Articles and Publications

Rozálie Wünschová writes in her blog that the Czech Republic is one of only two EU countries where corporal punishment of children is still legally permitted. Together with Slovakia, this puts the Czech Republic behind not only the Nordic countries, where corporal punishment was banned in the last century but also countries such as Turkmenistan, which adopted protective legislation in 2007.

In September 2022, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a new media regulator - the European Media Freedom Act. Slovenia is one of the most struggling EU countries in terms of media freedom and independence. In the summer of 2020, the Janša government proposed a media-focused law that would increase the state's influence over Slovenia's national press agency and limit its funding of the public broadcaster RTV. Has Slovenia's new law put the European Commission ahead of the game? That is what our intern Klára Landová discusses in her blog.

The project is focused on the examination of the role of non-governmental organizations in the process of decarbonization of coal regions in V4 countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia). The aim of the project is to describe the best and worst practices of the individual processes for Serbia, who awaits the transformation of its energy mix, largely based on coal. The examined V4 countries have had a slightly different share of coal in their energy mix, while the largest one being in Poland and the second largest one in the Czech Republic, followed by Hungary and Slovakia. There are many similarities and differences in their takes on decarbonisation, thus providing different range of experiences.

The European Green Deal is the core of the current climate strategy of the European Union, which has set the goal of making Europe a carbon-neutral continent by 2050. In an effort to monitor and counter disinformation narratives about the deal, IRI's Beacon project launched an initiative called the “European Green Deal: Mapping perceptions in Central and Eastern Europe,” in which six partner organizations studied how the deal is perceived in Bulgaria, Czechia, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Our project manager and juniour researcher, Tatiana Mindeková, analyzed narratives spread about the Green Deal and the EU’s green policies through Czech chain emails as well as through selected mainstream media and websites known for spreading disinformation.

A policy paper by our research intern Silke Maes entitled "EU Platform workers' directive: A test for regulating the future of work" takes a closer look at the aforementioned Directive on improving working conditions at work through platforms. The paper details the impact of the development of platforms on working conditions and then argues that the Directive is the first EU attempt to respond to this development.

Our researcher Klára Votavová has written a policy paper in which she discusses the new dilemmas concerning the balance of competitiveness and decent work standards in the Czech Republic, which are emerging with advancing digitalization and automation.

Our senior research fellow Jana Juzová and associate research fellow Zuzana Kasáková prepared a recommendation resulting from the round table discussion of the National Convention on the EU held on January 20, 2023 on the topic "Formats of regional cooperation from the perspective of the Czech Republic". The Convention produced recommendations based on the answers to the following questions: What position should the Visegrad Group have in Czech foreign policy? How should the Czech Republic approach other formats of regional cooperation in Central Europe? How should the Czech Republic use its involvement in European territorial cooperation?

Ferenc Németh, a researcher on the politics, security and integration of the Western Balkans, has written a policy paper under the project Think Visegrad in Brussels. In it he examines Serbia's foreign policy towards the European Union after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the Czechs' relationship with the European Union? This topic is addressed in a policy paper by visiting fellow Mare Ushkovska.

In 2013, the Chinese president introduced the New Silk Road project, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative. It was to connect China with countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and maritime regions with the purpose to coordinate policies and link infrastructure. However, the initiative, and especially China's role in it, raises many questions and doubts. What is its future? This is what our intern Šárka Váchalová discusses in her blog.

Our senior researcher Jana Juzová and associate research fellow Zuzana Kasáková prepared background material for the Round Table of the National Convention on the EU on the topic of Regional Cooperation Formats from the Czech perspective. The Round Table is presented with three main questions: what position should the Visegrad Group have in Czech foreign policy? How should the Czech Republic approach other regional cooperation formats in Central Europe? How should the Czech Republic use its involvement in European territorial cooperation?

The policy paper, written by Míla O’Sullivan, illustrates that to centre the gender dimension and women’s voices in all aspects of Europe’s security and recovery responses to Ukraine are areas with the most serious gendered impacts and identifies the risks of gender-oblivious responses to Ukraine’s peaceful and sustainable future as well as to its European integration.