Hungarian news portal Qubit published a detailed summary of the public discussion Budapest During and After the Pandemic, organized by the Istvan Bibo Free University, operating within the CEU Democracy Institute, with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

The Istanbul Convention is “meant to bring about real social change,” and aims to “improve the position of women and girls, in a more equal society,” our Research Fellow Andrea Krizsan said to Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad.

There are academics, intellectuals, workers and students among those joining to far-right groups, our Research Affiliate Andrea Peto said to Argentinian news portal Infobae, adding that they see a desirable and different future outside liberal values.

In a double interview, Marius Dragomir, Director of CEU Democracy Institute’s Center for Media, Data and Society, and Gabor Polyak, leader of Mertek Media Monitor, talked to Euractiv about the situation of media in Hungary.

“EU funds are supposed to be used to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in Hungary, and support the green and digital transition – but Orban seems to have other ideas,” our Zsuzsa Szelenyi writes in her op-ed in The Independent.

Roma children’s bad results at school are caused by institutional racism, our Junior Research Fellow Agnes Kende said in an interview with the Hungarian Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Szabad Europa).

The new legislation that sets up foundations to manage universities in Hungary “is one more step to control the entire society and to make sure that even if Fidesz loses the elections, it will continue to have power,” Zsolt Enyedi, Lead Researcher of our De-/Re-Democratization Workgroup said to Spanish daily El Pais.

“Media capture is spreading in Eastern Europe, through new restrictive laws on the press, full government control of public media and the acquisition of private media by entrepreneurs close to the government,” our Senior Program Manager, Marius Dragomir said to the Italian weekly l’Espresso.

Illiberal governments, like the Hungarian one, use the demonized gender concept to solidify their power, our Research Affiliate Andrea Peto said in an interview with the Hungarian Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Dimitry Kochenov, Lead Researcher of our Rule of Law working group gave an interview on Danish citizenship rules to the program Good Morning Europe on Euronews.