European Union

In March, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula with population of 2.4 m in the south of Ukraine, after it failed to divert Ukraine from the course for European integration. The escalation in Donbas could have been a first step of a large scale Russian intervention into the mainland Ukraine.

‘Hungary and the European Union after the European parliamentary elections’, a conference organized by Republikon Foundation with the support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, was held on June 11, 2014 in Budapest. The event was part of the Foundation’s project ‘Lessons learned from EP elections 2014’.

Despite the doubling of the e-votes compared to the EP elections in 2009 the overall turnout decreased more than seven percentage points to 36.5 per cent, therefore falling far lower than was the EU-wide turnout.

The strengthening of extremism is an important signal, but the EU-committed “mainstream” remains strong. If the notion of the crisis becomes stronger within the EU, the prediction of “Europe will fall” can fulfill itself.

To realize where it is better - in Russian or European Union - easiest is to visit any \"brotherly nation\" like Kyrgyzstan, where you can still see Lenin\'s big statue and hear to the Stalin\'s mythology that Lenin had an important role in creating of their national identity.

Fiscal harmonization is the homogenizing of countries’ tax systems, whether by natural occurrence (through fiscal competition) or political negotiation. But is fiscal harmonization a credible goal, and if so, who would benefit?

The main topic of the campaigns in Estonia was national security witch is obviously the result of the Ukrainian crisis. The results show that this topic is important for the people as the winning party main message was about safe and strong pro-European politics with the best candidates.

Last but not least, the Free Citizens Party has succeeded! Already in the parliamentary elections in 2013, this party showed that all competitors should respect their transition from a community of libertarians discussing mainly on social networks and in pubs into a professional political party.

Being a member of the European club is sufficient for common citizen. European institutions and their processes are largely unknown to the voters and they feel no urge to show any opinion, when even the parties are largely ambivalent towards European issues.

Europe is experiencing a boom in the contingent convertible bonds, in the Anglo-Saxon world also dubbed CoCos. These are the bonds which, at a certain point, convert to the shares of the debtor.