Point of Reference

Visegrad Insight publishes regular news and reports on the future of the Visegrad Group countries and the wider region but also keeps tabs on what other magazines and news outlets are writing. That is why we share noteworthy stories and analyses we have read and appreciated elsewhere this year. Here are some of our favourite 2020 reads.

Much of what was expected for the year 2020 came to be upended by the unexpected strike of COVID-19. While the pandemic tainted most if not all of the perceptions and writings in the region, reframing present-day challenges into future post-pandemic concerns, Central Europe was bound to experience more than an eventful political year. Several elections took place throughout 2020, some of which overturned the political status quo while others consolidated the rule of governments.

Slovakia went to the polls in late February at a time when the impact of the pandemic crisis was yet to be felt all across Europe. While the outgoing Slovak government, as well as the new cabinet, were praised for their handling of the first wave, the perception of how the country and its Visegrad neighbours have managed the second wave was strikingly different.

“If it was indeed true that the “civil and disciplined” Central and Eastern Europeans, marked by the collective unconscious formed by decades of totalitarian rule, were programmed to face pandemics by being model citizens with responsible leaders, then the following months would not have happened as they did,” wrote Prague-based Kafkadesk while the second wave was underway.