Southeast & Eastern Europe

The article is a detailed overview of the internal political situation in Armenia from the Revolution to the war in the fall of 2020. The author analyzes how the policies of the revolutionary government, the coronavirus situation, and the war led to a humanitarian disaster in Armenia.

The new ceasefire agreement negotiated between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan has grave geopolitical and domestic consequences for the South Caucasus states. Stefan Meister, Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation South Caucasus, explains 10 consequences of the agreement.

A war that has garnered little to no attention in the rest of the world has been raging in Nagorno-Karabakh since 27 September 2020. With its multiple casualties, tens of thousands of refugees, and confirmed war crimes, this war signifies a humanitarian catastrophe.

The film "Parts of a Circle" reflects the state of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in May 2020. Producer of the documentary : Conciliation Resources.

“The hell of women is in full swing” is is one of the most pertinent comments on the decision of the governmentally controlled Polish Constitutional Court to further restrict the anyway very limited public access of women to abortions in Poland. Although the measure had been part of the public discourse for years, the timing for its implementation comes partly as a surprise. What does this tell us about the further prospects for the rule of the Law and Justice party?

Ellen Ueberschär demands an immediate ceasefire and negotiations for a sustainable peace process in Nagorno-Karabakh with EU support needed.

Viktor Orbán has been successfully playing a big power game in the last decade, punching far above his weight. But his image as a negative hero in the Western World has clearly backfired now, with Orbán using the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to complete his authoritarian regime. Orbán’s moves are not purely the domestic political problems of Hungary – an authoritarian state within the EU could be deadly dangerous for the entire project. Germany has a very important role to play in the current situation. 

The corona pandemic has exposed and further exacerbated various built-in inequalities and unsustainable structures of how we organize the economy and social life globally, from seasonal agricultural work to elderly care – and this is also true for gender relations in Hungary.

In the last three months it has become crystal clear that, among other matters, the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary has taken its toll on a peculiar subject – the rule of law itself.

On the evening of 24 July, a crowd of 10 000 -15 000 people gathered in front of the office of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to show their solidarity for the journalists who had resigned that very same morning from the largest remaining independent Hungarian news portal. In Hungary, demonstrations tend to draw no more than five thousand people, so the protest's size was surprising, especially since there is nothing new or shocking in democratic institutions being under heavy fire in Hungary.