December 2, 2009 - In the face of the lack of public debate on the role of women in the time of transformation, the publication of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Regional Office
in Warsaw attempts to present a multidimensional dialogue about the transformation experiences, giving voice to women. The Authors of the publication judge the past twenty years of reforms from the point of view of women from the former countries of the Eastern Bloc: the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and former East Germany. more»

TWENTY YEARS AFTER: POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

- September 6, 2009 - In the words of the Polish journalist and dissident, Adam Michnik, 1989 was Europe’s annus mirabilis. The peaceful revolution of that year was a miracle effected by the people in central and eastern Europe. Hardly any one (and certainly no western head of state or politician) had foreseen that a popular movement active in different countries would, in just a few months, topple socialist regimes and force the mighty Soviet Union to retreat behind the borders of Russia. more»

March 9, 2010 - The Czech reflection on communism is still undertaken in peculiar waves even twenty years after its fall. Indifference and extreme anti-communism with the accompanying desire to name and marginalise the culprits of past evils regularly alternate or supplement one another. Cleansing society of representatives of the past regime and understanding the past are two different things which are only loosely connected. It is a bit late for the former, while most of the latter still lies ahead. Michal Kopeček a Matěj Spurný more»

Is the Czech Republic Still Abstaining on Human Rights?

- June 23, 2009 - When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN in 1948, eight of its 48 member countries abstained from the final vote:  South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, USSR, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and Czechoslovakia. While watching developments in human rights protections in the Czech Republic over the past 15 years, I have often reflected on the repercussions of that abstention. Gwendolyn Albert more»

The influence of the EU on developments in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic: 1989-2009

- May 15, 2009 - It is useful to divide the history of relations between the European Union and the Czech Republic (and previously with Czechoslovakia) into several periods. The first period was that of “courtship”, which lasted from 1989-1995, the second that of the accession process during 1995-2003, and the third that of membership, which began in 2004 and is ongoing. Jiří Pehe more»