The EU is no longer the abstraction it was in the beginning of the crisis. For many Europeans the crisis turned the Euro from a convenience into an issue, the Greek – from exotic and hospitable people into lazy parasites, and the English – from key allies into awkward partners.
Continual restriction of economic and civil liberties may have fatal consequences. Even though we can freely choose to live in an unfree society, we have to be aware of the price we will eventually pay for it.
On June 27, 2014, Petro Poroshenko, newly elected President of Ukraine, will sign the economic part of the Association Agreement with the EU, political part of which was signed in March 2014. Same day Georgia and Moldova will also sign the Association Agreements with the EU.
In March, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula with population of 2.4 m in the south of Ukraine, after it failed to divert Ukraine from the course for European integration. The escalation in Donbas could have been a first step of a large scale Russian intervention into the mainland Ukraine.
‘Hungary and the European Union after the European parliamentary elections’, a conference organized by Republikon Foundation with the support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, was held on June 11, 2014 in Budapest. The event was part of the Foundation’s project ‘Lessons learned from EP elections 2014’.
Despite the doubling of the e-votes compared to the EP elections in 2009 the overall turnout decreased more than seven percentage points to 36.5 per cent, therefore falling far lower than was the EU-wide turnout.
The strengthening of extremism is an important signal, but the EU-committed “mainstream” remains strong. If the notion of the crisis becomes stronger within the EU, the prediction of “Europe will fall” can fulfill itself.
To realize where it is better – in Russian or European Union – easiest is to visit any “brotherly nation” like Kyrgyzstan, where you can still see Lenin’s big statue and hear to the Stalin’s mythology that Lenin had an important role in creating of their national identity.
Fiscal harmonization is the homogenizing of countries’ tax systems, whether by natural occurrence (through fiscal competition) or political negotiation. But is fiscal harmonization a credible goal, and if so, who would benefit?
The main topic of the campaigns in Estonia was national security witch is obviously the result of the Ukrainian crisis. The results show that this topic is important for the people as the winning party main message was about safe and strong pro-European politics with the best candidates.
