The election of Donald Trump as US president should not come as a surprise. As Republicans transformed themselves in the image of the once and future president, so should the Democrats have rebranded to fit the unique times and challenges of 2024, but they missed the opportunity. European politicians should pay heed.
Populist parties raise important questions but offer terrible answers, a weakness others should exploit. Populism is by no means a new phenomenon, but recent years have seen a clear rise in parties turning to a more authoritarian, populist strategy of winning over voters. Now, the populist movement has managed to establish a strong position in Europe, and although its popularity is not currently rising, it is not diminishing either.
When it comes to healthcare and access to medication, regulators need to get out of the way. There is an ongoing debate about cannabis liberalization, but there is another drug which needs to be made more readily available: epinephrine, an essential medicine against severe allergic reactions. Epinephrine, a life-saving medicine, is not an over-the-counter drug. It requires a prescription, given to those who have known allergies. This needs to change.
Magic had influenced humankind since time immemorial until the age of reason started to disenchant the world. Unfortunately, magical practices still affect our lives. Thanks to the warped politics in some corners of the modern world, such as some far-right movements and the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin, magic is still leaving a sorry and unwelcome footprint on politics today.
Regulations are suffocating our freedoms, interfering with our lives, livelihoods, and comforts. Freedoms should be the priority of decision makers, but even the most basic freedoms such as those of trade and movement, vitally important principles in the EU, were set aside on the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Farming is becoming a hot topic in the most powerful rooms in Brussels. But unlike those working in agriculture, EU politicians are oblivious to temperature change. The complexities of agriculture merit more attention from European politicians than what it currently gets.
On June 9, Hungary held the elections for the European Parliament along with its local elections to choose mayors and councilors. The elections saw a record turnout of 58.1 %, but the most interesting election, the Budapest mayoral election with a turnout of 60.51%, resulted in a very high number of spoiled ballots, at 2.98%.
Israel’s human rights record is not untarnished, a fact which is amplified in the recent war in Gaza. It is right that Israel should be held accountable for its actions. However, this certainly does not mean that Israel does not have the right to defend itself against Hamas and other Iranian proxies, even if war measures are necessary. Nor should it relativize the horrors committed by the oppressive terrorists who attacked the civilians of a democratic country.
Hungary has been fined an unprecedentedly large amount for the severe violation of EU law over the rights of asylum seekers. However, this is not about Hungary’s stance against the oppressive EU as the Hungarian governing party Fidesz wants to depict but about the party coming at odds with its ever-swaying populist positions. Yet the Hungarian voters, rather than EU activists, should punish the Hungarian government.
Examining the past 20 years of the European Union is no easy feat, nor is evaluating the success of the recent members. Two decades is not enough, but it is sufficiently long to give a good overview of where the EU stands today and what lessons can be drawn from the integration process.
