Standards of living for most of the region’s peoples have vastly improved, and most of them know it. New polling by the Pew Research Centre shows that 81% of Poles, 78% of Czechs and 55% of Hungarians agree that this is the case. Only Bulgarians on balance take a gloomy view, with just 32% of them thinking that their standard of living has improved since 1989. Development has been patchy, but for every depopulating and ageing rustbelt in eastern Europe there is a booming industrial region, a tech cluster or a services centre desperate for more workers. [...]
After three decades of democracy, cynicism about politicians is as widespread as it is in western Europe. In Slovakia 63% of people think most elected officials do not care what they think, a Pew poll finds; in Hungary, 71% and in Bulgaria, 78%. By way of comparison, the figures in France and Britain are 76% and 70%, respectively.
In western Europe and America such anger at the ruling class has translated into votes for nationalists, populists, Brexit and Donald Trump. In Hungary and Poland those who feel left behind tend to blame liberalism and the West. Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, who was an anti-communist activist in Hungary in 1989, says that many of her compatriots were disappointed after the fall of communism because they expected their country “to become like Austria overnight”. It did not, of course, but gdp per person, not to mention life expectancy, has risen sharply across the region.
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