I had a pretty strong feeling of disconnect tonight. Maybe it was from sitting in Picante, a Mexican food take-out in the center of Prague, trying to enjoy my burrito and being annoyed by a herd of EasyJet British lager louts insistently asking "'ave yew go' enny CHIPS?" Over and...  • more

Yes, we watched it. My (American) friend Carlos and I (also American), Saturday night, up past midnight. If you're an American or something, and you don't know what Eurovision is, A Fistful of Euros has a good description. This Kieran Healy post from last year is also nicely informative. And...  • more

All weekend she tried to break the blog. All weekend she struggled with it, shaking the bars, rattling the windows, hammering on the floor and using loose keyboard buttons to prise the electric doors apart. Finally, she relinquished the task, and fell defeated against the liquid crystal screen, her forehead resting limply against the links bar.  • more

When the Azeri delegation at the Council of Europe's Parliamentarian Assembly was not present a couple of days ago during a voting for the Turkish-Cypriot delegates' representation rights, some Turkish commentators wanted to give their Azeri brothers the benefit of the doubt. "Perhaps they didn't know there was a voting?"...  • more

Yesterday Eurostat published its first 'GDP per capita nowcast' for the EU-25. It runs under the headline "GDP per capita in new Member States ranges from 42% of EU25 average in Latvia to 83% in Cyprus". For the non-economist that I am, there are a few points in this that...  • more

In their weekly report 21/04 the DIW Berlin reports that there is big distrust in institutions in Germany. The instated surveyed 850 people about their trust, privately and institutionally. The survey showed how deeply the institutional trust has been shaken. The police is the one institution that enjoys the most...  • more

I come from a country that opted for neutrality in the existential 20th-century fight to save Europe from fascism, and I live in the country that had to be defeated in this fight, so you can be sure that on this anniversary of D-Day I have some pretty strong feelings...  • more

In their weekly report 21/04 the DIW Berlin reports that there is big distrust in institutions in Germany. The instated surveyed 850 people about their trust, privately and institutionally. The survey showed how deeply the institutional trust has been shaken. The police is the one institution that enjoys the most...  • more

Buda is on one side of the Danube river, Pest on the other. The beauty of Budapest is a different one from Vienna and Prague although the Donaumonarchie has left its marks everywhere. It's less tacky, more down to earth....  • more

I couldn't have chosen a better day to go to Budapest. Pfingstsonntag was quiet enough to travel but millions of people were in Buda and Pest. Let's start with a walk through the city park. There was one hell of a party going on....  • more

Imagine you are an open-minded person willing to fill your white pages with knowledge on Eastern Europe. Let's start with Unit 1: Try to get to Bratislava starting in Vienna....  • more

Loic has more insight on Estonia's investments into making the country a place for future business. "In August 2000, the Government of Estonia, as a world pioneer, changed its Cabinet meetings to paperless sessions using a web-based document system." "The objective of the new web-based system is to automate the...  • more