European Union – The EU’s new ETIAS border control system is scheduled to begin operating in November 2023. Most citizens of the 60 countries currently exempted from visas for tourist travel will soon have to fill in an online form and pay…
Ukraine – In the midst of the war with Russia, on 13 December, the Ukrainian parliament amended (by 324 votes out of 421) the law on national minorities, thus fulfilling one of the necessary conditions to start negotiations for membership of the…
European Union - The interior ministers of the 27 European Union member states met in Brussels on December 8 to decide on adding three additional countries to the bloc’s Schengen Zone: Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Bulgaria and Romania had joined the EU…
Hungary – The Czech Presidency of the EU Council sent a letter in early December to the ambassadors of the 27 member states warning them that the “transphobia of one delegation” threatens the European position as a spearhead for this issue on…
Poland – The Polish government announced on Wednesday that an agreement had been brokered with the European Commission on the contentious points of Poland’s justice reforms, invoked by Brussels to block the payment of the 35.4 billion euros corresponding to the Polish…
Hungary/European Union – At the meeting of the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER) that took place on Monday, 12 December, Hungarian representatives finally came to an agreement with their European counterparts on the four issues that remained unresolved after the meeting of finance…
Poland – The various parties belonging to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament met in Warsaw on Saturday, 3 December. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki attended in person, while his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, as well…
To what extent is the drastic increase in energy prices directly due to Russia’s war, to what extent is it the result of European sanctions, and to what extent is it due to Russia’s actions aimed at weakening public support for Ukraine…
Hungary – In the last few days, Hungarians have been receiving in their letterboxes government letters with a new national consultation that was announced in September. It is the kind of consultations that are organised every once in a while to bolster…
Interview with Janez Janša, former Prime Minister of Slovenia and leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka, SDS): "The political processes in Europe over the past decade and a half turned away from democracy."
Janez Janša has been one of…
Czechia - Five years ago, when French President Macron formulated his ideas on the future of the European Union, he chose for his speech the Sorbonne University in Paris. Apparently, he considered this place to be authentic enough for a French politician…
Poland - History repeats itself: the Germans want to save the world for their own good, the British want nothing more to do with the continent, the Russians loot in war rather than fight - and the Poles heroically fight on the…