It should not make it impossible.

The government’s acceptance of more than 190 deregulation proposals was good news. Yet, the overall balance of this “year of deregulation” shows that Poland still lacks a coherent philosophy of lawmaking. Deregulation should not consist of isolated corrections implemented while new, unstable, and excessive regulations are produced at the same time.