The Conversation: How China lost central and eastern Europe

Bulgaria is not the only country in the region to have qualms about China. In the Czech Republic, Prague city council ended its sister-city relationship with Beijing in October 2019 in favour of a partnership with Taipei. The president of the senate then announced plans to visit Taiwan in August in defiance of China.

In May, the Lithuanian foreign minister called for Taiwan to be reinstated to the World Health Organization. The same month, CEE officials were among signatories of a protest letter against China’s introduction of national security legislation in Hong Kong. [...]

First, China has not fulfilled the lavish promises it made to the region for large-scale investments. Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU peaked in 2016 at US$43 billion, then plummeted back to 2012 levels in 2019, with the expectation that 2020 would be even lower. [....]

Second, growing frustration with their marginalisation has led CEE countries to reflect on their political identity. In particular, the wave of recent protests in Hong Kong brought back memories of their own fight against Soviet control. Hongkongers’ use of tactics developed by eastern-European dissidents – such as the Lennon Wall and the Baltic Way – resonated in the region. [...]

Third, CEE countries have grown wary of the political risks associated with their bonhomie with China, amid growing criticism from the EU and US over the past few years. For some, this reassessment has been associated with the tech cold war between the US and China. Following pressure from Washington, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Estonia have indicated they will ban Chinese firm Huawei from the construction of their 5G networks.

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Politico: 5 takeaways from EU’s big Balkan get-together

But French President Emmanuel Macron struck a skeptical note, insisting the EU should first focus on reforming itself before embarking on any more enlargement adventures. And a boycott by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over the presence of Kosovo, which Madrid and four other EU capitals do not recognize, was a reminder of other divisions over the region.  [...]

Some leaders went further than the official text. Angela Merkel, who has emerged as a champion of the western Balkans, talked about “a clear membership perspective” and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz spoke about progress on the countries’ “path into the European Union.” But Macron preferred to talk about “anchoring” the western Balkans to Europe.[...]

Asked what she thought of the 2025 goal, Merkel was blunt. “I don’t think anything of this target date,” she told a news conference. “Membership must be based on factual progress. It’s not about a time horizon, it’s about what’s been achieved — on rule of law, on fighting corruption and other conditions such as border disputes.”

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Political Critique: Where does equality start?

It is the directive concerning unfair commercial practices, which, makes it obligatory to place the product’s ingredients on the label. A product with the same name, but not always the same ingredients, can be sold in different countries but only under the condition that it is properly labelled. Meglena Kuneva, the Bulgarian Commissioner for Consumer Protection from 2007 to 2010, admitted that using well-known brands for selling low-quality products could mislead the consumers, but in her opinion, such situations should be addressed individually by state legislatures or offices for consumer protection. [...]

Politicians in the Czech Republic, the most Eurosceptic of V4 societies, are particularly eager to attack the EU on the issue of food quality. The state parliament has debated this problem on several occasions. In November 2016, Simeon Karamazov (conservative Civic Democratic Party) argued that the EU should focus on the problems of its citizens, and not foreigners, as it did during the refugee crisis. In March 2017, Marek Černoch from the populist Úsvit (Dawn), stated that Western corporations view the Czech Republic as a second-class country and “the landfill of Europe”. [...]

The V4 countries’ complaints did not go unheard. Commissioner Jourova and her superior, Jean-Claude Juncker, admitted that the problem is real and the Commission must play a role in solving it. Both of them are treating this issue as a political challenge and an opportunity to improve the relations with the Visegrad Group after the battles about the relocation of refugees and the still ongoing conflict over the breach of the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. [...]

Slovakians were the first to conduct research on this issue. In 2011 they compared food products sold in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe (including Poland). The analysis of the Slovak Association of Consumers (partly financed by the EU) uncovered differences not only between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ union, but also among countries in the East. For example, Coca-Cola sold in the West, in Poland and the Czech Republic contained natural sugar (sucrose) but in Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania – isoglucose – a cheaper, poorer quality sweetener.

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Social Europe: Bulgaria’s EU Presidency: Normalizing Nationalism?

However, if the EU’s existential crisis seems over, the bloc has significantly lost cohesion in terms of its values. In a word: nationalists are coming to town. This is markedly evident in one of Europe’s lesser-known powers: Bulgaria, where anti-migrant and pro-Russian nationalists now rule in a coalition government with mainstream conservatives (since May). In the year 2000, other EU countries imposed (temporary) economic sanctions on Austria for daring to have a government including the nationalist Freedom Party (FPÖ). [...]

The new Bulgarian government is unlikely to face much trouble from Brussels, because the country’s shift is symptomatic of a wider trend in European politics. In both east and west, traditional liberal-internationalist elites have been increasingly destabilized, notably because of bungled management of the economic and migratory crises. In France, the nationalist Marine Le Pen made it to the second round of the presidential elections and in Germany the anti-Islam Alternative for Germany party (AFD) broke into the Bundestag with over 12% of the vote. In Eastern Europe, Brussels has been largely powerless in the face of populist and anti-immigration governments and politicians in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Thus, Bulgaria – though a small country dependent on EU funds – is likely to find many allies who would help them veto any liberal pressure from Brussels.

The EU’s poorest member state has nonetheless enjoyed a substantial economic recovery, with GDP growing over 3% in both of the last two years (3.6% 2015, 3.4% 2016). The migratory crisis, however, has proven beneficial to the nationalists. As the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s 2017 Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) report on Bulgaria notes: “The European refugee crisis of the last several years, of which Bulgaria has experienced a small part, has demonstrated two things. First, xenophobia and xenophobic parties are on the rise. Second, government policies in accommodating and integrating refugees have generally failed, while civic organizations have proven to be very active and, in fact, indispensable to helping address refugees’ basic needs.” [...]

Nor is Bulgaria likely to lead a particularly cohesive bloc as EU Council president. The Eastern European populists may be united in their opposition to migrants, but in other respects their positions vary. Bulgaria and Romania are eager to support the EU so as to not be excluded from new structures, while Poland and Hungary have taken to Brussels-bashing, all the while quietly pocketing EU subsidies. In any case, despite a legal victory at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the Commission has backed down from its scheme for mandatory resettlement of 120,000 refugees across the EU. The biggest bone of contention between Brussels and the Eastern European populists has thus been removed.

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