With countries in Central Europe facing the possibility of substantial cuts to their allotment of development funding in the EU’s next seven-year budget, the Commission has made it clear to leaders in both Prague and Bratislava that it’s not in their interest to lock arms with Poland’s de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. [...]
But others from the region were cautious about advocating the alternative — an “intergovernmental” approach to EU decision-making that they fear would leave large countries such as Germany and France with even more influence. [...]
The main issue that continues to bind the Visegrad countries is migration, with all opposing quotas and other proposals that would compel them to accept significant numbers of refugees. Yet here, they are also supported by a host of other EU countries, including several from the south, confounding the Commission’s effort to forge a compromise to reform the current system. [...]
Both Bratislava and Prague face their own challenges with populism and political corruption, but their political interests increasingly converge more with Germany and Austria, with which their economies are already closely intertwined, than with their former Warsaw Pact neighbors. That’s particularly true of Slovakia, which is the only country in the region that belongs to the euro. If the pair’s economies continue on the current trajectory, both are likely to join the ranks of the EU’s net payers during the bloc’s next long-term budget cycle.
No comments:
Post a Comment