Whereas popular support for the European project has been waning in the ‘old’ European Union countries, Central and Eastern European countries joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007 with fresh enthusiasm. As these new member states are confronted with various kinds of nationalism and populism, what remains of this pro-European feeling? Do political disillusionment and the economic malaise risk increasing the gap between the political elites and the mass public?

By Antoaneta Dimitrova

Some fifteen years ago, when the idea that post-communist states would become EU members still looked far fetched and unrealistic, a collaborator of Jacques Delors mentioned to me the regret of the great Commission President that Central and Eastern Europeans had not brought new ideas to the process of European integration. I remember being surprised that applicants that were faced with such numerous and strenuous demands were also expected to be original and innovative about a process on which they had little influence. This comment got me thinking about the contribution of Central and Eastern European (CEE) states to the European project. Being a scholar of enlargement, my first observation was that they were not treated as equals, but as potential guests that could be admitted to the European home if they learned to play by the EU’s rules. Even under these conditions, however, Eastern Europeans did bring something to the table when they applied to join. Their contribution was their enthusiasm for the European project and a desire to be part of it. The leaders of post-communist states applying to join the EU were moved by many motives: historical, economic and geopolitical, but they certainly believed in the European ideal of peace, prosperity and democracy that the EU exemplified for them. 

Disillusionment

A different view, tinged with disillusionment, gradually emerged in the process of negotiating the early accession agreements of CEE states with the European Community. Disputes over trade access quickly overshadowed idealism and brought home the message that European integration was about economic interests, not political ideals. In the following period, negotiations were dominated by ever-increasing conditionality. All of this was perhaps not a bad thing as CEE leaders worked to transform their countries and adapt to the EU. Regrettably, somewhere in this process, they learned, as one official once told me, that ‘you do what the EU wants until you sit at the table and then the Commission cannot tell you what to do any more’. The asymmetrical process of accession was indispensable in making the CEE states ready for accession, but it also taught their political elites that the EU was about hard-headed self-interest. What did it teach the citizens and the public in Central and Eastern Europe? What is left of their enthusiasm, of their European dream?

Free markets vs democracy

For the citizens of post-communist states in Central and Eastern Europe, the big historically defining moment was not joining the EU – it was 1989 and the fall of communism. The process of dismantling the state planning economies and creating democratic institutions started earlier than the process of joining the EU and was mostly inspired by Euro-Atlantic ideals of democracy. Later, the processes of democratisation, marketisation of the economy and preparing to join the EU overlapped.

An important consequence of these parallel processes was that joining the EU became associated in the minds of many CEE citizens with achieving Western European prosperity. In this, the public in the post-communist states was misinformed. Political elites busy with harmonising domestic legislation and policy with the EU had little time to explain that being part of the EU meant also following common rules and that only by taking advantage of the opportunities integration offers can prosperity be realised.

The fact that the accession process sustained the consolidation of the ideas of democracy and free markets in CEE states increased the risk of public disillusionment. The chief difficulty is that as CEE states have joined the European Union, the expected prosperity and improved governance have not immediately materialised, making some disappointment in the European Union inevitable. Secondly, a backlash against the EU can as yet materialise as the realisation dawns in larger segments of society that EU rules entail not only opportunities, but also political demands and legal obligations, some of which may be hard to implement in the current political and economic climate. The third difficulty is aptly described by the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev as ‘the revenge of the masses’. The losers from the transition period with its market-oriented policies are, by and large, also losers from the measures taken to adapt to the EU. As a consequence, populism, as Krastev has argued, has arisen as a legitimate reaction by the losers from the transition in countries where market liberalism became the only game in town [1].

Still we have not yet seen populist discourses in CEE blaming the EU for the market economy’s ills. Perhaps the effects of EU membership and EU’s structural and social policies have mitigated the effects of market liberalism in the East. The European Union’s social policy acquis contains important provisions on working time, non-discrimination and health and safety in the workplace. Implementing these properly can significantly alleviate conditions for workers affected by the risks of the new capitalism in the East. EU structural funds can increase general prosperity in CEE member states, if they are able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the EU.

The implementation of EU social policies and structural funds, however, depends, as do all EU policies, on the actions of national governments. Bad governance and especially the capture of the state by networks of ex-communists make the application of EU policies and the utilisation of EU funds difficult. State capture and ineffectiveness are the real malaise of CEE politics. In CEE states most affected by perceptions of corruption, such as Bulgaria and Romania, the public understands this. Therefore, citizens in Bulgaria and Romania trust the EU more than their own national institutions. For the same reason, the most recent elections in Bulgaria were won by a ‘populist’ party (GERB [2]) led by a charismatic leader with a platform that can be best characterised as ‘Euro-populism’. The GERB leader Borissov’s main electoral promise was improved governance to gain more EU funds and to restore Bulgaria’s image in the EU.

Populism varies by country

Populism in Central and Eastern European nations varies considerably: While in Bulgaria and Romania the EU is seen as an alternative to the state’s own institutions, in Poland and the Czech Republic populist discourses may come in more nationalistic flavours. In one case, having gained a full seat at the EU table, leaders such as JarosBaw KaczyDski treated the Union as an arena for settling old scores and populist points for domestic consumption. The first post-accession prime minister of Poland behaved as if the main goal of his country as a EU member was to be compensated for historical injustices. Fortunately, when it came to the question of whether Poland would become the new difficult member of the EU, Polish citizens showed, by voting KaczyDski’s government out of office, that they did not want to be seen as anti- European or revisionist. Nonetheless, a significant part of Polish society still reacts strongly to EU-led anti-discrimination policies which are seen as too liberal for Catholic Poles.

The Czechs, having come into the spotlight when President Klaus’ deliberately delayed signing the Lisbon treaty, may be also divided between a need to reassert their independence and the need to be part of Europe. In both the Polish and the Czech cases, however, as Jan Machá ek suggests in HospodáYské Noviny's blog, diverging demands and expectations about participation in the European project have been the result of an institutional inability to define and express the  national interest. This lack of institutional coordination of domestic foreign policy actors  may give disproportional weight to political discourses that reflect a Euro-skeptic stance.

Generally speaking, anti-EU populism is not that strong in the new member states. Rather, the same malaise affecting Western European democracies is taking its toll in the CEE states: The gap between political elites and the public is growing and the elites are unable to reach the parts of the electorate who have not profited from the benefits of a globalised market economy. The challenges of globalisation are exacerbated in the Eastern parts of the EU by policy problems inherited from the communist past and the fact that the citizenry has lived in almost continuous crisis and change since 1989.

Regaining that pro-European feeling

While populism may be an expression of legitimate political dissatisfaction, the search for their identity as more mature citizens of the new Europe is far from over for Central and Eastern Europeans. A fresh wave of nationalism, based on a profound sense of insecurity about their place in the world, plagues the nations of the region. The mention of the Benes decrees in Klaus’s last-ditch attempt to secure an opt-out from the Lisbon Treaty was telling, as was the reaction of the Slovak Premier Fico who did not hesitate to jump on the same bandwagon. Short-sighted nationalism, bringing up the ghosts of the past and a rejection of the EU norms of tolerance and non-discrimination are the most dangerous manifestations of the post-accession search for identity by Central and Eastern Europeans. Both elites and the broader public may still need to learn what it means to be a member of the European Union. Given the Union’s crisis of ideas in the last few years, the CEE have few examples to emulate. Both old and new Europeans must find a way together to foster and promote the norms of understanding and tolerance that have made the EU such a success.

Antoaneta Dimitrova is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Institute of Public Administration of Leiden University. Her research focus has been on democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe, the European Union enlargement and Europeanisation in the new member states.

Dit artikel is verschenen in Idee, jaargang 30, nr. 6: 8-11.

[1] Ivan Krastev, Two Cheers for Populism, Prospect , January 2008.

[2] GERB stands for Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria.