European Union

If the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, small and big businesses alike, took as long to deal with their daily existential crises, every last one of them would have already gone bankrupt. At the same time, politicians don\'t have to worry about it.

The delay with the implementation of the DCFTA had caused some concerns that important economic reforms associated with the Agreement could be delayed. However, one year after the Agreement signature, reforms are moving forward.

Minister of Finance Andrej Babis suggests that adoption of the euro currency should depend more on a dialogue with citizens of the Czech Republic. Therefore, he would like to organize a referendum on adopting euro. And the referendum should be tentative.

In 2014, the Czech economy did well. All reports have forecasted the same for 2015. The publication of the Czech Statistical Office dealing with the development of the Czech economy in the first quarter of 2015 confirms it. So how well did we do after all?

Hungarian government started building a fence on the border with Serbia to ward the immigrants off. The construction, stretching over 170 kilometers, is not in any way a solution to the problem of immigration. All that the fence will do is manifest Hungary’s separation from Europe.

Energy industry is par excellence a major industry. Few businesses have larger money flows than energy. Thus, it is not unnatural that it draws attention of powerful people, public and politics. In 2000s Europe experienced major policy craze with renewable energy that is still riding the waves of popularity, albeit with first subtle hints of realism.

Never before in the past decade has the need been so great for the civic movements to unite and respond to the threat from the East. To answer this need Free Market Foundation has organized an international conference in Budapest on June 22, titled “Europe vs Russia”.

We are witnessing the EU’s declining normative influence in three levels: inner circle of membership, middle circle of prospective members and outer circle of neighbourhood, and is expressed in the primacy of hard core economics, the weaker promotion of democracy, the inefficient political conditionality and the gradual realisation that illiberalism is becoming a threatening part of several national competitive politics.

Much has been written on the reasons for the rise and fall or right-wing populist parties in Western Europe, as the French Front National (FN) or the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). However, most of these commentaries are not based on empirical research. The presented overview highlights the seven factors which comparative research defines as decisive for the electoral fortunes of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe.

Following the elections in spring 2010, the Orbán government began dismantling the institutions underlying the democratic rule of law and the system of checks and balances, discrediting and ignoring fundamental rights.