What the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe Must Teach Us
The Future of a History Between Hypermnesia and Betrayal
Bratislava Castle, Slovakia, Photo taken by Nicolas Tenzer, June 15, 2021
What appears to be a heavy political divorce between the countries of Western Europe and those of Central and Eastern Europe is far from new. Those, including myself, who were present, partly from the inside, at the debates on the integration of the countries of the former Soviet bloc into the European Union remember the debates that preceded the 2004 and 2007 enlargement. They also reminisce about the feelings of some citizens of Western Europe about the fall of the Wall—feelings that were not only of enthusiasm and joy. They themselves echoed those previously expressed about the Solidarność movement or Charter 77, and globally about the liberation of these countries from the Soviet yoke. Some also discerned a wrong kind of nationalism in the fact that some of them (Baltic States, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus in particular) had even recovered a lost state independence. Some expressed the same nostalgia for the former Yugoslavia of Marshal Tito.
In short, many did not consider that these peoples were fulfilling a historical promise by regaining their freedom. It was as if they wished to retain a kind of exclusivity of democracy. These attitudes are still present among some politicians and opinion leaders in the West, who are far from being all extremists, in the face of the Arab springs and the freedom movements in Russia, China and elsewhere. Some so-called liberals have had, or still have, a problem with freedom.
People of my generation certainly remember the enthusiasm that animated us in 1989—which others, even older, had already experienced by carrying the hope of freedom thanks to the flowering of the Helsinki committees—but it is not certain that we were the majority. Even François Mitterrand’s fear of the consequences of the fall of the Wall, namely the reunification of Germany—but which cannot be limited to this single apprehension in front of the announced appearance of a great Germany—, expressed a feeling, also fairly shared, of a kind of fear of the end of the convenient division between the two blocks. Many underestimated—and in retrospect underestimate even more—the risks it represented; but many also did not care about the oppression it meant.
Looking at some of the reactions today, we are not completely out of that period. I also remember once hearing the former Belgian European Commissioner Louis Michel in a private circle get very angry. In what way, he said, would the European countries of this Europe be less legitimate than Germany, France, Italy and Belgium? Are Paris, Rome or Berlin more cities of European culture than Prague, Krakow or Lviv? Should we consider that the historical past of these countries is darker or more “barbaric” than that of Spain or Portugal? One can easily find here all the mythologies, ultimately as “orientalist” as those concerning the Middle East, on the alleged backwardness of these countries, the resurgence of which is illustrated by the rise of so-called “populism”—I have some reservations with the word however—in some of them. It should be noted in passing that the name CEE curiously concerns only the countries that are now members of the European Union, as if the latter were to mark a frontier that would exclude Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus in particular from this space, as these countries are supposed to remain in eternal confines.
One can hypothesize that what frightens a part of Western Europeans is the fact that these countries have a form of “historical density” that is greater than that of Western Europe. This manifests itself in two ways that seem to disturb, in the West, a form of desire for frivolity—or oblivion.
First, these countries have experienced both oppression and the re-conquest of freedom in a historically recent period. But it remains the historical reference, the moment by which the present is defined, and in the collective consciousness, these events of thirty or thirty-two years ago remain the turning point around which the only possible future is articulated. It is true that these countries have also had their traitors and accomplices, but no more, and sometimes perhaps less, than France and Belgium, not to mention Germany and Italy. These countries are not of recent history—as if they were to be opposed to the “old nations” (Germany and Italy are hardly so)—but their recent history is the one that matters most. It is interesting to note that, paradoxically, it is sometimes this heritage of communism, but also of its liberation, that is given as an explanation for the sometimes brutal reappearance of fascism in this region. Some attribute this to a poorly healed illness or to a kind of memory void linked to this period.
Secondly, these countries have direct experience of the threat, certainly first of all from the Russian regime, which leads to the establishment of this continuity. They are aware of their fragility, not as nations and institutional systems, but from the point of view of personal freedom. At least in the liberal and cultured elites of these countries, there is an acute awareness of a possible collapse, which in a way reawakens the feeling of fragility that already characterized Mitteleuropa in the interwar period. Here again, such a feeling, except among certain analysts who are more lucid than others, is not so present in Western Europe: it sometimes fears the return of a form of fascism through the ballot box, but even this fascism seems to be detached from the historical experience of an external aggression.
Central and Eastern Europe: what is the democratic experience?
Among the most boring narratives sometimes heard in Western Europe is the idea that Western democracies are old democracies while those in Central and Eastern Europe are new. Not only is this narrative factually incorrect in many cases—neither Europe is homogeneous—but it also says nothing about the density and strength of the democratic experience. Nor can it be summed up by the mere presence of free and fair elections, even though no country without them can be said to be democratic. If we take this notion of experience seriously, it was more real in the Resistance movements against the Nazis, among Russian dissidents and those in Europe under the Soviet yoke, as in Syria with Kafranbel and in the free resistance movements against Assad, in Algeria with the Hirak, in the Hong Kong umbrella movement, in the Sudanese protest that brought down Omar al-Bashir and, day after day, in the resistance in Belarus. No doubt these democratic movements were not the work of a majority—where were they, for that matter?—But when they became triumphant, as in Central and Eastern Europe, and thus celebrated, they became part of a tradition. The protest movements against the ultra-conservative Polish government and against Orbán’s now proto-fascist government have this memory, experienced or learned, in the background. Moreover, the European values claimed by the protesters are for them the actualization of this tradition, as it was on Maidan Square in Kyiv.
Does this mean that this heritage is permanently anchored in the minds of the citizens of Central and Eastern Europe and that it will last for a long time? It would certainly be difficult to say, regardless of the strength of dissent itself—relatively weak in the former GDR, Bulgaria and Romania, stronger in Poland and the former Czechoslovakia, different still in the former Soviet republics. In any case, it is true that historical experience—a concept we developed in a previous paper—tends to disappear from the consciousness of the younger generations, including in the Czech Republic.
These countries, like the democracies of Western Europe, will have to face a double risk. The first is that of taking freedom for granted. The lucid minds that perceive the ever-present risks to liberal democracy are probably destined to remain a minority. Some do not know what the foul taste of dictatorship was like, or relegate it to the depths of a bygone history. Those who have opened a history book often put the past at a distance, but many have not even opened such books. The second, and perhaps more serious, risk consists in not measuring the achievements of freedom. This is the case for all those for whom it rhymes with economic difficulties, precariousness, uncertainty of tomorrow, lack of visibility of one’s own destiny, etc. It is also the case for those who are not aware of the importance of freedom. It is also the case for those for whom freedom is an idea among others, in the same way as nationalism or conservative traditionalism. We find again the old dilemma already explored by communitarian philosophers for whom classical freedom did not carry “hot” or “thick” values, but was conceived as a cold and procedural idea. Everything happens sometimes as if freedom became a “burning” founding value, by itself creating a community, and as if placed at the frontispiece of all fights only in countries placed under the yoke of a tyranny.
What, in spite of everything, keeps this feeling alive in a part of the population of several of these Central and Eastern European countries—at least in a much stronger way than in Western Europe—is a series of negative phenomena, albeit perhaps in a precarious manner.
The first is the prescience of the major danger posed by the Russian regime to their very existence. In Poland, in the Baltic States, in the Czech Republic, and of course in Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Georgia, the fight for freedom is intrinsically linked to a real, concrete and often deadly external threat. Anything that contributes to eroding this primary perception of an eminent danger, whether with Nord Stream 2 or with the temptation of an “engagement” with the Kremlin over their heads, is perceived as an abandonment, if not a betrayal.
The second is the close link between national sentiment and freedom. It was only with the liberation from communism that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were able to acquire freedom. In a process that is partly similar to decolonization, these countries found pride in being a nation and freedom in the same nation. Like any social phenomenon, this close link can have opposite effects: national feeling can also lead some people to turn away from freedom. This sense of national belonging combined with freedom is certainly expressed in the European idea, which gives it a blessing, but Europe can also appear as a doctrine of freedom that works against the nation. Such feelings are even more prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, and the right-wing fringe of the electorate is easily drawn into them, sometimes succeeding in giving priority to a freedom that is thought of—however inconsistent this may be philosophically—as collective rather than individual.
Finally, this freedom, including in the components I have just mentioned, is also linked, beyond the memory of communism and the fear of a new yoke of the current Russian regime, to a collective feeling of a certain form of precariousness. It is intimately linked to a history that is much older than communism and even Nazism. For many countries, it has its roots in an ancient history of occupation and revision of borders. This perceived precariousness of national existence can be reinforced by a feeling of insufficient recognition by their European peers. It needs Europe to be lifted, because it is not fundamentally opposed to the European project, as shown by the attachment to Europe of the majority of the citizens of these countries. But the leaders of the European Union cannot underestimate this fear of marginalization by more established and powerful nations. NATO therefore logically seems to provide them with more reassurance, not only in terms of security, but also because they sometimes appear to be better regarded there. Their desire for historical existence seems all the more fragile because these countries sometimes seem to be left on the edge of European history.
Authoritarianism and “populism”: another lesson
The presence of leaders, in power for a long time, described as “populist” certainly makes it easy to criticize some Central and Eastern European countries. The drift towards a rather hard right-wing extremism of the former anti-communist liberal Orbán has contributed greatly to the deterioration of the image of these countries, even if Hungary is certainly special in its history as well as in its current positions: it is still the only nation in the zone whose leader receives the leaders of the European far right and turns increasingly ostensibly to Moscow and Beijing—within the EU, not to mention Serbia. The Czech presidents Václav Klaus and then Miloš Zeman, have the same complacency, but they do not hold executive power.
The Polish case is very different: the Polish ultra-conservative party PiS (Law and Justice) mixes references and filiations that are quite heterogeneous to form a somewhat disturbing syncretism: traditionalist Catholicism, ruralist leanings, authoritarianism, de-ideologized and nepotistic clanism, social conservatism, anti-intellectualism, etc. This “populism” is not the same as the “populism” of the Czech President and Prime Minister. It is only a way of describing this movement that is both anti-elite and popular, oligarchic, without doctrine and ultra-ideological, and capable of uniting divergent interests in its anti-system character. Mostly critical of the Kremlin, like the people and the vast majority of Polish parties, some of its leaders have also been suspected in the past of being less clear on this subject. But as in most countries in the region, only the Polish far right has such complacency. The main risk is that it will play into the hands of Putin’s regime, whose leaders have, without being suspected of double talk, made the harshest statements. Indeed, on the one hand, it can easily appeal to anti-European impulses, even if they are in the minority in the country, which can only please the leaders whose project is indeed the destruction of the European liberal project; on the other hand, by copying the Kremlin’s discourse on traditional and family values, it contributes to giving it ideological weapons which can only affect the feeling of solidarity of the rest of Europe with Poland: Why defend a country that says it opposes Putin’s regime when it espouses all its ideological causes? But at the same time, the PiS is not anti-European, but rather an exacerbated reflection of the contradictions of a party that, like most other conservative parties in the EU, is struggling to find coherence, especially between its foreign policy and domestic policy positions.
Other countries in the zone have also had leaders whose values seem to diverge from the basic principles of the European Union: this is true of the Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Janša, who is accustomed to Trump-like provocations, and who supported him in the 2020 American presidential election. The outgoing Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, whose party came second in the October 2021 parliamentary elections, is also riding on an anti-system ideology. The former Slovak prime minister, Igor Matović, who had to resign following a disputed order for Russian anti-Covid vaccines, was also known for such an ideology and a certain permeability to the Kremlin’s narratives. Among the criticisms levelled at certain countries in this area are those directed at part of the Bulgarian and Romanian political classes for their endemic corruption, which is certainly not unjustified.
But for some in Western Europe, the red line is more easily crossed by these countries of the “other Europe” than by the first. It sometimes seems that the golden passports granted by Cyprus and Malta, the corruption, even if not legally characterized, behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in Germany or the exemption of Austrian banks and insurance companies from the sanctions regime against Russia attract less indignation. There was also little outrage when Denmark, under a social-democratic government, decided to send Syrian refugees back to their country where they risk death. Should we also recall the complacency of certain parties, not only extremist ones, in Western Europe towards Russia and China? What can we say, too, about the presence, for more than a year, of the Italian far right in power in Italy and the high scores of this movement in France and Belgium in particular? On a European level, we should not forget the rejection of the referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty in 2005 by French and Dutch voters.
In this respect, it seems inappropriate, beyond the political and historical characteristics of each country, to invoke a specificity of Central and Eastern Europe with regard to anti-system reactions and in contravention of the principles of the European Union. It is commonplace to note that, throughout Europe, trends in opposition to liberal principles are developing against a backdrop of economic and social crisis, the collapse of the humanities in educational systems, questions about the common ground of societies and a lack of understanding of the rule of law. More essentially, a part of the citizens imagine that democracy is based on the possibility of each elected government to change the rules according to the majority opinions and do not consider as common democratic heritage the constitutional rules, both national and European. The grip of the crudely used theme of sovereignty suggests that a majority in power can break away from the established rules and that a mythologized people, at the whim of opinion, can define laws without the necessary constancy that befits democratic values. This opinion, often inflamed by unscrupulous leaders, presents itself as “the people” whose momentary will can change the will quintessentially expressed in fundamental laws. This is far from being a debate specific to one part of Europe, or even to Europe alone.
Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe: a mutual learning process?
In some parts of Western European opinion, particularly in France, there is still a kind of illegitimacy trial against the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Some still use the expression “new entrants” to name them, even though most of them joined the European Union more than 17 years ago. Many also still speak of “Eastern Europe” as if these countries were still mired in their Soviet past. Many do not want to take into account the strength of European values expressed in Ukraine during the Maidan revolution, in Moldova with the election of Maia Sandu to the presidency of the Republic in 2020 and the parliamentary elections of 2021 and in Belarus with the movement of peaceful revolution against the dictatorship started in 2020.
It is as if some of the leaders of Western Europe are persevering in three mistakes.
The first is to have a purely institutional vision of the European Union, disregarding the countries, their history and their desire for freedom. Not only can this institutionalist vision only give rise to pendulum swings that are detrimental to the EU, but it also accentuates the divisions in Europe. A vision of Europe disembodied from its states is doomed to political failure.
The second error stems from the idea, both false and in contradiction with a realistic vision of Europe, which we have already commented on, according to which deepening would be antinomic to enlargement. But not only have EU enlargements always led to deepening, but the very idea of Europe as a perfect federation is a chimera that leads to political mistakes.
Finally, the third error consists in not perceiving that, if one wants to consider geostrategic Europe seriously and operationally, it must include, protect and bring together all the countries of the European territory likely to carry its values. Europe must also avoid letting certain countries fall into the “zone of influence”—as he calls it—of the Russian regime. To accentuate the divisions of Europe with a condescending discourse and not to recognize as part of the EU, even after long years of reform, countries whose population has made this choice, is to reinforce the vulnerability of these countries to anti-liberal narratives and to weaken in them the sense of a common European heritage.
We need, more than ever, a common learning of Europe by its two parts. Some countries, most of them in Central and Eastern Europe, are leading the way, both in their increased attention to security and defense issues and in their firmer stance against dictatorships, whether Chinese or Russian. Lithuania and Poland have also shown more consistent solidarity with the Belarusian people than most Western European countries. Some of the political and intellectual elites in these countries are also more sensitive to the value of freedom—including sometimes in protests against their own governments—than in Western Europe. The countries of Western Europe, on the other hand, paradoxically have the capacity, albeit sometimes counterbalanced by a tendency to forget, to bring a form of appeasement to their own history—but this requires time.
It is also up to Europe—and this must also be its historical destiny if it succeeds in its project—to find the right distance between the awareness of our vulnerability to the conflicts of history and a calmness that allows us to overcome them. However, it is not certain that this synthesis is anything other than another form of instability proper to our condition.