The Visegrad Group — comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia — has been declared dead, barely alive or at least unconscious a number of times due to disagreements on a wide range of issues such as democratic values, rule of law, European Union as well as foreign policy in a broader sense.
Everyone should understand the meaning of the word “cost”. You can try avoiding expenses, but costs will still come, one day. What is happening in Georgia now is very much about neglecting the meaning of the word “cost” by politicians, mainly in the West. However, costs cannot disappear through wishful thinking. Current decision makers may try to hide from them, but they may return at a higher rate.
At the NATO summit in Madrid, the decision was finally made to agree to the accession of new members: Sweden and Finland. In recent weeks, the presidents of Croatia, Zoran Milanović, and Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have emerged as the biggest opponents of expanding the alliance to include the Nordic countries.
The war in Ukraine will affect Poland’s socio-economic situation through many channels both in the short and long term. In the near term, we face weakening economic growth and even higher inflation, even double-digit inflation.
Though Fidesz supported sanctions against Russia, the government is not allowing the transfer of lethal weapons through Hungarian territory to Ukraine. The narrative that Fidesz supports peace while the opposition supports war was completely false, nevertheless it worked.
Despite overwhelming and publicly available evidence, pro-Kremlin media have denied large troop movements and continue to spread disinformation about their purely defensive motives and Ukrainian provocations.
Disinformation narratives concerning the energy crisis took a back seat; the go-to topics for disinformation actors over the past two weeks were NATO and Russia, Polexit, “traditional values”, and the ever-present COVID-19 pandemic.
The rapid fall of the Afghan government and the hasty evacuation of refugees from Kabul’s airport provided ample opportunity for disinformation actors and media to spread streams of anti-American, anti-NATO and anti-refugee narratives. Accordingly, disinformation proliferated in the Slovak information space regarding the recent events in Afghanistan.
President Vladimir Putin is proposing to renew cooperation with Europe, which is to be welcomed because Russia is an important country. I believe, however, that in taking this step we should remember the history. We understand the pain of the former members of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, President Putin should equally understand the pain of those nations that suffered great injustices from the Soviet Union.
July 1, 2021 is a special day for the former member states of the Warsaw Pact – the day marks the 30th anniversary of the disintegration of the military alliance. At Vaclav Havel’s invitation, Czechoslovak President, the official document heralding the end of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact was signed in the Černín Palace in Prague on July 1, 1991. This closed a historic chapter for the eight member states of the Eastern alliance.
