On June 20, 2024, the ‘Politics of Basic Income Talk Series’ featured an online event titled ‘UBI in Central and Eastern Europe: Attention, Strategies and Reforms’. Two experts discussed Universal Basic Income (UBI) in their regions:
Maciej Szlinder presented a proposed pilot program in the Polish-Russian border region, outlining its design and public reception despite lack of implementation due to funding issues.
Boglárka Herke examined UBI in Hungary, focusing on public perception, particularly in relation to AI, and analyzed obstacles to its popularity.
Speakers’ bios:
Boglárka Herke is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Sociology, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences. She obtained her PhD at Corvinus University of Budapest. Her main research interests include welfare attitudes, social and family policy, and single-parent families. She is involved in a research project examining attitudes towards UBI in Hungary within the context of the future labour market. A recent publication from the project is: Herke, B., & Vicsek, L. (2022). The attitudes of young citizens in higher education towards universal basic income in the context of automation—A qualitative study. International Journal of Social Welfare, 31(3), 310–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsw.
Maciej Szlinder is a philosopher, sociologist, and economist. He did his PhD at the Institute of Philosophy of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He is President of the Polish Basic Income Network, a member of Unconditional Basic Income Europe and the Spanish Basic Income Network, and author of the Unconditional Basic Income: Revolutionary reform of society in the XXI century (2018). He edits the academic journal Theoretical Practice, and is a member of the National Council of the Polish political party Razem.
This series is organized monthly by the Bath UBI Beacon and the Freiburg Institute of Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS) in partnership with the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN).