DYNAMICS
The project of EU accession was deeply embedded in the particular construction of the national identities of the CEECs, which also provided the framework for the whole transition from totalitarianism or authoritarianism to democracy. In all of the CEECs, the transition was understood as a ‘return to Europe’ (Drulák, 2001), which was one of the slogans of the democratic revolutions in 1989. This move established a fi rm link between the national and European identities of the CEECs, which merits a closer look.
The concept of a return to Europe implies two ideas (Drulák and Druláková, 2004). First, there is the idea of belonging to Europe, since people can only return to places which they have previously occupied.
Second, the return refers to the process by which people proceed from one point to another. Both the static idea of belonging and the dynamic idea of process reveal Europe as a foundational framework for the very constitution of the CEECs as sovereign political agents.
In the political discourse of the CEECs a variety of references can be found whose goal is to demonstrate the European, or if possible the West European, credentials of the country. There are several types of these arguments based on geography, religion and history, which resonate with the national mythologies of the countries, and which contribute to the narratives on the basis of which people understand themselves and their place in the world (Drulák, 2001; Drulák and Druláková, 2004). Despite the diversity of these narratives, two features are shared across all the countries. First, the CEECs are constructed as naturally European from time immemorial.
Second, they are also constructed as victims for the well-being of Europe.
To start with, geographical arguments have been very popular, particularly the ones that represent a given country as a true centre or heart of Europe.
Thus the current Czech president, Václav Klaus, who is one of the most Eurosceptic of EU leaders, has recently argued (Klaus, 2003) that his country has ‘always been in the heart of the continent and it is inconceivable that the multi-national organism in making could do without its heart or that the heart could do without the body’. Similar claims have also been made by Slovakia. To drive their point home, the Lithuanians erected a monument marking the geographical centre of Europe near their capital Vilnius, as well as changing the time zone of Lithuania by switching to Central European time in the 1990s (Vinogradnaite, 2001).
Besides geography, religious and cultural arguments have frequently been emphasized. In this connection, belonging to Western Christianity, the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches has been equated with belonging to Western Europe. Similarly, historical events and institutions from the distant past have been evoked to show the links with Western Europe. Hence the Hanseatic League (Poland, the Baltics), the Holy Roman Empire (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia), and early experiences of statehood (medieval kingdoms) were turned into favoured reference points.
All these readings of history also share a sense of victimhood (Krzeminski, 2001). They concentrate on particular historical events which are supposed to remind the West of its historical debts to CEECs. Therefore the Yalta agreement in 1945, the Munich agreement in 1938, the nineteenth-century struggles for national autonomy or the fi ghts against Turks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are often evoked as instances when Central and Eastern Europeans put their lives and freedom on the altar for West European security and freedom.
While the idea of belonging is conservative, emphasizing stability, the idea of process is inherently dynamic, stressing change (Drulák and Druláková, 2004). This change can be broadly characterized as modernization. The EU became a symbol of economic and political modernity. Looking at the shop windows of German and Austrian department stores was a shocking experience for citizens who grew up in conditions of constant shortages of all kinds of consumer goods. For many, this experience was the ultimate argument against communism and central planning, which always used to boast about its superior economic effi ciency over capitalist countries. It was especially the fact that European integration was primarily perceived in terms of the economic community harvesting all the possible benefi ts of capitalist effi ciency while also keeping a strong social dimension that turned it into an example seen as worthy of emulation. Therefore the experience of
the EU countries was used as an important reference point when discussing the transition.
To sum up, the concept of a ‘return to Europe’, within which transition and EU accession, as a key element of transition, has been embedded, has been connected with at least three ideas: a return to time-tested relations, the repayment of the old debts of Western Europe to the CEECs, and economic and social modernization as well as democratization. Despite the political dynamics and despite the changes in attitudes towards the EU, these three elements have been remarkably stable since 1989.
Euroscepticism
Although the general mood in the CEECs was supportive towards EU accession, the accession was far from uncontested. Indeed, in many countries there were several groups which either rejected EU membership or at least did not support it. A closer look at the Eurosceptic positions reveals what various groups perceive as the costs of EU membership. Therefore I look into the arguments on which their rejection of the EU is based. In this respect, I do not make the potentially useful distinction between Euroscepticism and EU scepticism (Beichelt, 2004; Kopecký and Mudde, 2002), instead addressing Euroscepticism as a broad variety of attitudes.1
Most Eurosceptic groupings fi t into the traditional classifi cation of ideologies (conservative, liberal and socialist) each assuming an extreme position (Gyárfášová, 2001; Brusis, 2001; Kopecký and Mudde, 2002;
Beichelt, 2004). Hence there are groups of die-hard nationalist conservatives who argue that the EU threatens national sovereignty and national values.
Sometimes this has been linked with Catholic fundamentalists warning against the godless Europe, such as the network around Radio Maryja in Poland which inspired a successful oppositional political party, the League of Polish Families, or the conservative wing of the Slovak Christian Democratic Movement which has been a part of the ruling coalition. However, the nationalist groupings often lacked any religious links embracing rightist populism or extreme right ideology such as the Republican Party of Czechoslovakia, the Slovak National Party (which was part of the Mečiar coalition in the 1990s), the Slovenian National Party or the Hungarian Justice and Life Party, all of which had some parliamentary presence throughout the 1990s.
On the other hand, there are also liberal critics who see the EU as a socialist project which burdens the economic activity with overly heavy regulation. For example, former Czech prime minister Václav Klaus and his Civic Democratic Party argued that there was a danger that the Czech Republic would again import a planned economy from the EU. In
contrast, leftist populists argue that the EU is too liberal, giving free rein to transnational corporations and the exploitation of workers (Gyárfášová, 2001). This was the case with the Czech and Slovak Communist Parties.
However, this argument also found adherents among some leftist opponents of globalization, for whom European integration was a part of capitalist globalization.
However, apart from these three ideational streams, there are other kinds of Eurosceptic movements which are more country specifi c and which do not easily fi t into the scheme. I look into two of these: sector-based groupings and minority-based ones. First, in Poland, Andrzej Lepper organized a successful political movement called Self-Defence which campaigned against the EU in the name of Polish peasants. However, while Self-Defence is on the extremist fringe on the Polish political scene, parts of its agenda are shared with the more moderate Polish Peasant Party, which was part of the ruling coalition during the fi nal stage of accession. This was connected with the idiosyncrasies of the Polish agricultural sector – its enormous size and the tenure of the land by a large number of smallholders. This condition made agriculture both less effi cient and more politically sensitive in Poland than in other countries, while also providing a breeding ground for populist leaders.
Second, minority-based Euroscepticism looms large in the Baltic countries, where there is a marked absence of other Eurosceptic groupings or political parties (Beichelt, 2004). It is especially the case in Latvia and Estonia, where support for EU accession is quite low among the large Russian minorities. Now this may seem puzzling at fi rst glance, as the EU pushed hard for the minority rights of Baltic Russians, and thus it could be seen as their natural ally. However, the puzzle can be understood if we take into account that in the Baltic countries, the pro-European discourse was at the same time sharply anti-Russian (Freiberga, 2001). The Latvian and Estonian readings of EU membership as the ultimate shelter against Russian dominance led to the construction of the EU as anti-Russian in the eyes of Russian minorities.
To sum up, most accession countries have Eurosceptic parties and movements which are politically significant. Not only do they reflect traditional ideologies (conservatism, liberalism and socialism) but they also draw on the specifi c attributes of the CEECs.
Political Dynamics
Both pro-European identities and Euroscepticism have so far been discussed in synchronic terms. And, indeed, the issues on which I have focused have been remarkably stable throughout the whole period. Nevertheless, within
this stable framework the interpretation of the return to Europe has been evolving, mainly in response to political dynamics. Three stages of the evolution can be distinguished (Drulák and Druláková, 2004; Plavšak, 2001): idealism, disenchantment and pragmatism.
Idealism was the prevailing mood of the early 1990s in the period immediately after the democratic revolutions. On the one hand, it was believed that the countries could return to Europe with the same speed with which communism had fallen. The optimistic statements of European leaders about building a common Europe were taken at face value, and nothing seemed impossible. On the other hand, knowledge about ‘Europe’ was very patchy. Europe was simply seen as ‘an opposition to what people were trying to escape from’ (Ivanov, 2001). Hence, not only EU membership but also the memberships of the IMF, WTO, Council of Europe, OECD and NATO were associated with the return to Europe (Drulák and Königová, 2005), frequently without the élites being able to tell these organizations apart.
Inevitably, after this euphoria a painful sobering period followed. Tough negotiations of the fi rst association agreements in 1991 taught people that the grand talk about European unity does not prevent EU leaders from defending the interests of their agricultural or steel industries (Mayhew, 1998). Moreover, apart from NATO, the attention focused on the EU, which looked distant and diffi cult to reach. In 1993, Václav Havel (1993/1999, pp. 162–71) bitterly complained that the West likes to use the label ‘formerly communist’ to get rid of any responsibility and solidarity. However, it was only at this stage that the learning process of the élites about the EU started, even though it was only at the very basic level, such as clarifying the distinction between the European Council and the Council of Europe.
As the accession talks, which started in 1998, drew closer, a more pragmatic, bargaining mood prevailed. The relationship with the EU was increasingly seen in terms of give-and-take, and the general balance was evaluated as positive for the candidate countries. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that the return to Europe boils down to a fi nancial cost–benefi t analysis, even if the bargaining process of accession talks may support such a perspective. However, the very act of bargaining presupposes common ground among the participants defi ned by shared ideas and a shared language, especially if the bargaining takes place in as complex a system as the EU. Without such common ground, it would hardly be possible to compare in cost–benefi t terms, for example, the costs of limitations of national autonomy with the benefi ts of participation in the EU decision making. This common ground was to a large extent defi ned during the idealist period of the early 1990s, thus constituting the framework in which the nitty-gritty of accession talks was embedded.