crisis

The increasingly autocratic tendencies observed in Poland and Hungary during the COVID-19 crisis have alarmed the EU. With street protests currently banned, human rights activists fear that the pandemic will be used by national conservative governments to consolidate their power and undermine democracy and human rights.

The conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government has conducted a calculated attack on the rule of law in Poland since it came into power in 2015, securing an overall majority in the Sejm, the lower house of the Parliament.

The city of Gangelt offers the chance to better understand the virus and its means of transmission. A team of scientists led by virologist Professor Dr Hendrik Streeck from the University Hospital Bonn conducts an in situ study and presented the first results before Easter.

The Chinese Communist Party was given the opportunity to show how the common future should look like. The Chinese propaganda machine claims that China has demonstrated its ability to respond to the health crisis and that European countries could also benefit from China’s experience.

If the ongoing lockdown – unprecedented on this scale in the modern history – is to continue for another three months or longer, we will bear witness to an economic and humanitarian catastrophe. What might follow is a massive and unpredictable social rebellion.

Do you know how to do it? You know, a corpulent guy, that politician or whomever, demonstrated it on TV. Just turn the tap on. No, don’t worry, they promised us they are reducing the water price. They even took over that company that billed us.

On March 30, 2020, the Hungarian Parliament passed the so-called \"Enabling Act\". In the future, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will, therefore, be able to govern by decree without parliamentary approval. Despite the spread of the new coronavirus, this shouldn\'t have happened.

The Czech government banned manufacturers to sell respirators and masks to anyone but the legal entities established by the state. Public hospitals are NOT legal entities established by the state in the Czech Republic. Ouch.

Last week’s events give some hope that the deep crisis which has gripped Venezuela’s economy in the past few years could end, or at least that the country may head towards economic recovery soon. It is, however, worthwhile to again review the dimensions and the causes of the crisis.

In discussing the outcomes ascribed to globalization one should distinguish the symptoms from the causes. Globalization is to often blamed for the results of bad policies, especially those which hamper individuals’ adjustment to new pressures, and those which encourage them to take excessive risks.