Martin Ehl Transitions Online 25 June 2013
A summer of ruinous floods and tropical heat is also bringing unforeseen political developments to Central Europe.
It’s not just in the Czech Republic, where President Milos Zeman has – against the spirit of the constitution – been attempting to create a semi-presidential system. Elsewhere in Central Europe too, things are happening that might fundamentally transform the ingrained order.
In Poland, local elections confirmed pollsters' guesses that the governing Civic Platform party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been losing its dominant position.
Thanks to drastic spending cuts and some novel taxes, Budapest has wriggled out of the monitoring procedures the European Commission initiated against Hungary (and 15 other EU countries) for excessive budget deficits.
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