Visegrad Insight Podcast

The future holds more global and hopefully cheaper fintech products, but it will require better regulation on both local and international levels. Tomasz Kasprowicz of Res Publica Foundation, and Alex Ivančo, Department Director at the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic, discuss challenges and opportunities for the fintech in CEE, at the New Europe 100 Forum 2.0 that took place in December...

The use of technology in non-IT  sectors is comparatively dire in Central Europe.  In order to stay in  pace with the rest of Europe, and the world, the region needs to adapt  quickly. Solutions lie in familiar places – in the situation Central  Europe finds itself, education will have to be one of the foremost  solutions to tackle the issues facing industry and the g...

In  the last episode of the year, the Visegrad Insight Podcast looks back  at the key events of 2020 and considers the impact they may have on  Central Europe in the next years. Whether it was the agreement on the  European Recovery Fund, the Biden election, COVID-19 or the ongoing  protests in Belarus, all of these significantly shaped events and  perceptions as well...

In  this podcast, we ask the question about the state of central Europe  after the last EU summit. Just before the negotiations, Victor Orbán and  Mateusz Morawiecki along with Jarosław Kaczyński were threatening to  veto the next Multi-annual Financial Framework and the European Recovery  Fund. While the leaders of both countries were telling the story of  Central Eu...

Elections  in Romania were a tight race but the socialist party PSD eventually  earned 30 per cent of the votes. With very low turnout, a difficult  economic and pandemic situation this might well turn out into a pyrrhic  victory for the populists who do not have obvious coalition partners in  the new Romanian Parliament. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Ludovic Orban  ha...

The lower house of the Czech Parliament passed a radical plan supported by governing party ANO to lower income taxes as of January 2021. While the legislation is yet to be approved by the Czech Senate and signed by the president, it has already sparked controversy for its questionable economic objectives as well as the fact the law was passed with the support of opposition parties instead of ANO’s...

Today’s meeting between Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki is the latest event in a long-brewing standoff over the EU’s Multi-annual financial framework and the COVID-19 Recovery Fund. While the European Parliament and nearly all member states agree on the overall size as well as the rule of law mechanism, Budapest and Warsaw continue to hold onto their budget veto. The 1.8 trillion euros package...

Maia Sandu’s astounding victory in the run-off of the presidential election with 57 per cent of the vote against 42 per cent for incumbent Igor Dodon was positively received all across Europe. The real challenge begins as president-elect Sandu will endeavour to align Moldova's foreign policy more closely with the EU while maintaining close relations with Russia. Can the largely symbolic office of...

More than a thousand protesters were detained during the latest demonstration on Sunday 8 November against the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko. Without dialogue between the state and society about a democratic transition but instead a hardening of the regime, how will the opposition movement keep momentum in the upcoming months? We speak at length about recent events in Belarus, Europ...

In a crowded electoral season, two elections caught our attention this week: the race to determine the next United States president and heated parliamentary elections in Georgia. While mail-in ballots are still being counted across the Atlantic, we discuss recent analyses on Visegrad Insight on the Trump administration, its impact on Central Europe and what to expect from the next administration....

Central Europe’s younger generations are not deeply engaged in both the political system and civil society, according to different studies. We speak with Zuzana Papazoski , Resident Director of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Poland, concerning public opinion research done by NDI on young people’s attitudes to the political environment and liberal democratic institutions. This is a spec...

The  Three Seas Initiative (3SI) is an ambitious initiative supported by 12 EU member states who seek to improve north-south connectivity by means of energy, digital, and transportation structure. Earlier this week in Tallinn, a number of declarations were made at a joint 3SI meeting by the countries involved,  however, how much can the initiative deliver to meet high expectations in the...

While only one-third of seats were up for grabs, the verdict of the Czech Senate elections was crystal clear: governing party ANO (YES) managed to secure only one seat and its left-wing social-democratic coalition partner ČSSD went from 10 seats down to zero. The opposition parties performed well in the elections, both for the Senate and at the regional level, an encouraging sign for their prospec...

Parliamentary  elections in Lithuania are scheduled to take place on 11 and 25 October 2020. Vilnius has been a  strong supporter of the Belarusian people in their protests against Lukashenko.  Recently, Lithuania also welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron for  an eye-catching visit. What are the reasons behind Lithuania’s growing  importance in the wider region and to...

The  latest eruption of fighting all across the disputed territory of  Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but  mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, risks challenging a long-held  status quo in the Southern Caucasus. Currently one of the  longest-lasting disputes in Europe, the renewed border clashes and the  high death toll will put a...

While the state independent media environment is dire in Hungary, not all hope is lost for the rest of Central Europe. In spite of economic challenges for smaller national media outlets and risks of political polarisation contaminating quality reporting, there are a number of tools and options available to reporters, editors and publishers to weather the current storm. We speak with Aida Kaisy of...

Despite public statements by V4 ministers to coordinate actions and keep borders open, the recent spike in COVID-19 is set to spoil the party. With Czechia placed on the list of “red zone” countries by Slovakia just days after the Slavkov format meeting between the two countries and Austria, this may be the beginning of a return to stricter border controls and even temporary lockdowns. After an ev...

With an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo signed in Washington to strengthen economic ties between the two Western Balkan countries, Donald Trump appears to have sealed a much-needed foreign policy success. Is it a “major breakthrough" in his words or rather a small symbolic step in normalising ties – also between Kosovo and Israel? In this week’s episode, we speak with Ivan Vejvoda, a Permanent...

Three  years of Donald Trump presidency have not been easy on Europe nor on  Transatlantic relations, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic  having exacerbated the EU-US partnership. Trump's bad instincts, which  we saw in the first term, would be multiplied several times in the  second term. We  speak with Anthony L. Gardner, a former US Ambassador to the EU und...

Carlo Masala, full professor for International Politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich, lecturer at the University of Munich and member of the senate of Munich School of Political Science, discusses the present German perspective on CEE. Our guest speaker is hosted by Philipp Fritz, foreign correspondent for Welt and Welt am Sonntag, reporting from Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States....

Last Sunday, Belarus witnessed one of the largest protests in its recent history, following a presidential election that was neither free nor fair. While Alexander Lukashenko faces widespread calls to resign, his main opponent Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is prepared to act as the national leader in what could be a peaceful transition. With strong civil society mobilisation set to continue in the near...

How do authoritarian international actors build relations with the V4 governments and what type of tools do they have their disposal to alter perceptions and policies? MapInfluenCE focuses particularly on China’s influence on Czechia, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, its means of cooperation and coercion, but has recently started to map links with other authoritarian regimes. We speak with Ivana Kará...

Ahead of Belarusian presidential election we spoke with David Marples, a distinguished professor at Alberta University and one of the best experts in Belarus, to describe the main trends for the country and outline potential developments in a short and medium term perspective. This recording is part of our exclusive video chat series called Visegrad Insight Breakfast where experts, diplomats and s...

A Differentiated rather than a Divided Country On 12 July, more than 20.5 million votes were cast in the Polish presidential election by just over 30 million registered citizens. Many observers claimed that the result of this neck-to-neck race is a turning point for Poland and its role in Europe. Is it true that the votes for the two candidates were distributed across an East-West divide of the co...

In 2015, Poland ratified the Istanbul Convention on gender equality and combating violence against women. Now, Poland's government appears set to withdraw from this Council of Europe convention over its supposed promotion of 'gender ideology' and alleged threats to a 'pro-family identity'. Earlier this year, the Hungarian parliament blocked ratification of the convention, raising similar concerns....