Russia

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.

According to the Business Tendency Survey, a quarterly survey of industrial enterprises in Ukraine carried out by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (Kyiv), the biggest obstacles to production growth in Ukraine in May 2015 were low demand, liquidity problems, excessive taxation, and unstable political situation.

The events during the Christmas Truce 1914 were described by Robert Naiman as “the most morally compelling acts of spontaneous mass civil disobedience in recorded human history”. The anniversary of this date is a perfect opportunity to investigate the power and impact of free press not only in those times, but also in present day when it comes to Ukraine-Russia- conflict.

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.

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.

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.

Recent energy reforms in Hungary made the country dependent upon Russia what in the midst of the current EU-Russia relations strongly affected by the escalating tensions makes the situation of Hungary more difficult.

European ideal is not – to my mind – “being the first“ at any costs. Europe does not need to conquer anybody – these times are over and the fundamentally colonialist subconscious idea of Lisbon Strategy has faded into our Medieval past.

We have the pleasure to present you the first round of 4discussion devoted to the situation in Ukraine and the EU sanctions directed at Russia. See what do Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Taavi Roivas, Tanja Porcnik and Ivan Miklos say on the topic and feel free to comment on that!