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August 25, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
make it more resilient to populism. This could include moving towards a “multi-speed Europe”, enabling some states to move ahead to enhance their co-operation.
France has had a troubled relationship
with Central Europe since the collapse of communism, seeing it as a region dominated by Germany and the US, and a threat to its domestic and foreign policy interests. Macron himself
has criticised the way Central Europe accepted EU money but rejected its values, particularly
by refusing to accept migrant quotas, saying in June: “Europe is not a supermarket. Europe is a shared destiny”.
But he now appears to see an opportunity to rebuild France’s historic influence in the region and find some allies there for his European plans. At the same time, by shunning Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Poland’s de facto leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński, he appears to have given up hope of winning the rightwing populists over and has consigned them to the margins of Europe.
While the V4 as a whole remains wary about any drive towards a multi-speed Europe, fearing they will be left on the periphery, the Czech and Slovak Social Democrats are attracted by the idea of joining any inner core.
Over recent months, Fico has backpedalled on his vehement opposition to migrant quotas, and has declared that Slovakia’s place is in any inner core, given that it is already a member of the Eurozone.
“The fundamentals of my policy are being close to the core, close to France, to Germany,” he said in mid-August. He added that he is “very much inter-
ested in regional cooperation within the Visegrad Four, but Slovakia’s vital interest is the EU”.
Czech PM Sobotka’s policy has been more erratic because he is facing a general election in October that opinion polls show he is likely to lose heavily. The Czech Social Democrats favour adoption of the euro, but have done little to make the public case for it and it remains very unpopular. Nevertheless, this month the government has indicated it wants to be given observer status in the Eurogroup (a forum for eurozone finance ministers) if the institution's powers are enhanced in future reforms.
However, the government has also virtually courted EU infringement proceedings by refusing to accept even the token amount of migrants that Slovakia agreed to host. But joining Hungary and Poland in the EU “sin bin” seems to have done little to improve the Social Democrats’ opinion polls rating.
Their coalition partners, the populist Ano party, led by billionaire Andrej Babis, oppose euro adoption and have prevented the government moving forward on the issue. Babis also firmly opposes migrant quotas and, if he wins the election, as polls indicate, he could forge closer links with the populist leaders of Hungary and Poland, leaving the Czech Republic on the periphery of Europe.
“The Czechs remain the odd man out – not in love with illiberal democracy (at least not yet until the October election), but also not willing to move decisively forward with deeper European integration,” former state secretary for European affairs Tomas Prouza wrote in an opinion
piece for Eurobserver this month.