The EconomistAugust 10th 2019 Europe 29E
urope is preparingto mark 30 years since the fall of commu-
nism. On August 19th Angela Merkel will travel to Sopron. With
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, she will
commemorate the anniversary of a peace protest on the border be-
tween Hungary and Austria that helped chisel the first chink in the
Iron Curtain. The event will have a grotesque quality: a German
chancellor celebrating the rebirth of democracy alongside a leader
who is systematically dismantling democratic institutions in his
country. And it will doubtless lift the curtain on an autumn of
commentary lamenting the failed promise of 1989. Expect doleful
references to Europe’s new east-west cleavage and sardonic asides
about the predicted “end of history”.
The images from Sopron will not do central and eastern Europe
justice. Democracy and liberal values have indeed come under at-
tack in the region. The Economist Intelligence Unit (a sister of The
Economist) finds that since 2006 democracy has deteriorated more
there than in any other part of the world. And yet there have been
quite a few glints of hope—especially in the past few months.
The prelude to this “eastern European summer” came in March
with the election of Zuzana Caputova, a liberal anti-corruption
campaigner, as president of Slovakia. She has since stood up for in-
dependent judiciaries and publicly rebuked Mr Orban’s illiberal
abuses in neighbouring Hungary. April brought a presidential
election in North Macedonia in which nationalists were defeated
by the Social Democrats, who had just settled a long-running dis-
pute with Greece over the country’s name in order to pave the way
for eumembership. And May brought wins for pro-European
moderates in the Latvian and Lithuanian presidential elections.
Slightly further afield, in June a re-run of the Istanbul mayoral
election put an opponent of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the
helm of Turkey’s largest city, confirming that the autocratic
leader’s grip on the country is faltering and prompting breakaways
from his political party. Czechs protested in the largest demonstra-
tions since the fall of communism—some 250,000 marched in
Prague—after Andrej Babis, the prime minister, was charged with
fraud and appointed a crony as justice minister. Protests also burst
onto the streets of Moldova, where an “anti-oligarch” coalition ul-
timately ousted Vladimir Plahotniuc’s crooked regime, and ontothe streets of Georgia in opposition to Russia’s ongoing occupation
of parts of the country. In July, across the Black Sea, Romanians and
Bulgarians also staged demonstrations: the former over police in-
competence and the latter over cronyism in the judiciary. Uk-
raine’s parliamentary election delivered the only absolute major-
ity in its post-communist history for Volodymyr Zelensky, a
former comedian promising to tackle corruption and to anchor
the country to the West.
Now Moscow is centre-stage. On July 27th some 20,000 people
took to the streets, the largest demonstration there since 2012.
Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings are sinking. So are real wages.
The surge of patriotism that followed Mr Putin’s annexation of Cri-
mea, part of Ukraine, has faded. And Muscovites are bridling at an
upcoming election in which non-approved independent candi-
dates will be barred from the ballot. Another protest on August 3rd
saw thousands return to the streets, despite the threat of arbitrary
beatings and imprisonment. One major figure in the Russian op-
position is Lyubov Sobol, an anti-corruption campaigner. Women
are at the heart of many of the rebellions against the strongmen.
Ms Sobol, who has now been arrested, and Ms Caputova are two.
Others include Canan Kaftancioglu, a leading force in the Turkish
opposition; Laura Kovesi, a Romanian graft-buster set to become
the eu’s first public prosecutor; and Barbara Nowacka, who led
women’s protests against reactionary social reforms in Poland.
To be sure, this is no new 1989. The encouraging protests and
election results mostly concern local issues—though they have
common factors, such as lots of young people and a pro-eubent.
Poland’s election, set for October 13th, will probably see the go-
verning populists triumph. Mr Orban is going nowhere. Mr Babis is
still riding high in the polls. It is far from clear that Mr Zelensky
will break from Ukraine’s oligarch-dominated past. In Russia and
Turkey change is most likely to come from shifts within the ruling
party, albeit ones that may be catalysed by street protests.History is back
And yet the events of this summer prove many of the western
European clichés about eastern Europe wrong. States scarred by
communism are not incapable of producing strong civil-society
movements. Slavs and Turks do not have some innately “Asiatic”
preference for authoritarian leadership. Nothing lasts forever.
History never ended.
Eastern Europe’s liberal marchers and voters deserve more sup-
port from the continent’s west. While protesters on the streets of
Moscow are being beaten and countries like Ukraine and Georgia
are striving for independence, Germany is embracing Nord-
Stream2, an unnecessary gas pipeline tailored to the Kremlin’s
geopolitical and financial interests. Meanwhile Mrs Merkel and
Emmanuel Macron are pouring cold water on North Macedonia’s
hopes of joining the eu. The union spends far too much of its bud-
get on misguided priorities like farm subsidies, and not enough on
supporting independent media and civil-society organisations on
its fringes. Dissenting voices in countries like the Czech Republic,
Romania and Turkey receive scant coverage from western Euro-
pean politicians and journalists. That should change.
To assume eastern Europe is all Orbans, Erdogans and Putins is
to do the region a grave injustice. This summer has proved that
eastern Europe is in fact teeming with democrats and liberals will-
ing to put their own interests on the line for their cause. If the eu
stands for anything, if it truly values the promise of 1989, it will
stand by them. 7Charlemagne The eastern summer
A wave of pro-democracy protests and elections sweeps the east of Europe