Understanding politics across borders and divides
Published: July 29, 2026 Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled on 28 July that the government regulation allowing registry offices to record foreign same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. The government’s response was that the body issuing the ruling is not a court, that what it produced is therefore not a judgment, and that nothing in Polish law has … Read more
Last Updated: July 2026 Overview Europe is the only region in the world where an international body can withhold large sums of money from a member state over how it appoints judges, and the past decade has been a test of whether that works. The European Union suspended around 19 billion euros in funding to … Read more
Last Updated: July 2026 Overview Europe is the most permissive region in the world on abortion law and one of the more restrictive on gestational limits, which is a combination that surprises people who follow the debate through American framing. Nearly every European state allows abortion on request in early pregnancy, but twelve weeks is … Read more
Published: July 21, 2026 Overview Poland in mid-2026 is governed by a coalition that commands a parliamentary majority and cannot turn that majority into law. President Karol Nawrocki, elected in June 2025 with the backing of the national-conservative Law and Justice party, has spent his first year in office vetoing the legislative program of Prime … Read more