Hungarian government started building a fence on the border with Serbia to ward the immigrants off. The construction, stretching over 170 kilometers, is not in any way a solution to the problem of immigration. All that the fence will do is manifest Hungary’s separation from Europe.
Under the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the internal administrative structure and the resources of the governments should correspond to the needs of the local population as well as ensure effective governance. However, statistical data shows the growth of municipal bureaucracy despite demographic decline.
Ageing of the Polish society means that every year more and more people will reach the retirement age. At the same time, the number of people of working age will be decreasing. In this context, it appears that the pension system reform implemented in 1999 introduced a not very fortunate principle to the Polish pension system.
We are witnessing the EU’s declining normative influence in three levels: inner circle of membership, middle circle of prospective members and outer circle of neighbourhood, and is expressed in the primacy of hard core economics, the weaker promotion of democracy, the inefficient political conditionality and the gradual realisation that illiberalism is becoming a threatening part of several national competitive politics.
Much has been written on the reasons for the rise and fall or right-wing populist parties in Western Europe, as the French Front National (FN) or the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). However, most of these commentaries are not based on empirical research. The presented overview highlights the seven factors which comparative research defines as decisive for the electoral fortunes of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe.
Following the elections in spring 2010, the Orbán government began dismantling the institutions underlying the democratic rule of law and the system of checks and balances, discrediting and ignoring fundamental rights.
Recent developments in Hungary and Romania have prompted a question that once would have been considered fanciful at best: could there be a dictatorship inside the European Union?
I don’t think that the youth want revolution. In these unstable times they rather want stability that no longer favours the mainstream populism, not taking responsibility for the future of the state, unkept promises and embarassing U-turns (career-like as well). Stability in which the political class is not moving further away from the reformatory attitude in the state of constant self-contempt.
On May 6, 2015, the European Commission announced the Digital Single Market Strategy. It is a set of policies aimed at encouraging the development of innovation, digital technologies and cyberspace. The intentions are good, but will implementation be successful?
One thing is certain: Polish politics will change radically after the October elections. At the moment, a conservative and populist government seems likely. The strategy to secure the postulates of leftist and liberal movements can no longer rely on the “lesser evil” argument. It’s high time for new initiatives.
