Category: Uncategorized

How many years does it take to repeal a law that forces NGOs to register as foreign agents? In Hungary: four years and a court ruling.

In 2017, the Hungarian Parliament passed a bill that obliged organisations receiving at least 7.2 million HUF (18,500 EUR) annually from abroad to register with the courts or face a fine.

Civil society protests went unheard, but not by the European Union. Following a ruling by the European Court of Justice and pressure from the European Commission, the law was revoked in 2021. No NGO has ever been fined. But Georgia, which followed in Hungary’s footsteps with a similarly controversial bill, lacks the EU’s legal umbrella. The Hungarian case proves the rule of law can be upheld in the EU, even if one country does not like the decision.

Last summer, Georgia hoped to be accepted as an EU candidate country along with Ukraine and Moldova, but fell short. Estonia’s outgoing two-term foreign minister Urmas Reinsalu explains why that happened, why Georgians might be disappointed again and why a historically supportive Estonia is now disillusioned with Georgia’s progress towards EU accession.

Why are some countries in the EU not supporting Georgia’s candidacy?

Leaving more technocratic aspects aside, the main problem is the functioning of the rule of law and democracy in Georgia. We do not see any determined efforts by the Georgian government. The people of Georgia are very much in favour of integration with the West. Therefore, the government supports it rhetorically, but its practical approach is one of regression.

Great hopes were placed in Georgia’s accession process in 2008. How has it changed from an Estonian perspective?

Estonia’s instinctive sympathy for Georgia was the cornerstone of our relations after the country fell victim to Russia’s invasion in 2008. We have supported them despite various political developments since that time.

However, the events of the last few years have disturbed us. We have repeatedly expressed our disappointment at the suppression of the opposition. Estonia cannot remain silent on this.

Symbolic of this is the deterioration of the former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s health in prison. I have personally campaigned for him to be given the opportunity to receive medical treatment abroad. We have also offered medical assistance on our own behalf. These requests have not been met with a positive response.

One of these disappointments could be the Georgian reaction to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Considering that Georgia itself is a victim of [a Russian] invasion, the attitude of the government in Tbilisi has been far too lenient. Politically, it is still a like-minded country, but we have not seen a firm attitude towards the hundreds of thousands of Russians being allowed to pour into Georgia. The same goes for Georgia’s approach towards sanctions against Russia.

“Incredible Georgian people who understand that friends need to be supported! There are, indeed, times when citizens are not the government, but better than the government.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Since 2005, Ukraine and Georgia had considered each other the closest allies in the region. But that changed once Russia launched a full-scale invasion on Ukraine’s soil. On 26 February 2022, Ukrainian president Zelenskyy began a statement war between Ukrainian and Georgian officials, which continues today.

While Georgians poured onto the streets of their cities to protest against Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Georgian government refused to impose sanctions against the Kremlin.

Over the following year, top Ukrainian officials accused Tbilisi of being too indecisive, duplicitous or even pro-Russian, while Georgian ministers and MPs replied that the Ukrainian side was “provocative” and “arrogant”.

In the last week, history repeated itself: Zelenskyy supported the recent pro-EU Georgian protesters and wished them “democratic success”, while Georgian prime minister Irakli Gabriashvili said that Ukrainian officials “should take care of their own country”.

A year after the trio of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova applied for EU membership, Georgia was hoping to be granted candidate status by the end of 2023. But then the ruling Georgian Dream party proposed a law on “foreign agents”. The draft proposal triggered fierce protests, with critics claiming it was “dictated by Moscow”, and some comparing the citizens’ reaction to the Euromaidan in Ukraine in 2014.

Although the government has never openly rejected the country’s European aspirations, it has displayed anti-Western rhetoric since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. It has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia or to provide military assistance to Ukraine. Tbilisi justifies this on the grounds of neutrality, in order to prevent another Russian invasion of Georgia. Moreover, the government has accused the opposition, “some Western powers,” and the Ukrainian authorities of acting as “war parties” that are “trying to drag Georgia into the war and open a second front against Russia.”

After the government was forced to backtrack on passing the bill, its rhetoric has only become harsher, suggesting the retreat might only be tactical.

As the country awaits a decision on candidate status, the government continues to blame the “war party” for its potential failure. Meanwhile, civil society and the media are eager to debunk the pro-Russian narratives. A second disappointment could lead to greater unrest and damage Georgian Dream’s chances in the 2024 parliamentary election.

A majority of Georgians believe that economic development and the country’s security depend on Euro-Atlantic integration and that turning towards Russia is not an option. People have proven that they are ready to defend Georgia’s European future, as shown by the iconic image of a woman waving the EU flag against a water cannon on 7 March in Tbilisi.

I became a ‘feminist’ because of rage. When a child, I only cried publicly when I perceived something was unjust. Like knowing it was much easier to be a boy than a girl. Boys were allowed to do more things. Later, I put names to those feelings and concepts: feminism.

In adulthood, I tried to navigate all the contradictions, from being raised in a sexist world (I still prefer the Spanish word: machismo) to overcompensating with thoughts such as ‘I’m not a victim’ and ‘I’m succeeding because of my personal effort’ and so on. But it’s not only personal effort, but the effort of so many women before us.

Spain is one of the most progressive countries in terms of law: the Government has just proposed a law making parity in electoral lists mandatory. It has one of the longest paternity leaves in Europe (non-transferable), and so on. Not bad for a country that some in Europe still perceive as Catholic-conservative, is it?

Maybe the laws were introduced too early and society wasn’t prepared, some say. There is still ‘machismo’ in Spain. In everyday life, in the streets where women face harassment, in the wives still beaten by their husbands, the social pressures and expectations on women, we still suffer.

I would be happy for the day when a woman can be as mediocre as a man and still access the same opportunities. Some men say to women like me in Spain, who ask for more equal rights: ‘Spain is one of the most ‘feminist’ countries, why don’t you go to Iran to protest? There they have problems, not here’.

But I am radically convinced that you don’t have to wait for a society to ‘be prepared’ to start making changes, especially when they’re about justice and equality. Spanish society will surely catch up with the mindset that has drawn up these new laws.

I know there are countries where the conditions of women are worse than in Spain. But now is the time to speak about our rights and duties, and where room for improvement is needed, supported by the laws and beyond them.

“I have always wondered what a trigger this little word ‘feminist’ is. What we are striving for with these guidelines is something that should actually be self-evident in the 21st century.

Women make up half of the society in any country. A feminist foreign policy is therefore not a fighting term, it is derived from our constitution. And it’s certainly not trivial. It is a hard security issue.”

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock presented the guidelines for her envisioned “feminist foreign policy” last week. Political opponents have derided her for the creation of what they felt was another meaningless buzzword, with one of them calling it the “emotional gratification of domestic politics”.

Yet, Baerbock’s goals are simple: to create a foreign policy in which the human aspect prevails. That means bringing women to the forefront: “When women are safer,” she said, “Everyone is safer.”

“We are strong, we are proud, we are feminist, radical and angry”. In recent weeks, this classic hymn of feminist protest has echoed through demonstrations against the Government’s pension reform. Women are at the forefront of dissent to the policy, which plans to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 and to increase the number of active years required to obtain a full pension.

Women will be the biggest losers. In France, as elsewhere, women’s careers are often interrupted. They are the ones who take breaks from work to bear and raise children. They also tend to be the ones who work part-time to care for sick or ageing family members. Plus they are often shut out of leadership roles or positions of responsibility, which are largely entrusted to men.

The consequences of this sexist career structure are economic: women in France earn on average 15.8% less than men. It is even worse once they reach retirement age: women’s pensions are 28% lower on average than those of men.

The pension reform risks reinforcing these inequalities by asking women to work longer. Even the Minister Delegate for Parliamentary Relations, Franck Riester, has acknowledged that “women are somewhat penalised by the postponement of the legal retirement age”.

Other factors also play a role, such as the non-recognition of the arduous nature of certain jobs, mostly carried out by women, which deprives them of obtaining early retirement.

In the protests, women’s collectives are hijacking songs and choreographing militant dances to make these inequalities more visible. This year, the traditional Women’s Day demonstration on 8 March has a socially conscious slogan: the abandonment of this anti-feminist pension reform.

30 out of the 101 seats in the Estonian parliament will be occupied by female candidates after last week’s general election. This matches the average political representation of women in the EU.

Even though the sitting Prime Minister Kaja Kallas earned a record-breaking 31,800 votes, just 13 out of the 37 seats won by her Reform party will be taken by women.

Still, 30 female deputies is the highest number of women ever to be elected to the parliament in Tallinn. Progress to gender equality follows a slow and winding road, even though, this time, there appeared to be more public calls to the electorate to cast their votes in favour of a female candidate.

Tamara, 34, has a delicate frame, an elegant face and a bright smile. She is always happy to have her picture taken, loves talking to her six-year-old son about different car brands, and collects vintage Ukrainian clothes and accessories. She still wears a wedding ring, despite recently becoming a widow, like thousands of other Ukrainian women after a year of full-scale war.

Her husband Oleksiy Yanin was a world champion in Thai boxing ― and a soldier with the Azov regiment since 2014. Azov defended the frontline in some of the most intense moments of the war so far, and last April its soldiers were surrounded by the Russian Army in Mariupol. Oleksiy died there.

Tamara had a hard time coping with his death. She didn’t even kiss him goodbye at the train station on the morning of 24 February, when she last saw him. “Everything I do now is for you, about you, in the name of your memory,” she writes in messages to Oleksiy, which he will never read. Her gratitude and pride have become stronger than pain. Caring for others is what gives her strength now.

A month after Oleksiy’s death, she began to take care of the families of other dead Azov soldiers. Tamara met them in chat rooms where relatives were discussing how to identify bodies and bury their remains. Many of these women used to live in the now-occupied territories, so they lost not only their husbands or sons, but also their home, belongings and their livelihoods. Tamara began collecting clothes, food, medicine, hygiene products and books for women and children displaced by war, and helps them find jobs and a place to stay. In a room she uses as a location for goods and aid, the walls are covered with widows’ phone numbers.

“I just love all of them, unconditionally. I understand them like no one else. And this is how I thank their husbands,” says Tamara. She has stepped out of her role as a traditional wife and a mother of a son on maternity leave, and has become a “collective mother”, supporting women united by grief and loss.

I enjoy my night light, though it’s located outside my apartment. Lamps on my street in Kyiv have a warm orange hue. It reflects on my walls, adding cosiness to the place where I stay.

Last year, I barely saw it. For several months after Russia’s full-scale invasion started, Ukraine switched to the dim mode. Lights could help the enemy detect or reach its targets, so the whole nation kept them switched off.

Once the occupiers were repelled from Kyiv, this low mode ended. But after 10 October, Russia massively attacked the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and darkness came back.

I remember last November as a month when my colleagues were hastily searching for cafés with a diesel generator, so they could finish writing their articles. Our chat, once a place for sharing memes and planning barbecues, resembled a hackathon: we were talking about how to access the Internet without electricity, what we need to use car batteries at home, and where to find LED lights with a USB connection.

The hardest thing was knowing it would get worse: Ukraine didn’t have enough means of air defence at that time.

Now, for several weeks, there have been almost no blackouts in Ukraine. Thanks to the allies, army and electricians, our skies are far better protected, and the energy system is partially restored. It’s the Russian side which is exhausted now, having spent the bulk of their missiles.

After the windows in the opposite house became bright, street lighting also came back. My flat is cosier again. And my friends are wondering: could we ever imagine, back in November, that the light would return so fast?

It’s definitely not over yet. But Ukraine once again became an illustration of the inspirational phrase about the need to keep fighting even when the prospects are dark. Things can get brighter afterwards.