I live in Estonia and the new coalition announced today that they will be raising taxes. This is after the fact that the previous coalition already raised taxes.
Understandably, people are upset. And in Estonia's subreddit you can see people joking that we, Estonians, only like to suffer etc.
But this raised a question for me. How many countries are actually doing well? International news don't talk often about how other countries are doing internally. So how is it really? How is your country doing?
Some news of course trickle down to international headlines also but these big headlines may not exactly represent of how things are actually going.
How is Norway doing? Probably well because they have a lot of natural resources. Or does it only seem that they are doing well? How are Balkan nations doing(putting current heatwave aside for a moment)? Does Czechia have a cost of living crisis? Have Belgian politicians gotten into some “drama”? Can any country say that they don’t have any major problems?
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Let’s see. Within the first half of its term, the governing coalition has managed to
– form a government despite explicitly stating that they did not wish to work together both before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the elections
– reintroduce a blasphemy law to appease some zealots halfway across the world and the bottom line of a handful of exporting businesses
– remove a holiday without any hint of compromise or compensation (despite effectively everyone, even the association of Danish industry, telling them not to)
– look into how to actively make our education objectively worse
For quite understandable reasons, they are unpopular and are scoring some remarkable lows in their opinion polls. Life goes on, the country isn’t crashing and burning (neither literally or figuratively), and everyday life is just everyday life more or less like before, but there is definitely room for improvement – one of the main ones being a new government, but elections are still some years away, and those are gonna be some very long years with this lot
There’s an awful housing crisis in the Netherlands, we’re coming out of a record high inflation, politically we have steered far right, lots of polarisation..
I’m not sure we’re doing all that well, to be honest.
Well we are bleeding billionaires to Switzerland an unpopular land value tax on our second largest industry Fisheries the war in Ukraine is the main contributor to inflation.
The Tory government of the last 14 years haven’t passed down much of substance to us so a lot of things are in chaos or remain neglected, unresolved, etc. These issues include the housing crisis, the quality of homes (especially with their poor insulation), the cost of living, the NHS, public transport and spatial inequality.
Foreign policy was also left in a mess by then because despite the steadfast Ukraine support, their proposals to introduce “National Service” was a slap in the face to the public due to the fact that it was that same Tory government that systematically degraded the Army in the last 14 years. We also kept protecting Israel even as there was evidence of civilian suffering and war crimes.
However, I’m quite optimistic for the future as the current government are pushing more many reforms across most of these areas already, and they seem a lot more sensible than the previous one. It’s only been 2 weeks since the election, so we’ll see.
Edit: oh, and I forgot to add that the UK was found to be underprepared for a pandemic, which is why we had so many COVID deaths. So more Tory failure and arrogance.
we cannot elect a stable government, everyone on the political scene hates each other, nobody wants to vote (32% turnout on the last elections)
Turkey never does well internally. And the bickering is always about some weird ass shit instead of economic and social issues.
>Does Czechia have a cost of living crisis?
Yes. The availability of affordable housing is practically nonexistent in Prague, and other cities are not so much better off, not even less populated regions. Vienna or Berlin has cheaper housing costs, despite people there earning twice as much, if not more. Many younger people need to resort to living with multiple roommates to afford small flats on the city outskirts.
If we look into other things, there is:
– oligopolies, few companies controlling most of the market with cartel deals. Telecommunications like internet data are the most visible as our internet data prices are one of the highest in Europe.
– Awfully slow infrastructure construction process. Overwhelming bureaucracy which can prolong new constructions for years or even decades. Include rampant NIMBYism to make things even worse. (This one is believed to be the main reason for unaffordable housing)
– Sloooow digitalization. I’m glad Germany is next to us, so we get overshadowed.
– Almost non existent economic growth and real wage growth.
– Politically polarized society. With populists and nationalists on one side and moderates/liberals on the other.
There’s probably more, but I’m too lazy to think of them.
I’ve just come back from another trip to Estonia a few days ago. I love the country and people. Your food seems expensive, though.
Ours is, too. And we’re particularly exceptional when it comes to the unaffordability of housing. The good news is, the politicians currently in power are not as bad as they will probably get after the next elections. We’re doing great.
Quite literally burning but we are getting outside help and the next few days it’s expected to rain.
On political level things are messy. We still have no government, the second biggest party is pretty much getting split up due to internal conflicts, the small nationalistic party that got in dissolved pretty quickly and everybody is blaming each other for not forming a government.
Oh also on the corruption front, one of the coalitions proposed a few anti corruption laws so they can justify working with the rest of the parties in this segmented piarlament(at least that’s what they claim), it didn’t work and today when the parties were discussing a big corruption scandal and requested hearing from one of the politicians, three parties left, which ended the session due to no quorum.
At this point people are getting tired and I wouldn’t be surprised if on the next elections the turnout falls below 30%.
Another interesting topic is that currently in the capital Sofia there’s quite a bit of chaos. Most of the parties in the city council are pretty much teamed up against the party that won the mayoral race and they recently made a claim that the traffic adjustments made by them are illegal due to some bs bureaucracy. The judicial system is pretty much owned by the people these parties are working with but interestingly enough if they deem these changes illegal, this sets a precedent for a lot of other projects that have been finished years ago and not just in the city but also the entire country. Overall it’s a shit show.
On a more positive side the economy is doing alright and we have a set budget from the previous government that disbanded earlier this year so things should remain stable and the eurozone should be getting closer and closer. Also since Austria is having their elections in two months we could maybe join Shengen next year.
Btw thank you for the post so I can rant a bit lol.
Quite volatile.
The country is under heavy economic and social pressure with stagnant growth and wages since at least the 2000s. Since the 2008 crisis, inequality (social and spatial) has skyrocketed. Debt, public and private, is dangerously high and public deficit shows no signs of slowing down since the Covid. We have a strong social security safety net that people need more than ever but we can’t really pay for it anymore, so that create an unsolvable tension.
The country is cleaved in two between dynamic cities and abandoned countryside devoid of jobs and with retreating public services. Furthermore cities have a steep housing crisis and we still haven’t figured out how to integrate properly our migrants (that we need for the economy anyways). Added to this we have a strong populist movement with populist tactics and discourse being normalised in all parties that polarises society even further. Lastly we have been living under terrorist threat since 2012, with security laws, an active military presence in the streets, regular alerts and terror attacks (2 this week before the start of the Olympics). Also, both antisemitism and muslim hate is sky high these days.
Some other stuff is going well, honestly the country feels more active and positive this decade than in the last one, but people are way more divided.
Sweden.
Neolib politicians doing their thing. Government on all levels bleeding money like crazy due to inefficient policies, corruption and uncaring politicians with zero visions. Gang war still going on, albeir a bit less than last year. The rich and politicians distracting people with imported bs stuff from American politics so we shouldn’t notice the previous mentioned.
I’m gonna write this comment in the most stereotypical Italian way.
*In my town*, there’s lots of construction work going on for bike infrastructure. Bike lanes are even getting extended all the way into the industrial district.
*In my town*, what used to be parking spaces right in front of the train station are now being converted into a nice little plaza, which will make it safer for travelers exiting the station to reach the main square, just a few hundred meters away.
*In my town*, the weather’s been scorching hot lately (sometimes reaching 37°C!) but tonight’s supposed to rain pretty heavily, so we’ll hopefully get some fresh air.
*In my town*, despite the surge of the far right, the left still won in the local elections. It’s been that way ever since the town had a mayor: a big chunk Emilia-Romagna is traditionally left-leaning.
*In my town*, they’re supposed to renovate a public housing unit for some asylum seekers we’ve got. We’ve also been getting some tourists, oddly enough, such as Germans, Brits and US citizens. The latter are actually exchange students.
I live in a town of 72k people in Emilia-Romagna. *I don’t care about anything else*.
Of course, that’s not true – it’s just that thinking about the state my country is in right now makes me uncomfortable and ruins my mood, so I prefer to focus on smaller-scale things that are closer to me.
Edit: grammar.
So, for Croatia (I guess we’re Balkan) in 2024:
* for now we had Parliamentary and European Elections, with the Presidential Elections coming in December and the Municipal Elections in the coming Spring
* on the last day of the last Parliament, the governing party HDZ (EPP) successfully pushed 2 controversial decisions, Lex AP, and named Turudić as the Attorney General
For some context, our PM Andrej Plenković has been in power since 2016, and has been leading the deeply corrupt ~~party~~ cult HDZ. He has deposed 30+ ministers on corruption charges, mostly due to the work of EPPO, as our judicial system has been corrupt and inefficient (by design) for decades.
However, in the case of Žalac, our former Minister for Regional Development and European Funds, they have found and leaked SMS messages during the investigation which mention the mysterious figure AP as the Ringmaster (remember our PM’s name?).
Inexplicably, he went into panic mode, deposed the Attorney General (in order to minimize the cooperation with the EPPO) and put Lex AP into motion, which criminalizes reporting on whistleblowing from public institutions
* Additionally, our main opposition party SDP (S&D) 5 weeks before the elections announced the our President, Zoran Milanović will be their candidate for the PM. By constitution, the President should be a neutral figure, so the Constitutional Court struck that down pretty fast, however SDP continued campaigning on the edge of legality, with the contours of a special person in the campaigning material.
* The President announced a Wednesday as the Election Day, as a shocking decision in country’s first, in hopes of increasing turnout (it’s a public holiday if happening on a weekday). It did increase the turnout to~62%, the maximum since 2000, however HDZ still won. The worst part is that far-right DP (former ID, have no idea now) was the only one willing to form a coalition, so after a long negotiation period they successfully formed the Governement. It remains to be seen where we go next, but they already started blaming the Serbs, the gays and the left for everything wrong in this country. Oh yeah, they also formed the Ministry of Demography with the bright idea of paying immigrants to return home, however primarily from South America(???). Historical revisionism regarding the ustasha regime is also at an all-time high since the 90s.
* Since rewarding the PM with another mandate, he has become more aggressive in his rhetoric, projecting, and saying that he’ll expose the lies of the corrupt Left that HDZ has been capturing public institutions and judiciary system. It’s currently the summer break, but they have already started calling everyone conservative to vote against the anti-constitutional Zoran Milanović and the unpatriotic/Serb/woke Left. Fun s
* Oh yeah, the Constitutional Court, 2 days after the elections, decided that, as Zoran Milanović, having not resigned since becoming an unofficial PM candidate, will not be able to ever become a PM, citing “the Spirit of the Constitution”. However the timing of the decision remains suspicious, and the fact that the President of the Constitutional Court is a very good buddy with highest echelons of the HDZ party.
* Regarding the corruption charges, the local party official driving drunk and killing someone, or smuggling refugees to Slovenia, that’s become so normalized that it’s literally a Tuesday here. The most high-profile cases in the last years were the INA and the HEP case where they’ve been buying gas/oil for cheap/free from the national providers and reselling it for huge markups, costing us 100s of millions of euros in damages. However it’s all but been erased in the public consciousness by now.
All in all, classical CEE/Balkan shit in the year 2024 AD, I don’t think there is anything special with us, when we look at our neighbours (Hungary, Serbia, Italy …) and the current state of the world
N. B. The cost of living has also taken a nosedive, we also introduced the euro, which added to the confusion and greedflation, and HDZ lifted visa limits on foreign nationals so our labour market is flooded by cheap Nepalese and Filipino workers, to replace all the Croats currently working in Germany and Ireland.
The 1% are doing very well and getting richer and richer.
The rest of us, a sustained fall in the quality of life I’m afraid.
Everyone is fighting over land in the Netherlands. That’s why we have a housing, migration, farmers, construction, energy, water, environmental, etc crisis.
There are a couple possible solutions, but politicians want to please everyone.
> Does Czechia have a cost of living crisis?
Yes. Plus we have serious wage crisis (wages in PP since 2019 have decreased by ~5%, while the rest of the region grew). Also we’re in political crisis, pushing the can down the road. Next government will be formed by populists and nationalists, because the current centre-right coalition fucks up almost everything. Liberals didn’t manage to push any liberal reforms, partly because of opposition of the more conservative right-wingers and christian democrats, partly gods know why. Conservative right-wingers do mafia stuff, quite literally. Christian democrats don’t care about anything but pandering to alcoholics (they are from a south-east of the country, the only religious part, but also the only wine-producing part) and opposing any liberalization of cannabis or gay marriage.
so, we are still in fucking war, invaded by neighbours.
we are still waiting for F16 and more weapons. my hometown is still occupied.
our government also in the way of raising taxes, this time – big time as it is one of the conditions from EU.
people are not happy about it because we still have corruption ( i swear, we are actively fighting it, but the progress is slow) , and everyone are thinking that money will go to the political pockets. which is fair enough.
i visited my parents for 2 months ( i relocated them from occupied zone) so i noticed the HUGE price increase in everything, our currency dropped a lot. and half of the country , half of our production was destroyed. our fields/storages with the food are burning.
again, because of the war. i dont know how people are actually living there with the smallest salaries in Europe.
men afraid to go outside because they can be caught and sent to the battlefield. we still have people who actively want to fight. but unfortunately, the hope is slowly dying. we are so afraid of USA election. because if trump will win, we probably will fall under russia once again. we need our nukes back.
the world is fucked up.
people never learn the history.
People are becoming less pleased with the ruling neolib party for not keeping controversial right wingers in the government under control and making all the wrong decisions during a cost of living crisis such as attacking welfare, particularly for students.
> How is your country doing?
Oddly quite well despite bordering a warzone, a dictatorship and a country threatening to nuke us every other week.
Internally the drama has been so low since the last elections that I sometimes forget what country I live even in lmao. The coalition government is currently struggling to get some socially liberal reforms through but most people have accepted that it will remain that way as long as the current conservative president (who has a veto power) is in the office (I.e. until next year).
I’m lately mostly following news from other countries instead since there is actually some interesting stuff going on.
It’s not sinking, it’s diving at record speed.
Healthcare is in ruins, the educational system is in ruins, the economy is in ruins, inflation is at an all-time high as is corruption. Nearly all types of crimes are increasing.
The government is stealing everything, literally everything in front of our eyes, and nobody is doing anything to stop it. People have become apathetic and have lost all hope.
In Greece we have the same corrupted government that led us to the debt crisis trying to save us from the other party that ‘took the snake from the hole’ and tide up the mess they did. Gas prices are in 1.85€ per litre. Minimum wage about 800€. Rents are high. I think we are a developing country. The few enjoy the riches of our country. They give people passes to ease the economic struggle while big companies having all time income records. Justice and media are tight connected to the governing party. please send help.
I read people talking all sorts of shit about Spain on the internet, but everyone I know is living better than they were when I left (4 years ago) and all the objective economic data is better as well. I see a lot of stupid mud slinging of politicians and even politicians wives. I wrote a comment asking about the (record low) unemployment rate and I got replies that someone’s father something about prostitutes???
American style politics seem to have taken over Spain and I hate it.
Sweden here. I would say not great, not terrible.
Since a lot of us have variable mortgages, the rise in inflation and associated rate hikes hit us hard. However, the opposite is also true, so chances are good that we will get more of a boost than most when rates go back down.
Public finances are very strong on the national level, but less so on the municipal and local level. There are some talks about loosening the fiscal rules and allowing a bit more spending, because it really doesn’t make sense to push the national debt much lower.
Gang violence seems to be coming under control. It was never as big of a problem as the headlines suggested, but breaking the trend is something everyone is still quite happy about.
The country is literally rotting, the education system is in literal ruins, the healtchare ststem is in literal ruins, people are dying as a result completely unnecessarily, an untold amount of people have fled the country in the past 14 years, pedophiles and child abusers are literally given awards by the government, the government openly spreads Russian propaganda, the entire state security apparatus is compromised by Russia, the prime minister and half the government are Russian assets who betray Hungarian national interests daily, we have record inflation, record high VAT, most of the economy and the media is run by government appointed oligarchs, the electoral and judicial system is taylor-made to ensure the state party’s power, there’s rampant fascist rethoric against immigrants, liberals, leftists, the LGBTQ community, literally anyone and everyone who doesn’t suck up to the government, we have a historic heat wave to boot and despite the racist rhetoric, which often espuses literal nazi race science, more and more migrant workers are imported to fill in for the jobs that are dangerous and poorly paid even by Hungarian standards.
Chinese battery factories that pollute our water, soil and air are being built left and right despite basically everyone protesting against it, and the majority of people who remain apparently still support these traitorous assholes whose every action points to their desires being nothing less than the complete annihilation and destruction of Hungary and the Hungarian people
So you know, eh.
Chugging along as always, people outside of Belgium always overestimate the drama here. We’re living good lives, so nobody is really interested to change things up when push comes to shove.
We’re doing weirdly okay. Sure, there’s this looming threat of national debt and there’s expected to be austerity, but we have a habit of not really giving a shit, working hard, relaxing hard and expecting everything to end up okay. We got saved from another huge political crisis because Flanders didn’t go full far right and Wallonia finally kicked out their socialist party, so for the first moment in a long time, both parts of the country are more or less politically aligned.
It might tickle your funny bone to know that the likely next Belgian prime minister will be a Flemish nationalist that has said that he hopes Flanders joins the Netherlands. There’s a good chance he’ll oversee the 200 year anniversary of Belgium. He’s not even that controversial of a pick, he gained a lot of respect from his peers and seems to have taken the task of forming a government very seriously.
Over a decade of Rutte (and arguably Balkenende, Kok and Lubbers before him) we’re counting our losses and see that our conservative liberal course has left us in a deep mess. Politically everything has gotten worse.
– Our social security has turned hostile
– Pension age has increased and pension security has declined
– Labor laws have worsened by introducing flex contracts and the “participatiewet”, which closed down social workplaces
– Income inequality has increased
– The “leenstelsel” has put hundreds of thousands of students into debt
– Houses were sold to oversees investors and prices have become exorbitant to the extent where overbidding 50k has become standard practice.
– Social housing has also declined and people have to live in fungae infested houses.
– Squatting has become illegal and “anti-squatting” was invented, again leaving housing opportunites in the hands of greedy corporations.
– The “toeslagenschandaal” instilled hostile and racist profiling at child care allowance which has ruined and indebted hundreds of thousands of parents’ lives
– Public transport has become even more impractical and expensive
– Public services and utilities, like public transport, energy and the postal services were denationalized sold to greedy corporations
– Scandals such as the “bonnetjes-affaire”, “functie-elders”, “gewiste SMS’jes”
– 70 civilian deaths in Iraq by the Dutch military
– He never took responsibily and many of his peers’ heads have rolled. This created a deeply untrustworthy nepotist culture at The Hague.
I can go on for hours.
Now he’s gone and we cleverly (not) elected Geert Wilders, a far-right wing extremist, to fix it all. He turned out to be so impracticable that they had to set up our current nothing-government. Say hi to our new PM Dick Schoof. I hope that’s this nothing-government means that nothingness can be a blessing, but we’ll see. Our ministers have already turned out to be racists and conspiracy nutjobs. I just hope they have less power than we think.
England/Westminster: The Tories are out of power so hopefully things will get better.
France? Instability because of the recent elections (at least in my opinion).
All countries have issues, and maybe not raise taxes, but charge you different way. We have to see that good years passsed, bad years coming
A nutless monkey could run Norway better than the current government.
Norway must be the easiest country in the world to run.
So its going ok here.
It could have been really great, but due to the monkeys running the show, its only going ok.
Oh, you know, no biggie. Germany just has its Neo-Nazi party reach unfathomably high levels of support while conservatives integrate more and more of their ideas into the state while Social Democrats have become little more than handmaidens to the right wing. This is all happening while we both support the genocide another country is committing *and* our own “slow-burn atrocity”, just out of sight enough that we can forbid talking about it so everyone stays comfortable.
Wait. I feel like I’ve read that one before. First as a tragedy, then as a farce…