Poland

As for the parliamentary elections, I felt much more uncertain. Like many others, I took the possibility of a coalition around the Law and Justice Party into account. In this variant, the president\'s office in the hands of Komorowski became strategically important to prevent various anti-reforms (e.g. lowering the retirement age). I also did not rule out a weak coalition around the Civic Platform.

Is a ghost airport a symbol of economic nonsense or financial mismanagement? These terms have been used to describe Radom-Sadków Airport located in Central Poland. In the last few years, the investment of the city local authorities has become a jeering synonym of wastefulness and megalomania of Polish public sector.

In the recent weeks thousands of Polish women have been demonstrating on the streets to protest against the total ban on abortion. The radical proposal formally came from a marginal conservative NGO, yet it was eagerly supported by the PM, her government and Polish bishops.

A letter from American senators to PM Beata Szydlo, a visit from the Venice Commission, a debate about the situation in our country in the European Parliament: what else has to happen for the Law and Justice\'s government to open their eyes and see what is going on?

Last Thursday marked another important landmark of the constitutional crisis in Poland. Law and Justice – the Poland’s ruling party – appointed in a parliamentary voting another member of the Constitutional Court. The light in the tunnel is gone. Law and Justice provided the ultimate evidence of its unwillingness to solve the crisis in a democratic way.

The primary goal of populist politicians is to capture (or rather to “buy”) political support, win elections or keep political power. Therefore, they do not use tools necessary to bring long-term prosperity to the people but rather take advantage of whatever can guarantee them short-term political gains.

The new Polish right-wing government is often labelled as nationalistic, populistic and radical. However it tries to reject this epithets, they are all true. The “good change” is a political slogan of the Law and Justice government that marks the major shift that has recently been introduced in Poland.

Due to the lack of a two-third majority which would enable Law and Justice to change the Constitution officially and to implement the ideas similar to those of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, the governing party is often hovering on the edge of breaching the Constitution.

It really is a pity that the politicians currently governing Poland do not concern themselves with the negative demographic trends. It is even more sad that they do not care about the future of Polish pension system and public finance system.

Lithuania’s level of economic freedom has been steadily improving. The country has jumped up by two positions and ranked 13th in the world in the 2015 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom. The index is compiled by the Heritage Foundation in partnership with The Wall Street Journal.