Politico: Weak support for liberal democracy in EU’s east, poll says

The study published by the Globsec think tank found that in four out of 10 countries surveyed — Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Bulgaria — less than 50 percent of respondents backed "liberal democracy with regular elections and multiparty system" as the best form of government. [...]

In Austria, the preference was reversed, with the equivalent figures 7 percent and 92 percent. Meanwhile, in Hungary and Poland, 81 percent and 66 percent, respectively, voiced support for the system of liberal democracy. Twelve percent and 26 percent respectively want a strong leader. [...]

Majorities in Slovakia (72 percent), Estonia (56 percent), Hungary (52 percent) and the Czech Republic (72 percent) said migrants threaten their identity and values. [...]

In Hungary, 64 percent of respondents said they believe the government influences the media, while 62 percent said the same in Poland. Meanwhile 57 percent of Austrians said "oligarchs and strong financial groups" have such an influence.

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euronews: Denmark calls for EU ban on all diesel and petrol cars by 2040

Denmark made headlines in October 2018 when its government announced that it would ban the sale of all fossil fuel-powered cars by 2030 but it subsequently scrapped the idea because this would have breached EU rules. [...]

Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and several other countries, however, suggested that more must be done to stop the "carbon leakage" of selling second-hand autos from western Europe to the eastern region.

Jorgensen said it was important to communicate the bloc's long-term policy directions to carmakers and that Denmark's next step was to set up an alliance with the 10 member states that support its proposal.

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openDemocracy: The strange connections of Tashkent City’s “British investor”

Corso Solutions LP appears to be an unusual property developer. The Edinburgh-registered company has no website, no contact details and no obvious business activity. And yet it was named last autumn as a foreign investor on the Tashkent City project, a giant property redevelopment in the centre of Uzbekistan’s capital. openDemocracy has found that Corso Solutions has connections to an opaque international network that provides company formation services, including to apparent money laundering vehicles.[...]

According to the UK companies registry, Corso Solutions has not logged any activity or accounts since its formation. As reported by Scottish newspaper The Herald, the company should have disclosed its beneficial owner (“Person of Significant Control”) after new UK legislation on Scottish Limited Partnerships came into force in 2017. Concerns about this situation were raised in September last year. [...]

Corso Solutions was first mentioned in a September 2018 report by Uzbek media on investors in Tashkent City. Since then, we have been unable to find any information on the exact nature of Corso Solutions’ investment, and it is not mentioned on Tashkent City’s official website. When Radio Ozodlik contacted Tashkent City in October 2018 regarding Corso Solutions, an official responsible for foreign investment stated that information on approved foreign investors, including Corso Solutions, was a “commercial secret”. When we contacted Tashkent City project administration to confirm Corso Solutions’ role in the project in January and February 2019, we received no response.[...]

OCCRP and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists report that the GT Group has set up offshore corporate networks used by Russian organised crime, Hezbollah and the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel to launder funds and hide ownership. Companies House records that Ian Taylor has been disqualified as acting as a company director until 2021 under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (Duty of court to disqualify unfit directors of insolvent companies).

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CityLab: An Incredibly Detailed Map of Europe's Population Shifts (JUN 22, 2015)

Look at the Eastern section of the map and you’ll see that many cities, including Prague, Bucharest, and the Polish cities of Poznań and Wrocław, are ringed with a deep red circle that shows a particularly high rise in average annual population of 2 percent or more. As this paper from Krakow’s Jagiellonian University’s Institute of Geography notes, Eastern cities began to spread out in the new millennium because it was their first chance to do so in decades.[...]

We already know from other available data that Europe is experiencing a migration to the northwest, but the BBSR map adds complexity to this picture and reveals some interesting micro-trends. The dark blue coloring of the map’s Eastern section shows that the lean years for Eastern states are by no means over. Residents have continued to leave Albania, Bulgaria and Latvia in particular in search of jobs, while even relatively wealthy eastern Germany has been hollowed out almost everywhere except the Berlin region.

Population growth in the Northwest, meanwhile, is far from even. While large sections of Northern Scandinavia’s inland are losing people, there’s still modest growth on the Arctic coasts. And while the Scottish Highlands contain some the least peopled lands in all of Europe, Scotland’s Northeast shows remarkable population gains, a likely result of the North Sea oil industry concentrated in Aberdeen. [...]

Spain’s trends look a little different from those of Europe as a whole. It’s actually in the country’s Northwest where the population has dropped most sharply, notably in the provinces of Galicia and León, which have long been known to produce many of Spain’s migrants.

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openDemocracy: Mimetic power: how Russia pretends to be a normal member of the international community

While explaining the concept to Russian diplomats, Putin viewed Russia’s soft power as either diplomacy, or most likely, propaganda that can be made available, or even enhanced or intensified, at will. Soft power, however, according to Joseph Nye’s discussion of the concept, is the pre-existing ability to influence other countries through attraction, with resources of soft power being a nation’s political values, culture and foreign policy. Being a pre-existing ability, soft power differs from an immediate action that, for example, can be a diplomatic action, propaganda effort or humanitarian gesture.[...]

What happened when Moscow realised that it was dramatically failing to use “soft power” to influence Western nations through attraction? Not only after 2014 but even before, they must have realised that the Kremlin’s political values did not match prevailing Western values and that its peculiar international behaviour – no matter how assured they were of its legitimacy and credibility – was one of the reasons for the deterioration of the relations with the West. Russian official diplomacy and public diplomacy can still draw upon what they believe to be Russian high culture as an important resource of soft power, but it has limited value considering the failures that overshadow Russia’s cultural achievements.[...]

Russia’s mimetic power is the ability to influence Western nations by creating the impression that Russia is a normal member of the international community and emulating what pro-Kremlin actors perceive as Western soft power techniques. By presenting Russia as a credible and responsible international partner, Moscow is trying to convince the West – especially following the Ukraine-related escalation of the conflict between the West and Russia – to lift the sanctions, go back to “business as usual”, and ultimately stop any attempts to democratise Russia (Moscow sees the latter as Western attempts to bring about a regime change in Russia). The emulation of perceived Western soft power techniques serves two objectives: first, to contribute to the creation of the image of Russia adapted to the Western normalcy, and, second, to undermine Western resolve to stand up to Moscow’s subversive activities.[...]

For example, Russian officials would regularly slam Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for allegedly infringing on the rights of Russian-speaking minorities, while Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs would publish a series of “white books” discussing “violations of human rights and the rule of law in Ukraine” at the same time as other Russian agencies send military forces to invade Ukraine. Yet when human rights “go too far”, implying that Moscow fails to wriggle out of particular criticisms, Russian officials have a readymade excuse: Western human rights contradict “the fundamentals of our culture based on Orthodox Christianity”.

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CityLab: Reclaiming Riga’s Soviet Architecture

Activists in Riga already have their hands full finding new life for its disused city center buildings, where over 500 properties are officially designated as “environment degrading objects.” But that’s nothing compared to the task of upgrading the under-maintained Soviet “microrayons” (micro-districts) which currently house most of the city’s population. Convincing the Latvian capital that there are benefits to organized cooperation, with all the Soviet baggage that hangs around that notion, might be an even bigger challenge. [...]

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Free Riga—a group dedicated to mapping vacant properties, advocating for redevelopment, and mediating between city officials and property owners—saw a steady demand among unemployed Latvians for low-cost, creative spaces in the capital, which are now used for everything from beer brewing to soap making, mostly by people aged 25-45. [...]

House guardianship benefits the private owners of the properties too. By allowing the NGO to take on a property and repurposing it in ways that enrich the local community, it achieves a special public benefits status. This status offers the private owners the opportunity to save 90 percent on their property tax costs. “Property tax obligations can push owners into demolishing old buildings that are both structurally sound and of historical interest,” said Harijs Rozensteins, the private owner of Zunda Garden, a Soviet hangar occupied by Free Riga from the summer months of 2015 through 2017. Free Riga also takes care of building maintenance and security. [...]

Across Central and Eastern Europe, adjoining apartment blocks are maintained by their private owners who were sold the properties in the 1990s—a move inspired by Margaret Thatcher’s “right to buy” scheme in the U.K. Maroš describes a typical situation in these housing estates where one apartment block might be painted pink, another blue and yellow, and the third not at all, because of the difficulty in getting 60 people living in one block to agree on the improvements needed. If a consensus is reached by the homeowners association, they must then find the cheapest offer from a private contractor, then apply for a grant, and commission the work. Often this complex process is navigated by older residents.

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statista: The worst countries to be gay in Europe

The latest edition of ILGA Europe's Rainbow List has found that Malta, Belgium and Norway are the most LGBTI-friendly countries in Europe. The annual review ranks 49 European countries on a scale from 0 percent to 100 percent. Those closer to 0 percent are considered worst for gross violations of human rights and discrimination while the other end of the scale respects human rights and full equality.

LGBTI people planning a trip are best advised to avoid Turkey, Armenia and Azerbeijan. The latter is rock-bottom of the ranking with 4.70 percent. Russia, host of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, also scores poorly on the list with 10.90 percent.

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Bloomberg: Europe’s Depopulation Time Bomb Is Ticking in the Baltics

The trend is hitting especially hard in the Baltics. Latvia, with a current population of 1.96 million, has lost about 25 percent of its residents since throwing off Soviet control in 1991. The UN predicts that by 2050, it will have lost an additional 22 percent of its current population—second only to Bulgaria—and by 2100, 41 percent. [...]

As bad as those numbers look, the trend looks even worse for Ukraine and Moldova. The UN predicts 36 percent and 51 percent declines in those nations by the end of the century, respectively. Russia, meanwhile, is expected to lose 13 percent by 2100.

Several factors are contributing to the depopulation of Eastern Europe, and Latvia has all of them: low income, compared with more developed EU nations; insufficient growth; and strong anti-immigrant sentiment. The average annual take-home pay among all EU nations was 24,183 euros ($29,834) in 2015, according to Eurostat, while in Latvia it was only 6,814 euros ($8,406).  [...]

Nine out of 10 countries with the lowest acceptance rate of immigrants are former members of the Eastern bloc. Of these, the three Baltic nations had been previously forced to accept Russian-speaking migrants. In Latvia, the issue is so controversial that in 2015, when the EU insisted it accept just a few hundred Syrian refugees, nationalists initially threatened to withdraw from the government. That same year, Latvia came in second to last in the Migrant Integration Policy Index, which ranks 38 democracies according to the quality of immigration policies. Only Turkey did worse. Latvia was fourth from the bottom in Gallup’s 2017 Migrant Acceptance Score list, which ranks countries in order of their populations’ attitudes to immigrants. 

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VoxEurop: Immigration: Europeans favour intra-EU mobility

The 88th Eurobarometer survey, published in December 2017, finds that most Europeans (64 percent) have a positive opinion about immigration coming from other EU countries. In May 2015, as recently noted by the think-tank Bruegel, "51% of persons asked had a 'very' or 'somewhat' positive view of intra-EU immigration. 40 percent expressed a 'very' or 'somewhat' negative view, while 9 percent had no opinion. Since then, support for intra-EU immigration has continued to climb".

According to Bruegel this means that "more than two-thirds of European citizens have a positive view of the free movement of people within the EU". This feeling is shared across almost all European countries – even the UK, committed to leaving the EU – with the only exception being Cyprus, where 50 percent of residents think the opposite. [...]

"Luxemburgers, Irish and Swedes are the most favorable to intra-EU migrations, and they also remain relatively supportive of extra-EU immigration. More than half of Spanish, Portuguese and British citizens also support extra-EU immigration. [...] Conversely, support is very weak in certain countries of central and eastern Europe (Czechia, Slovakia, Latvia, Hungary and Estonia)", notes the Brussels research institute. It adds that this perception of extra-EU immigration did not deteriorate during the refugee crisis, remaining more or less stable.

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Quartz: The fastest shrinking countries on earth are in Eastern Europe

The top 10 countries with the fastest shrinking populations are all in Eastern Europe (with a few in Central and Northern Europe), according to UN projections. Bulgaria, Latvia, Moldova, Ukraine, Croatia, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, Poland, Hungary, are estimated to see their population shrink by 15% or more by 2050.

In Bulgaria, the world’s fastest shrinking country, the population is expected to drop from 7 million in 2017 to 5.4 million in 2050. In Latvia, the population is estimated to drop from 1.9 million in 2017 to 1.5 million, whilst in Moldova, the population is estimated to shrink from 4 million to 3.2 million. [...]

At least 11 countries have shrunk by more than 10% in terms of their population size since 1989, Sobotka says, including, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine. Latvia lost over a quarter of its population (27%), Lithuania 23%, Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina 21%. For instance, Bulgarian population contracted from 9 million in 1989 to 7.1 million in 2017. “That’s a massive population loss, unprecedented in peace times,” he explains.

Sobotka puts this population loss down to three factors—falling fertility rates, massive out-migration and relatively high mortality. “So whereas Western and southern European countries have attracted a lot of immigration which largely offset the effects of low fertility, the East is in a double bind, experiencing both out-migration and low birth rates,” he says.

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Politico: Latvia, a disappearing nation

In 2000, Latvia’s population stood at 2.38 million. At the start of this year, it was 1.95 million. No other country has had a more precipitous fall in population — 18.2 percent according to U.N. statistics. Only Latvia’s similarly fast-shriveling neighbor, Lithuania, with a 17.5 percent decrease, and Georgia, with a 17.2 percent drop, come close. [...]

To be sure, economic migration is not the only reason for the country’s declining population. The small Baltic republic’s comparatively low birth rate and high mortality rate are also contributing factors. [...]

While insisting wages would rise, he conceded they were currently low. “Also,” he continued, referring to the war games that both NATO and Russia have conducted in the region over the last year, “all this talk of war, real or not, doesn’t make things especially attractive for people to stay.” It also discourages foreign investment, he added.

There are some signs that while the tide may not be turning, it is losing strength. According to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the number of emigres returning to the homeland in 2016 was about 40 percent of those who left. That compares with a figure of 26-37 percent during the previous three years.

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openDemocracy: How Mario Centeno could change Europe

Two years ago Mario Centeno was yet another finance minister of the Eurozone trying to convince his European counterparts that austerity was not working. Portugal was emerging from a severe economic crisis and an equally challenging bailout. Pensions were slashed, education suffered a 23 per cent cut and unemployment reached 17.5 per cent in 2013. The former centre-right government zealously followed the treatment recommended by the IMF and the European Union. But the results were far from satisfactory. Deep cuts were not after all the answer to improve our economy and the life of our citizens. However, things changed dramatically when Antonio Costa´s government assumed office in 2015. After finding an unorthodox formula to govern, the socialists showed Europe that there is an alternative: the solution lies, politically, in reaching broader consensus. Economically, in boosting demand, not suppressing it. [...]

Mr. Centeno’s metamorphosis from outsider to European leader started when Portugal left the EU´s excessive deficit procedure in May. The decision gave Portugal margin to ease austerity and to push away the threat of future sanctions. The decisive moment for Mr. Centeno, however, came the day after. Mr. Schäuble, then Germany´s finance minister, called him the “Ronaldo of Ecofin” and praised him in public. Many understood Mr. Schäuble words as an endorsement. However, few believed Portugal´s finance minister could be on his away to replace Jeroen Dijsselbloem. [...]

Every leadership position in Europe is chaired by the European People´s Party. The exception is the Eurogroup. And there was a gentlemen agreement between conservatives and socialists ensuring that the Eurogroup should be presided by the latter. There was also consensus around the idea that the President of the Eurogroup should come from a smaller country. Another decisive factor was the electoral calendar in Italy – elections will take place during the Spring – and the political instability in Spain. Nonetheless, Portugal´s role as Europe´s success case was a key factor. Whether we like it or not, economic results determine the perception of politicians and governments. And financial stability in a country used to the contrary is a sign of competence. And a synonym of political success, even if the results in other areas are not favourable at all.  

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Politico: Visegrad 4 cools on Europe, and each other

Tensions within the so-called Visegrad Group burst into the open last week over the question of Europe’s cross-border labor rules, as Poland and Hungary refused to follow Slovakia and the Czech Republic in endorsing a French-led compromise to tighten regulations on employees posted to work in the EU outside their home countries.

A bigger worry to those hoping to maintain a semblance of unity is that Prague could turn away from the alliance under populist oligarch Andrej Babiš, whose party won the parliamentary election on October 20-21. Though Babiš is not as ideological as Poland’s current right-wing leadership and doesn’t have a poisonous history with EU institutions like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, he’s given little indication of what his foreign policy will look like. [...]

“The attempt to turn this club into a counterweight failed,” said Milan Nič, an analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations who previously worked for Slovakia’s foreign ministry. “They’re too divided on fundamental issues to push a common agenda, but they want to also prove that it’s not over. All four need the club.” [...]

Macron argues the current rules make it too easy for employers to avoid paying social security contributions in countries such as France, where the payments are much higher than in Central Europe. A number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, however, worry that the reform, which EU ministers approved by a qualified majority, undermines the single market and will hit their citizens particularly hard. In addition to Hungary and Poland, Lithuania and Latvia opposed the measure.  

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CityLab: An Incredibly Detailed Map of Europe's Population Shifts

The BBSR collected data between 2001 and 2011. While that might sound slightly outdated, these are actually the most up-to-date figures Europe has to offer, as 2011 is the most recent year for which comprehensive population data is available for the whole of Europe. According to its makers, the map provides a level of detail previously unavailable, as it is the first ever to collect data published by all of Europe’s municipalities. The results are impressively comprehensive and reveal a few surprises. [...]

Look at the Eastern section of the map and you’ll see that many cities, including Prague, Bucharest, and the Polish cities of Poznań and Wrocław, are ringed with a deep red circle that shows a particularly high rise in average annual population of 2 percent or more. As this paper from Krakow’s Jagiellonian University’s Institute of Geography notes, Eastern cities began to spread out in the new millennium because it was their first chance to do so in decades. [...]

We already know from other available data that Europe is experiencing a migration to the northwest, but the BBSR map adds complexity to this picture and reveals some interesting micro-trends. The dark blue coloring of the map’s Eastern section shows that the lean years for Eastern states are by no means over. Residents have continued to leave Albania, Bulgaria and Latvia in particular in search of jobs, while even relatively wealthy eastern Germany has been hollowed out almost everywhere except the Berlin region.

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Jakub Marian: Number of deaths due to ischemic heart disease by region in Europe

Ischemic (or “ischaemic”) heart disease is a group of related diseases, including angina pectoris and cardiac arrest, which is one of the leading causes of death in the developed world. However, the incidence of ischemic heart disease varies significantly among different regions.

The following map shows the standardized death rate due to ischemic heart disease in European statistical regions and is based on data by Eurostat. The value of “standardized death rate” differs from the crude death rate in that the numbers are normalized with respect to the population pyramid of each country, which allows for better comparisons between regions.

Lithuania has the highest rate of ischemic heart disease within the regions shown in the map, with astounding 591 deaths per 100,000 people per year, followed by North-West Romania and Central Romania (540 and 491, respectively), Latvia (474) and Northern Hungary (472). The lowest rate, on the other hand, is in Île de France (45 per 100,000), followed by several other French regions.

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The Spectator: Putin’s next move

A Russian invasion of Estonia and-Latvia would be complete in as little as 36 hours, according to a study by the Rand Corporation for the Pentagon. Russian tanks would be rumbling through Tallinn and Riga before Nato could so much as convene an emergency meeting to invoke Article 5 of its charter for mutual defence. The Rand study showed that it would take more than a week for Nato to get its tanks to the Baltics from Germany in response. By then it would all be over.So Nato has decided to send four battalions of troops to the Baltics, including one from Britain — exactly the kind of reinforcement that General Shirreff wants. The Baltic states have welcomed this. [...]

James Carden, a former adviser to a US presidential commission on Russia, agrees. ‘We have a habit of leading on these people who are along the periphery of Russia. Do the Baltics really think that we’ll get into a nuclear exchange if Russia runs over their borders? We won’t. We’re not going to go to war for them. De Gaulle knew this as far back as the 1960s, that the US would not trade New York for Paris in a-nuclear war.’ But he doubted that Russia really-wanted the Baltics back: it was just sending a-message to the West. [...]

Putin, then, may have adopted Richard Nixon’s ‘madman theory’ — the attempt to scare a potential enemy into thinking you might just go to war, might even drop the big one, if pushed. Others in the Russian federation are playing their part — it sometimes seems as if the whole country has been gripped by world war three hysteria. The state-controlled TV channel NTV took its cameras into a nuclear bunker, telling-viewers: ‘Everyone should know where the nearest bomb shelter is.’ The chairman of the Duma’s defence committee even appeared on television in his old uniform as commander of the country’s airborne troops and promised to fly to the US on a military-transport plane if ordered to by President Putin. ‘We need to stop apologising to the Westerners,’ he said.

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