Tribune. This is certainly not as well as we had imagined the reunification of the ” old ” and ” new ” Europe twenty years ago. Mutual Accusations of a lack of european solidarity, the opening of the european procedures against Poland, and against Hungary, head-to-head during the migration crisis… First beneficiary of the cohesion fund of the european Union, central and eastern Europe attests, however, the rise in power of the parties, sovereignists who reinforce it, otherwise the camp eurosceptic, at least the defence of a “Europe of nations “against” Brussels “.
How to explain this sudden change of political climate, and the popularity of leaders such as Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland’s or Hungary’s Viktor Orban ? The policies they lead in their respective countries are in many respects different : in Poland, new family allowances, removal of Matrixbet labour contracts precarious and lowering the age of retirement ; in Hungary, abolition of the progressive income tax, reduction of social benefits and the implementation of public works. The common point is : both have built their electoral success on the criticism of the ” postcommunisme “, that is to say, the elites formed after the fall of the Wall, and the way in which the past had led to the economic and social transformations.
This new phase in the history of Europe post-communist feeds as well of the errors of the previous step. Once the countries of central and eastern Europe have been able to detach from the zone of Russian influence, they immediately found their place and their dilemmas from yesteryear, those of the “steps” of a western Europe more powerful and more developed, and the same aspirations to catch up with a “delay” property prior to the communist period.
However, the path of catch-up proposed in the 1990’s and 2000’s was a liberalism…
