European Union

The past two weeks were chiefly engulfed by news concerning banks and regulations in relation to cryptocurrencies. Providing some balance on the other side of the spectre were positive pieces introducing Bitcoin´s newfound capacity to cover electricity bill payments in Japan or coffee-breaks in Russia.

Redistribution may be defined as the transfer of tax revenue to finance the state apparatus and maintain the government. One of the ways to calculate the size of redistribution of an economy is to calculate the ratio between tax revenue and the gross domestic product (GDP).

Some old Member States request the principle of “equal pay for equal work in the same place”, meaning that posted workers would not receive lower pay than the minimum wage of the recipient country. During the discussion accusations of social dumping by new Member States with regard to old Member States surfaced.

Some could argue that May is just taking time to avoid the implementation of the referendum’s result, which is quite unlikely, since after all “Brexit means Brexit”, and that she will not call for another referendum because UK citizens already expressed their will, and the government will respect it.

The government of Hungary spent the last few years informing the people with flyers, political surveys and billboards, that the “illegal immigration” is becoming a bigger problem day to day. During this process, lots of misleading or simply incorrect facts came out, not only abut the migrants, but even about the EU itself.

Backing out from NATO responsibilities could not only elicit the United States’ disapproval, but – among others – could also cause bad blood between Hungary and its presumed greatest ally, Poland, as it needs a strong NATO to countervail the power of Russia.

Despite the fact that the silly season has already started, several interesting occurrences took place. The most important news comes from the European Union, but also from Russia, Argentina and USA. Let us have a closer look.

A government-initiated referendum on European Union migrant quotas will be held in Hungary on October 2, 2016. It is a part of the Hungarian government’s campaign to use the refugee and migrant crisis (and the dissatisfaction of citizens with the EU) to gain back voter support – and it works very well.

This is what my brother reportedly said right after I left the airplane on the paragliding course. The UK referendum was a similar surprise. It could have been expected, nevertheless I did not expect it. Supposedly, you cannot even slow down when riding the integration bicycle.

It is not only mutual military support and the common market that unites EU and NATO Members States. Our cooperation is and has to be based on common values – democracy and the rule of law. Barack Obama very clearly made Polish politicians aware of this fact during the press conference at the NATO summit.