The internationally renowned Hungarian academic Andrea Pető, Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University, resigned from the Hungarian Accreditation Committee (HAC) after being pressured by the president of the Committee to withdraw a paragraph from her double peer-reviewed and published article entitled “The Illiberal Academic Authority: An Oxymoron?”.

COP26 in Glasgow started with a plethora of declarations. But in the end it failed to deliver on the real and immediate action needed to avoid climate catastrophe, and to address the demand for justice and equity for those most impacted by climate harms.

Imagine a country where citizens and public bodies come together to solve the most important issues they face; and allocate public funds accordingly. Where the decision-making process is transparent and accountable, and where you have a real say in the policies and services that shape your life. In Hungary, the budget process, that distributes almost half of the national income, operates against these democratic principles. The latest Open Budget Survey shows that Hungary is far behind other countries of the CEE region in almost all aspects when it comes to transparency and participation related to the national budget.

Recently, in mid-November 2021, Hungarian Parliament adopted a bill which did not itself amend the rules governing elections, but may nonetheless have a profound impact on the integrity of the 2022 parliamentary elections in Hungary.

In Slovakia, the original discourse of the Catholic Church’s struggle for the preservation of the “traditional family” has spilled over into public politics in the form of what have come to be known as culture wars. New figures have appeared on the scene of anti-gender campaigns. The mobilization of Christian movements, however, is lately being disrupted by a fission in the seemingly unified agenda.