Slovakia

Some days Adrian Lachata ponders how life would have turned out if he had never left Svidnik.

The 32-year-old engineer would not have graduated from the most prestigious technical faculty in the Czech Republic, where he has lived for the past 11 years since moving from the industrial town in Slovakia's northeast where he grew up.

On an unusually brisk afternoon in May, European flags fluttered alongside anti-fascist banners in Bratislava's old town on the banks of the Danube.

Demonstrators were protesting a meeting of European far-right parties in the Slovak capital ahead of this month's EU elections.

"Freedom is more than a nation," one placard read. "Fascists, entry forbidden," said another.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network launched a cross-border journalism platform on Monday aimed at shining a light on issues affecting the health of democracy across a swathe of Europe vulnerable to rising populism and authoritarianism.

Babis' pragmatic - or hypocritical - approach to the EU looks likely to serve him well when Czechs vote May 24-25. Polls suggest his party will come first with about 25 per cent of the votes.

This result is all the more remarkable, given that this essentially one-man party has no real ideology, or content in terms of policies.

But it speaks also to the growth in popularity of right-wing populists, and an emerging battle for young voters.

'New trend'

Slovakia appeared to strike a powerful blow against the populist surge in Europe with the election in March of progressive political newcomer Zuzana Caputova as president.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2019 increased by 0.5% in the EU-28 compared to the previous quarter by seasonally adjusted data. For the same period, GDP in Bulgaria increased by 1.1%, reported the National Statistical Institute. 

These are numbers, key and not so key, that will feature in voting for the European Parliament on May 23-36:
427 million

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the top candidate of the centrist European People's Party, EPP, for the post of European Commission President, Manfred Weber, will participate in the central election conference of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, on Saturday in Zagreb.

More than half of Greeks in their mid-20s to mid-30s live with their parents, a significantly larger proportion than the average of 28.5 percent in the 28-member European Union, according to the results of a survey by the bloc's statistics service Eurostat which were made public on Tuesday.

In the EU, over a third (35.3%) of men aged 25-34 still live with their parents in 2017, compared with only 21.7% of ladies of the same age group, according to a Eurostat study. On average, one in four young Europeans live in their family home.