On October 28, Colleen Bell, American ambassador to Hungary, pointed out the dire political and social problems Hungary faces today – problems it must solve. The speech, delivered at a university in Budapest, is not the first criticism Hungary received from its Western ally.
The short natural gas supply cut to Ukraine during the 2006 gas crisis and the 2009 dispute, in which Gazprom again decided to halt all gas supplies via Ukraine, not only contributes to a growing perception of the politicisation of EU-Russian gas trade but the reliability of Russia as an energy provider in general.
We have the pleasure the present you the third of the series of our policy papers that we will be publishing in the near future. The publication discusses the issue of Internal Market and the EU-Russia Sanctions and examines experience of Visegrad Countries one year on. Enjoy your reading!
Hong Kong and Switzerland top the rankings of a new index released today that presents the state of human freedom in the world. The U.S. performance is worrisome and shows that the United States can no longer claim to be the leading bastion of liberty in the world. The Human Freedom Index (HFI) is the most comprehensive measure of freedom ever created for a large number of countries around the globe.
The delay with the implementation of the DCFTA had caused some concerns that important economic reforms associated with the Agreement could be delayed. However, one year after the Agreement signature, reforms are moving forward.
According to the Business Tendency Survey, a quarterly survey of industrial enterprises in Ukraine carried out by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (Kyiv), the biggest obstacles to production growth in Ukraine in May 2015 were low demand, liquidity problems, excessive taxation, and unstable political situation.
The events during the Christmas Truce 1914 were described by Robert Naiman as “the most morally compelling acts of spontaneous mass civil disobedience in recorded human history”. The anniversary of this date is a perfect opportunity to investigate the power and impact of free press not only in those times, but also in present day when it comes to Ukraine-Russia- conflict.
Hungarian government started building a fence on the border with Serbia to ward the immigrants off. The construction, stretching over 170 kilometers, is not in any way a solution to the problem of immigration. All that the fence will do is manifest Hungary’s separation from Europe.
Never before in the past decade has the need been so great for the civic movements to unite and respond to the threat from the East. To answer this need Free Market Foundation has organized an international conference in Budapest on June 22, titled “Europe vs Russia”.
We are witnessing the EU’s declining normative influence in three levels: inner circle of membership, middle circle of prospective members and outer circle of neighbourhood, and is expressed in the primacy of hard core economics, the weaker promotion of democracy, the inefficient political conditionality and the gradual realisation that illiberalism is becoming a threatening part of several national competitive politics.
