The victory of the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, in the American presidential elections is the most important development in global climate policies since the Paris climate agreement was drafted in late 2015. Who steers the US climate agenda and how matters a great deal to the rest of the world, and not just because the US is currently the planet’s second-largest polluter in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

During October there were elections to the regional assemblies and one-third of the Senate in the Czech Republic.The outcome can be summarized as follows: The Association of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) movement of Andrej Babiš had the best showing in the regional contests, but their potential coalition partners lost ground, and as a consequence, ANO will be part of coalition governments in just some regions. Opposition parties gained strength and the left absolutely failed. In the Senate elections, the clear victor was the Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement, and we can call the Social Democrats the most defeated, as they did not defend a single seat.  Both elections were marked by concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, and many people perceive the outcome to be a kind of overture to the elections to the Chamber of Deputies that await the Czech Republic next year.

In Slovakia in February 2018 the journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová were murdered. Their killing has brought about a fundamental shift of political power in the country, leading to the prosecution of high-profile defendants, including the man accused of ordering the murder. Three years later we can state that even though the man who ordered the hit has not been punished, there is a chance that this crime will eventually result in an improvement in the administration of justice in the country.

The visit of Czech Senate President Miloš Vystrčil to Taiwan sparked a diplomatic row between the Czech Republic and the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi declared Vystrčil would pay “a heavy price” and the Global Times called Vystrčil “a political hooligan”. This, in turn, provoked critical reactions from not only Czech politicians, but also representatives of numerous European countries and indeed across the world.

“I will not bring 18-year-old Afghans to the Czech Republic because I consider it a security risk,” said Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamáček of the Social Democrats at the beginning of the year, when the country was asked to take in 40 unaccompanied migrants and refugees from Greece’s overflowing refugee camps. He had reiterated different variations on that position before then and has repeated them since, most recently after the blaze that razed the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos to the ground, leaving thousands of unaccompanied minors and hundreds of parents accompanying their children homeless.

“Shall we occupy the university?” “Yes!” cheered a roomful of applauding students from Hungary’s University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE), surrounded by the sound of drums, over a week ago. They then proceeded to block the entrance with the red and white stripes that have since become the symbol of a resistance movement supporting the autonomy of the SZFE and standing up against a further attack by Viktor Orbán’s conservative, nationalist Government on the freedom of art, culture and education in Hungary.

On 21 August 2020 the Prague office of Heinrich Böll Stiftung celebrates its 30th anniversary. As the first office of the foundation abroad, it both witnessed and provided support for the long transition of Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic, from the Velvet Revolution through the economic transformation of the 1990’s to Czech membership in the EU and beyond. Also covering activities in Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia, the unique experience and institutional memory of the Prague Office of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung continues to provide valuable support for environmentalism, democracy, and human rights in Central Europe.