Political Critique Archive

Political Critique’s weekly selection from the Eastern European press.

Standing next to the Rhein-Herne canal in Gelsenkirchen, northwest Germany, one can paint a mental picture of the future hip neighbourhood that will one day boom in this area once occupied by the town’s industrial harbour. The hints are all around. On one bank of the canal, a new residential complex of identical houses for […]

It is a sunny Saturday morning in October and the clock in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol shows almost half past eleven. I’m meeting Malik a bit further up, in the Lavapiés neighbourhood. These days, Lavapiés is buzzing with young people playing African music, dancing flamenco in the street and drinking cheap beer. Traditionally, though, it […]

Dawid Krawczyk flew to the places where 80% of people voted Trump. I wanted to meet those involved in his presidential campaign in the Deep South. Is Trump’s United States really the country of their dreams? In the fourth chapter John Salvesen tells how he was inspired by Trump to become a politician.

Even before the referendum took place, one of the great risks of the UK changing its relationship with the EU was that it would downgrade European Citizenship and the free movement at the project’s core. The latest stage in the Brexit saga offers no reassurances, and indeed suggests that the citizenship rights of Europeans in […]

The European Union has made efforts in the last decade to adopt ambitious climate and energy policies, but at every turn, Poland has positioned itself as the ‘bad boy’ of the bloc by repeatedly resisting agreements.

As well as being a threat to our coexistence, the Catalan conflict also provides an opportunity to redraw our territorial and socio-political organisation to face the challenges of the 21st century. Thus I present nine proposals that we should be thinking beyond the state and independence, and instead get behind interdependence and diversity: 1. Any […]

Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska talks with Marek Lisiński, President of the „Do Not Fear” Foundation which works to change our society’s consent to such practice and to help victims of pedophile priests. Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska: As a child, you were abused by a local priest. Can you tell your story? Marek Lisiński: My story is similar to many […]

Hundreds of desperate Chechen refugees are still stranded on the Belarusian border, waiting to enter the EU. Many locals are sceptical of the newcomers — but some have stood up to help.

Political Critique’s weekly selection from the Eastern European press.