Eurotopics.net

US President Joe Biden has invited 110 governments to an online Summit for Democracy starting today to discuss ways to strengthen democracy. Three topics are to form the core of the debates: combating authoritarianism, fighting corruption, and strengthening human rights. Hungary, Russia and China, among others, will be absent, but Poland and Brazil are taking part.

Bulgaria's future government has announced plans to to streamline the state administration. Fifteen percent of the approximately 250,000 civil servants in Bulgaria are to be dismissed by the end of 2022, said Assen Vasilev, the finance minister designate, in an interview with TV channel bTV. The national press welcomes the initiative but doubts it can be fully implemented.

For the second Saturday in a row, tens of thousands of Serbs demonstrated with road blockades across the country against new legislation planned by President Vučić - despite brutal violence used against them. The legislation will facilitate the expropriation of private land for large infrastructure projects and would give the Rio Tinto corporation access to the huge lithium deposits near the town of Loznica.

The positions on Ukraine remain almost unchanged after the video summit between Biden and Putin. Washington interprets the presence of Russian troops near the border as an aggression and is threatening with sanctions, military reinforcements for Ukraine and the boosting of troops in eastern Nato states. Putin sees this as threats against his country. The press focuses on what the summit has achieved despite an apparent lack of progress.