Page 6 - bne magazine March 2017 issue

6 I The Month That Was bne March 2017
Politics
Central Europe
Poland responded defiantly on Febru- ary 20 to the European Commission’s deadline on its demand to solve the prolonged crisis over the functioning of the country's constitutional court. The commission now has to consider what, if any, penalties to impose.
The Hungarian government withdrew Budapest’s bid to host the 2024 Olym- pic Games citing “a lack of national unity”. The reversal follows a campaign led by the nascent political movement Momentum, which collected the signa- tures of over 260,000 Budapest residents in support of a referendum on the bid.
The Hungarian government plans to tighten the country’s already strict asylum rules, including legislation to allow the detention of refugees in ‘con- tainment camps’.
The Czech foreign ministry announced that it suspects a “state actor” was behind a hack of dozens of email accounts that lasted for several months. Hackers downloaded data from mailboxes belonging to Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek and his deputy.
Southeast Europe
Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party nominated former Constitu- tional Court judge Tudorel Toader as an independent justice minister as part of a cabinet reshuffle following anti- government protests. Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu’s cabinet has been under intense pressure after the protests erupted following the adoption of an emergency decree partly decriminalising abuse of office. The decree was later repealed and its author, the justice minister, resigned.
Bosnia & Herzegovina’s ruling coali- tion is facing collapse after Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the tripartite presidency, appealed the 2007 judgment in an International Court of
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Justice genocide case against Serbia, sharply raising tensions in the already unstable Balkan country.
The leadership of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party decided to nomi- nate Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as its candidate for the presidential elections expected to take place in early April. This has thrown the future of the incumbent president, Tomislav Nikolic, who was a cofounder of the Progressives with Vucic, into doubt.
The Macedonian capital of Skopje has started offering free city transport in a bid to tackle rampant pollution. Skopje is estimated to be the second most polluted city in Europe and 46th in the world.
Eastern Europe
The judicial panel of the Higher District Court of Vienna granted a request by the US to extradite Ukrainian oli- garch Dmitry Firtash from Austria over allegations that he secured a titanium extraction permit in India by paying $18.5mn in bribes.
surely the eastern regions of Ukraine held by pro-Russian forces are starting to act more autonomously from Kyiv and have ever stronger links with Russia.
A Russian court found opposition leader Alexei Navalny guilty in a retrial over charges of embezzlement, nixing his hopes of being able to run in the 2018 presidential elections in the process.
Eurasia
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev appointed his wife as first vice presi- dent. In Azerbaijan, politicians and the media rushed to congratulate Mehriban Aliyeva, who now occupies the position that is next in line to that of the president.
Azerbaijan launched criminal pro- ceedings against three MPs who moni- tored a referendum on constitutional changes in the disputed Nagorno-Kara- bakh breakaway territory. Visiting the region, occupied by Armenian forces, is illegal under Azerbaijani law.
Incumbent Gurbanguly Berdimuham- edov won the Turkmenistan presiden- tial election with 97.69% of the vote,
in yet another sign of how this Central Asian dictatorship is not making any progress in fostering political plurality and democracy.
The European Parliament agreed to lift the visa requirement for Georgian citi- zens travelling to the EU. The Council of Europe must now approve the parlia- ment’s bill, which it is highly likely to do. The visa waiver would then only come into effect after the European institutions finalise the suspension mechanism.
Mongolia received the only Eurasian region’s “Free” rating in Freedom House’s annual rankings on democracy. Armenia, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan were described as “Partly Free” while Azerbai- jan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were rated “Not Free”.
The lower chamber of the Dutch parliament ratified the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement despite last year’s non-binding referendum showing a clear majority of Dutch voters wanted to reject the trade deal.
Hopes for an internationally brokered end to the armed conflict in East Ukraine suffered another blow with Russia's temporary recognition of documents issued by authorities in rebel-held parts of the Donbas region. Slowly but