Europe

Dancing gorillas, yodeling Lithuanians on a canon, gypsy music combined with hip-hop – these are just a few productions from the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. For those who don’t follow every single aspect of the contest, the political significance of the event might still be rather interesting.

Be it alcohol, tobacco, or sugary drinks; individuals have a number of vices that they voluntarily engage in. It has been commonly accepted that we attempt to engage in these “vices” with moderation. However, over the past years, public health advocates have made it their mission to regulate people’s lifestyle.

The presented case study provides a review of the rationales behind state ownership and the decisions to establish SOEs and delineates specific implications of these policies. Its main focus are SOEs in Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia.

Populist, xenophobic, and eurosceptic movements are raising across the Old Continent. There is at least one far-right party for each European country. Some of these are big and significant, while others are not. So what are these parties and where are they?

Atlas Network’s Europe Liberty Forum, co-hosted by Free Market Foundation, held on September 21-22, 2017 in Hungary, was one of the largest gatherings of classical liberals and libertarians from Europe and the word. Around 140 people from more than 30 countries attended the two-day event.

Bulgaria is by far not the only country where regional differences are not only significant, but are also becoming greater. There are basically no countries which manage to simultaneously increase the wealth in their poorest and richest regions, while at the same time achieving a meaningful internal convergence.

“As nationalism, authoritarianism, and populism strengthen in many countries around the world, it is becoming more important than ever to measure human freedom and the central role it plays in human progress”, said Vasquez. “The declining performance of the United States, once considered the bastion of liberty, is worrisome”.

Treaties about free trade are not about free trade, but about managed trade. They are the result of thinking in the frames of the 300-years old mercantilist philosophy, which considers export to be the source of wealth and import to be the price paid for that wealth.

We could say that populism is a natural effect of the lack of democratic accountability. If the promises and values which are at the heart of a democratic system seem to be broken by the established parties in power, here come the new movements, yelling against old politicians who betrayed their people, and promising to change the corrupted system, if they are elected.

We have the pleasure to present you the third round of 4discussion devoted to sharing economy. See what do Dita Charanzová, Kalle Palling, Marek Harbulak and Róbert Chovančuliak say on the topic and feel free to comment on that!