Copenhagen Comission: Safeguard Against Illiberal Democracies?
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?
democracy
A New Round Table? A Few History-Inspired Reflections
The 25th anniversary of the Polish Round Table [that started the democratic transition] inspires to look back and reflect on what really happened in the spring of 1989. Perhaps this anniversary does not have to be only a thing of the past and a series of throwback celebrations?
The Visegrad Group: 25 Years of Freedom, 10 Years in the EU
At the quarter-century mark of the Visegrad states’ freedom from the USSR, Johannes Wachs examines the Group’s role in today’s European Union.
Economic Freedom: Fundamentally Important and the Most Attacked
Many people, both in the West and in the former socialist countries, display an attitude which I call—somewhat pointedly—“a mentality of Soviet official”. It is a generalized belief: “whatever problem there exists, only the state can solve it.” The state is perceived as a deity, i.e. an omniscient and benevolent being with unlimited resources.
25 Years of Freedom: Something to Enjoy, Something to Work On
It is natural for the generation of Solidarity to assess the achievements of the political transformation unlike the current generation of 20- and 30-year-olds. In our opinion, free state is a given given and we want to work on its further improvement. The generation of our parents still remembers the gray communist regime and often urges us to enjoy what we already have
Martial Law or Roundtable?
The Kremlin’s influence has always been a reality. It is naive to negate it.
Towards a Democratic Confederation
And I will end with a proposal for a new institutional framework, grounded on the understanding that we should recognize the confederal nature of the European Union, but that we should at last integrate true democracy in it.
Proselytism, Democratism and Other Enemies
Legal regulations concerning axiological choices made by individuals in their private or intimate spheres, formed on the basis of the expectations and awareness of the democratic majority, are essentially deprived of legitimization and are not acceptable within the scope of prohibitions and restrictions they introduce.
