debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
A group of masked far-right nationalists disrupted a lecture at Warsaw University. The lecture was given by the centre-left politician Magdalena Środa. The protestors shouted ’anti-communist slogans (such as – Hammer and Sickle, Red Rabble - Raz sierpem, raz młotem czerwoną hołotę). The demonstrators were eventually removed from the building and the lecture allowed to go ahead. Organisers claimed that [...]
A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of Fascism. As the Eurozone economy slips once again into recession, so the social consequences of the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s are having their effect. Throughout Europe, growing sections of society are looking for alternatives to the political establishment, that is failing to provide the economic [...]
Leszek Balcerowicz appeared last night on the political chat show hosted by Tomasz Lis, where he repeated his long-held mantra that only further liberalisation and austerity could ensure Poland’s long-term economic success. In the interview Balcerowicz repeated two old myths, that are used to show that there really is no alternative to the policies of [...]
As politicians debate public spending cuts, the matter of whether the State should continue to fund the Church in Poland has been raised. This issue is an extremely controversial one and brings in a number of wider issues, not least the fundamental question of whether there should exist an independent and secular State in Poland. [...]
The Slovakian left won an historic victory in Saturday’s elections. The party Direction – Social Democracy (SMER – SD), led by former PM Robert Fico, gained 44,41% of the vote, giving them 83 out of the 150 parliamentary seats. Below I reproduce an interview with Dr Lubos Blaha, a Slovakian political scientist who has become an [...]
For years the left in Poland was represented primarily by the SLD, whose left-wing credentials began and ended in its name. A kind of virtual political reality ruled, whereby a person’s connection to the left was more due to their own personal history than any real political conviction. The SLD had become complacent in its [...]
As Budapest passes the baton of the European Presidency to Warsaw, problems within the European Union and the eurozone continue to mount. Yet as Poland embarks on this historic task, it should be pointing out the relative success of its own economic policy, in contrast to that being purveyed from Brussels. With PM Donald Tusk [...]
Do you remember the moment when communism fell in Eastern Europe? Most people will recall the dramatic events in Berlin in November 1989. Perhaps they will remember the overthrow of Ceaucescu in Romania or when Yeltsin defeated the coup in Moscow two years later. Yet communism ended here, in Poland, when twenty years ago the [...]
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