Page 57 - bne_Magazine_March_2018

bne March 2018
Opinion 57
The V4 is not only divided politically between right-wing authoritarians in Poland and Hungary, and Social Democrats in Slovakia and centrist populists in Czechia, it also remains deeply split on key international issues such as relations with Russia and Nordstream 2. In reality the V4 these days agrees on little of substance apart from refusing to accept refugees, and defending the rights of their own migrants in Western Europe.
When the V4 put together their own EU programme in October 2016 in the Bratislava Declaration it was only notable for its vacuity. Moreover there was no follow-up; it stayed
just a declaration. Central Europe’s voice in the upcoming
big debate on the future of the EU has remained a purely negative one of resistance to a two-speed Europe and any
cut in cohesion funds.
In fact it is hard to point to many issues in recent years where the V4 has played a key role in the EU, apart from its negative opposition to migrants. The fact that the V4 made so much of the EU Commission’s agreement to probe the allegedly worse food brand quality in the Eastern member states shows the limited range of its vision.
V4’s two main achievements have been raising the issues of energy security and the Eastern Partnership, says Vladimir Bilcik of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, but these are now endangered. “Now we are losing on both fronts,” he
told bne IntelliNews. "They are no longer the focus of the EU because of the self-absorption of Poland and Hungary, and the lack of V4 unity to push this agenda.”
Dropping bombs
This failure is also because of the V4’s second fundamental weakness: its lack of allies. To achieve anything inside the EU it would have to work closely with other countries, and to engage in give and take, something Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Poland for one seems to have forgotten how to do. It is far easier just to rail against Brussels. This failure could be especially costly as the bloc starts to discuss the next budget framework.
“It is not enough to send bombs to Brussels – it is not enough to be right, you need to persuade them,” Petr Kolar, a former Czech deputy foreign minister, told an Institute for Politics and Society (IPS) seminar in Prague in October. “It is not good to blackmail our partners.”
Central Europe used to be seen as a natural part of a northern free market bloc led by the UK. However, the UK is currently obsessed with its exit from the EU – its loss is a big blow to the V4 – and even the now largely centre-right Scandinavian and Baltic governments have little to say to Central Europe’s rightwing authoritarians.
Elsewhere the populist revolution has been halted at the gates, though the Italian general election in March will represent another big test. Whether there is a great deal in common though between the Five Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo and
Kaczynski’s Catholic and authoritarian Law and Justice Party is questionable. Central European populism remains a funda- mentally different beast from its Western European variant.
Even the neighbouring Balkan member states are more interested in moving closer towards the core of the bloc – in particular by escaping from the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, entering the Schengen area, and adopting the euro – rather than joining together with the EU’s bad boys in a Polish Intermarium naughty corner.
Orban has welcomed Austria as a new ally following the
entry of the far right Freedom Party into a coalition with the People’s Party. Austria is now likely to take a tougher stance on migration but it is not going to join the V4, as Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache has suggested. If anything
“Just because Orban regards himself as the V4’s spokesman does not mean he is”
cross-border co-operation might deteriorate because the Slavkov Triangle format between the once Social Democrat Czechia, Austria and Slovakia may wither awaSy.
“It is going to be hard to forge serious co-operation between Austria and Hungary despite Austria’s newfound fascination with Hungary’s mafia state,” Christian Kvorning Lassen of the Europeum think-tank told bne IntelliNews at the IPS seminar. “It will be hard for Austria to balance Hungary and its more valu- able partners in Western Europe, and it will prioritise those.”
People’s Party premier Sebastian Kurz, who has taken charge of EU policy, has reiterated that Austria will remain Western- facing.Germany is likely to remain Vienna’s key ally. He has also backed the EU’s sanctions against Poland for hollowing out democratic checks and balances, and has already stressed that Austria will argue that EU aid to Central and Eastern Europe should be cut in the next budget round.
"There are measures and initiatives where we have goodwill in Western European countries," he said on January 5. "There are others where we will perhaps get applause from the Visegrad countries, and still others where we agree with all other 27 EU member states."
Germany itself is set to try to reforge the relationship with Emmanuel Macron’s France following the agreement on a new coalition between Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU bloc and the SPD. Relations with the V4 will remain a secondary consideration
– despite the CSU’s warm relations with Orban’s Fidesz party. The Weimar Triangle format meetings between Germany, Poland and France will remain on ice until the Law and Justice party’s conflict with Brussels abates.
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