April 1918 was one of the deadliest months of the World War I, as the Germans pursued their Spring Offensive to try to break through on the Western Front, in Belgium and northern France, before fresh American troops arrived to reinforce the armies of France and England. Unnoticed, on the other side of Europe, one…

In Brussels it is as if 2018 is the new 1989. Everybody seems to be promoting some vision for the future of the eurozone and indeed for the future of the EU. Around the imposing EU buildings in the well-heeled Schuman district, it may appear that Brexit and President Trump have combined to unite member…

Europe stands at a crossroads. Does it want centralization or liberty? It is the euro’s future that will decide the issue. The path of the euro is marked by the currency’s inherent misconstruction. The institutional setup of the euro is deeply awed because several independent governments can use one central banking system to finance their…

An optimist would argue that the best medicine for populism is to let it govern. Unfortunately, a populist governance period can be very costly, and not only in terms of money—says Mikuláš Dzurinda, former PM of Slovakia and Martens Centre President. KONRAD NIKLEWICZ: What is the direction the EU is currently heading? Will the EU…

Whatever Macron and Merkel have in their minds brings rather less hope for the EU. Being unable to address the questions of stability and security, they have a limited arsenal of tools to persuade citizens of member countries, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, to support deeper integration. There was a widespread enthusiasm in…

One of the attractions of the Hanse Museum in Lübeck is an interactive map showing the development of cities in mediaeval Europe. With each passing century the number of ashing points on the map is growing, the colorful patchwork is getting systematically denser and extends from West to East. And yet, there is a constantly…

Dear Readers, The face of Europe is changing. How many faces and what kind of faces does Europe have? Or is Europe faceless? For intellectuals, Europe’s face is shaped more by the ideas of its thinkers or by the culture of its nations. For travelers, Europe is portrayed through its landscape and historical monuments. The…

This is not just about trade and exchange of goods between the United States and China, but about who will have a greater influence on the world in terms of trade, economy, and even technology and other things. Chinese ministries of Commerce and Foreign Affairs announced in a joint statement: “China will fight to the…

Czech economy relying on low-cost labor is in cul-de-sac. It all comes down to transformation of economy, whose authors, with their drive for cheap currency, had bet on cheap manpower. Grocery retailer Lidl’s new starting monthly salary for a floor workforce is 28 000 CZK (1100 EUR) and this figure has made some waves. How…

It’s profoundly unfair to blame solely the new democracies of Visegrad group for anti-European sentiments—says Erhard Busek in an interview with Jakub Majmurek. JAKUB MAJMUREK: Year 2018 marks not only the one-hundred-year anniversary of the end of World War I, but also of the end of the reign of House of Habsburg and Habsburg Empire.…

The EU is trapped in an authoritarian equilibrium. Could autocracy spread from Hungary, where it is well-entrenched, and Poland, where it is rapidly taking root, to other member states? Over the past eight years, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government has dismantled Hungarian democracy and replaced it with a distinct form of what both Balázs Trencsényi and…

What the country needs is a constructive opposition, one to which the government could listen rather than ignore. At the time of writing this text, it is too early to say anything definitive about the strategies of the new Fidesz government. Still, one can be reasonably sure of a good deal of continuity in foreign…

If you ask average students about differences between human beings, the first division is race, next comes ethnicity. They believe that it is real. Not just that it’s a powerful sort of idea—says Charles King, professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University in an interview with Aleksander Kaczorowski. ALEKSANDER KACZOROWSKI: You have written…

After seven years, there is less and less of a civil war and more and more of a proxy war between the superpowers in Syria. Illustrating that are the battles for Aleppo, Raqqa, Ghuta, and Afrin. When trying to find a symbol of foreign domination, you always have to look at the sky. It was…

Central European governments—especially in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland—have a wait-and-see attitude and do not show an interest in joining. Yet the EU is not only about economic benefits. The debate on eurozone entry of the Central European EU member states has intensified after Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, expressed the Commission’s…

Mečiar, Tereza Nvotová (2017) The fall of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in mid-March was greeted almost like another East European “Color Revolution” or even a reprise of the Velvet Revolution that brought down Communism in Czechoslovakia. Foreign journalists rushed to witness the biggest popular demonstrations in the country since 1989. They cheered on the…

Between Truth and Time. A History of Soviet Central Television Christine Elaine Evans (Yale University Press, 2016) This book tells much more that it promises. Through the history of Soviet Central Television from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s and the kaleidoscopic image of its major TV programs, this book shows the evolution of the…

Islamofobia jako technologia władzy. Studium z antropologii politycznej (Islamophobia as a technology of power. A study on political anthropology) Monika Bobako Universitas, Kraków 2017, s. 418. In the spring 2015, exploring Islamophobia in Central-Eastern Europe could still be regarded as a somewhat exotic preoccupation. The reason was not that prejudices against Muslims did not appear…