Slovakia

The tax system should not be used to implement social policy objectives. The tax system should be purely a mechanism that collects from citizens and companies, in the least distortionary way, the least amount of money necessary for the functioning of the state, the financing of its obligations and its policies.

Gold-plating is a term used to characterize the process whereby the powers of an EU directive are extended when being transposed into the national laws of a member state. The Slovak republic is not an exception.

Amid Russia\'s growing military build-up along Ukraine\'s borders, the Slovak pro-Kremlin media are increasingly turning to aggressive rhetoric directed against NATO and Ukraine.

Following the example of the Belarusian and Russian state-controlled media, Slovak disinformation websites also capitalize on the harrowing images of human suffering at the EU borders.

With the help of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, the INESS hosted two Belarussian opposition activists on October 13, 2021. The main focus of their visit was on economic reforms in Belarus. Therefore, the meeting was devoted primarily to the experience of Slovak economic reforms since 1989.

In Slovakia, the agricultural policy over the last years has been focused on increasing food self-sufficiency. Already in 2014 the Ministry of Agriculture, under the leadership of Ľubomír Jahnátek, aimed to increase the food self-sufficiency rate to 80%.

If you look at the political map of Europe these days, you cannot miss the distinctive success of populist movements in Central Europe, not to mention the alliance of Hungarian and Polish governments. With a group of participants from the region, we discussed populism in the Visegrád (V4) countries and its relevance for political communication during the online workshop series \"The Story of Visegrád\".

As the world remembers the victims of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, conspiracy theories about what \"really\" happened are resurfacing and continue to roam the Internet twenty years after the event, although most have been disproven and none confirmed by experts.

What does populism mean? Why does populism spread across the world & across Europe. Why did populists come into power? Why does populism try to change the core of Europe and the European Union? And why is populism so strong in the Visegrád Group, especially in Poland and Hungary. There is no doubt, populism fueled a widespread crisis of democracy.

Orbán, Kaczyński, Babiš, Salvini, Le Pen, Farage. Politicians from different countries, with different political affiliations, but they definitely have one thing in common: they are all populists. But how come, that one “ideology” can connect these different politicians with different political views? Well, in this article I am going to synthetize and expound these connection points in order to have the ability to forge counter-narratives.