Politics

Intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement when done right are one of the fundamental conditions for innovation and competition. Ukraine’s strategic documents list protection of IP rights among policy priority. However, the implementation of IP-related reforms remains slow.

While the Member States still have at least the sole jurisdiction in criminal matters, they maintain a good deal of sovereignty. Once an EU “federal” criminal framework begins to take root, it won’t take long before we will all be committing three EU felonies a day.

On Sunday, June 3, the Slovenes voted in the snap parliamentary election. Nine political parties passed a minimum 4% threshold to gain representation in the National Assembly, a record in Slovenia’s history. The winner was the Social Democratic Party (SDS) with 24,94% of the vote.

I think the EU is an important institution and it is worth to be its member, but it is very difficult to be an apologist of those who run it. After the introduction of a legislation such as GDPR, is it really that difficult to understand why so many people believe such myths as the restriction on the curvature of bananas?

When facing illiberal regimes, a stream of victories by populists and a seemingly unstoppable retreat of liberal democracy, should we also simply adept to the new reality and “make our peace”? I would argue that this is the strategy many people have been pursuing in Hungary.

Three months after Civil Development Forum (FOR) inquired the Minister of Justice about the judges who supported the candidates for the new National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ), we have received answers with mostly... blank pages.

The two potential coalition parties (the ANO movement and the Social Democrats) have finally reached the consensus on how the country should look like under their second term of governance. But the fate of the coalition will be decided similarly as in Germany – by social democrats\' internal referendum.

Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist Fidesz party won a third consecutive term in office with a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliamentary election of April 2018. Orbán is known for building an “illiberal state”, which he officially announced in the summer of 2014.

It is obvious that e-Estonia will never be ready. The rapid development of technology continues to create new opportunities for changing as a society. Yet, at the beginning of 2018, we are without a doubt the best e-state in the world.

The Polish Parliamentarians, Ministers, the Prime Minister, and the President are all normal employees. The only difference is that they have been hired by the public. For their work, an adequate remuneration should be paid.