This year will undoubtedly be crucial for the future of democracy. As Professor Timothy D. Snyder, specializing in this area, says, it could be a year of either a breakdown and further prolonged recession of democracy worldwide or a breakthrough and the defense of these democracies. They will manage to confront the growing populism, disinformation, and tremendous pressure from authoritarian systems.

Residents are indifferent to any scandals, forgiving the authorities anything just to prevent “the other party” from ruling the city. In such an environment, a candidate from the other side will not stand a chance. They are full of energy and smiling, wearing a scarf instead of a suit and tightly tied ties. With beautiful slogans on their lips, they present themselves as independent candidates.

Various prohibitionist strategies have been part of modern society for many years. However, they are more like a hydra whose head, when cut off, grows two more. Recently, the substance HHC – chemically related to THC, which is found in marijuana – has attracted attention. Until now, it has not fallen under any prohibition legislation, but that will change with the arrival of March 2024.

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The most controversial Hungarian story in recent memory includes the resignation of Hungary’s President and a former Minister of Justice, a presidential pardon for an accomplice in a pedophilia crime, and, as it turns out, the leader of the Hungarian Reformed Church. It recently came to light that in 2022 Katalin Novák pardoned a man, who was convicted of coercion while aiding a pedophile in covering up his crimes.

An EU sustainability regulation, part of the Green Deal, risks making entrepreneurship almost impossible in the European Union. By aiming to “harmonize” at the EU level the criteria for which economic activity “qualifies as environmentally sustainable”, the regulation in question will make doing business in the EU unnecessarily difficult. Complying with environmental legislation in the European Union, besides being controversial, is already very complicated.

Soon it will be 8 years since the last constitutional changes related to the Bulgarian judiciary. As politicians are evidently in a hurry to present us with a Christmas gift in the form of new amendments to the Fundamental Law, perhaps it is a good idea to recall what happened in 2015, highlight the differences with the current situation, and suggest why there is such a lack of enthusiasm for the current initiative.