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20.07.2010
 The economic crisis in the EU and the threat of domino effect causes by Greece’s problems brought to the fore the critical debate about national public debts, deficits and fiscal policies in general in the context of existing and emerging understanding of their economic impact in the Eurozone and the EU as a whole.
In a new EuPI policy brief , Georgi Angelov analyses the fiscal policies of the new member states and their implications for the Eurozone enlargement, looks at their deficit level and public debts. He refers to centrality of the thinking, political will and strategies in the different member states in making public policies and how this impacts their fortunes in dealing with the crisis and the post-crisis development.
15.07.2010
 The tragic death of Polish President Lech Kaczyński rescheduled the elections to the summer of 2010. Bronisław Komorowski of the Civic Platorm of PM Donald Tusk won after the second leg of elections with 6 points ahead of Jarosław Kaczyński of the Law and Justice party, despite the sympathy vote for Kaczynski after the tragic death of his brother late President Lech Kaczyński. Piotr Maciej Kaczyński analyses in a new EuPI policy brief the extraordinary elections, looks into the context, main factors and issues of the campaigns and their change between the two rounds. He also elaborates on the changes as in Polish society as well as political scene that emerged in the course of the elections and their likely impact on the upcoming 2011 parliamentary elections. Piotr Maciej Kaczyński looks also at the policy implications – both in domestic politics and policies and external policies – prompted by outcome of the elections.
16.06.2010
 The general elections in Slovakia did not have a clear cut outcome and despite that the incumbent SMER-SD of Robert Fico won most of the votes with 34,78%, it is likely to stay out of the executive as it managed to lose and antagonize coalition partners.
In a new EuPI policy brief, the author Ivo Samson thinks that the leftist-nationalist coalition is a thing of the past and the next government of Slovakia will most likely be composed of two Christian Democrat parties, liberals and an ethnically-mixed, Slovak-Hungarian party. But there may be pitfalls as even the two Christian Democrat parties already have disagreements.
10.06.2010  “At their last meeting on the June 8, the EU finance ministers (the so-called ECOFIN Council) decided to strengthen the budgetary rules and the provisions for statistical reporting on the state budgets and the budget deficits. On the same day, the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn announced that “the Commission was worried about the statistical performance of Bulgaria and was going to send a mission”. The two events are interlinked”, writes Georgi Angelov in a new EuPI policy brief.
01.06.2010
The May 2010 elections in the Czech Republic had the impact of an earthquake on the political scene in the country, in the words of David Kral of EUROPEUM. Just after the end of the elections EuPI is releasing a new policy brief that looks that the elections, their results and the likely outcomes in both coalition-building and policy positions of a future cabinet.
The two big parties – the Social Democrats and the center-right ODS – lost big time. Two smaller parties, made their way somewhat unexpectedly – the right-wing TOP09 and the centrist Public Affairs (Věci veřejné, VV). Both parties follow the footsteps of other CEE political phenomena as they are centered and operate almost exclusively around well-known personalities - Prince Schwarzenberg in the case of TOP9 (quite prominent internationally too) and the journalist Radek John of VV. | | |
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The EC has released a new report dated March 17, 2010, which assesses the stability and convergence programs of fourteen EU Member States, saying among all that "[R}eflecting the working of automatic stabilisers and discretionary stimulus measures ... to cope with the exceptional economic circumstances, a large majority of Member States is currently subject to the excessive deficit procedure..." Click here to continue reading..
Article in the EUOBSERVER quotes George Soros statement on the New Member States of the EU, saying "the European Union must do more to help its struggling eastern region, including a fast-tracking of member state applications to join the euro currency."
In an interview with EUobserver on Thursday (12 November), he also called
on the EU to develop a dedicated strategy to alleviate the difficulties
faced by the region's Roma population.
The World Bank has released a new report on eve of 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, focused on Emerging Europe and Central Asia. The report says structural reforms are now necessary to protect hard-won gains.
As Bulgaria is heading to a single party minority government in July 2009, EuPI has prepared a fact sheet with the longevity of governments, including type of govenment, in the new EU member states in CEE prior and after accession.
As Dominique de Villepin, head of an international advisory panel to Prime Minister Stanishev, will present a report “Bulgaria in the EU”, you can read EuPI/OSI-Sofia’s report “BULGARIA: The EU New Member States as Agenda Setters in the Enlarged European Union” in English here and a summary in Bulgarian here. | |
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23.07.2009
“The Unfinished Business of the Fifth Enlargement Countries” analyzes the problems faced by the ten new member states after their accession to the EU in eleven policy areas including political development, the economy, the healthcare system and education.
EuPI has released a series of reports within the project "The EU New Member States as Agenda Setters in the Enlarged European Union", with the "Not Your Grandfather’s Eastern Bloc" comparative policy report.
EuPI has contributed to a major report on EU-Russia relations by ECFR's Mark Leonard and Nicu Popescu | |
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