Articles

The April issue of the 4liberty.eu Newsletter provides an overview of the articles published on the 4liberty.eu website, serving as a starting point for further exploration.

Freedom of movement is a very essence of liberal principles. Classical liberals argue that every individual has the right to live wherever they want. And wherever the individual decides to settle, they should enjoy the same freedom rights as residents and be treated equally by the law.

The Bulgarian government banned the imports of twenty agricultural goods from Ukraine. This act and the related arguments for restricting free trade supported by the government, some politicians, media outlets, and interested businesses, show why the Institute for Market Economics has been debunking economic illusions and providing answers, in times of poor knowledge breeding poor policies, for more than 30 years.

It is no surprise that the annual address of President Vladimir Putin to the Russian people featured a call for self-sufficiency, the closing of the national economy, and catering to all needs only with internal resources. Even though the statements of foreign leaders are not directly linked to the Bulgarian context, such ideas can find their ground at home too, especially in the context of election campaigns.

At least once a year Eurostat confirms through fresh data that Bulgaria is the poorest nation in the EU. More specifically, we are talking about comparisons of GDP per capita according to purchasing power parity.

Several years of caretaker governance, frequent elections, and inability to form a stable, legitimate, and broadly supported coalition suffice for breaking the spirit of many who believe Bulgaria could thrive as a proper democracy, and the result of the April 2023 general election also points in the same direction.

In this episode, we talk about controversies sparked by President Emmanuel Macron with his comments on China, Taiwan, and the United States, about French position on China and transatlantic relations, and about the future of strategic autonomy and different perspectives within the EU.

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.

Gaslighting is a psychological term that we hear more and more. It covers serious emotional and mental abuse, a manipulation technique whereby the perpetrator controls the victim by invalidating their perception of reality. In particular, the term political gaslighting is spreading in a new wave of political science mainly in Western Europe and the United States.

We are pleased to present the eighteenth issue of 4liberty.eu Review, titled “Reinventing Family Policies in CEE?”. This time, our primary focus is on social and family policies in the region, their shortcomings, and much needed reforms.