Eastern Europe’s Right-Wing Swing

Throughout Eastern Europe, where wounds from the 2008 financial crisis are still festering, a foreboding swing to the right is under way.

“The high expectations that Eastern Europeans so triumphantly attached to their entry into the EU have not been fulfilled on a number of levels,” said Romanian political scientist Cristian Pârvulescu.

Instead of the prosperity they were promised, Eastern Europeans are grappling with sprawling debt, high budget deficits, economic and financial imbalance and chronic unemployment. And the region’s reaction to these woes, Pârvulescu said, is “a return to populism and nationalism.”

Hungary

At present, the shift is most evident in Hungary.

In 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his right-wing nationalist Fidesz Party won an overwhelming two-thirds election victory. Orbán, whom Spiegel Online has called “a dubious mix of Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chávez,” harnessed the hopelessness of Hungarians to annul the democratic separation of powers, to limit freedom of the press and civil liberties, and to pass a nationalistic constitution.

Hungary’s second-most powerful political force is the far-right Jobbik Party, and polls reveal that two thirds of Hungarians think Jews have too much influence in the nation. Around the same proportion believe the Roma are genetically predisposed toward criminality.

“[T]he developments in Hungary should serve as an alarm signal for Brussels,” said Pârvulescu.

The shift to the right is not limited to Hungary.

Hopelessness regarding beleaguered economic conditions has also spawned an uptick of nationalism in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Romania. Spiegel Online says, “Legal uncertainty and corruption are also still widespread in these countries. So widespread, in fact, that an increasing number of people in the region have lost all trust in democracy and their state institutions” (January 18).

Western Europe’s Response

Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Party belongs to the European People’s Party (epp), which is the European Parliament’s largest and most influential group. The epp is dominated numerically by Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union parties, and has the power to suspend any party’s membership or eject a party completely from the group. European leftists and socialists are alarmed that the epp has remained silent over Orbán’s strides away from democracy in Hungary.

“Democracy is being dismantled in Hungary, but there is nothing but a booming silence coming from the epp,” says Gernot Erler, the deputy head of Germany’s Social Democratic Party.

The last two decades in Eastern Europe have been marked by reforms and rigorous austerity measures, which have left many citizens exhausted. Many people from these nations are weary of the status quo, so democracy fatigue is on the rise. The rising nationalistic sentiments may lead to increased squabbling among EU nations in the short term. But as markets continue to falter, Russia rises, and Islamism continues to push against Europe, EU nations will be driven together as a united, right-wing Europe, with Germany at the helm.

To understand more, read Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.