A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a discussion with Anton Shekhovtsov at the Legatum Institute, on the ‘populist tide’ that is currently washing over Eastern Europe. Mr Shekhovtsov recently published a paper – Is Transition reversible? The Case of Central Europe, in which he analyses the growth of anti-democratic sentiment or ‘illiberalism’, as the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has coined it. Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum was chair, and the journalist Sławomir Sierakowski also took part in the discussion. A report on the evening, and analysis of the accompanying paper; is Eastern Europe really under an authoritarian threat, and is this cause for concern?

Mr Shekhovtsov’s paper goes through a series of examples of the increasing ‘illiberalisation’ of Eastern Europe. To take Hungary first, the most well-known example, Hungary’s transition to democracy was rather smooth by comparison to some of the other examples in the paper; it quickly pursued policies of market-liberalisation and democratisation after 1990, and was the first country in post-communist Europe to apply for membership in 1994. However, after a series of partisan policies pursued by the socialist government under Ferenc Gyurcsány, which were further aggravated by the revelation that Gyurcsány himself had worked for the Communist government, began to undermine Hungarian support for their political system. Finally, a scandal in 2006 put the nail in the coffin, as it showed Gyurcsány telling his socialist colleagues that they had lied to the electorate, and had no policies to be proud of. The result was mass protest for the Prime Minister to resign and votes of no-confidence in the parliament. After a $25bn bailout and the impact of the 2008 financial crisis had been truly felt, the Prime Minister resigned in 2009, to be replaced by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party the following year, who won a majority of 52.7% in the parliament. It is from here that Hungary’s undermining of democracy begins. With his coalition partner the CDPP, Orbán had a two-thirds majority in the parliament, allowing him to enact constitutional reforms. The April 2011 constitution created by the Orbán government was the first attack on liberal democracy in Hungary; the Venice Commission denounced it, saying that the changes had been too hastily rushed through, were affected by a lack of transparency and dialogue between the government and opposition, and gave no time for adequate public debate. It also noted that a series of policies that usually fell into the jurisdiction of the parliament had been enshrined in cardinal law, including moral, financial, cultural and religious policies. Further changes undermined the independence and power of the Constitutional Court, with 11/15 judges being appointed by Orbán’s parliamentary majority without consultation with the opposition – this was followed by a take over of all the courts by Fidesz members and sympathisers. Political opponents, those who criticised the government and academics were also attacked politically, and institutions were set up to further augment the power of the Fidesz government. The media in Hungary was severely curtailed by Orbán; it must adhere to a national media council, which is led by appointment of the President (on the advice of the PM), and can be fined and have subsidies cut from it for producing “unbalanced coverage”. According Shekhovtsov, 80% of the Hungarian population only have access to Fidesz-controlled media. In 2o14, Prime Minister Orbán announced he was “building an illiberal democracy” in Hungary, placing nationalism the centre of state organisation, instead of liberalism. From that point on, nationalist rhetoric entered Orbán’s speeches, including talk of “internal and external enemies” and of national traitors. Immigrants were vilified, xenophobia became mainstream, and finally the government began to nationalise parts of the economy, including the banks. Taxes were also raised. These last two aren’t anti-democratic in my opinion, but certainly anti-neoliberal. The Hungarian story underlines two things according to the paper; first, that the fall of communist rule in 1990 didn’t lead to the successful growth of a liberal western society, as was expected, and second, that external checks designed to ensure democracy in Europe were spectacularly inadequate at protecting democracy in Hungary.

A less often discussed example, used by Shekhovtsov, is the case of the Czech Republic. Corruption has been a problem in Czech democracy since the Velvet Revolution, however since 2013, it has become an issue alongside growing illiberalism. In 2013, the outgoing President Václav Klaus granted amnesty for 6,000 prisoners in the republic, who were being prosecuted on charges of corruption, all dating from the period when Klaus was serving as Prime Minister. Also that year, the government of Petr Nečas resigned, after its offices were raided and several ministers including the PM were arrested by the police also on charges of abuse of power and corruption. Whilst this may seem positive, the arrested were released later in 2013, as several of them had been parliamentarians at the time of their criminal actions and thus had immunity under Czech law, whilst others were determined as being irrelevant to the prosecution of the case. Ultimately, the Czech police were unable to effectively prosecute corruption charges, and seemed ineffective. The most important event of the year however was the election of Miloš Zeman as the new Czech President. He was funded by Martin Nejedlý, the director of the Czech subsidiary of the Russian oil company, LUKoil, as well as the politcal lobbyist also with ties to the company, Miroslav Šlouf. Zeman is anti-western, anti-European, pro-Russian and illiberal according to the paper. Zeman appointed a close ally, Jiří Rusnok, as Prime Minister, despite him not commanding a majority in the Parliament. The President is also xenophobic and islamophobic, having attended an anti-muslim rally in 2015. He has been supported by AE News, which has portrayed the President as the only European politician to defend the interests of his country. Other anti-western and pro-Russian conspiracy theories have been peddled by businessman Michal Voráček, also to the benefit of Zeman, who has contributed to the conspiracy theories with his own rhetoric. On the other hand, there is the rise of Andrej Babiš, the current Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, leader of ANO 2011 and media tycoon who owns a large share of the Czech media industry. His takeover of MAFRA in order to consolidate his hold on Czech media has been called ‘oligarchisation’ or ‘Berlusconisation’, for the similar move made by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Perhaps as a result of his media control, Babiš’s party, ANO, won 18% of the vote in the 2013 elections, becoming the second largest party and giving Babiš siginificant power in the government, allowing him to threaten critical media outlets such as echo24.cz. According to many Czech journalists, “the laws have remained the same but the system has changed. This will have an impact on press freedom.” According to Shekhovtsov, whilst unlike Hungary no major attack has been orchestrated against the bastions of liberal democracy (Courts, media, constitution, civil society), the influence of money has allowed the spread of a ‘creeping illiberalism’ – it has meant individuals have adopted undemocratic practices to foster an illiberal political culture.

The paper goes on providing examples from Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Poland, before providing conclusions at the end on the patterns of Illiberalism. Before we get onto that, and further comments from the discussion itself, it’s worth making a few comments. Firstly, in the case of the Czech Republic, they are not the only nations in Europe to have oligarchs taking control of large sections of the private media; the term was called ‘Berlusconisation’ and Berlusconi was a western European politician; his purposes for taking control of the media were the exact same as Andrej Babiš, and he was left alone, in fact, he managed to hold the Prime Minister’s office in Italy for 9 years in total (though not consecutively). Another example in Rupert Murdoch in Britain, who controls The Sun, The Times, The News of the World (while it was still publishing) and Sky. So it’s quite clear that the taking over of the media by powerful interests is not a specifically East-European phenomenon. For the purpose of undermining liberal democracy? Perhaps. But nevertheless, we must consider that the practice of millionaires buying up huge sections of the media can only have been learnt by Eastern Europeans from the West. Also, the Legatum Institute very strangely seems to have an issue with the internet, and the sheer uncontrolled nature of it. Particularly the spread of conspiracy theories, which the paper clearly underlines as ‘illiberal’, the internet is responsible for all this misinformation, and I heard at the talk the raising of the question “how can we control the internet?” A foolish question, especially from an institute that supports democracy, capitalism and the free market, on which I’ll say no more. That is my last point however, going into this discussion, it’s worth bearing in mind that the Legatum Institute is an intensely neoliberal, pro-Capitalist and pro-Western Democracy institute, and whilst it may have some astute observations on Eastern Europe, it cannot be taken as an unbiased organisation.

So, Anton Shekhovtsov in his paper draws a line under a series of patterns in the growth of illiberalism, which he condensed into 4 in the talk; the criticism of liberal structures/norms in society (often arising from corruption scandals), an illiberal party seizing power, and then opting to modify the constitution and structures of power to augment their own and keep them in power, the bringing of the media under political control, perhaps through the process of ‘Berlusconisation’, and finally the spread of illiberal ideas and the collapse of the inherently liberal, civil society that must exist in all liberal democracies. Shekhovtsov argued that in Orbán’s case there is a clear shift onto the nationalist focus, the talk of ‘internal threats’, ‘national traitors’ and of an ‘organic’ society, as opposed to a civil one. Sławomir Sierakowski took the point here further; this shift marks more than the mainstream acceptance of nationalist rhetoric and the decline of liberal politics, but the rise of a right-wrong political axis, in which there is no longer the free and equal debate of ideas. In western democracies, the right and the left are debated in a setting where both are considered valid alternatives to solve a problem, however with the rise of illiberal democracy, that exchange of ideas no longer exists; instead the line of logic arises where either you accept what’s ‘right’, or you resist and betray in the name of what’s ‘wrong’.

Sierakowski has argued on a series of occasions that this is more than an unfortunate series of events but a fundamental rift in Europe, where those who lived previously east of the iron curtain still don’t have the western understanding of democracy and its core tenets. At the talk, as well in a discussion with TalkReal on Monday, Sierakowski made what I think is a crucial point that to have a democracy you need democrats, who can defend the institutions which allow two competing but equally valid ideas to exist, without one being ‘wrong’, and thus making you a traitor. He did not argue that Eastern Europeans cannot understand this – he himself is an example of the opposite – however, after 40 years of communism, what is taken for granted as the basic tenets of democracy have not been impressed in the east. More critically Sierakowski argues, they cannot be forcibly impressed. Eastern Europe has to be educated in the importance of the rule of law, the free media, the free exchange and debate of ideas, the oversight by the people of their leaders through transparent government etc. Interestingly, in the discussion on TalkReal, Yanis Varoufakis disagreed with Sierakowski; he said that there is nothing that makes the Poles different from the Greeks, or different from the Germans. However, whilst this is naturally true, in that we can all adopt democracy, I think this is misunderstanding the point. Take Weimar Germany for example; it was not for a lack of democracy that the Nazism rose to power, but for a lack of people who believed and understood the democratic system. The Germans were different to the French and the British in the 20s and 30s. Dictatorships arise from democracies, when there are no democrats to defend it.

An important point however, made by Shekhovtsov, was that Berlusconisation was not stopped in Italy by the European Commission, or any other oppressive power. It was simply allowed to run its course, and eventually it died out. Similarly in Austria, the FPÖ’s time in power was not ended by the EU, but by the Austrian people themselves. Now, in the case of Hungary and perhaps Poland at some point, this may be different, as in Austria and Italy, there was no fundamental change in the functioning of the system, no attacks on the rule of law or freedom of the press etc. Also, there was not the influence of Russia trying to destabilise liberal democracy, which is the case in Eastern Europe, especially with the importance of Russian energy suppliers there (Gazprom). However, I overall agree that ultimately, the European Commission’s intervention in Poland, or Hungary in a heavy-handed way would not work to the benefit of liberals or European solidarity; the point was made that it could be used to galvanise populist, nationalist rhetoric. Anne Applebaum suggested that instead, other European member-states could get involved in funding the growth of liberal forces, such as the free media, which could be supported by the EU as well. In this way, liberalism as a force can grow in eastern Europe without their regimes having to be overturned or challenged from the outside.

The question of the rule of law is a difficult one, as is the challenge to the authority of the European level. The ‘Copenhagen Criteria’ is used to determine whether a country is sufficiently free to be considered democratic by western standards, and democratic enough to join the Union. However as Hungary certainly proved, once in, there are few steps the Commission can take to ensure the survival of that very democracy that those countries pledged themselves to in joining the European Union. Therefore in this context, I think the protection of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are areas that the EU does need to protect. As for the existence of the civil society and liberal beliefs? As Sierakowski said, it cannot be forced on a people. However I am a firm believer in the culture wars, the war of ideas where ‘mine beats yours’ by spreading the idea throughout the region. Eastern European nations are not that different from us. However they have not experienced for the past 300/400 years the growth of liberal democracy as western nations have. For most of that time they were occupied in one way or another, or existed though some of the worst years in modern history.

A last point to be made is the question of whether the western version of democracy should be spread to eastern Europe, and what does it mean to do so? As I said, the Legatum Institute is firmly capitalist, neoliberal and free-marketeer. Is that the Europe we are trying to build? Should we really be entrenching that mode of thought in Eastern Europe, seeing how difficult it is to shake from the west? The question comes down to whether you think liberal politics need to be entrenched in a society first before we can move onto bigger a greater things, such as the social democracy and the welfare state. Can they be achieved immediately, or must we go through the painful stage of democracy where people lose out on all sides and radical social upheaval takes place, but where the positives of liberalism – free speech, rule of law etc. – can be cultivated and properly understood? And does that mean an adoption of neoliberal economics at the same time? The neoliberal agenda set by Germany and Britain has been firmly entrenched in the west, and is now proving very difficult to shake off, modify or even legitimately challenge. What we cannot allow to happen is Europe to become a bastion of neoliberal thought and practice, and instead accept the possibility of new forms of democracy and economics to develop down their own paths, and welcome them into the wider Union.