Europe

Germany resolved to go down the path of its energy transition – the Energiewende. But it became clear very quickly at the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s two-day conference entitled “Energiewende – Think European!” in Berlin, there’s a lot of skepticism about and even deep-seated resentment toward Germany’s energy policies. Poles and the French, Czechs and Brits, in fact most of the EU27, are not on the same page as Germany.

Since 2010 the Fidesz-KDNP coalition adopted a new constitution with so far four rounds of constitutional amendments. This analysis issued by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and the Eötvös Károly Institute highlights the specific concerns in relation to the Fourth Amendment.

With the constitutional amendments adopted on the 11th of March, Viktor Orbán has once again caused a surprise. The reactions of the Western European public show that there is still an inadequate grasp of how political power is exercised by Orbán’s government. European democrats now finally need to formulate a common position against the power centralization in the country.

The new right-wing populism is not the rehearsal of something old but a new political phenomenon – and it is here to stay. In this, the new right-wing populism is the severest challenge to the European project since the beginnings of European integration.