afterword

Examining the past 20 years of the European Union is no easy feat, nor is evaluating the success of the recent members. Two decades is not enough, but it is sufficiently long to give a good overview of where the EU stands today and what lessons can be drawn from the integration process.

For the lack of a better word, social policy can be tricky – not only to create and implement, but also to discuss. Even the main purpose of social policy is unclear. There seem to be three main schools of thought.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only reshaped the world around us, but also our lives. Even after the pandemic is gone, many of these changes are expected to stay with us to some extent. Among them is our more vigorous embrace of remote work.

“Fake news!” The phrase has been thrown about so much lately that it lost most of its meaning and gravitas. But what does it actually mean? One definition explains it as “deliberately presenting false information as news” and differentiates it as a subset of disinformation.

Over the last decades, the post-socialist bloc countries have seen significant economic growth. The transformation to the market economy gradually yields its fruits, the unemployment rate in each of these countries, now also members of the EU, is lower than the average unemployment rate of the Eurozone.