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Poland’s courts are having problems staffing incompetent judges. This is the result of the governing Law and Justice’s “reforms” since the party won an outright majority in 2015.

The epitome of these problems is Julia Przyłębska, the chairwoman of the Constitutional Court, whom Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Law and Justice, called “his social discovery”. He often met her privately and praised her culinary skills.

Przyłębska became a judge in 1987. She passed the state exam with ‘barely sufficient’, the lowest possible grade for admission to the profession. There are many similar examples. The Association of Independent Judges “Iustitia” published a report showing that the Minister of Justice, in the first years of the “reform,” replaced 160 court presidents with his appointees, despite many lacking qualifications. As a result, the waiting period for resolving cases in Polish courts has increased. 
 
The purpose of such operations is for the governing party to gain the loyalty of judges. The Constitutional Court under Przyłębska’s leadership issued rulings in accordance with the will of the authorities. An example was in 2020, when the judges ruled that abortions previously allowed in cases of fetal damage or defects were unconstitutional. This led to huge protests.

But resistance to top-down changes imposed by the authorities is still strong in Polish courts. Ziobro’s nominee judges are being dissected by the “old” part of the judiciary, making it impossible for the former to rule smoothly.

Also, the work of the Constitutional Court is frozen. Some judges are demanding that Przyłębska leave, recognising that her term has expired. They do not want to come to court sessions. The court under her leadership has become a de facto dysfunctional institution.

The EU is the last guardian of Polish courts’ independence, and it should not hold back in its efforts to defend this key principle of the 27 member-bloc.

Is it possible to “kidnap” an entire organisation? The Spanish government accuses the opposition of seizing control of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).

The body, which oversees the judiciary in the country, has been operating on an interim basis for more than 4.5 years, or 1,643 days, as parliament cannot agree on the election of its new members.

The mandatory reelection needs a 3/5 majority in both houses of the Spanish parliament, meaning the two main parties, the governing Socialists and the Conservatives, must agree on the 20 members. Until then, members appointed from nine years ago are (mostly) staying in their posts. Such a decision might not happen before the snap elections this July.

Suffering from low growth and battling the highest inflation in the European Union, Hungary is desperately in need of EU funds. 

However, this cash has been suspended due to Brussels’ concerns over Hungary’s record on tackling corruption and maintaining the rule of law. So, when the Hungarian parliament adopted judicial reforms that entered into force on 1 June, there was a palpable sigh of relief.

No wonder: this package of new policies was a prerequisite for Budapest’s claim to €13.2 billion of the locked cohesion money.

Political pressure on the independence of the judiciary in Hungary has long been a domestic and international concern. A senior Budapest judge complained he and his colleagues “have been witnessing external and internal influence attempts” for years. The rule of law report of the European Commission also highlighted problems, including challenges faced by the National Judicial Council (a self-governing body of judges), rules on electing the President of the Supreme Court, and the possibility of favouritism in judicial appointments, promotions, case allocation and bonuses.

For some time, it seemed not even the Commission was paying enough attention. When the EU executive launched its budget conditionality procedure against Hungary for violations of the principles of the rule of law, they did not raise the issue of judicial independence. Only after pressure from the European Parliament, did they make this issue one of the conditions for Hungary’s access to €22 billion from the EU’s cohesion funds and to €5.8 billion from the recovery fund.

Hungary had no other choice but to address the concerns, and chose money over ruling the courts.

However, some experts and NGOs warn the Commission not to oversell these results. The judicial reforms fail to tackle the most important issues of which the Hungarian government is accused: corruption, conflict of interest and rigged public procurements. With that unchanged, the very nature of the Orbán government will remain intact, and the justice reform may quickly turn out to be just a “fig leaf” to hide the real problems with the rule of law.

“…this includes precisely the question of whether the Letzte Generation is a ‘criminal organisation.'”

Since April, climate activists, calling themselves “Letzte Generation” (“Last Generation”) have been trying to bring car traffic in Berlin “to a halt” by glueing themselves to crossroads. This has led to heated debates, and provoked a lot of hatred from car drivers towards the environmental protest. A few weeks ago, Felor Badenberg, minister of justice of the federal state of Berlin, instructed her administration to examine whether these climate activists fulfil the criteria of forming a criminal organisation. Her announcement caused uproar in the German public, especially as the prosecutor of the federal state of Berlin had already declared that he didn’t consider “Letzte Generation” a criminal organisation. Does Berlin’s minister of justice want to impose political directives on the prosecutors? If she wanted, she probably could: In Germany, prosecutors are eventually bound by directives issued by the ministries of justice, although it is not very common to use this tool.

Helping corrupt officials avoid punishment, “burying” laws, enjoying an inexplicably luxurious lifestyle on his modest state salary are just a few things of which Ukrainian judge Pavlo Vovk is suspected.

In 2010 ― at the age of only 31 ― he headed the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, an entity responsible for solving disputes with state officials and structures. This court decided whether a law adopted by the Ukrainian parliament could be put into practice, or whether a decision to ban a political party financed by Russia was legal. Vovk could influence such cases and, according to state prosecutors, he took advantage of his position.

Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities published several tapped recordings of Vovk’s conversations. They are full of phrases such as “I’m totally for any lawlessness in the Ukrainian court system” and others which imply he can act on the wishes of this or that top politician.

Pavlo Vovk admits these recordings are true. But he says the accusations are no more than an attempt at revenge. Ukrainian anti-corruption bodies are trying to influence the court, because many of the cases they started have been stuck there. When asked why, he said: “I am strong, and the court is independent.”

“Vovk” means “wolf” in Ukrainian, which was a gift for headline writers, who titled articles “Living by wolf rules” or “Wolf justice”. His court was popularly called “the justice shop”. For years, he was notorious and untouchable.

Despite all the hatred, protests and legal suspicions against him, Vovk kept his post until late 2022. Different presidents ― Victor Yanukovych, Petro Poroshenko, Volodymyr Zelenskyy ― answered questions about him and his court with vagueness and a lack of decision. He seemed to be too influential and useful. Finally, on 9 December last year, the USA imposed sanctions on Vovk “for soliciting bribes in return for interfering in judicial and other public processes”. After this, the war-torn and West-dependent Ukrainian state finally gave up Vovk ― by disbanding the court.

Now part of Vovk’s routine is attending hearings against him. These cases are also stuck in the judicial system.

Racism in UK football may not seem as widespread as in Italy or Spain, but this does not mean that such bigotry against footballers belongs in the nation’s past.

The abuse aimed at English players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka following their nation’s loss in the Euro 2020 final was the tip of the iceberg. Recently, during a match against Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur forward and South Korea captain Son Heung-Min encountered a racist gesture from a Palace fan.

But a remarkable difference between England and Italy and Spain is that both clubs condemned the abuse, with Crystal Palace banning the fan from future games, while the police launched an investigation. The Football Association and football clubs in England, and the United Kingdom in general, are vocal and proactive in condemning and investigating racial abuse, unlike in many other European countries.

In a Coppa Italia semi-final between Inter Milan and Juventus last April, Milan striker Romelu Lukaku faced racist chants from Juventus fans, and made a silent ‘shhh’ gesture to the crowd, which saw the referee send him off, and league suspend the Belgian international (the decision was later reversed).

Spain tells a similar ugly story. Real Madrid winger Vinicius Jr faced abuse from La Liga competitor Valencia’s fans at a clash last month, and threatened to leave the pitch. A general issue in the two south European countries is the lack of an organised condemnation of racism, which still remains isolated and practised by a minority of fans.

This goes beyond authorities implementing laws against racial discrimination to social media and sports culture, education, media awareness and a shift of perception, with teams and organisations like Kick it Out and Show Racism the Red Card, which monitor and condemn abuse in the UK.

Racism has not gone from football in England, but the nation can demonstrate lessons that other European leagues could follow.

Last summer, 30,000 children attended the UEFA Nations League clash between Hungary and England at Puskás Arena in Budapest. Though meant to be a closed-door event as punishment to Hungary for racist chants from its supporters, UEFA allowed in children under 14 – many of whom booed the English team for taking the knee.

Hungarians view this anti-racism gesture as controversial. Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán even called pressuring athletes to take the knee a ‘provocation’.

But a few months later Orbán angered Romania and Ukraine by wearing a football scarf to a Hungary-Greece game, printed with a map of a ‘Greater Hungary’, including territory its Empire conceded after World War I. The PM defended his actions by saying football was not about politics.

Except of course when Hungary is provoked.

If you are not from Spain, you probably don’t know that one prevailing Spanish characteristic is that we hate ourselves. While the French have their ‘chauvinism’ and the UK is still nostalgic for the spoils of its Empire, the Spanish keep flogging themselves.

But there is a revisionist trend of trying to stir this spiritual self-sabotage. Into this scenario arrives the racist abuse against Real Madrid winger Vinicius Jr.

A quick recap: On 21 May, during a La Liga match against Valencia, Vinícius Jr. was subjected to racial slurs from Valencia supporters. This incident incited a broader conversation on racism within La Liga.

In Spain, there have been many — although sporadic — racist attacks against black football players. But the Vinicius Jr. case, given his and Real Madrid’s popularity, reached the foreign press. That is when the problems started.

Spain must reflect on its racist attitudes. That’s a fact. Maybe not necessarily against black people (2.4% of the Spanish population), but mainly against other minorities, such as Arab, Roma or indigenous Latin Americans. The Spanish do not consider themselves racist, but evidence proves otherwise.

But when we heard from the British press that the Spanish bid for the World Cup (with Portugal and Ukraine) may be in danger because of this incident, the reaction was uproar. We have been held us up against the mirror, and we didn’t like it. The British, the ones who exterminated the North American indigenous people, the ones that killed thousands in India… telling us that we’re racist?

We were focusing on ‘how’ Spain was being scolded, and not examining the ‘why’. I understand that we don’t want to be told from outside, but the question is still real: is there place for racism in Spanish society? We should listen to our Spanish black, Roma or Arab communities, and maybe we’ll be surprised.

“The parents of the 12-year-old boys’ basketball team are worried because the recently ordered new uniforms have not arrived yet,” wrote an Estonian satire news site Lugejakiri. The article came with a photo of the supposed new uniforms — the notorious white robes of the Ku Klux Klan.

Of course the parents actually hadn’t ordered such clothing. The fictitious story was a reaction to an embarrassing event where a Finnish youth basketball team pulled out from a tournament because their Estonian opponents had used racial slurs against their black and Asian players.

The incident received wide media attention in both countries and sparked a much deeper debate. How to teach tolerance to such young kids? In a country where many of the older generation freely use the N-word and where, until a few years ago, the dictionary expressly said this word was not derogatory, it is not so easy to adopt a tolerant approach.

This Sunday, at the French tennis open Roland-Garros, a scandal occurred. The audience booed Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk after she refused to shake hands with her opponent, Aryna Sabalenka, of Belarus. The crowd on the tribunes perceived this as a sign of disrespect. This was not the case.

In modern times, sport has always been a symbol of common ground, fair play, rule-abiding and aspiration, despite state borders. International competitions underline the statement that all humanity is one large family. This was especially visible in the tournaments of post-USSR countries, where nations had a shared past, one language that everyone understands and common training methods, which created a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

But what happens when one of these countries tries to erase another?

Since the Russian aggression against Ukraine started in 2014, the approach that “sport is outside of politics” became quite popular among Ukrainians. For two reasons: first, there still was a feeling of kinship inside the sport community. Second, in prosperous Moscow, everything was “citius, altius, fortius” – faster, higher, stronger.

The prospect of higher incomes and better careers pushed many Ukrainian professionals to seek out Russia as a location for their training and development. Though any wins of Ukrainians over Russians were considered almost military victories: the nation was triumphant.

Since last year, when Russia’s intention to annihilate Ukraine became perfectly clear, the idea of the two countries working together in sport, art ― or, actually, any discipline ― became a no-go for most Ukrainians.

But many international sports federations haven’t excluded Russians or Belarusians, as Minsk is Russia’s official ally in this war. So Ukrainians still face them as opponents, and leaving world tournaments would effectively end their careers. But there are no hugs, no smiles, and no handshakes.

Kostyuk said that before the match she was following the news from Kyiv, where her father is living. The Ukrainian capital suffered its most critical drone attack. Aryna Sabalenka stated that, at first, she thought the boos from the Paris crowd were addressed to her. She understands everything.

Indrek Seppo is a data scientist and AI expert at the University of Tartu.

European Focus: Technology entrepreneurs published a joint statement a few months ago, suggesting putting the development of AI systems on hold for six months. What do you think of this idea?

Indrek Seppo: I don’t think it would be technically feasible. In addition, I have no faith that we will be able to figure out in six months how to continue. Even if artificial intelligence develops consciousness – and it will inevitably happen in my opinion – we do not know today how it will behave, or how it will be used.

Should countries prepare legislation or another institutional framework for AI to regulate its increasingly frequent use?

Yes, our laws definitely need to change because of AI. But the problem is that nobody knows how. Regulation just for the sake of it would not help anyone and might only worsen the situation.

A simple example: We have millions of graphics cards in people’s hands. How do you regulate what a teenager does in his bedroom? Good luck!

What are the most common misconceptions about AI?

Artificial intelligence is not omnipotent. It will be smart, it will probably have consciousness, but it will not be omnipotent. Taking over the world will also be a serious challenge for AI because superhuman intellect is not enough.

I also see a misconception that AI is somehow just a statistical machine that imitates intellect. If something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, functions like a duck, then it is a duck!

Many people are concerned that AI wants to reproduce, and to take over the world. That could happen, but it’s by no means certain. Our human desires evolved long before our minds did. Maybe in a few years our best psychiatrists will investigate why artificial intelligence keeps wanting to switch itself off.

Will there ever be a European alternative to ChatGPT? AI development requires a huge processing capacity to train Large Language Models — but this is an expensive resource that major European universities and companies do not have.

According to a study by the German AI Association, it would take 350 million euros to set up such a data centre. That is the equivalent of building 50 km of motorway. The association founded an initiative together with nine European countries to develop a project.

However, it is questionable whether the German government will co-finance the project. ​The budget has been under discussion for months.

Last March the Italian data protection authority (DPA) temporarily blocked OpenAI’s ChatGPT in Italy. The authority criticised OpenAI for not describing how it trains its algorithms and not offering users the possibility of deleting or correcting inaccurate data. Open AI has since made some modifications, and Italy has allowed use of the software again, but doubts remain.

OpenAI has stated the AI is trained using “information that is publicly available on the internet”. This means that the AI “crawls” the web to train the algorithm. Such activity is problematic under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), especially when it takes into account criminal activity.

For example, a malevolent actor could use ChatGPT to access a public blogpost of mine, where I write about LGBTQ+ unions, to create a database of LGBTQ+ individuals which could be up for sale to a reactionary government.

OpenAI also mentions another source: “information that we license from third parties”. It is not clear who such “third parties” are and how they collect data. GDPR prohibits the use of illegally formed databases.

The second issue concerns the rights of the data subject. The DPA demanded ChatGPT allow the removal and rectification of data, on request of the data subject. The company has made some changes, but has declared that it cannot guarantee the rectification of data due to technical reasons.

This is an issue that is not unique to ChatGPT as these technologies are increasingly being used in other areas, such as recruitment. For example, if you were applying for a job, a recruiter could stop your prospects of winning a position due to inaccurate information about you in an illegally created database.

These are some of the unanswered questions that require a clear position from national governments and European institutions.

“Are there any emotional sentences, loaded statements, rhetorical devices in the given text? Please identify, tokenise and list all of them.”

The text in the picture above is an answer to the prompt given to ChatGPT by the President of the Kyiv School of Economics Tymofiy Mylovanov in a masterclass dedicated to using AI to detect and combat disinformation. The text in question was a study by the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland about Western businesses who remained in Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“Uncovering and busting disinformation is one of the significant challenges Ukraine is facing. If you choose the prompts carefully, ChatGPT can analyse massive amounts of information ― not as well as trained humans, but in just a few minutes,” says Mylovanov.

New AI tools have a positive image in Ukraine and are used in distance learning, business meetings, budget compiling and in warfare. On the other hand, officials and experts are calling for the development of a policy on ChatGPT usage. And there are some disappointments: when ChatGPT answers to users with narratives that echo Russian propaganda.

“The use of AI in illustration is unethical,” renowned comic artist and reader of El Confidencial, Mikel Janín, argued when stopping his subscription to our newspaper. It was not an isolated criticism, but a reflection of the discontent that many users expressed in reaction to an experiment we conducted last April, where we used an AI tool to design an illustration and tweeted about it.

I believe there are many lessons to be learned from this episode. A newspaper such as El Confidencial gains and loses readers every day, but losing Mikel hit me particularly hard, and I have written a letter, urging him to come back:

Dear Mikel,

Please accept my apologies. The experiment was limited. The image was clearly labelled as AI-generated, and it was explained in a Twitter thread. However, communication with the audience is crucial. Undoubtedly, the Tweet was not enough to convey our message. As a subscriber, you deserve an explanation.

I’ve seen major media outlets decline by failing to accept — or outright refusing — technological changes. We cannot expect a cutting-edge newspaper to refrain from experimenting with such innovations. The arrival of AI in the media is unstoppable, and those who do not adapt will perish.

The illustration experiment was not carried out as a substitute for the work of a professional. It was conducted by our team of designers, who have been experimenting with the most groundbreaking technology in decades. The formats, infographics and special features they created (many of them award-winning) testify to the value we place on graphic art.

The best way to approach the discussion about AI is not to deny it exists. Subscribers such as yourself can make their voices heard in our newsroom and scrutinise the ethical use of any technology. I invite you and everyone else who feels disappointed not to abandon us over a misstep. Please come back and engage in the debate with us. After all, we are also afraid of the implications of AI.

The largest Spanish cities are choosing divergent paths to follow in the future. Madrid and Barcelona face similar challenges, especially in terms of access to housing, rising rents and the explosion of tourist apartments.

This phenomenon is mainly caused by Airbnb, but not only. Even though the diagnosis is similar, the cure for tackling the problem is widely different in the two cities.

Barcelona, in the hands of a former housing activist Ada Colau, has been trying for years to achieve what her supporters call ‘a more liveable city’, with a series of measures limiting the numbers of tourist apartments. Since 2015, the city has imposed a moratorium on the construction of new tourist apartments. Since 2017, the city has established quotas for tourist apartments in the most at-risk areas, limiting the issuing of new licences.

Madrid, which has been in the hands of the conservative PP since 2019, has taken a different path: no regulation of tourist rentals.

The restrictions in Barcelona and the “laissez-faire” attitude in Madrid have had an effect: last February, Madrid registered an increase of 9.3% in tourist apartments compared to the same month in 2022, while Barcelona registered a 25.1% decrease, according to the National Statistics Institute.

But for Barcelona, the problem remains: apart from being one of the most visited cities in Spain, just a month ago a real-estate company found a legal loophole, backed by the Judicial Court, that allowed the firm to transform 140 apartments in the same building into accommodation for tourists. The case caused an uproar and showed one of the biggest problems still facing Barcelona: the limitation of what a city can do without a national strategy.

Meanwhile, the ‘turismofobia’ (hate for tourists) is growing. This is a paradox in the second-most-visited country in the world, where tourism accounts for 12% of the GDP. What the residents are seeing, however, is that neighbourhoods are less occupied by longtime residents… and instead with tourists.

Over 53,000 people moved away from Amsterdam in 2021, according to the central bureau of statistics CBS. That is more than five percent of the total population of the city.

Noise, crowds, dissatisfaction with their neighbourhood, and rising housing costs are among the top concerns cited by locals in a report published by Rabobank. These are “signals that the limit has been reached and liveability is in danger,” admits the municipality.

Amsterdam is seeing a surge in mass tourism (19 million overnight visitors per year), but also a rising population of 921,000 people currently, many of whom are expats willing to pay high rents and house prices.

Last week students all over Italy started a “tent protest” against high rents. Bologna is Italy’s university town par excellence: home to the oldest university in the world. Emily Clancy is the deputy mayor of Bologna.

How much does a room in Bologna cost for a student? Is there a housing emergency? Does it infringe on the right to study?

For a room, a student pays on average 400-450 euro per month, and sometimes hundreds more: even 800 euro. Such costs are unsustainable. Before the pandemic, the municipality received fewer than 2,000 applications for rent subsidies. This year, 11,000 have arrived.

I do not call it an “emergency” because I do expect structural answers. Housing is currently a priority for the city: Bologna must be attractive without marginalising or expelling the most vulnerable groups.

Already years ago, as a city councillor and leader of the left-wing movement ‘Civic Coalition’, you promoted a public debate on the impact of Airbnb. What is the role of this platform in the current rental crisis?

Its role is remarkable. Data tell us that the collapse of agreed rental contracts goes hand in hand with the increase in listings on the platforms for short tourist rentals: until 2016 in Bologna there were around 32,000 agreed rental contracts, today they are down to 26,000. In the same years, listings on Airbnb have risen from around 800 to over 4,000 today.

Now that you are in government in Bologna, which initiatives are you taking to tackle Airbnb and rentals? And what has Giorgia Meloni’s government done?

The sporadic resources that used to come for the rent subsidy have been completely cut by this government. We have presented a plan for the right to housing which is unparalleled in Bologna’s recent history: it contains a 200 million euro package with which we intend to finance many strategies, from creating a social renting agency to renovating our public housing stock and regenerating abandoned urban sites.

The aim is to convert unused places and to reshape them as a common good. We cannot regulate Airbnb directly, as Barcelona has done. So what we are doing is promoting a municipalist alliance with ten other cities like Milan and Naples, and exerting political pressure together for a national law to regulate such platforms.

Zoya Lobod, Kyiv entrepreneur

Soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, online lodging marketplace Airbnb declared it would provide help for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees in Europe, US and Canada. The San Francisco-based company offered vouchers for up to €2,000, to be used for renting a place for up to 14 days.

According to Airbnb’s website, 100,000 people took up the offer, but we don’t know how much Airbnb profited from its generous action PR-wise.

Airbnb’s claim “Belong anywhere” may sound like one of those slogans that are so generic they become meaningless. For me, this kind of travelling absolutely kept what it promised.

On a trip to Copenhagen for my girlfriend’s birthday in 2014, we got sick and spent five days almost completely in a one-room student apartment. It was great! We felt very Danish, lying in bed behind large uncurtained windows, looking at brick-lined buildings, seagulls and cyclists, and sitting on simple yet classy chairs, which we considered buying for ourselves.

The laundry of our host, Lotte, was standing in a corner to dry. And when she accidentally came home a day early, it felt even more like we had made ourselves comfortable in someone else’s life.

By the way, would you have guessed that many Danes have windowless one square-metre bathrooms where the whole “room” gets wet when showering, while you concentrate on not tripping over the toilet? These are the kind of things that Airbnb taught me.

Many hosts were young adults like Lotte who handed over the keys to their flats, threw a large backpack over their shoulders, and left to sleep at their lover’s or parents’ place for a few days, in order to earn some extra cash.

Communicating beforehand, it was not unusual to exchange some personal background. It felt like texting a friend of a friend. Hosts’ recommendations helped us come as close as it gets for tourists to “really” get to know a city. Airbnb was part of how I wanted to travel.

I still book Airbnbs occasionally, but I can’t recall when I last felt like I stayed at someone’s home. Keys are left in boxes with number codes, the furniture is functional, but generic. Quite obviously no-one lives in these flats, and they’re not even cheap any more.

Airbnb has become just another site for booking holiday apartments. Given the many negative effects for popular destinations, it might just as well go away for good.

Windows broken, stores looted, wrecked streets and a nation in shock. This is what I saw on my way to a secondary school civics exam, scheduled for the morning of 27 April, 2007.

It was hard to revise the evening before because I was experiencing a different kind of civics exam – watching the events of Estonia’s now-infamous Bronze Night (Pronksiöö) play out on TV.

This was centred around the Government’s intention to relocate a monument for a Soviet soldier from the so-called Great Patriotic War. The difference between that concept and the Second World War? The latter began in September 1939 when both the Nazis and the Red Army invaded Poland, and each occupied half of the country. The former began only in 1941 when the Nazis turned on their Soviet allies.

The Bronze Soldier had become a flashpoint of division between two concepts of history. After another round of provocations, riots broke out in central Tallinn. This kind of unrest had been unknown in a peaceful country that had just joined the EU and NATO. Born in 1988, I had felt I was living at the end of history.

Due to the riots of mostly Russian-speakers and with another Great Patriotic War anniversary imminent on 9 May (the Victory Day of the Soviet Union over the Nazis), the Estonian government relocated the monument that very night in 2007. 16 years later, officials are still trying to distract attention by focusing on Europe Day – the celebration of the European community, which happens on the same day. This year, a free concert was held on Freedom Square featuring Kalush Orchestra, Ukraine’s winners of Eurovision last year.

People showed up at the concert to support Ukraine and a free Europe, but the wounds of Estonia’s social fabric have not fully healed. Many ignored the concert, and opted to lay flowers at the foot of the Bronze Soldier. The battle between histories continues.

In Berlin, we have four Soviet war memorials. The biggest includes a huge statue of a soldier and several stone coffins inscribed with gilded quotations by Joseph Stalin.

According to the 1990s agreement on German unification, the German state must maintain these war memorials. In the early 2000s, even the Stalin quotes were regilded.

Every year, people come here to commemorate the defeat of Nazism, including leftists and visitors bearing Russian nationalist iconography. Because of the Russian war against Ukraine, the police have tried to ban Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian flags from being flown on these Soviet memorials on 8 and 9 May.

However, a court decision has exempted Ukrainian flags from the ban.

For Ukrainian schoolchildren of the 2000s, 9 May meant visits to the local parade, where they handed flowers to war veterans, who marched down the main street. The kids wore a small black and orange-striped St. George ribbon ― a symbol of “The Victory over Nazism”.

Last year, when Russians occupied part of the Kharkiv region, a villager volunteered to work with the occupiers, while wearing the ribbon of Saint George. When Ukrainian forces liberated the village, the local residents turned on him, and this once-important symbol. He was then detained by police.

How did this change happen?

On 9 May in 2010, Russia renewed the lease on its Russian naval base in Ukraine’s Crimea region, and a full-scale military parade with Soviet symbols took place in Kyiv.

In 2014, the Russo-Ukrainian war began. People sympathetic to Russia started wearing the St. George ribbon. A year later, Ukraine adopted decommunisation laws, which banned Soviet symbols, alongside Nazi imagery. The main holiday became the 8 May as the day for remembrance and reconciliation, and a red poppy became its symbol. Ukraine stopped holding military parades in May ― and Russia started organising them in the occupied territories. Russian President Vladimir Putin even visited such a parade in Sevastopol, Crimea, in 2014.

Despite this state policy, 80% of Ukrainians still considered 9 May an important day. But that was before Russia invaded further. The full-scale invasion changed this attitude: now only 15% of Ukrainians have this view.

A year ago, Ukrainians were leaving large cities, concerned that Russia may use nuclear weapons on its Victory Day of 9 May.

Now, people in Ukraine are discussing whether they’ll sleep at all, as Russian attacks are especially intense.

In the past, the only explosions we heard on these days were fireworks. Today it is missiles. There is no atmosphere of celebration, only the feeling of danger ― and the need for truth.

“The Partisan attack in Via Rasella was a page in the history of the resistance that was anything but noble. Those who were killed were a music band made up of semi-pensioners, not SS Nazis.”

This is a quote from Ignazio La Russa, Italy’s President of the Senate. Before being promoted to the second-highest ranking role of the Republic, La Russa was well known for his fascist roots. Not only did he collect Benito Mussolini’s memorabilia, but he also started his political career as leader of neofascist Youth Front.

La Russa was a co-founder of Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s party. As soon as the far-right coalition won a majority, Meloni gave him a promotion. As a result, the president of the Senate is revising history. On 25 April, Italy’s Liberation Day, he didn’t join the President in a visit to anti-Fascist memorial in Piedmont, opting instead for a trip to Prague.

Art historian András Rényi on the tough conversation about WWII memory in Hungary.

The Hungarian state and society is shirking its responsibility for the Holocaust – this is one of the most frequent criticisms of the memorial to the Victims of the German occupation, erected in Budapest in 2014.

This disapproval of a memorial which makes no mention of Hungary’s role in one of the 20th century’s darkest chapters has even developed into a grassroots protest. For almost ten years, civil members of the Living Memorial movement have regularly gathered near the memorial to talk about their memories, such as the role of Hungarian authorities in the holocaust, and family deportations and mass killings.

András Rényi talks about this initiative.

How does this debate affect the memory of the Second World War?

Symbolic politics is one of the most important playing fields of the Hungarian regime of today. Under the current constitution, Hungary was not sovereign for 46 years due to the German and Soviet occupations, and everything that happened during this period was down to collaborators.

In the controversial statue, a German eagle swoops down on the Archangel Gabriel, who drops the orb (part of the Hungarian crown jewels) from his hand. The same Archangel leads the conquering Hungarians towards the Carpathian Basin on the monument in Heroes’ Square.

These two works of art in Budapest mark the beginning and the end of Hungary’s thousand years of history, and the beginning of a new Viktor Orbán era, which takes no responsibility for the sins of the past.

Has it been possible to counterbalance this message?

The Living Memorial movement is one of the few initiatives that forced the Orbán government to a symbolic defeat. The occupation memorial – which attracted such criticism – has never been officially inaugurated.

What is the status of the memory of the Second World War today?

The knowledge and experience accumulated during the Second World War becomes more and more distant and impersonal. And now it is being reactivated, because of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The images of the massacre in Bucha shocked the whole European public, for example. Putin’s aggression has reinforced the sense of danger in the liberal world.

The European Union is not known for speed or astuteness – which makes its firm attitude towards China all the more surprising. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has long called for greater resilience among the 27 member states in the face of Beijing’s quest for power, and last week, she laid out in the European Parliament how that could work.

With its military presence in the East China Sea, China threatens Taiwan’s democracy and, in the Xinjiang region, the world’s number two economic superpower systematically violates human rights against the Muslim population, such as the Uighur.

With few exceptions, the EU has recognised the potential for conflict that emanates from the “new era” proclaimed by China’s party and state leader Xi Jinping. But while Brussels has a plan for China, Berlin does not.

The German government is still struggling to come up with a new China strategy. Decoupling Germany from China is not the solution, chancellor Olaf Scholz argues, since the People’s Republic is Germany’s biggest trade partner and important for many German multinationals, like Volkswagen and Siemens. Scholz insists on derisking by diversifying. But Germany has failed to branch out in the past.

Nowhere has this become clearer than in the energy sector after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The risk of dependence on Moscow’s hydrocarbons was widely debated since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but instead of diversifying its energy supply, Germany allowed the pipeline Nord Stream 2 to be built. The rest is history.

The threat of a major conflict of interests, like in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, is real and would have devastating consequences for the global economy.

Therefore, it would be helpful if Scholz learned from the errors his Social Democrats made in the past. If Germany’s foreign policy continues to take an ‘economy-first’ attitude in the face of China’s growing belligerence, it risks repeating the same mistakes it made in its appeasing attitude to Russia.

This year, Vodafone sold its Hungarian division to local peer 4iG and the Hungarian state for 1.8 billion euros, in what was meant to be a debt-fuelled acquisition. Press reports confirmed that 4iG received a loan of 750 million euros, and it seems many of the lending banks supplying this cash were Chinese.

In 2010, PM Viktor Orbán announced a policy of ‘Eastern Opening’, indicating an overture to attracting Asian economic interest. Since then, many projects have included Chinese money, such as the Budapest-Belgrade railway and a battery factory. There were even plans to build a campus of Shanghai’s Fudan University in Budapest.

But while the Hungarian government continues to seek out ties with China, critics fear this may imply economic and political influence for Beijing – not only in Hungary but also in the European Union.

In 2019, I was a journalism student writing for the magazine at the University of Tartu, Estonia, when I became the victim of censorship.

That November, my head of university communications emailed me with news that the university had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese tech-giant Huawei. The deal included a student exchange programme and the chance of research funding. The university marketed the arrangement as a success story, but I suggested to the editor-in-chief to write a story about the risks involved. She agreed.

The story was supposed to go live in February 2020, but the University’s head of communications told me it could not be published. I didn’t understand who made the decision, except it came from “somewhere higher up”. The University’s explanations were rather vague.

The University’s head of development argued it would be acceptable to publish the article in a national newspaper, but not in the university’s own press. In his opinion, this was not the right place for criticism.

To me this was incomprehensible. In my view, a debate would have shown the maturity of our university. I was disappointed in my place of study because it was ignoring democratic values. An open discussion would have given a chance to consider all the pros and cons before rushing into a collaboration that could possibly backfire.

We can assume that the university feared Huawei would renege on the agreement because of the article. But the ban showed our cowardice – we were willing to retreat from freedom of speech and of the press. For me this was a dangerous precedent – the university showed that it was prepared to be muzzled just not to lose funding.

My experience was particularly ironic. I was writing my thesis on self-censorship in journalism at the same time, and, as a journalist myself, found myself as a case study. After a newspaper ran a story about the situation and public pressure grew, the university published the censored piece online.

Environmental activists protesting against deforestation are dragged away by riot police in Novi Sad, Serbia, on 24 March 2023. These images of women coerced by police officers are going viral on social media.

The trees were cut down because of a new investment: a Chinese state-owned company is building a bridge in the second-largest city in Serbia.

The past decade has seen a significant increase in China’s economic presence in Serbia. According to the American Enterprise Institute, from 2010 to 2022, China’s investment and construction projects in Serbia were the largest of any country in the region, amounting to $17.3 billion.

These investments and public works projects followed the same pattern: a disregard for environmental concerns, non-disclosure agreements, and poor credit terms for Serbia.

The political gain belongs to Serbian politicians, who can put these developments on their list of achievements.

However, no one knows how long Serbia will have to continue paying off its debts for the public works projects, when the investments will finally pay off, and who will actually benefit.

Little Lithuania has been one of the first European countries to point out the risks of dependence on the Chinese economy. In November 2021, the Baltic nation of fewer than three million people was immersed in a diplomatic crisis with Beijing, after the Chinese complained about the opening of a Taiwanese ‘Representative Office’ in Vilnius.

In response, China exerted economic pressure on Lithuania, blocked Lithuanian exports and warned EU and US companies of the “consequences” of using products of Lithuanian origin. It was a David versus Goliath struggle, and also a litmus test to assess the EU’s options in the coming years as it faces increasing competition from China, which is using its economic leverage to press against internal decisions.

Lithuania’s dependence on China is relatively low compared to other European countries in terms of trade and investment. Lithuania has a lot of experience in preventing investments due to national security issues, such as those from its neighbour, Russia. A similar relationship can be applied to China.

After the opening of the Representative Office, what the Baltic nation hadn’t anticipated was that China would also target foreign companies that have an economic relationship with Lithuania and trade ties with China, and punish the country in a broader way.

Following China’s reaction, the EU closed ranks with Lithuania, and the US raised China’s behaviour with the World Trade Organization, and finally won the case.
Due to the solidarity shown by the other EU Member States and their allies, the November 2021-February 2022 incident showed the European Union that countries can take decisions independently of Chinese pressure, and that it is possible to resist Chinese economic intimidation.

Doing business with autocracies is risky. Obviously, China has a huge market. It is not in the interest of European countries to shut down relations with China completely.

But what the Lithuania experience shows is that the EU should be more resilient and less willing to be fully dependent on China. Lithuania (and other Baltic countries) understood that nation states cannot talk about trade and economic ties without taking into consideration the issue of national security.

My uncle has an apartment in Hamburg, overlooking wind turbines. Although there are strong currents in the city, the blades have often stood still in recent months. Why? Because there was too much electricity in the German grid and energy plants that could be shut down had to stand idle.

Actually, the last German nuclear power plants were supposed to be shut down at the beginning of this year. But supporters of nuclear power seized the opportunity and the fear of power shortages due to the energy crisis to lobby for a period of grace, and their operating time was “stretched” by a further three-and-a-half months.

Last Saturday, they were finally put to rest. These plants were not critical to the energy mix, as they covered only six percent of Germany’s electricity consumption.

Would we have had power outages in winter without them? Probably not. Many days, Germany even exported electricity. It’s quite possible that those were exactly the periods of time when the wind turbines near my uncle’s apartment were standing still.
I think it’s naive to play off the danger of the climate crisis against the danger of nuclear power plants. We saw in Chernobyl and Fukushima how devastating the consequences of accidents can be.

It is possible to make power plants safe against accidents, natural disasters and sabotage, as has been the case in Germany (probably thanks to continuous criticism from the opponents of nuclear power), but the risk cannot be eliminated.

Also, the waste from the plants will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years. Safe storage alone makes this form of energy production much more expensive than solar and wind.

The energy that some have invested in recent months to polemicise for extended operating times would be better spent on expanding renewables, so that the turbines can use the wind that’s blowing freely….

Construction on the third reactor at the Flamanville nuclear power plant in northern France was approved in 2007 and should have been operational five years later, in 2012.

But the project is dragging on and is expected to take at least 17 years to complete, at an estimated cost of 19.1 billion euros – nearly six times the original estimate. In December, the owner-operator EDF announced its postponement to the first quarter of 2024 because of work to repair welds with questionable quality.

It seems the construction of a further European pressurised water reactor, designed to revive nuclear energy after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, is a real challenge.

The Hungarian government is committed to nuclear energy, and so is the population: according to a survey conducted early this year, 70 percent of Hungarians support nuclear power plants.

Hungary has one nuclear power plant, Paks. Built with Russian technology, it has been in operation since the 1980s. The four units are set to be decommissioned in the 2030s, but the government is seeking a lifetime-expansion that could mean a further 10 to 20 years of operation.

The country is also building two more units at the same site by the river Danube. The new units were meant to replace the old ones, but expansion means they might be operational side-by-side for decades.

According to government officials, electricity is crucial due to increasing household demand, and because various Asian battery factories are set to be built in the country, which require a steady flow of power.

The constructor of the new units is Russian state-owned company Rosatom, which supplies the reactor assembly with French, German and American companies supplying other main systems. Hungary awarded the contract to Rosatom, skipping an open international tender in 2014, with Moscow providing a loan of 10 billion euros.

However, Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, has recently disclosed that all contracts are being renegotiated because time has passed since the signing of the original documents. Sanctions against Russia are also playing a key part.

Some analysts believe Rosatom will be unable to deliver the project under such circumstances. Others argue that it is in Hungary’s national interest to find another contractor, as Russia is now a hostile power.

Similar to the way in which the previous contracts were kept secret until 2019, the modifications are still unclear. It is not certain whether the details will allow Rosatom to conclude the project. Also, the construction of the new units is already years behind schedule, mostly because of Rosatom’s failure to present design plans that comply with EU and Hungarian standards.

”Romania can become an exporter of energy solutions to Moldova and regionally on a larger scale. If Romania manages to take all the steps and comply with authorisation, safety and environmental impact procedures, it will be advantageous [to the region].

Romania and the state company Nuclearelectrica did the right thing regarding [a new] project with the United States [in 2021] which aims to implement Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology [in Romania].”

Eugenia Gusilov, director of the Romanian Energy Centre, ROEC

Romania has ambitious plans to ensure its energy self-sufficiency and open further routes to export, with the help of nuclear power.
The two reactors of the country’s only nuclear power plant in Cernavoda produce almost 20 percent of the country’s electricity, using Canadian technology. Romania plans to become a regional pioneer by implementing new nuclear technologies patented in partnership with the U.S., such as SMR reactors which can be moved and scaled up and down.

The main target for electricity exports is the Republic of Moldova, which needs cheap and reliable electricity, so it can help escape from Russia’s strategy of energy blackmail.

The sanatorium ― this is what Russian soldiers called the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in March 2022. At that time, they used its territory as a location to rest between their failed attempts to capture Kyiv, which is 120 kilometres to the south.

As it was too dangerous for the Ukrainian army to shell the nuclear site, this became a place of shelter for the occupiers. Chornobyl’s radiation, which was a global menace in 1986, now offered protection for an invading force.

But most Russian soldiers didn’t understand the threat of radiation and ignored basic safety rules.

They laid down on open ground and ate outside, where their bodies absorbed radioactive particles that will never go away. They dug trenches in the Red Forest, the most contaminated area around the power plant, and breathed in the dust. They stole abandoned army vehicles from the open air museum, which were kept about ten metres away from visitors during peacetime.

Without crossing into the firing line, they still did irreparable damage to themselves.

According to intelligence reports, nuclear power plants (NPP) were the primary targets of the Russian invasion. As well as offering shelter, they could be used to blackmail both the world and local population. While the former fears another Chornobyl catastrophe, the Russians can cut off the latter from the power grid, if they are not loyal to Moscow.

All this makes NPPs an even bigger threat to mankind. Right now there are no discussions in Ukraine about abolishing nuclear power as they are critical to the current energy balance.

But in the future, there may be more reasons to remember the phrase one of Chornobyl’s workers said to the occupiers: “After a fight here, you have only two options: a zinc coffin or a lead one”. While the first is commonly used to transport dead bodies, the second is a casket for radioactive matter.

“Gender ideology and the LGBT movement threaten the identity, the nation, its continuance and the Polish state” – Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chairman of Poland’s ruling right-wing and populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, said in 2019.

In June 2020, during the campaign for the presidential election, President Andrzej Duda, who hails from PiS and was standing for re-election, also spoke on this issue: “They try to tell us that [LGBT] are people, but it is an ideology.”

These are examples of homophobic hate speech used by major Polish politicians in the parliamentary (2019) and presidential (2020) campaigns. Both were won by PiS and Duda.

But this triggered a counter-effect. What followed were mass coming-outs by the young all over the country, not just in big liberal cities. Many PiS voters have realised that this was not due to “LGBT ideology”, it was their gay, lesbian, transgender children or grandchildren realising their identities.

Paradoxically, those homophobic campaigns, cynically unleashed for political gains, were a wake-up call for many Poles. In 2022 Poland saw record support for at least civil unions of same-sex couples – 64 percent are in favour of them.

It seems Poles have found a social consensus, but society lacks the political will to change. The ruling PiS party will refuse to pass a law supporting LGBT people. But even those politicians are aware of this social shift. The topic of “LGBT ideology” has already disappeared from their political agenda.

Poland’s parliamentary election will be held in autumn. The two main opposition parties – Civic Platform and Poland 2050 – have announced the introduction of civil unions. The third one – New Left – supports marriage equality. It depends on this election whether the Polish authorities will finally begin to respect human rights, or whether Poland, however, will continue to resemble Putin’s Russia.

Since this March, it only takes four months to legally change your gender in Spain. Parliament has passed a LGTBQ protection law that keeps Spain on track to be one of the most progressive countries in LGTBQ issues, at least on paper.

In the past, a trans person needed a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and two years of hormone therapy. Now, all you have to do is inform the civil registry that you want to change your gender, come back three months later and wait another month. This avoids the “pathologisation” of trans people.

Petro Zherukha is reserved and soft-spoken, and not the usual kind of man you would expect to see in military uniform. Until last year, he spent his time debating at a book club, playing chess, and, above all, playing music, as he was studying at the music academy in Lviv. Now he is a volunteer in the Ukrainian army.

Petro has made a similar life-change to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, but another detail made his journey specific: he is homosexual, and in war, this brings complications. The issues are not social: in many interviews, Ukrainian gay and lesbian soldiers have said how they do not experience discrimination either from their comrades, or from their superiors. On the contrary, when you see people from different walks of life defending the same values as you, taking the same risks as you, and suffering as you do, this builds loyalty. The problems start when homosexuals move from the field of battle to the field of law.

In Ukraine, only relatives can visit a person in intensive care, identify the remains in a morgue, or be the legal representative of the deceased. A gay couple may live together for 30 years ― but legally they are strangers. Petro wants to change this. He is pushing for a new law on civil partnerships for same-sex couples ― a more inclusive alternative to what his country has traditionally considered a family.

“Now I’m sitting on a bag of sugar in a house under shelling,” Petro wrote in a post asking for support for the petition to pass the law, “My private life is on pause, but I still think this law is timely. I am fighting for an Ukraine where there is no discrimination, and where everyone can defend their relationships.”

Within five days, the petition gathered 14,000 signatures. Parliament is expected to discuss the draft in the spring. The legal space in Ukraine is still lagging behind people’s attitudes and experiences, but society is bringing change.

After attacking media freedom, Giorgia Meloni’s government has taken on rainbow families and disowned same-sex parenthood. The Italian Ministry of the Interior has forced Milan’s progressive mayor Beppe Sala to backtrack in recognising rainbow families, by instructing him to stop registering the children of same-sex parents.

Sala denounced this problem at a press conference in Strasbourg, while dozens of progressive mayors protested against the government’s decision. This is a further step in the erosion of the rule of law in Italy, the European Parliament stated last week.

In December 2021, the EU Court of Justice ruled that “a child who has same-sex parents according to a birth certificate drawn up by the host Member State must be issued an identity card or a passport by the Member State of her nationality and must be able to exercise her freedom of movement in the EU with each of her parents”. The “Stolichna obshtina, rayon Pancharevo” case inspired the EU Commission’s proposal for a regulation. It expects that “parenthood established in a Member State of the EU should be recognised in all the other Member States”.

But for this proposal to be approved, unanimity is needed, and Meloni seems to prefer an “Orbanisation” of Italy.

It’s not that hard to spot a trend: one year ago, after his re-election as prime minister, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán declared that “gender is the main problem in Europe”. His anti-LGBT laws have become notorious. But he was inspired by the Polish Law and Justice party: in 2020, Andrzej Duda’s presidential campaign was also marked by anti-LGBT rhetoric.

Now that Meloni is in power, she is using the same tactics, to cover her failures under the veil of propaganda.

András Léderer, head of advocacy at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee on a recent attack against the LGBTQ community in Hungary.

“Here’s some good news. Uganda’s parliament has passed an anti-LGBTQ law so that pansies who marry will be executed” – a prominent Hungarian pro-government journalist András Bencsik recently made this comment on one of the most watched Hungarian pro-government TV channels.

In Hungary, homophobic propaganda has a long history, how did we get here?


Bencsik’s remarks are the latest in a series of choreographed narrative and legislative attacks against the LGBT community. This began with a threatening statement by the Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the international day against homophobia in 2015, where he spoke about “us, Hungarians” and “them, having a different lifestyle”.

The next seven years saw a war on gender studies, constitutional amendments that bring exclusionist positions into key laws, banning legal gender recognition in practice and same-sex couples’ right to adopt children, mixing paedophilia with belonging to the LGBT community, banning the discussion and portrayal of LGBT content for under 18s, and organising a national referendum on questions such as whether voters support the promotion of gender-reassignment for minors.

What could be the purpose of Bencsik’s statement?

Bencsik is testing how far the rest of the state’s propaganda machine is willing to go in attacking LGBT rights.

What are the consequences of such a statement?

Whether he manages to expand the limits of what is acceptable to say as propaganda partially rests on the public response to such statements. The normalisation of hate can only happen when the rest of society is silent.

Secondly, there are people who are beginning to understand their identity, and where they orientate their affections. It matters greatly if they hear that people like them are worth executing, and that is all they hear.

“I don’t know if the government realises that we die before others do,” said Daouda, a 49- year-old waste collector. Since 6 March, he and his Parisian colleagues have been on strike against France’s pension reform to raise the retirement age by two years.

Today, waste collectors who are employed in the public sector are allowed to retire at 57, because of the physical exertion demanded by their occupation. The new law will increase this to 59. For those employed by private companies, the age will jump from 62 to 64.

“People have no idea of what this profession involves,” says Pascal, 64, a retired waste collector, who joined the picket line in Ivry-sur-Seine, in Paris’s suburbs, to support his former coworkers.

Isabelle Salmon, a medical practitioner who has written a PhD about working conditions of this profession, argues this job “is probably one of the most trying, because it combines physical constraints with uncomfortable postures and exposure to the weather.”

Going on a continuous strike is a hard decision to make. David, 49, a waste collector, says he will face problems paying his rent. Due to his strike action, his employer will withdraw at least 14 days from his 1,400 euro monthly wage. He hopes that it will be worth it, and that the government will finally give in to the workers’ demands.

Like his colleagues, David must work in all conditions. These key workers have not forgotten the morning after the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015 or the first Covid lockdown in March 2020.

“At that time, with Covid, the government promised to change its policy for front-line jobs,” remembers Christophe Farinet, a waste collector and vice general secretary of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). “Not only for us, but also for the cashiers, security guards and cleaning staff, who can’t afford to go on strike today. Three years later, this is where we are.”

l will be 68 years and three months old when I can retire in December 2056. This is what the pension calculator on the webpage of Estonia’s social services authority said to me.

The app only needs to know my year of birth, 1988, to make the calculation. 68 could be considered my default age of retirement within the Estonian system, which takes into account life expectancy. If life expectancy rises, my retirement age will follow suit.

I could choose to retire up to five years earlier at 63. In this instance, I will beleft with a measly pension worth one quarter of my current salary. In fact, even if I retired at 68 years, my state pension (assuming that it would increase with inflation) would not even be enough for my rent and utility payments.

Margus Tsahkna, a former minister of social affairs who is helping negotiations to form Estonia’s next governing coalition, admitted the state will not be able to pay pensions the same way in the future. “This is a brutal message,” he said, adding there is no alternative to reform.

I played with the calculator to see how much I needed to delay my retirement to survive on a state pension alone. It was not possible to calculate a pension beyond the age of 78. If I retire at 78, I would receive two-thirds of my current salary, which would leave me without any financial room for manoeuvre.

The age of 78 is 23 more years than the number of “healthy years” an average Estonian man lives, according to state statistics. This means that Tsahkna’s assessment of the pension crisis is right, but there is not yet a solution, other than to exclaim: “Everyone for themselves!”

“Work is no pony farm,” Andrea Nahles, head of the Federal Employment Agency warned the younger generation recently in a statement that went viral on social media. The comment can be translated in English as “Work is no walk in the park” and the former Social Democratic Minister of Labour indicated that the young should prepare to work more.

But they don’t want to. What they want is a better work-life balance. In a survey last year, 57 percent of young people between 16 and 29 said that their private life was more important to them than their professional career.

With the retirement of the “boomer” generation, Germany will face a lack of seven million people from the workforce by 2035. This also poses a challenge to the financing of the pensions. The state is likely to fund large parts of the difference – and someone needs to pay taxes for this.

It is an unpopular truth: in Poland, few people can count on a decent pension in the future.

A decade ago, Minister of Economy Waldemar Pawlak said bluntly: “I don’t believe too much in state pensions. I try to secure my future through savings and a good relationship with my children. This will be more secure than these various state chimerical solutions.”

The belief that the state will pay a decent pension after 1989 has never been particularly strong in Poland.

Many Poles have taken matters into their own hands, just as the capitalist system had taught them to do. Knowing they won’t have a decent pension, they invested in the property market.

After the fall of communism, pouring capital in real estate has become the national sport of Poles. Prices have risen at a tremendous rate, especially in Poland’s largest cities. Cheap loans have made it possible to buy a flat without a lot of capital. Many treated it as an investment. Some individual buyers had more than a dozen flats on credit. But this process has made another problem worse: access to housing.

More and more flats were built, but as many as two million of them are standing empty. A large proportion of these are flats that people have bought as an investment, with a view to selling them off at a profit.

As a result, rental prices have also risen. Today,only a small minority can afford a mortgage. Therefore, the majority of Poles will be condemned to whatever pension the state will offer them in the future.

An even bleaker future awaits those who are currently entering the labour market. By 2060, they will barely receive the equivalent of 25% of their final salary as pensioners.

“Grandparents helping their children become independent or paying for their grandkids’ school is proof the system doesn’t work. This year, my pension will grow by 8.5%, but you will probably not get a pay rise, and if you do, it will be 3% at most. It is unfair that we still get better and better pensions: just for starters, I have bought my house, while my son loses 40% of his salary on rent.”

Mariano Guindal, 72, is a pensioner from Barcelona who feels privileged. He receives the maximum pension (which is more than 3,000 euros per month), and it keeps increasing. But he feels this is unfair: in his opinion, the pensioners are a ‘protected’ social group, spoilt by successive Governments for electoral purposes. In Spain, there are ten million seniors, which means ten million voters out of a total of 36 million.

French journalist Olivier Dubois, who works with our newspaper Libération, was released on 20 March after 711 long days in captivity.

711 days since he was kidnapped by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM, in Arabic) while he was reporting from Gao, in northern Mali.

711 days that he was held hostage somewhere in the Sahel region. 711 days that he was the only known French hostage in the world. 711 days that this father of two missed his family, his friends, and his colleagues. 711 days that journalism missed him.

711 days of silence, fear and hope. 711 days too many.

On 3 March, the police arrived at Domani’s newsroom, with the unusual aim of seizing an article that related to Claudio Durigon, an undersecretary in PM Giorgia Meloni’s government.

The authors, Giovanni Tizian and Nello Trocchia, are authoritative reporters who cover the collusion between politics and organized crime. They are both under state police protection. One would expect the Italian authorities to safeguard their work. They came to seize it, instead.

“It was so surreal,” says Mattia Ferraresi, managing editor of Domani, where I also work as a reporter. He had to print the article for the police. Durigon had sued us because of that article, which he didn’t even attach to his lawsuit. The piece was publicly available online.

“There was no need for the raid, this is intimidation!” says Ricardo Gutiérrez, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists. This is the second alert that Gutiérrez has written related to Domani in a few months: last autumn Giorgia Meloni sued my editor-in-chief Stefano Feltri and my colleague Emiliano Fittipaldi.

These are “governmental SLAPPs” (Strategic lawsuits against public participation), with an aim to silence journalists. “Every time we write about Durigon, he sues us,” Trocchia says. “He has done this eight times.”

When the police came, Tizian was on his way to the newsroom. Trocchia informed his colleague by phone: “Come, the police are here!” Tizian’s first thought was to protect sources: “Don’t let them touch our computers!”

Following the raid, a coalition of media freedom organisations launched an alert at a European level. Progressive groups in the European Parliament (S&D, Greens, Left, Renew) expressed their support, and MEP Sophie in’t Veld asked questions to the EU Commission about the case.

On 15 March, Rome’s attorney stated that seizing the article was improper and invalid. This made me realise how important it was to have a huge European mobilisation to condemn this act.

A moment after this picture was taken, the woman held in an embrace in the centre broke into tears. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed, swallowed by grief.

This is Alina Mykhailova, a fiancé of the Ukrainian military Dmytro Kotsyubailo. Known by the call sign Da Vinci, he was one of the most talented and respected young officers in the army. Recently, he was killed in a battle near Bakhmut.

At his funeral on 10 March, the President of Ukraine, the Commander-in-Chief, the Minister of Defence and thousands of other Ukrainians stood down on one knee ― a mark of the highest respect.

Photographers kept taking pictures, and images of the heartbroken woman went viral. This caused a debate in Ukrainian society: how ethical is the broadcasting of psychically and emotionally challenging moments of someone in such a position as Alina?

One side says that Alina is a victim, and her right for privacy is sacred. The other side, which often includes journalists, insists this is war, and such expressions of grief are a significant part of it. To show this to the world is just and even necessary.

“I watch this ― and in my guts I feel that Ukrainians exist and I’m among them. The woman in the photo turns all of us into a living, pulsating social body,” wrote art curator Olena Chervonyk in a widely read article.

“It’s possible to nurture your Ukrainianness by other means. A person has the right to life and to death, which has to be respected even in such circumstances,” replied lawyer Larysa Denysenko. “This is not my pain, not my trauma, not my private space.”

Alina Mykhailova is also a politician and a soldier, and probably has her own thoughts on this issue. But she has not yet shared them, as she has been spending long hours every day at Dmytro’s grave.

What can a journalist do when a prime minister hasn’t given an interview to the independent press in 13 years? Approach him in front of a church. And what does a prime minister say when he sees such a reporter moving up to him?

“Man, don’t you see I’m coming from church?”

This was the answer by Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán to a well-known journalist, which became an instant meme, mocking everything from corruption to press freedom.

Approaching someone after mass may seem rude, but Hungarian journalists have no other option. Being excluded from press conferences and not receiving replies is everyday reality for reporters who are not aligned with the ruling party, Fidesz. Some have been targeted with the surveillance software Pegasus.

As to why this is necessary, the political director of the prime minister once argued: the one who controls the media is the one who controls the country. But there is one thing they cannot control: jokes.

Although German journalists are regularly insulted, mainly by right-wing activists, for being “state media”, most people here have no idea how a state media really functions.

Three years ago, I spent two months working for a genuine example of such a press: Vaticannews – an online portal owned by the Vatican that disseminates information about the Pope’s activities, the Vatican, and Catholic teaching worldwide.

As a journalism student looking for an internship, I thought Vaticannews would be an interesting place to learn my craft. It was certainly interesting. However, I didn’t learn so much about journalistic techniques, but more about the boundaries which journalists can face.

Not surprisingly, my own report into the workings of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith did not get very far. This is the successor authority to the Inquisition, responsible for keeping Catholic doctrine pure. A background discussion with one priest working for the congregation did take place, but led to little actual information.

When afterwards, I sent a question about a pending case concerning the verification of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, I received a rebuke, more or less indicating me that I — as an intern of a Vatican media — should have been instructed by my colleagues not to report on such controversial issues.

What I found surprising was that there were tangible diplomatic interests of the Holy See that we had to take into account in our reporting. Human rights violations in China? Difficult.

The Pope has been trying to negotiate with China for best protection for Catholics in China who are recognised as being members of a sort of “official” Church by the Chinese state.

In order not to jeopardise these negotiations, the bosses at the press told us to avoid criticism of China. This seemed to me to be grounded in a rather worldly consideration.

Back in Germany, I felt relieved that finally again, I was allowed to devote myself to the sacred goals of critical journalism.