Every month, TEPSA Secretary-General Jim Cloos writes a newsletter editorial on the news of the day, the future of Europe, and the work of the TEPSA network. To receive every upcoming editorial direct to your inbox, SUBSCRIBE to the TEPSA Newsletter today!
The result of the recent Polish elections is one of the rare, good pieces of news in our tormented world. Donald Tusk and his partners have pulled off an amazing victory under difficult circumstances. The success of the three opposition parties[1] will hopefully allow them to form a new government and open the way for a new start in EU-Polish relations.
But maybe we should use it for a more general reflection and reset on how to deal with diversity in Europe. Enlargement has been a success, but it has engendered a fair deal of resentment and frustration. This is because accession negotiations are not real negotiations between equal partners. Countries wanting to join the club must fulfil the criteria set by the EU and take over the ‘acquis communautaire’, i. e. the existing legislation built up over the years. This has always been the case, but for Central and East Europe the sense of having to embrace everything ‘European’ was even stronger, as they were emerging from the Soviet system imposed on them from outside. That system had failed spectacularly; the mirror image of this was the feeling that Western liberalism had won a decisive battle and that we were nearing the ‘end of history’, with the whole world going to follow suit sooner or later. In this situation, the “new” countries were expected to become like the West Europeans as quickly and totally as possible. This was very clear in the German reunification process: it was a “take over” of former GDR by West Germany. Not much was made of some of the successes of the GDR like childcare for instance, which was more developed than in West Germany.
The incentive to try and understand where the Central and Eastern countries came from was very weak. This played out at two levels. The first one concerned the national identity: Westerners did not understand that for the Easterners, nationalism had been a way of distancing themselves from the Soviet domination, and that they were not immediately ready to embrace the postmodern world of the EU. The second was about the economic mantra of the time: the strong emphasis on privatization and competition, a legacy of the Reagan Thatcher revolution, led to a neglect of societal and cultural values, and sometimes a bonanza for oligarchs.
In the words of James Krapfl, professor at the Mc Gill University in Canada[2], the period from 1989 to 2016 was an “age of imitation”, or more precisely of ‘mimesis’. The tacit assumption on both sides was that Eastern and Central Europeans were craving for acquiring German cars and joining Western consumerism and to joyously share sovereignty within the wider European family. Krapfl’s research on the extensive written submissions by Czech and Slovak citizens at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall shows that material concerns figured far less prominently than calls for freedom, emancipation, and values, and a new social contract. There was a strong willingness to reclaim their European heritage on their terms. As Kundera wrote back in 1983 in L’Occident kidnappé, Central Europeans were politically in the East by necessity but wanted to remain culturally in the West by choice. The West did not get this, because writes Kundera, the West had abandoned the idea of culture as a cement of society. The dreams of many citizens were drowned in rhetoric about the need to conform as quickly as possible to the dominant mantras of the West. The civic movements dried up, and citizens withdrew into their shells, with the feeling that the revolution had been stolen from them and that they were second-class citizens in the new Europe.
Paradoxically and sadly, populist politicians like Mečiar, and later Orban and Kaczynski (and now again Fico), capitalised on the anger and resentment in their countries about the ‘confiscated revolution’. They told them that they would give them back “their” revolution. But what they gave them was an anti-establishment and anti-Brussels rhetoric, a return to narrow nationalism, and a polarising behaviour (“us against them”). They portrayed any criticism coming from Brussels about their attempts at controlling all the levers of power and the press as neo-colonialist attempts to take away their national identity; hence the offensive likening by Orban of Brussels to Moscow.
It is a pity that Western Europeans did not seize the opportunity of the return of the Central and East Europeans to the fold to question some of their own societal shortcomings and address them together with the “new-old” Europeans. The aspirations expressed by Czech and Slovak citizens for a fair society with rules and values and solidarity and mutual respect for national traditions and cultures were in fact not unlike the growing frustration in the West about inequalities and the excesses of capitalism. Here, too, populist extreme right (and sometimes left) parties became a permanent fixture in the political landscape. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands in 2005 and Brexit were clearly linked to the feeling of many citizens that they lost control of their lives and their identities.
A new coalition government in Poland under the leadership of Tusk could open the possibility of a more honest and constructive dialogue between East and West. It would be an error to see the result as a simple vindication of our own past approach and an invitation to return to business as usual. Tusk, as a former Polish Prime Minister and as President of the European Council for five years, understands both sides; it helps that he is also a man who knows History. The EU can only benefit from having Poland return to the top table in Brussels. Of course, Donald Tusk, like all EU leaders, will defend Polish national interests in the European Council. But he will do so while also furthering the common interest to the best of his capacities. Here we have a chance to work together towards a world where market economy goes with defence of values and the rule of law, where inequalities are being targeted and where societal values combine freedom with solidarity and responsibility; where there is mutual respect and tolerance; where diversity is seen as an asset and not as an obstacle to efficiency; where basic common rules are respected because they protect all the Member States, small or big; where nationalistic behaviour and authoritarian trends are seen for what they are: a return to a murky past with false answers to true questions, and not as a legitimate patriotic reaction to an overbearing Brussels; where Europeans stop believing that to defend their national identities, they must seek refuge in populist postures and conspiracy theories. The united reaction to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is something we can build on.
Such a reset would ease tensions within the EU. It would also help us better manage the next enlargement movement, which will require imagination, resilience, and wisdom. To preserve its future functioning, the EU will have to be very clear and tough during the negotiations on core economic and societal values and the respect of the rule of law. It should also make sure that it will not import unresolved tensions between some of the Western Balkans into the EU; they must be settled before entry. But at the same time, the EU should carefully listen to questions posed by the aspiring Member States and try to better understand where they come from. And maybe even, who knows, sometimes learn from them. Such a frame of mind would incidentally also benefit the way we go about our Africa policy and more generally relations with the Global South. We are losing Africa because we all too often reason in terms of them becoming just like us. They will not and they do not want to. We talk about equality, but we ask them to comply. Of course, we should defend our values and lead by example; we should show in a positive way that they make for better societies and support all initiatives that go in that direction. But we should stop preaching and pretending that we have all the answers and that our ways are the only ones. Bludgeoning third countries into conforming with our precepts by moral lectures coupled to threats of sanctions will not work.
The victory of the opposition led by Donald Tusk in Poland is a real opportunity for Europe, provided we do not fall into complacency and self-righteousness and the belief that all will be well in the end. The European Union is a living organism that must be reinvented every single day. Goethe said it beautifully: “Was Du ererbt von deinen Vätern, erwirb es, um es zu besitzen.“ [3]
TEPSA Secretary-General Jim Cloos
[1] Donald Tusk is the leader of the largest opposition party (Civil Coalition), which made an alliance with the centre-right Third Way and the Left, securing 248 seats in the 460-member lower house of parliament, while the necessary majority to form a government is at 231. PiS remained the strongest party with 194 seats.
[2] Speaking at a recent training seminar for EU officials organized by the European School of Administration at the Robert Schuman House in Scy-Chazelles,
[3] “What you inherit from your fathers, acquire it so as to own it.”
