Free Republic

BUDAPEST, Hungary — When other countries welcomed refugees with open arms, Hungary decided it was time to eradicate illegal immigration at any cost. The country succeeded, but that success damaged relations with the European Union in the process. Hungary’s second border fence has just been completed in the southern town of Asotthalom. The 96-mile long, 14 ft. tall double-line of defense doesn’t look too intimidating from a distance. Go a little closer and you’ll notice several layers of razor-wire capable of delivering electric shocks, cameras, heat sensors and loud speakers ready to tell migrants they’re about to break Hungarian law...

Austria is joining forces with 15 other Eastern European countries to stem the flow of migrants northwards, as they believe the European Union (EU) has failed in its duty to protect the region’s borders. Under the banner of the Balkan Frontier Defence Project, the countries will ensure that their police and military forces are in constant contact to ensure the vigilant protection of the national borders northwards of Greece, and repelling illegal immigrants from those borders. Austrian Defence Minister Hans-Peter Doskozil (SPÖ), told Die Welt: “We do not believe that the EU’s external borders are adequately protected so far by...

The German government wants to stop citizens of other EU countries, particularly from eastern Europe, from moving to Germany just for its benefits. Government sources told DPA that the German cabinet was in agreement about approving a proposed law to prevent EU citizens from countries outside Germany from claiming welfare benefits during their first five years in the country. […] Hartz IV was introduced in 2003 as a base social welfare payment available to all German citizens, regardless of whether they had ever had a job. …

Sometimes life sends along something to cheer us up. It did so for me, when I came across a stemwinder of a speech made in the Czech Parliament a few months ago by one of its members, Klara Samkova. Samkova is a left-of-center — not “far-right,” even if the Western press would like to label her as such — politician mainly known as a defender of minorities, especially the Roma. In the past, she was even prepared to collaborate with the Union of Czech Muslims, though after being mugged by Muslim reality, that collaboration has stopped. Her speech was part...

Eastern European nations happen to be the countries that are the strongest defenders of Western Christian civilization. Having lived under communism, these people can see through the communistic system of political correctness that has taken over Western Europe. My favorite country, after America, is Poland. It is a very pro-family country, that elects pro-family politicians.

Too bad we can’t keep them all in one bowl, pour on the milk, and chow down. Some of us feel destined to remain stuck in the pits.Tragically, disgraceful, reprobate lawmakers are not only turning California into sanctuary state for illegal aliens, but also the final resting place for bigots, statist, and budding tyrants. Indeed, the state legislature just shoved a rash of anti-Second Amendment bills down our barrels. Now it will be a crime to buy guns with a “bullet button” for example. California has one of the worst business climates, with the highest taxes in the nation (including...

It didn't take long for western media to lose focus. After Russia began its military campaign to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the world largely stopped paying attention to Ukraine. It shouldn't have. Over the last few months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been busy trying to deepen the quagmire he created in Eastern Europe. A United Nations' report released in November detailed the degree to which his proxy war in Ukraine has turned the country into Russia's killing field. More than 9,000 people have died since the spring of 2014 after Russia-backed rebels began fighting Kiev for independence,...

Vladimir Putin scheduled the war to retake the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – for the first half of the last Final Four college basketball game. He anticipated, correctly, that the President’s focus would be on his brackets instead of Russia’s plan to recapture its former glory. The signs were all there – prior aggression in Georgia, the invasion of Ukraine, the unscheduled “maneuvers” in both Russia and Belarus adjacent to the panicking Baltic States’ borders, the provocative military flights into their airspace and that of nearby Sweden. And the administration, fixated on pushing through its domestic agenda...

"Hundreds of Polish residents took to the streets to give a hero's welcome to a convoy of U.S. troops who are driving through eastern Europe and deliver a damning message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Children climbed on to Stryker armoured vehicles and even offered souvenirs to the troops, who stopped to pose for pictures in the main square of the eastern Polish town of Bialystok. Meanwhile other residents lined the roads and applauded as the troops from the 3rd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the American Army passed by." "The scenes mirrored those in France after Paris...

About a thousand people still contract tuberculosis daily in Europe and Central Asia, despite an overall decline of the disease, a report by the Europe Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) revealed Tuesday (17 March). The report, co-authored with the World Health Organization (WHO), said the continent would not be free of the disease until the next century at the current low rate of eradication, particularly due to prevalence in countries to the east of the region. “Multi-resistance tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is still ravaging the European region, making it the most affected area of the entire world,” Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stirred controversy after paying tribute to a monument complex to Soviet soldiers killed in Hungary during the suppression of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising. Hungary's law states that the present day freedom ‘blossomed' out of that uprising also known as the ‘1956 revolution' and anyone ‘justifying the crimes committed by the communist system is to be punished'. This means that Putin's commemoration of the soldiers violates Hungarian law. Despite government officials denying that Putin laid a wreath at the monument specifically commemorating Soviet invaders, an advance of the itinerary of Putin's visit said that he would...

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Arutz Sheva on Tuesday in time for International Holocaust Memorial Day that the battle over the Holocaust lives on—and is being waged on the field of public memory. According to Zuroff, aside from the widespread scourge of Holocaust denial, a new phenomenon has reared its head recently in eastern Europe, where there are attempts to minimize the genocidal horrors committed against the Jewish people and revise history. “This phenomenon should worry the state of Israel and the Foreign Ministry,” emphasized Zuroff. “In post-Communist eastern Europe, they’re trying...

Eastern Europe: Addressing a rare joint session of the U.S. Congress, Ukraine's leader warns, like Churchill before him, of a growing and resurgent menace that has committed crimes in his country and threatens the West. Back in 2009, after the Russian invasion of Georgia, we asked in the editorial recently reprised on the opposite page, "Is the Ukraine Next?" Well, it was. As President Reagan famously put it in a campaign commercial, there was once again a bear in the woods. Only this time we ignored it. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko gave a 40-minute speech to a rare...

Hardly any Americans will know of Hilarion Alfeyev, 48, a Russian Orthodox bishop who acts as the "foreign minister" of his Church, but it is important that they do. He is a bridge between not just the Orthodox Church and Catholicism but a bridge between Russia and America. As a Catholic American, I first saw him 15 years ago on a cold December day in Moscow. Hilarion, then 33, was already a rising star in the firmament of the Russian Orthodox Church. He had done his graduate studies in philosophy at Oxford — rather rare for Russian Orthodox Church leaders....

Seriously. Things are beginning to look kinda pathetic for the Kerry/ Obama foreign policy doctrine. Just this week Russia violated an arms treaty by testing a new type of cruise missile; and Obama’s response was to send a letter to Vladimir Putin (not joking) explaining his disapproval. Future ramifications might include a new hashtag campaign, unfriending Putin on Facebook, or sending angry text messages late at night. And, really, given the West’s reaction to Putin’s acts of aggression in Ukraine, it only makes sense that the former KGB agent would feel emboldened to disrespect an obscure Reagan era treaty. Vladimir...

NATO announced earlier this July that it is shelving plans to welcome any new members during its forthcoming Wales summit. The hopes of four countries—Bosnia, Macedonia, Georgia and Montenegro, which were expecting to deepen their cooperation with NATO—are now all but dashed, as senior NATO officials have hit the pause button on future enlargement. Just like the European Union, it seems that NATO is also suffering from enlargement fatigue. Unlike the Union though, NATO is shying away from even awarding the equivalent of the EU’s association agreement, namely the Membership Action Plan (MAP), to Georgia, over fears of provoking Moscow’s...

About the only good coming out of ridiculous tit-for-tat sanctions on Russia is the possibility of revised US energy policy, and Lithuania is pleading for it. The BBC reports Lithuania Pleads for US Gas Exports to Counter Russia Lithuania's energy minister has called on the US Senate to speed up the export of natural gas to Europe. Jaroslav Neverovic said that Lithuania was being forced to pay a "political price" for being entirely dependent on Russian gas supplies. In his statement to a US Senate committee, Mr Neverovic urged members to do everything within their power to release natural...

Polish news site Thenews.pl is reporting that President Obama in a telephone call on Sunday to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski “assured him ‘unequivocally as to Poland’s security, knowing that Poland is not only a neighbor of Ukraine but Russia as well.’ Speaking Monday after a meeting of Poland’s Nations Security Council – with Poland’s Defense Minister, Foreign Minister, Prime Minister and opposition party leaders in attendance - Komorowski informed the media that he had directed Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski to “request NATO consultations under Article 4 of the alliance’s founding treaty.” Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty that was...

The United States is not Ukraine, so, I hope, we don’t find ourselves living in interesting times. 1. Somewhat educated young people with no opportunities are a revolutionary class. Between 1990 and 2006, as Ukraine’s population declined, the number of students entering colleges shot up an unbelievable 60%. According to another source, ” The number of students enrolled in Ukrainian universities grew from 1.5 million in 2001, to 2.5 million in 2009-2011.” Towards the end of this period the student population consisted primarily of those born in the 1990′s when fertility went through the floor. At the same time, the...

In Hungary, Croatia, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, a pro-family, pro-life revolution and a rediscovery of Christian roots is occurring. While few in the American media have noticed, this trend should challenge those who simply lament Europe’s moral malaise. Unnoticed in the shadow of a secularized west, religion’s public role has been growing in the east since the collapse of communism. Since taking power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban—a charismatic veteran of Hungary’s anti-Communist underground—has victoriously stood at the forefront of what Americans call the culture wars. In 2011, Orban’s government ratified a new constitution that defines marriage as...