Society

The sigh in the title refers to my experiences from my trip to Brussels back in March and to Paris in April. More specifically it takes me back to a Paris restaurant, Paris streets and to Brussels meeting rooms. Even though they took place in different environment, they are a perfect display of the current state of Europe.

The Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia has already submitted a document to the Minister of Economy which includes 40 bureaucratic absurdities that were previously identified by both entrepreneurs and the lay public under the patronage of the Bureaucratic Nonsense of the Year project.

On the fate of Great Britain in the European Union and Brexit, the people have spoken. A good number of them. Now, The Mob has been set loose, more vociferous than ever before. But it’s not what you may think.

There are two parallel debates going on in Europe: an ideological one about the role of Europe, and a technocratic one, about policy solutions proposed based on the first debate. And while many of the member states and their political parties try to win the first, the EU only seems to care about the second one.

The actions of the Fidesz-KDNP government are pushing the public towards dangerous sentiments. According to the latest public polls, a significant number of Hungarians considers the migrants repulsive. The government campaigns are not the sole reason for this situation but they did contribute to this problem.

“My youth, with all its advantages and drawbacks of that time, ended in Bosnia when I was splashed with parts of human brain. I was 23 years old”. When I have read this, I had trouble calming down. What must happen to make a 23-year-old woman leave a comfortable life behind and go to a […]

Since 1993, the great majority of public institutions have been managed by local governments. The introduction of KLIK (Klebelsberg Institution Maintenance Centre) led to a myriad of changes in the everyday life of every teacher and student. Financial centralization has transformed previously easy everyday tasks into heavily bureaucratic and difficult.

According to the right wing public opinion, George Soros is one of these “money men”, who support left parties and civil organizations with the purpose of subduing the Christian-conservative course. There is heavy animosity towards civil organizations coming from the political right.

Whether we like it or not, getting closer to Budapest means not only drifting away from Berlin and Brussels, but also from Washington. The political position of Poland in the world states its power in Europe. But a strong position in Europe shouldn’t be built in a way that the Law and Justice does it. In such way, you can only lose this position.

Estonia leads the rankings of women percentage in party memberships with 54%. This means that women form the majority of the party memberships, but they are not influential enough to have an effect on parties’ policies, electoral lists formation and at the end also on election outcomes.