Visegrad Insight Podcast

Hungary is the only EU member (and second NATO ally, after Turkey) to be snubbed by US President Joseph Biden’s Summit for Democracy in December. Poland faces two hearings from the EU's legal bodies: a verdict from the European Court of Human Rights on the Extraordinary Audit Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court and the National Council of Judiciary, as well as another ruling on the Turów coal mine...

Bulgarians will elect both the president and the parliament in less than two weeks. Incumbent President Rumen Radev’s chances of re-election remain favorable while opinion polls show that the new and small centrist party (‘We Continue the Change’) led by the ministers of economy and finance from the caretaker government is the second most popular behind Boyko Borissov’s GERB party. Roman...

Non-EU countries especially vulnerable to Gazprom’s policies of cutting gas supply to Europe. Moldova, under severe strain to make it through a cold winter, has introduced a 30-day state of emergency to allow purchase of gas through alternative means. Initially failing to secure a long-term contract with the Russian gas giant (unlike Hungary), two Moldovan representatives are on their way to Mosco...

Latest on the Council of Europe as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki presents Poland’s position on the controversial rule of law ruling by its constitutional court to the European Parliament. The EU’s top court has also begun the long-awaited hearings on the bloc’s rule of law mechanism - a clause Warsaw and Budapest are expected to contest legally. Morawiecki’s time and efforts in Strasbou...

In Czechia SPOLU beats Andrej Babis’s ANO with a slight majority of the votes, but President Miloš Zeman will likely grant the right to form a government to the biggest single party which is ANO. Situation is complicated by a deterioration in the 77-year-old Zeman’s health, currently left in intensive care. Budapest liberal mayor Gergely Karácsony drops out of the opposition race, instea...

Cross-border investigation of one of the biggest leaks of financial documents, the Pandora Papers, has exposed the tax haven secrecy and tax avoidance of world leaders from Moscow to Amman. Perhaps with little surprise Czech PM Andrej Babiš made the shortlist of the high-net-worth individuals implicated. This comes just days before crucial elections where his ANO party has so far led in support ra...

Conference in Budapest gathers a global alliance of notable conservatives while opinion polls in the V4 indicate a positive outlook for Visegrad cooperation despite nationalist strategies of ruling parties that deviate from the original ethos of the format. France stirs up discussion on European strategic autonomy after recent submarine row with US, UK and Australia - a sensitive subject for Centr...

Polish political scene hits a plateau as opinion polls indicate a stalemate in terms of support for the government versus the opposition. Bulgaria heads into third parliamentary elections this year with its electoral cycle in limbo. Czech President Miloš Zeman remains hospitalized which means the fate of Andrej Babiš being re-elected Prime Minister may be on the line. Politicians like Hungarian Pr...

CEE returns to school with some of the slowest vaccine rollouts among EU countries. Elections In Poland are postponed this year due to a declared state of emergency, but the political scene remains far from stable. The Polish government is likely to use the crisis on the border with Belarus to improve chances of survival while President Andrzej Duda is expected to veto the LexTVN law to salvage re...

Yesterday Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky met in Washington, the first visit of Ukraine’s president’s to DC in 4 years. Ukraine’s concerns over Nord Stream 2 were one of the topics on the agenda. In today’s podcast episode, we asked Wojciech Jakóbik, energy analyst and editor-in-chief of Biznes Alert, about gas shortages, GAZPROM’s record earnings, controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and their...

In this week's episode, we summarise the highlights and the downfalls of Central and Eastern European politics from the past week. Topics include: Crimea Platform, vaccination rates in the V4, Janez Jansa's peculiar foreign policy comments, Babis-Zeman row over Russia-friendly advisor, Poland media law, & more. Tune in to stay in the CEE-know.

The severe situation in Afghanistan has been the focal point of global media and public opinion throughout the last week. Meanwhile politicians in Central Europe are going about their business as usual. In this episode, Wojciech Przybylski and Marysia Ciupka summarise the so-far response of the CEE states toward the crisis in Afghanistan, talk about what will happen to the controversial media law...

What has been achieved by the Belarusian democratic opposition in the past year, following the fraudulent presidential election in August 2020? What has changed and what changes are yet to happen? Is Lukashenka losing his confidence and what’s happening on the Belarus-Lithuania border? In this week’s episode, we speak with Hanna Liubakova, Belarusian journalist and Atlantic Council Fellow; Franak...

Central and Eastern Europe can now boast a number of bingeworthy TV series of all kinds and genres. In this episode, we speak with Dawid Krawczyk, a Polish reporter and a writer, and privately - an avid fan of good TV with appreciation for the local industry. So if you are in the mood to watch a TV show on a warm night of August that takes place against the backdrop of 1990s Lower Silesia or conte...

CEE states have a rich and interesting history of participating in the Olympic Games. In this episode, we discuss major CEE-Tokyo Olympics controversies, try to establish which disciplines Central Europeans have historically excelled at, and ask Kuba Kazula, a sports journalist from newonce.sport, which CEE athletes to follow at Tokyo Games this year. 

In his new op-ed, Vladimir Putin once again undermines Ukrainian independence and sends strong revisionist signals. This adds up to the tension that has built up since Russia's new National Security Strategy published a peculiar document written in a militaristic and revisionist language only two weeks after the Biden-Putin summit in Switzerland. In an attempt to unpack this stability-distort...

Editors of Visegrad Insight Kamil Jarończyk and Wojciech Przybylski talk about the Three Seas Initiative and present key findings of their new scenario-based report ' Towards 3SI Civil Society Forum ' while this week Bulgaria hosts the 3Seas Initiative summit (8-9 July 2021). Fellows, Asya Metodyeva and Maliek Banat talk about terrorism online in Central Europe. https://visegradinsight.eu/3si2025/...

On 1 July 2021 Slovenia takes over the EU presidency from Portugal and Hungary takes over the V4 presidency from Poland. This special episode features three guest speakers: Karolina Zbytniewska, editor-in-chief Euractiv Poland, Márton Ugrósdy, director of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade in Budapest, and Marko Milosavljević, professor at the University of Ljubljana, for a conversation a...

In this week’s episode, we discuss the Putin-Biden summit with Steven Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York Times. Also in this episode: Germany and France’s idea to ‘reset’ EU-Russia relations, V4 finance ministers’ meeting and their approach toward G7 tax on multinational companies, as well as continuing tensions around LGBTQI issues in Hungary and Poland. Read Vise...

While most of the eyes are on the Biden-Putin meeting and other festive gatherings like the Globsec Forum this week, Hungary introduces legislation, allegedly trying to protect children, that will target the country’s LGBT+ community. In this episode, we speak with Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, who explains the political background behind Orbán’s...

The  President of the United States' first visit abroad since taking office  will consist of a number of high-profile meetings with the G7, NATO and  European allies to strengthen the Transatlantic alliance. Meanwhile, a  direct encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 16 June next  week is likely to deliver a stern warning to Russia about its activities  th...

Europe  is keen to leave years of turbulence in the Transatlantic relationship  behind, as US President Joe Biden is set to visit the continent later  this month. With a number of important elections in France and Germany  and the Conference on the Future of Europe  in the next few years, what are the prospects for rebuilding the  democratic alliance and how crucial a...

With  Belavia airplanes forced to return and European airlines avoiding the  Belarusian airspace, the first implications of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's  air piracy are immediately clear. While the fate of Roman Protasevich  remains unclear, there has been a clear voice from the EU and  Transatlantic unity on this grievous matter. Yet, it remains to be seen  whether this s...

Earlier  this month, the leaders of nine countries from Central and Eastern  Europe met during the Bucharest Nine virtual summit. They were also  joined by NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg as well as United  States President Joe Biden. With an increasingly palpable number of  regional groupings to discuss shared interests, what makes the Bucharest  meeting on...

The Conference on the Future of Europe that commenced earlier this month brings the question of Central Europe's contribution to European integration back to the forefront. How much of the spirit of 1989 remains in the face of democratic backsliding, authoritarian tendencies and economic unsettlement? We discuss recent Bucharest nine meeting with focus on the NATO's eastern flank, provide commenta...