Politics

The euro indeed plays a major role in the Greek drama, but the ultimate cause of the Greek economic turmoil lies somewhere else. The real problem is that the architects of the euro used it as a turbo that was meant to speed up the integration engine of the eurozone, while encouraging other European countries to do so as well.

In the last five years, Piraeus Bank has lost 97% of its value and Eurobank (indeed, an apt name) an astounding 99.8% of the value. Their market value is currently five times lower that the market value of the Uber company. However, the Stock Exchange has not reached the historic low of the year 2012.

If the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, small and big businesses alike, took as long to deal with their daily existential crises, every last one of them would have already gone bankrupt. At the same time, politicians don\'t have to worry about it.

The events during the Christmas Truce 1914 were described by Robert Naiman as “the most morally compelling acts of spontaneous mass civil disobedience in recorded human history”. The anniversary of this date is a perfect opportunity to investigate the power and impact of free press not only in those times, but also in present day when it comes to Ukraine-Russia- conflict.

Earlier this week, the world witnessed two deals sealed by international powers: on Greece’s future in the European Union and on Iran’s future in the world. Both deals will have their political and social costs and profits, winners and losers.

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.