BIRN newsletter 6-VI-2025

Millions of highly-polluting diesel cars are still on EU roads – and people are dying as a result.

Joining the TWiCE team this week is Tom Junes, historian and assistant professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, whose op-ed this week examined the second round of Poland’s presidential election and what impact the result will have on the country and abroad.

Elsewhere, Fidesz withdraws Kremlin-style ‘censorship’ bill – for now; bizarre bitcoin scandal shakes Czech government months from election; and Slovak president backs rise in NATO spending.

Hungary is close to reaching its goal of sending a Hungarian research astronaut into space, but the government has much loftier ambitions for its space program.

Donald Tusk has asked a billionaire to come up with some proposals on how to deregulate Poland’s economy. But how impactful and positive will the suggested changes really be?

With Nawrocki’s victory in the presidential race, Poland’s ruling coalition suffered a serious blow. Yet it may prove a Pyrrhic victory for the opposition, as the far right – whose voters played a crucial role in the election – is now more ascendant than ever.

Squeezed on one side by cuts to US funding and on the other by new draconian laws from the government, Hungary’s independent media and civil society sectors are facing extinction.

Nawrocki won the second round with the votes of the far right and has promised to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine.