About: Communism Archives

Albania is one of the many countries lining up to join the EU. Today marks the 71st anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the beginning of what would be horrible purges of non-communists, write Alex Fiuza and Steffen Kudella.

Thousands marched across Poland's capital yesterday (13 December) to protest the policies of the current government on the 35th anniversary of the martial law crackdown by the former communist regime.

The death at the weekend of the revolutionary Cuban leader Fidel Castro saw sharp differences of opinion within EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s cabinet.

In the Czech Republic, tensions stirred by President Miloš Zeman, who calls himself “the Czech Trump”, are making themselves felt.

French-American political scientist and activist Susan George says that the political mainstream has abandoned many people – and they vote for populists. On CETA, she does not consider it very different from TTIP, George told EURACTIV Slovakia.

Germany’s Commissioner Günther Oettinger today (3 November) finally apologised, a week after calling the Chinese “slitty eyes”, and mocking women and gay marriage, in a secretly-filmed after dinner speech.

At a commemoration of a 1956 anti-Communist uprising, Hungary's right-wing leader Viktor Orbán said his country must stand up to Europe's "Sovietisation" and defend its borders against mass migration.

The Czech Republic's ruling party might consider forming a government with the Communist Party (KSCM) next year, the prime minister told a newspaper on Wednesday (5 October), contemplating an alliance that would break a 27-year-old taboo. Bohuslav Sobotka told daily

One of the European Union’s main problems is that we are not sure what it actually is. Žiga Turk asks, is it a free trade area, a giant NGO based in Brussels to do good for Europe and the World, or perhaps a country in the making?

Leaders meeting in Warsaw for a NATO summit this week will be surrounded by the ghosts of Communism as they endorse the defence alliance's biggest military buildup since the Cold War in response to a newly resurgent Russia.

Geoffrey Harris, an old hand in the European Parliament, started his career just after the European Communities membership referendum, and will retire days before the Brexit referendum. In a wide-ranging interview, he tells of people and events that made EU history.

Old tricks die hard in the European Union’s ‘rogue state’, but the West must acknowledge its hand in fuelling the political decline in Hungary, writes Juan Garcia. 

"I know what it means to be discriminated (against)... and when I hear anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic, and xenophobic speech, it’s like a bell ringing, telling people 'Please be worried'," Vytenis Andriukaitis told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview.

MEPs have started to draw their red lines on whether the EU should recognise China as a 'market economy',  ahead of a first orientation debate in the College of Commissioners on Wednesday (13 January). 

SPECIAL REPORT: In November, 13 fiction writers received the 2014 European Union Prize for Literature. Best-known for having served in the government of Viktor Orbán, EURACTIV spoke to Commissioner Tibor Navracsics about the significance of this year’s awards, and what they personally mean to him, as a Hungarian.

Now that we've marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, we realise that the problem was not solved at that time. The Kremlin is trying to build another Berlin wall, which according to their design will extend across Ukraine, Archbishop Yevstraty told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview.

Romania's president-elect Klaus Iohannis urged parliament on Monday (17 November) to scrap a corruption amnesty bill, moving swiftly to make good on a campaign promise and allay EU fears over graft in the country.

Czechs marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of communism in Prague on Monday by again marching in protest, this time waving red cards, rather than jangling their keys to serve notice to unpopular rulers.

The revolutions in Eastern Europe paved the way for the collapse of communism in East Germany, otherwise known as the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), in 1990. One of the most important government officials in West Germany at the time was Rolf Nikel. Today, he serves as unified Germany's Ambassador to Poland. EURACTIV Poland reports.

The Dutch foreign minister signed an agreement on Tuesday (7 January) with his Cuban counterpart to engage in political consultations, breaking ranks with the European Union which limits high-level visits and talks with the Communist-run Caribbean island.

The European Commission turned down calls by six EU member states from the former Soviet bloc yesterday (22 December), which urged it to condemn the exactions of communist regimes and assimilate them to Nazi war crimes.

The Bulgarian state security services once had a top-secret special bureau responsible for the eradication, kidnapping or discrediting of Bulgarian émigrés around the world, alleges investigative journalist Alexenia Dimitrova of daily newspaper 24 Hours in an exclusive commentary for EURACTIV. 

In Bulgarian politics, the right-wing has traditionally been Western-oriented and the left pro-Russian. Yet since the country's entry into the EU the differences between left and right have decreased and more pragmatic policies are being pursued, writes Bulgarian MEP Emil Stoyanov (European People's Party) in an exclusive commentary for EURACTIV.

A Croatian government delegation headed by Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor visited the Austrian town of Bleiburg on Monday (10 May) to pay tribute to pro-Nazi Croatian soldiers and civilians killed there by Tito's partisans at the end of the Second World War, the HINA news agency reported.