liberty

“When I was a child, the monarch of Liechtenstein told me: our duty is to protect people from power. If you have power, your first task is to limit the powers of the government, not to expand them.” Prince Michael of Liechtenstein said these words during a short visit to Lithuania. The guest, who was invited as a guest speaker to the 35th anniversary of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, came as a surprise to many.

Europe. It is an area. It is an idea. It is a culture. It is a collection of diverse people and countries. It is a work in progress. It is ever-changing, ever-twisting, shaped by its people. Europe is a complex idea. The latest edition of Poems of Liberty, a publication by The Friedrich Naumann Foundation, European Dialogue and the Free Market Foundation aims to encapsulate it through poems.

War is once again ravaging Europe, again in Ukraine, again instigated by Putin. The war in Ukraine has been leading news in the media, and rightly so. Never must we forget the horrors of the ongoing war, or in fact any war.

Join Atlas Network & Institute for Market Economics as we convene the 2021 Europe Liberty Forum Online! The 2021 Europe Liberty Forum Online—#EuropeLF21—is sponsored by Atlas Network and co-hosted with our partner organization in Bulgaria, Institute for Market Economics.

The battle for the new, non-partisan Ombudsman has been ongoing in Poland for a few months now. The governing coalition for a long time did not acknowledge the need to propose their own candidate, and naturally refused to back the candidate of the opposition.

The current pandemic and the previous lockdown had effects on several areas of life, including work and social life. However, there is a rather neglected sphere which is rarely discussed in the media compared with other topics.

2020 was a special year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The introduction of the restrictive measures had a negative effect on both human rights and the economy - which is true for both Hungary and the Netherlands.

On Consumer Choice Radio, Tanja Porčnik from the 4Liberty.eu Network partner Visio Institute in Slovenia discusses human rights in a pandemic, what the role of government should be, and how we can keep our elected leaders accountable.

In non-emergency times, the role of economic freedom, defined as a lack of interference or coercion by others in an individual’s economic decisions, has been scientifically proven to yield economic growth and prosperity for the greatest number of people.

The shocking and lawless actions in Washington, D.C., provided many people a wakeup call. They also reminded us all that no nation is uniquely exempt from the temptations of power or from the dangers of mob violence and populism.