In June 2024, the European Commission assessed that it was justified to open the excessive deficit procedure, among others, for Poland. In the EC’s assessment, the published report justifies the initiation of the excessive deficit procedure for seven countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia.
For most of us, it becomes a frequent, increasingly common, everyday experience that causes anxiety, tension, or simply a bad feeling when a politically charged public topic is discussed during a conversation. We can also say that this phenomenon has become an integral part of Hungarian reality. In most cases, this sentiment is triggered by the fact that we find it increasingly difficult to contrast our opinions or narratives with other points of view.
As the Members of the European Parliament’s ninth term closed their books, we tracked the views of incumbent MEPs on authoritarian regimes. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to build an accurate picture of MEPs’ positions on authoritarian countries. We have analyzed 152 votes cast by MEPs between 2019 and December 2023 to determine the potential openness of these MEPs to authoritarian influence, particularly from Russia and China.
In recent days, the media in Poland have been dominated by information about the dispute over the election subsidy for Law and Justice (PiS), as well as the intense actions of the new government aimed at addressing the abuses of the United Right authorities. The awaited decisions by the National Electoral Commission and the arrest of former Deputy Minister of Justice Marcin Romanowski are the main topics captivating public opinion.
The current process of negotiating salary increases for public servants should also be seen in the context of international comparisons. Slovakia spends the most on salaries in the whole V4, not only as a share of total public administration expenditure but also as a share of GDP. In these comparisons, Slovakia spends more than the EU average.
In its program statement, the government announced its intention to increase the progressivity of personal taxation. In the budget plan, it already speaks specifically of the intention to “introduce 3rd and 4th personal income tax rates from 2025,” which is expected to increase public revenues by EUR 78 million. A 3rd rate of 30% is to apply to annual personal income above EUR 80 000.
The EU recently adopted a directive to tackle the gender pay gap by introducing new bureaucratic obligations for employers. Similarly, the EU is pushing on other issues in the fight for gender equality, for example in the area of the low proportion of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects, which reaches 33%. Consequently, women make up the same proportion (33%) of employees in technical sectors.
Earlier this month, it became clear that the World Bank has classified Bulgaria as a high-income country. This news is an important reflection of the long-term growth trajectory and catching-up process of the developed countries, particularly those in the European Union. Still, it is far from meaning that Bulgaria already has a guaranteed spot in the rich countries club and does not have any difficult problems to solve.
Bulgaria loses between 2.4 and 4.9 billion USD of additional GDP per year due to discrimination against LGBTI+ people, as estimated in a report[1] by the Institute for Market Economics (IME). Bulgaria’s GDP could be 2.5% to 5% higher were there to be full acceptance and equality for LGBTI+ people, according to an estimate by IME based on the 2023 data.
In the past weeks, the convergence reports of the European Commission and the European Central Bank were published. The result for Bulgaria is expected – the inflation rate is higher than the reference value and therefore the country does not meet this Eurozone membership criterion. In practice, this puts an end to the question of whether the country can adopt the euro on 1 January 2025 – no, there is no such possibility.
