Zell am See-Kaprun is suitable for active holidaymakers. Zell am See and Kaprun attract nature tourists and outdoor enthusiasts all year round. Both downhill and hiking are possible in the area. Zell am See and the neighboring village of Kaprun form a diverse resort in the Austrian Alps, which attracts active outdoor enthusiasts all year round….
Category: Europe
Mikkeli Travel Guide
Mikkeli is the heart of Southern Savonia. Mikkeli offers culture, events, market life and natural peace in the Saimaa landscape. Mikkeli delights domestic tourists with its versatility. The events, cafés, nature attractions and the unpretentiously flexible atmosphere of this southern Savonian city are easily charming. Surprise yourself and explore this sympathetic summer city. In the…
Vatican City 2017
Yearbook 2017 Vatican City. Not everyone in the Vatican’s conservative circles appreciated Pope Francis’s radical social commitment and his ascetic livery. Through his strong commitment to the climate issue and the situation of the world’s refugees and migrants, the pope came early on a collision course with US President Donald Trump. Her plans to build…
United Kingdom 2017
Yearbook 2017 UK. Prime Minister Theresa May had a difficult year with Brexit negotiations, terrorist attacks and new elections, and this only during the first six months of the year. And there were no small issues that May had to deal with; will it be a “hard” or “soft” Brexit from the European Union, and…
Ukraine 2017
Yearbook 2017 Ukraine. The fighting between Ukrainian military and Prorussian separatists in eastern Ukraine escalated in January. According to Countryaah.com, many people were killed and the electricity supply was knocked out in the industrial city of Avdiivka in severe winter cold. President Petro Poroshenko canceled a visit to Berlin and returned home for a crisis…
Turkey 2017
Yearbook 2017 Turkey. The referendum on a constitutional change, as well as the aftermath of the coup attempt in July 2016, characterized the year. But first out was a shooting death at the exclusive Istanbul club Reina, where 39 people died during New Year’s Eve. More than half of the dead were foreign nationals. According…
Switzerland 2017
Yearbook 2017 Switzerland. Corporate taxation in the country could not be reformed in favor of the companies. With the proposal, the government wanted to lower the taxes for companies in order to resist the increased “tax competition” from other European states. In February, the neoside won a referendum on this by 59% against the jaside’s…
Sweden
The Age of Freedom (1719–72) At the Riksdag in 1719 the monarchy was abolished, and a new form of government gave great power to the council and the Riksdag. This was marked even more strongly in 1720, when Ulrika Eleonora, who succeeded brother Charles XII, handed over the crown to her husband, Fredrik by Hessen-Kassel…
Spain 2017
Yearbook 2017 Spain. The Catalan independence vote, which took place on October 1, came to characterize much of the year. The struggle for independence came to open a wound in the EU. About Catalonia, why not the Basque Country, Flanders, Wallonia, Scotland? No wonder then that the European Commission already the day after the election…
Slovenia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Slovenia. In January, the Slovenian Parliament passed a law that allows the border with Croatia to be closed, in order to stop migrants from entering the country. Neighboring countries Hungary and Austria also have similar laws. According to Countryaah.com, the Slovenian men’s national basketball team became the European champion for the first time…
Slovakia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Slovakia. The right-wing extremist People’s Party Our Slovakia, which was elected to Parliament in 2016, increased its public support. According to Countryaah.com, the party’s nuclear troops conducted well-attended demonstrations, and in March a counter-action was held by anti-fascists marching through Bratislava. Two of the party’s MPs were indicted for incitement against people, which…
Serbia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Serbia. In the April 2 presidential election, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić won with 55% of the vote; in second place came Saša Janković with just over 16%. While the presidential post is largely ceremonial, many fear that Vučić will become increasingly authoritarian. Some weeks after the election, Vučić was accused of electoral fraud…
San Marino 2017
Yearbook 2017 San Marino. According to Countryaah.com, San Marino will be the first country in Europe with 5G networks. After an agreement with Telecom Italia, a test version of the system will be ready in 2018. With 5G networks, you can reach up to ten times higher data rate compared to today’s system.
Russia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Russian Federation. According to Countryaah.com, Moscow’s relations with the United States deteriorated during the year with growing US accusations of Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election through data breaches and false information. President Vladimir Putin and US new President Donald Trump initially seemed to show a good…
Romania 2017
Yearbook 2017 Romania. According to Countryaah.com, Romania was given a new government in January, a few weeks after the election. Parliament endorsed Sorin Grindeanu as prime minister for a coalition led by the Social Democrats (PSD), which just over a year earlier was forced out of power accused of widespread corruption. The fight against corruption…
Portugal 2017
Yearbook 2017 Portugal. According to Countryaah.com, Portugal suffered several major forest fires during the year. In June, some 60 people died in a forest fire in the Pedrógão Grande in central parts of the country; most of the dead were caught by the flames as they sat in their cars on the road between Figueiro…
Poland 2017
Yearbook 2017 Poland. In January, Poland began the largest deployment of American troops in Europe since the Cold War. About 1,000 soldiers with tanks and heavy armored vehicles were welcomed at a ceremony in the city of Zagan. A total of 4,000 US soldiers were deployed in Poland and the Baltic during the year, which…
Norway 2017
Yearbook 2017 Norway. The consequences of the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s mass murder in Oslo and at Utøya in 2011 continued to plague Norway. The sentiments were strong against Breivik being right in court that his human rights were violated through isolation in prison. In March, however, the Court of Appeal overturned the district court’s…
Northern Macedonia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Northern Macedonia (until 2019 Macedonia). According to Countryaah.com, Macedonia has been without a functioning government since 2015, but in early June, Social Democratic leader Zoran Zaev succeeded in forming a government, on behalf of President Gjorge Ivanov. Zaev’s government is backed by 62 of Parliament’s 120 members. In 2015, an eavesdropping scandal had…
Netherlands 2017
Yearbook 2017 Netherlands. In the March elections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberal Party VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) managed to stay in power, despite a 10-seat reduction in parliament. The party now received 33 seats, Geert Wilder’s right-wing populist PVV (Freedom Party) increased by 5 seats to 20, progressive D66 received 19 seats,…
Montenegro 2017
Yearbook 2017 Montenegro. According to Countryaah.com, Montenegro became NATO member at the end of March. The US Senate approved the accession agreement with the 97-2 votes. In April, President Donald Trump signed the agreement. During the year, further revelations came that the Russian Federation was trying to stop Montenegro’s NATO membership by allowing the then…
Monaco 2017
Yearbook 2017 Monaco. According to Forex Bank’s Holiday Index, Monaco is one of the most expensive countries in the world to holiday in. And even more expensive to live in. It certainly seemed that the janitor of Saint Nicholas Cathedral was trying to wipe out her household cash by stealing from the poverty box, which…
Moldova 2017
Yearbook 2017 Moldova. The year was marked by a bitter political conflict between the country’s new Prorussian President Igor Dodon and the EU-friendly coalition government. Dodon met President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in January, saying he wants to restore trade with Moscow and hopes to tear up the cooperation agreement with the EU. On…
Malta 2017
Yearbook 2017 Malta. One of Malta’s landmarks, a limestone arch known as the Azure Window, collapsed in March. The arch, located on the island of Gozo, was a popular tourist destination and has also been featured in the TV series “Game of Thrones” and in the movie “Clash of the Titans”. In May, Prime Minister…
Luxembourg 2017
Yearbook 2017 Luxembourg. According to Countryaah.com, Luxembourg’s Minister of Infrastructure François Bausch announced in January that a legal process will be pursued against the Volkswagen car ticket following the so-called diesel street scandal in 2015, which revealed cheating with the cars’ diesel engines. Two French whistle-blowers (Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet) in the so-called Luxleaks…
Lithuania 2017
Yearbook 2017 Lithuania. During the year, around 1,000 NATO soldiers were stationed in Lithuania with the intention of increasing Lithuania’s defense in the shadow of the Russian military build-up in the region. NATO troops came from several countries, were under German command and were equipped with over 200 tanks. According to Countryaah.com, President Dalia Grybauskaite…
Liechtenstein 2017
Yearbook 2017 Liechtenstein. The informal network of women foreign ministers, led by Margot Wallström and Liechtenstein’s Aurelia Frick, in September presented its annual buffet dinner to Liechtenstein’s UN representation in New York. Among those attending were Australia’s Julie Bishop, Canada’s Chrystia Freeland, Colombia’s María Ángela Holguín, India’s Ruchi Ghanashyam and Kenya’s Amina Chawahur Mohamed. According…
Latvia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Latvia. According to Countryaah.com, Latvia’s population continued to decline at a worrying rate during the year. Birth rates for the first quarter of the year decreased significantly compared to the corresponding period the year before, and at the same time the death rates increased. The Ministry of Education statistics show that the number…
Kosovo 2017
Yearbook 2017 Kosovo. In June, Kosovo held a new election since the government in May cast a vote of no confidence in Parliament. The cooperation between the government’s largest parties, the center-right party PDK and conservative LDK, had long been strained. In the June 11 election, a coalition led by PDK (34% of the vote)…
Italy 2017
Yearbook 2017 Italy. The regional elections in Sicily in November aroused strong fears and expectations before the impending parliamentary elections in spring 2018. The result was a resounding victory for right-wing populists, and a stinging defeat for the ruling Socialist Democratic Party (PD). According to Countryaah.com, the election result led to the 81-year-old former Prime…
Ireland 2017
Yearbook 2017 Ireland. According to Countryaah.com, Prime Minister Enda Kenny announced in March his departure as party leader for the Christian Democratic Party Fine Gael after 15 years in the post. He was replaced in early June by 38-year-old Leo Varadkar, who shortly thereafter also became the country’s head of government. Varadkar is the son…
Iceland 2017
Yearbook 2017 Iceland. In January, Iceland gained a new government, more than two months after the parliamentary elections. Bjarni Benediktsson, leader of the Conservative Independence Party, became prime minister of a coalition with the two small liberal parties the Reform Party and the bright future. The government had the smallest possible majority in the parliament,…
Hungary 2017
Yearbook 2017 Hungary. The refugee issue also dominated Hungarian policy in 2017. The government refused to accept asylum seekers under the EU’s mandatory quota system for redistributing refugees among the member states. At the beginning of the year, the government also decided to put asylum seekers and migrants in camp at the border, a method…
Greece 2017
Yearbook 2017 Greece. According to Countryaah.com, Greece’s strained economy recovered during the year. But at the beginning of the year it looked bad; In a new report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the EU’s view of the Greek economy was based on “significantly more optimistic assumptions” than those presented by the IMF: in 2060,…
Germany 2017
Yearbook 2017 Germany. According to Countryaah.com, Angela Merkel had a tough year. Only by a slight margin did it look as if the Chancellor could form a government after the September elections. Long into December, the government negotiations were ongoing. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party CDU/CSU declined sharply but still became the largest party with 33.0%…
France 2017
Yearbook 2017 France. This spring’s presidential election was held in France for the first half of the year. In the Socialist primary elections on January 22, former Housing Minister Benôit Hamon won 35% of the vote, against former Prime Minister Manuel Valls who got 31%. Both thus went on to the second round on January…
Finland 2017
Yearbook 2017 Finland. According to Countryaah.com, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä was indicted at the beginning of the year for a conflict of interest since he led a business delegation during an official visit to India, including a company owned by his children. In addition, it was reported that the company in question was rescued from…
Faroe Islands 2017
Faroe Islands. At the beginning of the year, the self-government government decided that a referendum on a proposal for a new constitution would be held in April 2018. The Faroese would then have to say yes or no to increased self-determination, where the Danish government cannot prevent the islanders from deciding whether to leave the…
Estonia 2017
Yearbook 2017 Estonia. In the shadow of the increased tension between the Russian Federation and NATO, about 1,000 British, French and Danish NATO soldiers were deployed in Estonia in the spring. They were stationed 15 miles from the Russian border at the military base Tapa, which used to be a Soviet air base. The NATO…
Denmark 2017
Yearbook 2017 Denmark. Also in 2017, the political debate was largely about immigration and refugees. The Social Democrats (S) approached the bourgeois government’s support party of the Danish People’s Party (DF) in both the immigration issue and tax and distribution policy, and it was speculated in future government cooperation between the two. S and DF…