Politics

Estonian opposition MPs want to slash the timescale for responses to Riigikogu inquiries to government ministers, from a month, to four days, for the duration of the emergency situation at least.

The increasingly autocratic tendencies observed in Poland and Hungary during the COVID-19 crisis have alarmed the EU. With street protests currently banned, human rights activists fear that the pandemic will be used by national conservative governments to consolidate their power and undermine democracy and human rights.

“System errors” are different from “ordinary errors”. For example, saying that Christmas falls on December 29. System errors are so serious that they lead to the destruction of the system itself. Either exploding suddenly or slowly imploding. Either way, the destruction of the system.

The conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government has conducted a calculated attack on the rule of law in Poland since it came into power in 2015, securing an overall majority in the Sejm, the lower house of the Parliament.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious challenge for societies around the world. In response to it not only individuals are changing their behavior, but also governments are taking various policy actions. In order to compare responses in different countries we have gathered information from a number of states.

The 2019 European Parliament election campaign was quite exceptional. First of all, because of the extraordinary political circumstances surrounding it. But also due to the election results and the themes of the campaign that determined a landslide victory of one of the parties. So, what happened in Poland?

The Chinese Communist Party was given the opportunity to show how the common future should look like. The Chinese propaganda machine claims that China has demonstrated its ability to respond to the health crisis and that European countries could also benefit from China’s experience.

To stop the coronavirus, most countries ceased almost all economic and social activities. As a first response to prevent an exponential growth of cases, this was probably justified. However, we will not be able to bear the costs of such a complete shutdown for a very long time.

PiS’s politics has left Poland looking down the barrel of a health and economic crisis that can result in widespread discontent. Instead of focusing on protecting its citizens, the party is further supplying the country with an additional constitutional crisis.

The restructuring of the state in a latently authoritarian direction is being pushed even further. The government’s worrying trend is particularly evident in the way it is trying to instrumentalize the COVID-19 crisis for the upcoming presidential elections on May 10.