Eastern European Politics

Apparently, PIS wishes to remove cheaper tickets for the disabled, students and the like when it comes down to modes of locomotion. Public transport, long-distance trains, flights and what have you.

Mind you, politicians themselves still can enjoy their own discounts.

EDIT: This was actually a project okayed by the previous government, so I would like to apologize for the confusion. Still, PIS has a poor track record of removing some things, so only time will tell.

edited 24th Apr '16 2:25:48 PM by FergardStratoavis

Sounds familiar. Few months ago, I heard of something similar from Fidesz' direction.

Meanwhile, just across from Hungary: Austria far right freezes out coalition in presidency race

And meanwhile to that, a massive scandal broke out in Hungary after it came out that Matolcsy, the head of the central bank, did something that's technically legal but ethically falls within the definition of embezzlement.

You might remember an earlier post of mine where Orbán and co. wanted to introduce a law that the funds going through the central bank's foundations are no longer considered state funds and thus the foundations and the central bank are not accountable for what they spend it on, but president Áder and the Court vetoed it for being unconstitutional. It now turns out that Matolcsy used these same foundations to funnel literally hundreds of millions in taxpayer money to his relatives' companies and corporations. We're talking Ukraine scale of corruption here.

One of the groups which was affected so is a newspaper editorial; when the news broke, employees started resigning en masse, coupled with refunding their salaries due to there being no way to know just where exactly the editorial got that money from.

edited 26th Apr '16 7:44:58 AM by amitakartok

Is the Austrian far-right likely to win in a run-off election? Will enough of the electorate rally around the alternative instead?

This is starting to scare the shit out of me; as John Oliver put it "When Europe goes far-right, they go far right through Belgium." Seriously Europe, stop please.

edited 26th Apr '16 2:22:37 PM by Rationalinsanity

What are the alternatives? The far left, who keep everyone in poverty in order to collectively line their own pockets through the threat of force? The centrists, who are also corrupt but do it individually and corporately?

There is no political leaning inherently better than the others.

edited 26th Apr '16 2:35:06 PM by amitakartok

Oddly enough, the left (Left Bloc + Communists + Greens) here in Portugal is amongst the ones in the parliament with the least amount of corruption and has campaigned in these past 2 years for a raise in the minimum wage.

Also, is there any possibility of Matolcsy being put on trial, or is there not enough evidence?

edited 26th Apr '16 2:39:28 PM by Quag15

Democracy can survive corruption; I'm not sure it can survive far-right administrations.

He didn't technically break the law, so there's nothing that can be done.

I found exactly how much money he passed off to the foundations: 260 billion HUF, which is roughly equivalent to $945 million USD. This is what that earlier legislation attempt tried to hide.

edited 27th Apr '16 9:56:00 AM by amitakartok

Serbian elections drama: far-right party missing 0,01% to enter parliament, accusations of election fraud coming from all sides

Holy shit. No wonder they're thinking something's fishy.

Latvia fights against the great EU exodus

Of the three Baltic states, Latvia has the most potential, but short of sapping people from Lithuania and Estonia, they aren't going to succeed.

EDIT- I also somehow doubt ultranationalist loons being in power will help attract investment or diaspora who are in less volatile places.

edited 29th Apr '16 9:40:16 AM by FFShinra

The Hungarian Central Statistics Authority has determined that too many Hungarians (4 out of 10) are living below the poverty line. Their proposed solution?

Raise the officially-recognized poverty line so that these people are no longer below it and thus the official statistics will no longer look bad.

Much rage is ensuing from the worker unions.

edited 6th May '16 1:50:16 PM by amitakartok

You mean lower, yes?

Yeah, sorry. In other words, they're prettying up the statistics by changing the way they're counted.

There's a large pro-EU and anti-Pi S demonstration in Warsaw. About 240 thousand people - it's the biggest one since 1989.

Any incidents so far or is it going smoothly?

It's so far completely peaceful as far as I know.

Good. Not that it will achieve anything that way, but we already had one Euromaidan, no need for another.

Well, let's just say the consequences of Russian involvement in any Civil War would be a lot worse, as Hungary is a member of NATO...

edited 7th May '16 11:02:39 AM by Greenmantle

Yeah such a situation would go very differently, you'd see a NATO/EU intervention, not a Russian one.

Come on Poland, we don't need any more pseudo-democracies in Europe. I really hope those protestors/the EU/anyone can get those PIS dickheads to back off.

I doubt anything will happen, particularly if German approval is needed. The Germans would rather roll and surrender than do anything as warlike as defending the EU. You see, they still feel guilty for WW 2.

I'm just hoping for diplomatic pressure or a prolonged general strike; not the Heer moving East again.