Politics

The number of Fidesz voters has only fluctuated, but not changed significantly since the last elections in 2014. Apart from the numbers, it is important to mention that most of the opinion polls show that their supporters are continuously getting more homogenous.

There are liberal democratic parties such as moderately conservative Civic Platform (formerly led by Donald Tusk) or liberal Nowoczesna. They can base their voter’s value proposition on individualism yet their resources are far from Kaczynski’s party. There are other players, too.

The key to solving the ecological problems of transport lies in a policy that allows for technological innovation in a wide range of drive technologies and air-cleaning measures. Central planning and ideologically motivated activism, which reduce our prosperity, undermine technological know-how and threaten jobs, are clearly out of place.

The 90% of the 2.2 million people that took part in Catalonia\'s referendum voted for the independence of the region. Only 7.8% voted against it. But the most relevant data is that only the 42.2% of the 5.3 million people entitled to vote went to the polls.

Numerous needed reforms and laws guaranteeing and protecting equal rights and freedoms have not been passed in Latvia due to lack of political will or poor public administration (or perhaps both). And in the era of the rise of populism, these advances seem more and more distant and unrealistic.

The Lithuanian Social Democrats have withdrawn from the governing coalition led by the Peasant-Greens, making it a minority governmnent. Of the three Social Democrats Ministers, only Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius will leave his party to remain in the government.

Angela Merkel\'s party, CDU, came in first in the German national election. However, this is not a great victory because what\'s important here is that for the first time in post-World War 2 history, an extreme right-wing party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), came in third in the national election, getting around 13% of the votes.

Spain is facing nowadays crucial issues for the national integrity. Approximately 40,000 people have taken to the streets in Barcelona after Guardia Civil has arrested 14 people in the offices of the Catalan government, some of whom are senior officials, like Josep Maria Jové, secretary general of economic affairs.

Indeed, binding European funds with clear commitments from recipient countries sounds like a good idea. The big problem of a number of European policies and institutes is precisely the lack of an enforcement mechanisms, for example real penalties, which could help as a correction to a “misbehaving” member state.

The Swedish think tank Timbro has presented its \"Authoritarian Populism Index\". The index “aims to shed light on whether populism poses a long-term threat to European liberal democracies” (it includes the EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Serbia, and Montenegro)