The Buzz Around The Ballot - Visegrad Insight

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Media Landscapes and Disinformation in the V4

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The Buzz Around The Ballot

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PROSPERITY — SOLIDARITY — INNOVATION Focus on Central Europe

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intelligent mind editors

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Visegrad Insight is an analysis and opinion journal led by accomplished editors from the Visegrad Group countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Its aim is to provide a platform for high profile debate on the perspectives and challenges for cooperation

of the Central European governments, business and communities. Published by Res Publica, Poland.

T h o u g h T p r o v o k i n g

2 VISEGRAD INSIGHT 2 (11) | 2017

PIOTR BEKAS

Every period in history has its jokes including the Post-truth era. This one has been told following the occupation of Crimea: if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and denies it’s a duck, it’s a Russian duck. In truth, our duck does not quack – it tweets!

The acronym of the Russian IRA stands today for a new kind of terrorist organisation – the Internet Research Agency (AKA the troll factory) whose operations were recent-ly revealed in relation to the electoral campaign in the USA.

What makes the Russian fake-news campaign so successful? It appears that the con-temporary masters of lies the IRA are able to considerably influence the global demo-cratic process. Is it due to their strength or more due to our weakness?

The latter explanation makes more sense. During the recent digital revolution – a rapid process that had a vast impact on our societies, we let hostile scouts take over part of our domestic electoral agenda.

This autumn, Twitter’s self-audit revealed that nearly half of the American population has been exposed to this Russian campaign of hate and fake-news. The goal, apparent-ly, was not only to have Donald Trump elected but to polarise the American society. The IRA sponsored both radicalism of the right and of the left. But why was it possible in the first place?

Two particular developments revived this mass scale disinformation. First – the 2008 financial crisis that struck down traditional media all across the world, and second – the rapid growth of social media. Capitalism and the internet, neither one a Russian invention, quickly became the new weapons of the information age.

Central Europe, in many ways, has become more exposed than the USA or other EU partners. The swift growth of social media took revenue from traditional media outlets and exposed societies to pure political propaganda. Editorial oversight, often referred to as gatekeeping, no longer safeguards social media followers and friends from direct exposure to divisive practices. As a reaction, Facebook introduced its own editorial oversight that was revealed earlier this year, but it might not have been soon enough for countries that had already been heavily exposed.

As we show, compared to Germany, in 2017 more people in the V4 (+10%) prefer and have trust in so-called “alternative media” than in mainstream outlets. Trust in main-stream media is further undermined by poor business models that are not catching up with the quickly growing digital advertising market.

In the Post-truth era, the fourth estate of democracy, counting social media in, has become a challenge to democracy. To build up democratic, resilience let’s start with resilience of quality media.

WOJCIECH PRZYBYLSKI Editor-in-chief

The buzz around the ballot

THE SWIFT GROWTH OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOK REVENUE FROM TRA-DITIONAL MEDIA OUTLETS AND EX-POSED SOCIETIES TO PURE POLITICAL PROPAGANDA

3

EDITORIAL

WHAT ARE MEDIA CONSUMPTION TRENDS IN V4

PAGE 18

PAGE 16

interview with Robert Pszczel from

the NATO HQ

EUROPE POLITICS IN THE BUZZ6 Survey – The Impact of the Internet on

Media and Politics Szabolcs Töhötöm Tóth, Karel Kovář, Zuzanna Ziomecka, Tomáš Bella, Eric Maurice

10 House Undivided – How pro-Putin ideologues have united both the far-right and the far-left in their unwavering support of the Kremlin’s geopolitical agenda Péter Krekó, Lóránt Győri

13 Fire and Brimstone – Deception and Dread in Central Europe Galan Dall

16 From Tweets to Tanks – interview with Robert Pszczel from the NATO HQ

ECONOMY SOCIAL MEDIA18 Report: Media Consumption Trends –

in cooperation with weCAN network

20 The Vulnerable V4 Miriam Lexmann

MEDIA POPULISM & POWER24 The Cassandra Curse Danuta

Dobrzyńska-Schmimer

26 The Czech Elections and the Future of Media Independence Václav Štĕtka

28 The New Enemy Zselyke Csaky

30 The Shadow over media Michał Kobosko

34 Journalism’s Growing Pains in Visegrad Beata Balogová

38 Making lemonade Zosia Wasik

40 The Pitfalls of Censoring Fake News Barbora Bukovska in conversation with Aleksandra Eriksson

43 Imbalance and Glass Ceilings Greta Gober

45 Gender Equality in CEE Media, Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer

SECURITY CYBER48 The State of Cyber Security in the V4

Botond Feledy

51 June 2017 Cyber Attack in Ukraine Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security

52 How vulnerable is the Polish Cyber World to Attacks Tomasz Matuła PAGE 24

SECTION


CONTENTS

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The Report CardTHE HURDLESAHEAD FORCENTRALEUROPE

Their EuropeanFoil

Their EuropeanFoil

The Hurdles Ahead for Central Europe

INTERVIEW EU ON THE EDGE55 Tremors in Europe’s Foundation

Roland Freudenstein

V4 ABROAD FUTURE OF EU59 The End of Convergence Cornelius

Ochmann, Wojciech Przybylski

60 The Different Faces of Visegrad Kai-Olaf Lang

61 The Hurdles Ahead for Central Europe Iveta Radičová

64 Germany and Central Europe Michal Kořan

68 The Euro, Always on the Central European Edit Inotai

70 Additional Conditions Zoltán Kovács, Secretary of State of Hungary, on the adoption of the euro in Hungary

71 Eurozone membership – the Facts, the Game, and the Debate – flash report by Visegrad Insight

72 The Parisian Mirror Milan Nič

75 Who Will Be Served at the Table and Who Will Be Served for Dinner, Edit Zgut

78 The Small Steps of Europe Paweł Kowal, former deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

82 What German Elections mean for Central Europe Marcin Zaborowski

INTELLIGENT MIND SLOVAKIA84 Don’t Merchandise Doubt Rastislav

Káčer

BOOKS FICTION WE LOVE89 In Literature Julia Sherwood

90 Emöke Szabó Lovas

92 Magdalena Mullek

93 Anna Zaranko

94 Michal Jareš

PAGE 61PAGE 84

PAGE 89

Julia Sherwood, Emöke Szabó Lovas, Magdalena Mullek, Anna Zaranko, Michal Jareš

Iveta Radičová

Rastislav Káčer

5

CONTENTS

SURVEY

We have asked five internet savvy editors about the buzz around the ballot. What was the impact of the internet on media and politics in recent years?


EUROPE POLITICS IN THE BUZZ

SZABOLCS TÖHÖTÖM TÓTHEditor-in-Chief of Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian nation), a Hungar-ian daily founded by Sándor Pethő in 1938. He is also project leader for the online development of the newspaper.

W ith Donald Trump rising to power, the debate on fake news has engulfed editorial pages, prompt-ed hosts of news stories and provoked myriads of twitter posts all over Europe and in the United

States. Less attention has been paid though to another dan-gerous phenomenon. One that I would call the “fake media”.

In Hungary, the government has managed to create one so successfully that newspapers, television stations and online news sites belonging to its propaganda machine now threaten to suffocate the real thing: those who still try to maintain ed-itorial independence and work with the traditional watchdog approach to those in power.

In the last three or four years, through friendly business-men and thinly veiled direct funding, the Hungarian govern-ment has channeled hundreds of billions of forints into buying existing media companies and creating new ones. Now, it ef-fectively controls (through its cronies) one of the two over-the-air commercial television channels (Tv2), two national newspapers (Magyar Idők and Magyar Hírlap), a free daily distributed on mass transit lines (Lokál), two national tabloid daily newspapers (Ripost and Bors), the biggest Hungarian on-line news site (Origo), a television news channel (Echo TV), a news radio channel (Karc FM), all of the regional daily news-papers (!) and their associated online news sites, and an addi-tional two, relatively new, online news sites (Pesti Srácok and 888) – besides weekly newspapers and several smaller scale news operations on the internet.

While acquiring all these riches, in 2016 it managed to buy and shut down the leftist Népszabadság, one of Hungary’s flagship daily national newspapers.

Of course, the government is also served by the whole public media, which has practically been enslaved and re-duced to a propaganda machine on steroids, including the state-run news agency, multiple television channels, radio stations and an online news site. All financed with taxpayer money, of course.

To make things worse for those Hungarian news outlets that still try to resist this surge, the government has become one of the biggest advertisers in the media market. In fact, according to the CANnual Report 2017 (see pages 18–19 in this issue), the Prime Minister’s Office was the second biggest advertiser in Hungary in 2016, following the German telecom-munication giant Telekom.

Of course, this advertisement money goes to friend-ly media companies. To add more insult to injury, there is a widespread perception that private companies are under pres-sure by the Hungarian government not to place ads in news outlets that are perceived as enemies by Fidesz, Hungary’s ruling party.

This brutal interference has resulted in an extremely dis-torted media market, where independent players are bound to compete with a thinly-veiled state-run media conglomerate that is awash with public and (scared) private money in an economic system that is more and more controlled and bullied by the state.

Meanwhile, market trends that have hit media compa-nies hard in other countries of Europe are of course present in Hungary as well. The decline of print ad revenue coupled with the growing amount of money that Google and Facebook is diverting from these companies are huge problems for Hungarian media companies.

Thus, under these circumstances, the Hungarian govern-ment does not have to curb press freedom to silence dissent: all it has to do is to create competitors to private companies that are already under siege by market forces, in order to cre-ate fake media that tries to behave like the real one. Except for its main goal is not to hold the government accountable, but to assist it, not to expose propaganda, but to spread it, and not to unveil the truth but to hide it in an artificially created noise.

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POLITICS IN THE BUZZ EUROPE

KAREL KOVÁŘ One of the most popular Czech video bloggers who introduced political themes to Czech video blogging cementing his status by being one of three to interview President Juncker. In 2016, he received the Blogger of the Year award. Forbes has identified him as the 17th most influential Czech on social networks in 2016 and listed him as one of the 30 most talented Czechs aged under 30. He was also listed as a New Europe 100 chal-lenger by Res Publica, Google, Financial Times and the Visegrad Fund in 2017.

I t is brutal I would say. News especially. Basically, every-body is dealing with something I call information mad-ness nowadays. Sometimes it´s very hard to tell what´s the truth and what´s just a fake story. People are mostly

confused not knowing what to trust anymore, which creates instability and distrust. That is extremely convenient for big powers (especially Russia), which want to see the EU divided and unstable. There is enough evidence that Russia itself is helping to create this kind of situation through hacking and paid “news outlets” which have been successful in spreading an epidemic of fake news stories. Feeling that the EU does not care enough, Visegrad is moving closer to the so-called strong leadership idea and basic values like free independent media or parliamentary democracy are being threatened.

ZUZANNA ZIOMECKAEditor-in-Chief of NewsMavens.com. A media maker driven by the conviction that diversity and inclusion are the best way for-ward for our VUCA world. She uses media and journalism to cre-ate leadership interventions into issues that she feels deeply about. A woman, a mother, a European, a practitioner and pro-moter of mindfulness, and a great admirer of pirates.

The internet has eliminated the barrier of entry into me-dia. In these days of intense social media penetration, everyone is a commentator and politicians no longer need the media to get through to their constituencies. A

major challenge in this situation is that advertisers, the bread and butter of the media business, also no longer need the me-dia to reach audiences. This puts media in a position it has never been in before – we now have to prove our utility to both the public and the consumer goods industry.

A clear trend in this search for a new “reason to be” is the emergence of fact checking as a media format. Instimojer, a fact checking NGO in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an example of a stand-alone institution dedicated to checking claims and promises made by local authorities. A story recently released on Instinomjer gives an inside look at how Bosnian politicians make use of loose regulations to put up their own online news sources that launch smear campaigns against political rivals. Another example is Gazeta Wyborcza’s SONAR – a big data start-up also created to track local politicians.



ERIC MAURICEEditor-in-Chief of EUobserver. Before joining the Brussels-based news website, he was editor-in-chief of Presseurop, a pan-Euro-pean and multilingual media project. A graduate from the Par-is-Sorbonne University in history of international relations and the Paris École Supérieure de journalisme, he started his ca-reer at the French weekly Courrier International, where he suc-cessively was in charge of the French, US and Western Europe desks.

I t is not an original thing to say, but the internet has ac-celerated the pace of news because everyone now – in-cluding journalists – expect articles on any event to come online very quickly, as if they were just an extension of

tweets and news alerts.That tendency is intensified by the fact that the internet

has also extended the competition – traditional media, pure players, news agencies (which traditionally were only provid-ers for news organisations, not directly to the public) are at the same level but with their own characteristics and pace.

To follow that pace, you have to try to publish different kinds of news – breaking, factual or analytical. In these realms, the biggest publishers have an advantage.

On EU politics, the impact – seen from a more cyni-cal perspective – is that the institutions, and mainly the EU Commission, use this environment to better control the information.

They know that we journalists have to work quickly, and often they give us documents at the last minute, just before a commissioner comes to make an announcement. Then we have only their point of view if we want to write our article quickly.

Politicians – and I include commissioners, MEPs, more than just EU national leaders – also communicate more through social media by sharing articles and reports they like, or in which they are quoted, or even opinion pieces they wrote (and which are mainly written in order to be shared on social media).

EU officials and politicians know that journalists in Brussels spend all their days on Twitter. So that’s how they share their speeches, react to events, deny news, try to spread their spin. From that point of view, Twitter has become a quasi-official means of communication, much more than Facebook.

TOMÁŠ BELLA Co-founder and head of online at Dennik N, independent Slo-vak daily newspaper. Daily “N” was founded in 2015 by former members of the editorial team of SME daily. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief at Sme.sk and CEO at Piano, a company pro-ducing paid-content software for publishers. Nominated as a New Europe 100 challenger for introducing the ground-breaking technology of a pay-wall for media content by Res Publica, Goog-le, Financial Times and the Visegrad Fund.

The internet, especially in smaller countries, allows poli-ticians to cut out the (media) middle man, which can be used for both good and evil. Some politicians enter into honest public discussions with their voters which allows

citizens to get direct answers from them and better informa-tion about their attitudes than through media (or billboards).

On the other hand, the internet made it very easy for extremists to communicate directly with potential voters, something that used to be much harder through the filter of traditional media.

In the end, I believe the effect will be positive but, as with any other new medium, people will need to go through years of slowly learning how to use the medium and how to recognize and avoid its potential traps.

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PÉTER KREKÓ AND LÓRÁNT GYŐRI

A House UndividedHow pro-Putin ideologues have united both the far-right and the far-left in their unwavering support of the Kremlin’s geopolitical agenda

A little more than a year ago, a limited circle of fans gathered in a small far-right bookstore lo-cated underground of one of the most prom-inent plazas in Buda-pest to welcome the

new book of the European “alt-right” (in fact: Nazis in suits) titled “The Real Right Returns: A Handbook for the True Op-position”. The audience was composed of

mostly older pensioners burnt out by the Trianon trauma and some youths sport-ing discreet Hitler-Jugend haircuts, all of them ready to hear the author, Daniel Friberg, speak about the immigrant situ-ation in Europe.

A journalist, Mariann Őry was also among the crowd and even introduced Mr. Friberg as a regular economist in her journal. The author is in fact an ex-Swed-ish neo-Nazi turned CEO of the Arktos group, the main European publisher of

the works of the leading neo-Eurasian ideologist Alexander Dugin.

The sympathy of Ms. Őry to the pro-Kremlin emigre circle of far-right ac-tivists residing in Budapest is not surpris-ing. She is the Head of the Foreign Desk at the right-wing Magyar Hírlap news-paper – owned by a pro-Fidesz oligarch – that openly promotes an anti-immigra-tion, illiberal, misogynistic and homo-phobic agenda, resonating governmental messages.



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Where this story gets interesting is that Őry is in fact the daughter of Gyula Thürmer, the Chairman of the Hungarian Workers’ Party (HWP) – a successor of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP), the only political remnant of hardcore, orthodox communism. She used to be on the political board of the party, when her father turned it into a pro-Russian family-business after 2010. She also enthusiastically reported about her father’s press conferences on Syria, Crimea and other foreign policy issues – in all of these cases, presenting standpoints totally compatible with the Kremlin’s. Thürmer, for example, ap-peared bizarrely enthusiastic after the annexation of Crimea by Russia –

“If Albanians have the right in Kosovo for self-determination, Russians have the same right in Crimea. (…) We should rather cherish that the borders of the second world war are not carved in stone. We should not feel sorrow over Trianon, (…) Europe would be much bet-ter off by re-drawing the map according to the will of the people.”

Gyula Thürmer’s son, Gyula Máté T. is also politically active: he used to be a candidate for the Hungarian Communist party, and he is right now also the column-ist of pro-governmental newspapers such as Magyar Hírlap and Pesti Srácok that are also pushing an authoritarian, illiberal, xenophobic agenda and tons of fake news.

WHERE ALL RADICALS CONVERGETwo important conclusions can be drawn from this seemingly marginal and par-ticular case. First of all, an increasing overlap between the narratives of the rad-ical left and the radical right, especially when it comes to foreign policy issues in which Russia is involved. They usually come to the same conclusion on different logical routes; while the radical right, for example, like to refer to Putin as the last real Christian, conservative leader in Eu-rope and celebrate his attempts to dom-inate this sphere of influence, the radical left in Europe – from Syriza through to the Czech Communists and Die Linke to the Dutch Socialists and Podemos – re-fer to the maintaining of peace, neutrality and self-determination when justifying, for example, the Crimean annexation. When talking about Syria, the radical left tend to see Assad as an eternal com-rade fighter against the imperialists; the radical right, in a similarly positive light,

portrays him (as well as Putin) as a Saint George who fights against the dragon of Islamic terrorism.

The second important point is that converging anti-establishment, anti-EU and anti-NATO narratives on the radi-cal left and radical right often manifest themselves in cooperation. One such example involves the “nationalist radical leftist portal” called Bal-rad. This web-page, pushing several pro-Russian arti-cles embedded in a bizarre combination of radical left-nationalist and anti-glo-balist narratives was sponsored by Lukoil – despite their being an utterly marginal site and, therefore, having zero PR value. Then, not-so-surprisingly, it moved to a Russian server in April 2017.

Here, we can see again the manifes-tation of a global phenomenon on a local level: the ideological convergence of the fringes is at the same time spontaneous and facilitated. Russia, a natural ally of fringe movements in their fight against the global establishment, is trying to make the most out of this anti-Western coalition.

Another important instance in-volved the Hungarian communist par-ty which cooperated with the now dissolved neo-Nazi Hungarian National Front (MNA). This party became no-torious for its leader shooting down a policeman in late 2016. He also conduct-ed “airsoft drills” with members of the Russian military service, the GRU (dis-guised as Russian diplomats accredited in Hungary). Surprisingly enough, it ac-knowledged the Workers’ party as a gen-uine representation of the “Hungarians’ real interest.” While the Hungarian com-munists are, originally, known for their notorious and militant anti-fascism, Thürmer’s party protested together in social matters with the neo-Nazis, and the MNA published ideological articles promoting the “formation of a workers’ state” on Hungarian communist websites.

After the annexation of Crimea, both far-right and far-left “independent European observers” went to legitimize the illegal secession referendum, in March 2014. Despite the fact that the Hungarian Workers’ Party was unable or unwilling to send an envoy, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the German Die Linke, the Polish Democratic Left Alliance and Mateusz Piskorski, the founder of the leftist-national Zmiana party, did so along with scores of far-right party representatives.

ANTI-FASCISTS IN ARMS IN V4 COUNTRIES: HUNGARY, CZECHIA AND POLANDOf course, after four decades of state socialism, the post-communist block is not the stronghold of the radical left any-more. The general fate of Central-Eastern European far-left parties is that they fade away, unable to modernize themselves, losing their old voters while having diffi-culties to attract the new urban, educat-ed electorate that the green parties reach out to. Instead, these parties keep living as communist spectres of the Soviet past.

The only relevant political force in the region is in Czechia. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) received 15% of the vote in 2013, but has declined to 8% by 2017. Over the years, they have been able to maintain a close relationship with the Russian Communist Party – after the Soviet Union fell apart – which is, these days, a pseudo-opposition party with a strong nationalist and even nostalgically imperialist agenda.

While having seen better days, the leader of the Russian communist party, Zyuganov, received almost 30% of the vote in the presidential elections in 2000 when Putin was first elected as president. In the latest Duma elections, they were still the strongest opposition party with more than 13% of the vote, and Russian communists keep an important role in keeping the old comrade networks alive.

However, the Russian communists are not the only force reaching out to the radical left in Europe. While the Kremlin-driven disinformation campaigns are fre-quently described as strongly ideological, in fact, they are totally opportunistic, aiming to reach different audiences via various channels. In 2016, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, for ex-ample, published an English article in the Russian Global Affairs (the “Russian Foreign Affairs magazine”), which explic-itly targets left-wing intellectuals and pol-iticians in the West with quotations from George Orwell, and statements to the ef-fect that Western European welfare states just copied the Soviet Union’s success.

After the Maidan revolution, the Kremlin launched the single biggest dis-information campaign in the last decade about a Western initiated “Fascist coup” in Kiev. This message resonated well with both the fellow Ukrainian Communist parties, Russian compatriots evoking the “Great Patriotic War” fought by Stalin, and European left-wing parties and in-

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tellectuals. Three years after the war against Ukraine unleashed by Russia, the KSČM still warns of the “open Western aggression against Russia,” and the emer-gence of “fascist, and Nazi forces”. KSČM organized the first “Current Fascism in Europe” workshop in 2014 on Russian foreign policy in the Czech Parliament in cooperation with the Institute of Slavic Strategic Studies (ISSS) founded in Prague in 2013. Again, we can obviously see the joint far-right far-left platform. The latest pro-Russian discussion titled “Myths about Russia” was held by the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy party together with the ISSS in 2016 in the Czech Parliament.

In Poland, obviously pro-Russian voices are usually more silent and more marginal. Still, beside the far-right, we can find strong proponents of Russia on the left as well. A member of the post-Com-munist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), Adam Krzysztof Kępiński, for example, participated as an election observer at the 2014 “referendum” on the secession of Crimea. Leszek Miller, the party’s for-mer chairman and former PM of Poland, has frequently criticised politicians of being too harsh towards Russia and has called for a friendlier relationship with their eastern neighbour.

In 2014, Miller called the Russian aggression a “fratricidal war” in Eastern-Ukraine, blaming the Right Sector for the crisis without mentioning Russia’s role in the war. In an interview given to Sputni, the former PM later criticised the Polish authorities for not letting the pro-Putin “Night Wolves” motorcycle gang through “honouring the fight against the Fascist Germany,” and for “Russophobia becom-ing the official foreign policy doctrine” of Poland. Twice the presidential candidate of the SLD, Magdalena Ogórek, advocated for a stronger partnership with Russia, try-ing to put it as the European mainstream: “The world needs Russia to fight terror-ism. Angela Merkel and Franocis Hollande are conducting very balanced talks with Russia and I am so proud of this.”

The infamous and aforemen-tioned, Mateusz Piskorski, a well-known pro-Russian political figure in Poland, personally embodies the pro-Putin coali-tion of the radical left and right. Piskorski started his career around extremist or-ganizations and later became an MP of the far-right Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland in 2005. Later he became one of the organizers of the “election busi-

ness” with CIS-EMO in the post-Soviet space, aiming at legitimising Kremlin-backed regimes, breakaway regions and referenda. In 2015, the politician found-ed Poland’s first and only openly and blatantly pro-Russian leftist party called Zmiana (Change). At the same time, he was pushing the “Ukraine is fascist” narrative as a “geopolitical expert” on Sputnik and Russia Today. Piskorski was arrested by the Polish authorities in May 2016 allegedly on charges of espionage for Russia and China. Shortly after, the “Laundromat scandal” proved that the European Centre of Geopolitical Analysis (ECAG) led by Piskorski was – using money coming from Russia.

TACTICALLY BLIND, DEAF AND MUTE While Zmiana is rather an extreme case, the Polish Democratic Left Alliance’s be-haviour sums up the far-left’s paradoxical connection with Moscow. Leftist parties, even in the centre, are usually much less blatant about their support for the Krem-lin as compared to their far-right coun-terparts. Most European leftist parties rarely praise Putin or his regime openly. They call for “neutrality”, “peace” and the “stopping of western aggression” instead. The majority of European far-left parties showcase a double-edged strategy of rhe-torical self-containment and the denial of pro-Putinism with an almost uncon-ditional support of the Kremlin’s core geopolitical goals. While the far-right is rather vocal in its ideological pro-Pu-tinism, the left is deaf and blind to the perceived human rights violations and imperial ambitions of Russia, and mute when talking about these issues. But they lose their inhibition when it comes to criticising the West – especially the US, the EU and NATO for aggression and provoking conflicts.

Péter Krekó is the director of the Political Capital Institute, a Budapest-based Central European political research and consultancy firm.

Lóránt Győri is a geopolitical analyst at Political Capital.



Disinformation campaigns in the US are growing in

sophistication, and many across the Atlantic are learning the same tricks

FIRE AND BRIMSTONEThe Proliferation of Deception and Dread in Central Europe

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For most of us who don’t block or unfollow those with differing political opinions, our daily news-feeds are constantly being bombarded with spuri-ous stories of politicians from across the spectrum

engaged in a smorgasbord of conspiracies. The strategy is to overwhelm the reader, and the public at large, with as many arti-cles as possible on similar topics, so that the sheer number of pieces will convince people that there must be something truthful in them, after all where there’s smoke…there’s more smoke. The pur-pose is either to undermine established and reputable journalistic sources (many of which are producing a large number of credible, though controversial, articles) or to obfuscate the situation until no one is certain of what is real.

Take, for example, the early hours following the horrific Las Vegas shooting where 59 people died and over 500 were injured by a sole-gunman. Clearly nervous about a public cry for background checks and/or the implementation of meaningful gun legislation, alt-right and some right-wing news agencies flooded both Google and Facebook with fabricated stories that the gunman was a “liberal Democrat” who despised Donald Trump. It took only hours to disprove this fallacy because the Las Vegas Police Department had not released any information on the mass murderer, but during that time, enough articles had swamped the streams of those so keen to believe that gun violence isn’t caused by guns that the rest of the story was drowned out.

In today’s world, where there will be support for any sound or dubious po-sition wished to be held, discerning what information is trustworthy has become an

everyday skill we have all had to quickly adopt. Just as we were getting hold of this fake news debacle, we have reached the next stage of this propaganda strategy: judgment before publishing.

To see this plan in action, we can look back to last June when the western media world was caught in eager anticipa-tion of Megyn Kelly’s NBC interview with Alex Jones, the founder of Info Wars (if ever a show name was more appropriate for someone intent on disrupting coherent narratives and espousing, often violent, solutions to conspiracies so far-fetched they crossed over into the farcical realm long ago). The content of the interview was of less importance, as the ratings did indicate, than the perception of its “fair-ness” (if you tend towards conservative beliefs) or if it was “hard-hitting” enough (if you are more liberal leaning).

Apart from her previous journalistic sins and signs of bias, the critical response was that Kelly did a good job holding Jones accountable for some of his more outland-ish comments like when he claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre – where 26 people, mostly children, were killed by a gunman at a primary school – was staged by actors. Some though were wary of giv-ing Jones a larger audience to promote his ideas which can aid in the spreading of dis-trust and discontent in society.

Jones himself used the days before the interview to stoke the flames of his “theory” that he will never be treated well by mainstream media, echoing one of Trump’s favourite excuses of “misrep-resentation”; Trump himself has been a fan of Jones’ show, enough so to even call in and voice his support. Needless to say, most on the internet had already decided the interview’s value days before its airing, and this was the intended outcome, to skew minds.

TRANSLATING THE PARANOIAThe above is hardly surprising consider-ing all the recent tactics used to influence elections in Western Europe as well as the US, but the question at hand is if the same occurrence is happening in post-commu-nist societies?

The situation in Central Europe is trickier to diagnose because many far-right, nationalistic parties are currently in power and, a crucial difference from the US, they also control many of the main-stream media outlets.

A recent report by Robert Gorwa for the Oxford Internet Institute found that there has been a considerable in-crease in the use of political bots, trolling and fake accounts to amplify the propa-gation of fake news throughout Poland. What is more interesting is that, while the consequences of these operations can be extensive, the actual number of people dis-tributing this disinformation is incredibly small. Perhaps the critics worried about giving Alex Jones a bigger microphone were correct in their consternations.

A similar situation is playing out in neighbouring Czechia. There, a few small but popular sites of unknown ownership are peddling pro-Putin and anti-American material while spreading fear about immi-grants, refugees and Islam in general. But what has been the effect of these websites and yellow journalism on the Central European public?

According to GLOBSEC, two-thirds of Poland’s population do not be-lieve the media is presenting an accurate representation of reality. This can be mostly attributed to the same methods mentioned above, a barrage of stories each corroborating each other, but none worth their weight in salt, yet many also attrib-ute this to government control of many of the main media outlets. The situation has

GALAN DALL



gotten severe enough for the Czech gov-ernment to set up a task force to combat these disinformation campaigns.

This is a laudable step in the right di-rection, but as polls closed in late October, Andrej Babiš – the populist leader of the ANO party who has been on numerous occasions compared to Donald Trump (businessman-turned-politician) – is set to become the next Prime Minister of Czechia.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with a successful magnate turning to politics. However, his unique ace in the hole is control over the Mafra media group which includes the number two newspa-per (second only to the tabloid Blesk) and number three internet news portal in the region. What will happen if the task force above finds issue with something associat-ed with the likely future Prime Minister’s business handlings? A rather obvious po-tential conflict of interest is around the corner, and if there’s anything Czechia can learn from America, it is that potential threats become dangerous realities from one day to the next.

THE WOLF PLAYING SHEPHERDBut who is the Alex Jones of Central Eu-rope? Here we can look to Poland and the suspended-priest Jacek Międlar. He has given many anti-Semitic and Islam-ophobic speeches and is popular with right-wing groups on both his blog and Twitter account. Previously this year, as the Guardian reported, Międlar was held and refused entry into Britain on at least two instances, in both cases he was to speak at far-right rallies.

Międlar’s use of venom-filled rhet-oric on his blog, Twitter and Facebook page as well as his proclivity for inciting prejudice seemed to justify the authori-ties denying him entry in an apparent win

for proponents of tolerance; however, to those in his community (much like the Jones interview above), his removal from the UK is a feather in his cap; a true patriot and Christian oppressed by “liberals” and in his words “Jewish agents with British passports” (original in Polish: ”żydowscy agenci z brytyjskimi paszportami”) .

For people like Jones, Międlar, and even the current president of the US, re-porting factually what they have said is an act of misrepresentation worthy of retaliation.

This past September saw the un-veiling of some of the disinformation campaigns used in the past year when Facebook and Twitter released a trove of accounts – mostly run by Russian bots – which actively promoted Donald Trump for president. Instead of acting responsibly and attempting to secure the democracy he now leads by acknowledging these elec-toral assaults, Trump decided to exacer-bate the situation by attacking Facebook itself and the media outlets that covered the story.

As the fourth estate is far more en-trenched in the US and Western Europe, worries about these attacks on journal-ists and of deceitful reporting taking over without any oversight is less worrisome than in places like Central Europe where censorship was an unfortunate and unde-sirable but accepted way of life for many years. How easy it would be for it to return in the name of providing safety and secu-rity from the “tormenting evils” of open society.

The author is a journalist and editor based in Warsaw, Poland.

GALAN DALL

The situation in Central Europe is trickier to diagnose because many right-wing, nationalistic parties are currently in power and, a crucial difference from the US, they also control many of the mainstream media outlets.

15


What strategy does NATO have concern-ing this hybrid warfare?This is a very broad topic. Since 2014, NATO has developed and initiated a hy-brid strategy to deal with such threats. It encompasses many elements ranging from a better coordination of intelligence products, work on resilience of our insti-tutions and infrastructure, incorporating hybrid scenarios in our exercises, as well as cooperation with partner countries and the European Union.

NATO has 29 member states united by a collective defence pledge, forming a stable, permanent coalition that primari-ly looks after the security of its members.

Moving to the issue of your main in-terest, information policy as a dimension of our response to hybrid challenges, as is the case with other aspects, the first stage of our approach is analysis and situational awareness.

Comparing to where we were a few years ago, our awareness of, for example, how social media are used for aggressive aims of disinformation has improved a great deal. NATO’s situation awareness is an essential starting point because if we lack the tools to identify the problem, it is hard to devise optimum countermeas-ures against it.

The second question is what can be done in a particular situation. We, first of all, need to stick to our mandate and our principles. This means simply that NATO

does not answer disinformation or prop-aganda with its own propaganda or dis-information. We aim to present facts and our arguments in a dynamic way, using diverse platforms and tools. We do it via interaction with traditional media, but also through the internet and social media – see for example our “Setting the Record Straight” portal. But we also try to correct many “false facts or fake news” which target NATO and individual Allies – by engaging with journalists, opinion formers and ordinary people.

In the NATO family, there are many so called Centres of Excellence, and two with the highest public profiles are those which deal respectively with cyber secu-rity and with Strategic Communications. Both institutions help NATO and mem-ber states by undertaking research, running courses and workshops – real educational work.

This long-term effort does not hap-pen solely within NATO borders. The fact that Sweden, a non-NATO country, has already trained thousands of its civil servants on how to deal with the problem of disinformation shows that the threat has an international character. People who work in specific spheres are likely to face certain kinds of disinformation attacks, and if they are made aware of this then they will know how to react and would hopefully share their knowledge among their communities.

FROM TWEETS TO TANKS

About NATO’s complex approach to information challenges.

Are Poland and Central Europe taking part in informational warfare?If we take into consideration the coun-tries which are members of NATO, then they do not participate in any kind of war. It is true however that the security envi-ronment has changed significantly over the last few years, and therefore so has the context and terms we are using to de-scribe it. The elements of hybrid war like disinformation, cyber-attacks – these are not abstract terms, but very real threats and challenges. These tools are not used by the NATO states foffensive purposes, but such actions or elements can be at-tributed to the Russian Federation or the Islamic State.

One such operation was the Crimean occupation in 2014 where we could see – for the first time in modern history – the “little green men” being em-ployed on a large scale. We all know who they were and what they did, so let’s not forget that their first acts involved taking over and occupying local media centres. There was also a disinformation cam-paign, and a military exercise seemingly used as a decoy which preceded the op-eration in Crimea. So, the answer from the Allied side is no, we do not engage in information warfare, but if we talk about the negative and aggressive actions in the informational sphere, then there is plenty of evidence to suggest that others may see it differently.

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT PSZCZEL, SENIOR OFFICER FOR RUSSIA AND THE WESTERN BALKANS, PUBLIC DIPLOMACY DIVISION, NATO HQ (FORMER DIRECTOR

OF NATO INFORMATION OFFICE IN MOSCOW)



One paradoxical advantage we have in NATO is that we have been the target of disinformation for many years, only the methods have changed some-what. Recognizing this, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division (PDD) and other NATO representatives and experts are very active in organising and participating in a variety of seminars and conferences, debating both cyber and disinformation threats (which often go together). These topics also come up high on the list of issues discussed with parliamentarians from all member states. This last point is crucial if we are to contribute to long-term solutions, such as for example me-dia literacy projects.

International cooperation is essen-tial. It is not a coincidence that among the 42 areas which were collectively defined as priorities for joint work by the EU and NATO, one of the first agreed items was disinformation.

Recently, there was the ceremonial opening of the Helsinki Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. While es-tablished under the EU aegis, this Centre has close links to NATO. The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, stand-

ing next to the EU’s Federica Mogherini, described hybrid threats as “a combination of covert and overt operations and meas-ures: everything from propaganda, from disinformation to actually the use of regular forces – from tweets to tanks.”

Returning to the challenges posed by Russia, it is interesting to compare our agendas and thus approaches. For NATO a “comprehensive approach” is a concept which aims to ensure synergy of different kinds of resources – civilian, military and Strategic Communications – in order to as-sure stability. To illustrate: for many years now, we have been working in order to sta-bilise Afghanistan. We know that ensuring security is an essential task. Without secu-rity there can be no development. But sta-ble institutions, rule of law, support of the local population and economic prospects are in turn factors without which long-term security will not be guaranteed.

Unfortunately one gets an impres-sion that from the Russian perspective, a hybrid approach applied in many regions in Europe and beyond is serving a very different purpose which has more to do with destabilisation. For example, we are well aware that 2/3 of negative online comments on social media about NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence (bringing many Allied troops to the Baltic States and Poland) are generated by Russian online accounts operated by bots. And these comments have nothing to do with the real debate, with transparency and the truth: they aim to denigrate, under-mine our governments, distract soldiers and destabilise the region.

Does Poland at all need to be ready to react and resist such kind of threats? What is the priority action for Poland?On the one side, the Polish society is very resistant towards any misinformation campaigns directed by foreign countries. It is not easy to persuade Poles in believ-ing something which is not true as they have a high level of awareness following years of communist propaganda. On the other hand, there is no state, including Poland, which can ignore fully well fi-nanced disinformation operations, some of them devised on individual basis and targeting specific recipients.

One hears of plans of the Polish MOD to create a centre to deal with cyber threats. This certainly sounds like a very good idea, a route taken by other allies too. But one should also take into account that potential opponents are always improving their methods, and they are not stingy with resources, so our approach should be a comprehensive one, using a mixture of military and civilian capabilities and insti-tutions, at both the state and local level.

A good example of work in this do-main was a conference (co-sponsored by PDD) on hybrid threats hosted in Szczecin in October. It brought together represent-atives from the Polish parliament, aca-demia, the military, business and media. There were a lot of presentations and dis-cussions on policies, best practices from divergent experiences: ranging from crisis management systems at a city level to air-port security. But participants could also take part in a specialised workshop where business expertise was shared on practical solutions to improving security of cyber space, e.g. on protection from hackers’ at-tacks – which is badly needed today.

Not only NATO and the EU should act but also on more local levels there should be coordinated actions. This is a very long-term process when it comes to such measures as raising awareness of citizens of dangers of hybrid threats and disinforma-tion, as teaching university students, im-proving resilience of critical infrastructure or honing the role of military forces. There are many good experts in Poland and their expertise should be fully utilised. But other states, including those among the Visegrad Four, have a lot of very useful experience, be it on the government level or non-govern-mental organisations. So, it is very impor-tant to share our knowledge, our experience and available tools among states, organisa-tions and ordinary citizens.

17


Illus

tratio

n: P

aweł

Kuc

zyńs

ki

WHAT ARE MEDIA CONSUMPTION TRENDS IN V4

3 takeaways from the CANNUAL report for V4 publishers and editors:

weCAN ranking 2017

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX

GDP PER CAPITA INDEX

COUNTRY AD SPENDING PER CAPITA

weCAN RANKING

CZ — 0.878 CZ — 16,700 CZ — 119 CZ — 0.71%

PL — 0.855 SK — 14,900 HU — 59 PL — 0.52%

SK — 0.845 HU — 11,500 SK — 59 HU — 0.52%

HU — 0.836 PL — 11,000 PL — 58 SK — 0.39%

RO — 0.802 RO — 8,600 RO — 17 RO — 0.18%

USA — 1.09%

UK — 0.99%

DE — 0.62%

weCAN Ranking – a new tool for understanding prospects for advertising marked in CEE

The weCAN ranking is an index that shows the percentage of the ad spending per capita within a country’s nominal GDP. We calculated both baseline data (GDP per capita and ad spending per capita) using the number of population older than 14 to ensure that the basis of the calculation only includes advertising target groups with independent purchasing power. The WeCAN ranking reveals whether the advertising market as an economic sector is stronger or weaker than what the overall economic performance of a country would suggest.

The following data was provided by the weCAN network and compiled from three CANNUAL reports, the most recent of which was released in October 2017. The network was formed by strong and successful independent agencies of Central and Eastern Europe. Created in 2010 by the Hungarian full service agency Café Communications, weCAN covers 16 countries from Estonia to Bulgaria and from Slovenia to Russia.

It attempts to estimate the economic importance of their advertising market. Selected countries.

Advertisement market already knows which

media are followed and generate value

Set your revenue strategy around digital advertising. This sector is rapidly growing and has a potential to be a larger part of the economy than in Germany and many other EU countries.

Content marketing is more important than simple ads. The digital sector is booming in V4 and has generated a high demand for digital content.

You have 3 seconds to go mobile. The biggest growth in the digital sector is in the area of mobile devices. In this medium, the attention span is dramatically short though

1

2

3

source: Cannual 2017 Report


ECONOMY SOCIAL MEDIA

Trends in advertising pie in Visegrad Countries

Share of advertising budgets for different type of media Note: Hungarian numbers are unexpectedly high with advertisement campaigns 2014–2016,

2014 2015 2016

Czech

TV 29% 29% 31%

Digital 47% 48% 45%

Press 13% 13% 15%

Radio 5% 4% 4%

Hungary

TV 31% 31% 30%

Digital 30% 33% 37%

Press 21% 19% 17%

Radio 6% 5% 5%

Poland

TV 47% 44% 43%

Digital 31% 35% 38%

Press 9% 8% 6%

Radio 7% 7% 7%

Slovakia

TV 46% 44% 41%

Digital 28% 32% 39%

Press 13% 12% 9%

Radio 5% 5% 4%

HU

PL

CZ

SK

Online ad spending/capita Internet penetration

Internet penetration in the region online & ad spending per capita (EUR)

82%

75%73% 69%

78%79%

66%69%

74%

62% 62%67% 67%

74%

40.000 90%

35.000 80%

30.000 70%

25.000 60%

20.000 50%

15.000 40%

10.000 30%

5.000 10%

0 0%CZ PL HU SK SL EE RU LV LI HR BG RO RS UKR

34,29

15,89 15,68 15,10

11,26 11,239,13

5,214,16 3,97

3,33 2,97 2,66 2,28

19

SOCIAL MEDIA ECONOMY

Public opinion data is crucial to understand-ing how and why disinformation is gaining ground.

A recent series of public opinion surveys by the International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries and Germany revealed fascinating insights into areas of vulnerability and resil-

ience to Russian disinformation. The polls were commissioned by IRI’s Beacon Project, an initiative that equips European stakeholders with the tools to counter Russian meddling and protect European democracy from the corrosive effects of disinformation.

MIRIAM LEXMANN

There’s no shortage of Russian “fake news” stories, “troll factories” and “disinformation” across the media, yet the understanding of how this affects populations in Europe remains relatively unsophisticated. It’s clear that there’s a problem, but less clear what can be done about it.

More Vulnerable to Disinformation than You Might Think

The



“ALTERNATIVE” MEDIA

Those who think media is unbiased

Those who get most of their news from state broadcasters

Those who get most of their news from online sources

Those who read or watch “alternative” media sources Every Day or Occasionally

Those who Never read or watch “alternative” media

Those who read “alternative” media & say they do so because it is “fun and exciting”

V4

44%

33%

V4

57%

33%

V4

11%

23%

V4

14%

31%

V4

75%

50%

V4

16%

25%

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

HUNGARY: Overall

Among those who think media is unbiased

Among those who think media is biased

SLOVAKIA: Overall

42% 48%

20% 64%

40% 59%



49% 51%

28% 72%

CZECH: Overall 53% 45%



59% 40%

37% 59%

POLAND: Overall 31% 58%



50% 37%

16% 78%

GERMANY: Overall 42% 54%



47% 51%

33% 61%

Correlation between trust in media and perceptions on the state of the country, outlook on the future (using right track / wrong track as a proxy).

38% 50%

source: The Center for Insights in Survey Research (a project of International Republican Institute), Ipsos country offices in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Germany, 2017.

Face-to-face interviews, samples: 1,016 in the Czech Republic; 1,024 in Slovakia; 1,000 in Hungary; 1,020 in Poland; 1,630 in Germany







V4

44%

33%

V4

57%

33%

V4

11%

23%

V4

14%

31%

V4

75%

50%

V4

16%

25%

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

HUNGARY: Overall



SLOVAKIA: Overall

42% 48%

20% 64%

40% 59%



49% 51%

28% 72%




59% 40%

37% 59%




50% 37%

16% 78%




47% 51%

33% 61%


38% 50%







V4

44%

33%

V4

57%

33%

V4

11%

23%

V4

14%

31%

V4

75%

50%

V4

16%

25%

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

Germany

HUNGARY: Overall



SLOVAKIA: Overall

42% 48%

20% 64%

40% 59%



49% 51%

28% 72%




59% 40%

37% 59%




50% 37%

16% 78%




47% 51%

33% 61%


38% 50%

21

SOCIAL MEDIA ECONOMY

More than 4,000 respondents from the V4 responded to questions includ-ing their views on Russia, the European Union and Euro-Atlantic institutions. The research also studied citizens’ atti-tudes toward media and revealed inter-esting correlations between public trust in media and patterns of consumption—hinting at why alternative media may have an outsized effect in some countries and segments of the population. On this point, the results of the V4 polls differed significantly from the survey of German public opinion, the latter of which ap-peared more resistant to disinformation.

According to the polls, citizens of V4 countries have limited trust in main-stream media outlets. It is true that sig-nificant minorities say their media is “professional and unbiased” (ranging from 27% in Poland to 38% in Slovakia), and a larger share says the media “tries to be unbiased” but that their biases af-fect their coverage (ranging from 36% in Poland to 46% in Czech Republic). But roughly 25% of respondents believe the media is totally biased—a sentiment which appears to correlate with nega-tive views of the country’s trajectory. Respondents who felt that the media is “biased” are much more likely to say the country is on the wrong track or that young people do not have a good future in the country. While such a correlation does not in itself indicate a susceptibility to disinformation, it does suggest a poten-tially vulnerable target.

The polls also reveal interest-ing insights into the manner in which non-mainstream or “alternative” media spreads and becomes influential. When respondents were asked how they learn about major news stories and who they trust to inform them about what is go-ing on, a significant proportion reported that they relied on “friends and family” for their news rather than to traditional media (27% in Poland; 36% in the Czech

Republic; and a shocking 45% in Slovakia) – heightening the risk that people are consuming inaccurate information fil-tered by the biases of their social net-work. A sizeable minority also report reading alternative media (from 21% in Hungary to 30% in the Czech Republic) because it is more “fun and exciting” than traditional stories.

Thus, social media is likely to trans-mit the most “entertaining” news rather than the most accurate news, and deliver that news to “friends and family” who are likely to trust the source more than they do mainstream media. Here is one expla-nation why alternative media messages “stick” better than some higher quality, fact-checked stories.

In contrast to the V4, Germans ex-pressed far greater trust in mainstream media sources. 44% of Germans believe the media is “unbiased” and only 19% believe it is biased. Germans also turn to state media for their news at a much high-er rate than residents of the V4 (57% in Germany compared to around one-third in the V4 countries), and fewer Germans consume alternative media (just 25% of Germans compared to between 39% and 55% of V4 citizens), and only 16% of the few Germans who read alternative me-dia do so because it is “fun”, entertaining or sensational. Additionally, only 11% of Germans report consuming news from social media (as opposed to a quarter of V4 respondents).

The results of the V4 polls certainly raise questions about the vulnerabilities to disinformation in these societies, and reinforce a fear that this will stoke a rise of extremist sentiments and some fear that this will stoke extremist sentiments that play into the Kremlin’s hands. In designing appropriate policy and civic responses to these challenges, it would be unwise to blame those who are vic-tims of long-term and very well-tar-geted disinformation efforts and those

whose concerns and fears are not being addressed by the mainstream political leaders. Both foreign and domestic actors have been using disinformation to erode the still fragile democratic structures in post-communist states for at least a dec-ade. Such tactics—designed to exacerbate divisions and weaken democratic struc-tures and alliances—are a longstanding component of the Kremlin’s tradecraft, dating to the earliest days of the Soviet Union. Yet this challenge did not begin to receive the attention it deserves from either the EU or the wider international community until relatively recently.

Any effective response to these com-plex phenomena—many of which share similarities across countries but have different triggers depending on individ-ual circumstances—must be informed by targeted research that identifies vulnera-bilities, tactics and sources of resilience to disinformation. In 1971, Zygmunt Nagorski observed that “Frustration and doubts are the prime targets for Soviet propaganda, and simplification is their instrument.” The same is true for Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin; it has always been the nucleus for any totalitarian re-gime in the country. It is vital that pol-iticians understand the frustrations and fears of their voters and craft policies that take these views on board, as disin-formation thrives when populations feel disaffected and disconnected from their political representatives.

The author is a former Slovak diplomat and cur-rently the EU Program Director for the Interna-tional Republican Institute, where she oversees the Institute’s Beacon Project – an initiative ded-icated to documenting, analysing and combat-ting disinformation and Russian soft-power and their erosive impacts on European democracies.



MEDIA,

The section was prepared in cooperation with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V., Office Prague.The opinions expressed in the contributions are those of the authors and do not reflect the

positions of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

& POWER 23

MEDIA POPULISM & POWER

Once summer ends, we’re coming after you” – this is what the MP Krystyna Pawlowicz from the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party told one journalist from the

most popular private news websites in Poland.

Since that time, all news reporters in Warsaw have been waiting for this new proposed law that will affect private, non-Polish media outlets. This right-wing government has, for more than a year, subordinated public media – not only disturbing public television and ra-dio but also the press agency PAP. The management has been replaced by loyal sycophants, journalists have also been made redundant and many of those who have stayed work in conditions similar to those under communism; their coverage being restricted to that which follows the party narrative.

Though there’s no official state cen-sorship, the pro-government propaganda and auto-censorship is simply the new communication strategy from the public media outlets. Concisely, the meaning of “being objective” has just been redefined. Is this what PiS wants to do with the pri-vate outlets?

The party’s politicians say that for-eign-owned media in Poland is a mo-nopoly. That’s the reason why the new

law is to decrease and limit non-Polish ownership. Jaroslaw Kaczynski – the de facto leader of PiS and hence the govern-ment – said this “de-concentration” law was “good for Poland and good for the citizens”.

The Swiss-German Ringier Axel Springer Media (the owner of onet.pl website, “Fakt” {the most popular daily} and the Polish edition of Newsweek) as well as the Bauer Media Group, Burda, the American Scripps Network and the Discovery Network (the owner of TVN, which broadcasts “Fakty” – an inde-pendent and popular news program) – all of them are at risk. And the extent of this risk is not yet known because the de-concentration act’s details have been discussed but are not to be officially pre-sented until mid-October. The media speculate that the level of foreign own-ership will not be allowed to exceed 20%, or perhaps even 15%. To acquire such a shareholding structure, the state funds – directly or indirectly – will buy a large stake in non-compliant firms.

Freedom House has already ex-pressed its concern over the activities of the ruling party in Poland. Poland was assessed as a country following high standards of journalism and caring for the freedom of speech. The “Freedom of the Press 2017” report describes Poland as a “partly free country”, marking it with the colour of warning, yellow. This same yellow colour was also given to Hungary.

DANUTA DOBRZYŃSKA-SCHIMMER

There have been many loud warnings for the fourth estate among the Visegrad countries, but whether they will lead to action is yet to be seen.

the CASSANDRA CURSE


POPULISM & POWER MEDIA

Neither of these ratings are surprising – a Hungarian model of governance is the role model for Jarosław Kaczyński (a con-cept he expressed in many interviews).

The Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán controls regional papers through his close, informal advisors and friends. Quite recently, the last independ-ent titles were bought by loyal oligarchs. This media business is the only one bring-ing in profits, and at the same time, the press is very influential in the province, an important tool for the ruling party, Fidesz. Earlier, the Hungarian Parliament created new media controlling struc-tures, allowing them to impose a penal-ty for “non-objective, politically biased” publications. The fine can reach €700,000 while public media are financed directly from the budget.

In the aforementioned report, Czechia and Slovakia are green islands of freedom. In Czechia, tv stations are the most influential – the public Česká Televize and private Nova lead the mar-ket. The public one is perceived as objec-tive, not supporting any political party. Both compete in the news, but the private broadcasts a more infotainment variety.

In 2005, Česka Televize created CT24 the first news channel in the coun-try. The number of Czech daily press readers is declining though newspapers still matter to the politicians, because they are aware of the press’ impact on the voters. This is one reason for the huge

popularity of Andrej Babiš, the owner of the “Mlada Fronta Dnes” daily. He is one of the richest Czechs; he is also a hero of political scandal. Political instruc-tions given by him to a journalist of his daily has been recorded and published. However, this incident did not ruin his political career; he is still a serious can-didate for prime minister. But even if this populist politician will rule in Prague, it is no reason to expect that the Polish and Hungarian way of media controlling is possible in Czechia in the near future.

The Slovak history is riddled with cases of populist governments putting pressure on the media, but the independ-ent press has survived. The most impor-tant in the last years was the founding of Dennik N – a news website created by editors and journalists who wanted it to be independent from the influen-tial Penta group. Penta and J&T control a large number of media outlets and the history of both companies is murky. Penta was a sponsor of the foundation led by Robert Fico, the records published in 2011 showed evidence not only of the Penta owner’s friendship with politicians but it also pointed to the illegal winning of state tenders. Last year, Prime Minister Robert Fico called reporters “dirty, an-ti-Slovak prostitutes”, and this year he ac-cused a public TV station of supporting the opposition.

The Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak media markets are each unique,

and understanding the media’s role in the countries, a task similar to compre-hending their political interests, requires a nuanced perspective. However, Warsaw is pressing the other Visegrad Group’s governments to create a common tele-vision project. The Polish public broad-caster (TVP) has started to promote Visegrad TV, but the Czech and Slovak governments have decided not to join it. “V4TV’s” grand opening is planned to launch in November, 2018.

The Polish and Hungarian public stations have declared that they work together to broadcast material for the network. Orban’s and Kaczynski’s narra-tive (political propaganda) looks similar, but their foreign policy is defined in to-tally different ways. Viktor Orban is get-ting closer and closer to Vladimir Putin. Jaroslaw Kaczynski is convinced that the Kremlin is behind his brother’s death, a tragic plane crash in Smolensk which claimed many lives. Of course, Kaczynski profits from Orban’s achievements in controlling the press, but this could be the last benefit – right before the broth-erhood ends.

The author is a Polish broadcast and print jour-nalist and project manager of New Europe 100.

DANUTA DOBRZYŃSKA-SCHIMMER

of CENTRAL EUROPE

25


THE CZECH ELECTIONS

AND THE FUTURE OF MEDIA

INDEPENDENCE

In the immediate aftermath of the Czech Parliamenta-ry elections (20-21 October 2017) which witnessed a stunning success for anti-system parties – led by the populist ANO movement that claimed nearly 30% of the vote – many commentators have forecasted dark clouds gathering on the horizon of Czech democracy. However, even the most pessimistic ones probably did not expect that just a couple of days after the closing

of the polling stations, one of the key democratic institutions would become a target of open attack.

The dust from the campaign battle had barely settled when Tomio Okamura, the Chairman of the radical right-wing Party for Direct Democracy (SPD), which received 11% of the vote and which many have seen as a potential coalition partner for ANO, publicly called for bringing the public service media, Czech television and Czech radio, under direct state control.

The mere idea was certainly nothing new; after all, it was part of SPD’s election manifesto. It was rather the way the plan was presented – shouting angrily at a journalist during a live interview on Czech Radio, following a question about his finan-cial scandals – that sent shivers down the spine of anybody who cherishes the concept of politically independent public service media and who is, at the same time, familiar with the fate of these institutions in other countries of the Visegrad region.

A FORECAST FOR STORMY

WEATHER

VÁCLAV ŠTĚTKA



While the Czech public service TV and radio have long maintained a reputation of keeping a reasonable level of autonomy from the government of the day – measured, of course, by Central and Eastern European standards – the prospect of them following the path of their counterparts in Hungary and Poland has become suddenly and disturbingly realistic after the October elections. For it is not just Okamura and his EU- and refugee-bashing followers, emboldened by their surprising election success, who they have to fear now. Andrej Babiš, the leader of ANO and the most likely contender for Prime Minister, has not exactly been known as a friend of public service media either.

Having publicly criticised the Czech television for an alleged bias against himself and his company Agrofert – the source of his estimated $3.4bn wealth – he proceeded to is-sue a formal complaint against the TV station to the Czech Broadcasting Council earlier this year, while publicly calling the station’s reporters “corrupt vermin”. Babiš has hinted more than once that the idea of nationalising Czech television is cer-tainly not alien to him, and his first steps after being declared the winner of the 2017 elections reinforced the fears that he might want to retaliate against the broadcaster for its investi-gative reporting about his business affairs, particularly about the financing of his holiday resort “Stork’s Nest” which is cur-rently under police investigation.

Instead of joining the other parties’ leaders for a tradi-tional post-election late night debate on Czech television, he opted for a solo appearance on TV Barrandov, where he gave a triumphant interview to the station’s owner, Jaromír Soukup. Snubbing Czech TV on the election night was broadly viewed not just as his attempt to seek exclusive airtime, rather than sharing the podium with the nine other party leaders, but also as a symbolic gesture, demonstrating his discontent for the public service broadcaster and breaking its status as the tradi-tionally hegemonic provider of post-election coverage.

There are good reasons to believe that even if the des-ignated Czech Prime Minister will not take steps to strip the broadcasters of their formal independence, his mere threats to potentially do so – loudly supported by the extremists from SPD as well as other political actors, including President Miloš Zeman – will be enough to put pressure on the public service media, so they tone down on criticism and practice a similar kind of self-censorship that his own media, especially the dai-lies Mladá fronta DNES and Lidové noviny, have been repeat-edly accused of ever since he purchased them in 2013.

Some argue that this has already begun – and that spe-cifically Czech radio has been cosying up to Babiš a little too much before the elections, in an apparent attempt to keep the spectre of nationalisation and direct state control at bay. After all, the examples from Hungary and Poland where pub-lic service – now state – media has become no more than government mouthpieces; a worrying augur for their Czech counterpart.

However, Andrej Babiš’s appetite for control of the news media environment – already well indicated by his ownership of the biggest media house in the country, Mafra – might not stop at taming the pesky public service broadcasters. In September, business news servers showed that the leading Czech commercial television station, TV Nova, is for sale. The owner, the U.S.-based CME (itself partly owned by Time Warner), has already sold two links in its chain of Central

and Eastern European acquisitions – Slovenian Pop TV and Croatian Nova TV – to the American investment fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in July for €230m Following that, other stations in CME’s possessions will allegedly follow suit, including Slovak TV Markíza as well as stations in Bulgaria and Romania.

This commercially lucrative bundle has allegedly attract-ed several powerful bidders from regional business tycoons: Petr Kellner, the richest Czech who already has had ownership experience with TV Nova from the 2000s, and who has been developing telecommunication and media business under the brand O2; the Slovak investment company Penta that owns a chain of local daily newspapers in the Czech Republic and half of the shares in the Slovak publishing house Petit Press; and – none other than Andrej Babiš. Even though his interest has not yet been confirmed, such an acquisition would correspond well with his media purchasing strategies (always going for the market leader) and would complete the ring of his media outlets, already containing two national newspapers, a chain of local street papers, the Nr1 commercial radio station and the most visited online news server.

A television station – especially one with the highest audience shares on the market – would certainly be a fitting jewel on the crown for the biggest media mogul in the coun-try (and possibly the region) which this purchase would un-doubtedly secure for him. The fact that he is not an official owner anymore, as he was recently forced to place his Agrofert holding (including its media divisions) into an independently managed trust fund for the time of his involvement in politics, would hardly change anything on this status and his ability to influence these media outlets. There would be no regulatory barriers either, as there are no laws prohibiting this kind of cross-media concentration in the Czech Republic.

It is, of course, too soon to predict the likelihood of such a scenario, as it might take many months before any deal is announced, and there is no guarantee that Babiš would emerge victorious out from this battle of business giants. Nevertheless, combined with the pressures on public service broadcasters, including explicit plans for their nationalisation, it is difficult not to picture this business opportunity for the future Prime Minister as a “perfect storm”; one which could potentially wash away some of the last remaining islands of independence on the mainstream media market. We can only hope it won’t come to that, especially knowing that just like with weather forecasts, gloomy political predictions often end up way off the mark.

The author is a lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Lough-borough University.

27


Népszabadság had started out as the state mouthpiece un-der communism but turned into a quality political daily follow-ing its privatisation in the early nineties.

For many years, it was a newspaper that depicted as well as represented the sta-tus quo of politics in Central Europe. It published articles on day-to-day events that were reassuring yet a little bit bland and boring; it ran op-eds by intellectuals emphasizing the importance of catch-ing up to the “West,” and it operated in a media sphere dominated by left-liberal voices. Above all, it helped broadcast the elite consensus of the day that there is no alternative to the policies implemented—characterising those policies often not as “good” but rather “necessary.”

As Ivan Krastev and others have ar-gued, this meant taking the politics out of the politics in the region, which in turn helped prepare the ground for the even-tual, angry return of ideologies, mostly those of nationalism and reactionary conservatism.

Now that politics is back with a vengeance in Central Europe, the media are no longer independent observers ei-ther. They are tools in a political fight and, more often, convenient enemies for pow-er-hungry populist leaders.

This phenomenon is most visible in Hungary but present in all countries across the region. Following successful privatisations in the 90s, the heyday of the media was in the early 2000s when the market was profitable enough to sustain a plethora of outlets. This, however, did not last long. While the departure of foreign owners after the 2008 global economic crisis was not completely unexpected, it had far-reaching consequences. Just as in-vestors started selling their shares, the old business model came crashing down, giv-ing way to the uncertainty of online jour-nalism and ridding papers of any hope of profitability in the foreseeable future.

This period—besides laying bare globally the media’s inability to adapt to the new situation—revealed problems locally that had not been visible earlier. Similar to other institutions in Central Europe’s newly built democracies, such as the judiciary or civil society, the press had fulfilled its functions reasonably well by the early 2000s. Yet, it became clear when the good times ended that it lacked the firm support of society and that low pay along with increasingly uncertain work-ing conditions have destroyed solidarity among journalists. While there were pro-tests and expressions of camaraderie after the closure of Népszabadság, they quickly died down, and on the first anniversary of the event only a few dozen people gath-ered to demonstrate in Budapest.

It is exactly a year ago this October that the journalists of Népszabadság, Hungary’s most-read political daily, announced that they had had to close shop. The story of the paper and its eventual demise serve as the perfect parable, as well as a timely warning, for the state of the media in Central Europe.

ZSELYKE CSAKY

MEDIA IN CENTRAL EUROPE

From Independent Observer to Political Tool and the New Enemy



Just like civil society—a significant percentage of which has relied on exter-nal grants and has developed weak con-nections with local groups and actors (the reasons for this are complex and go beyond the scope of this article)—the media increasingly serve as easy and convenient targets for populist govern-ments. Political parties, which are also poorly embedded in society in the re-gion, with practically non-existent and inactive membership, have tried to co-opt and capture media outlets from the very beginning. Yet, these attempts have grown in frequency and have become more aggressive recently, as the collapse of the old business model has provided an opening and as governments in the re-gion are gradually turning illiberal.

In Freedom House’s annual reports, this process is reflected in a series of first slow but later accelerating declines. In Freedom of the Press, which is a global survey focusing on the media, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all suffered declines in the past decade, with Hungary and Poland dropping by double-digits. In Nations in Transit, which evaluates democratic governance in Central Europe and Eurasia, independ-ent media in the region has deteriorated more sharply than any other indicator, including corruption.

The capture of the media by inter-ests other than the public interest is very visible in the Czech Republic, where the country’s richest businessman, who also

owns a significant share of the media market, has just won elections. Andrej Babiš’ 2013 acquisition of Mafra, the most influential press group in the coun-try, was a watershed moment for Czech media. It came following the departure of German investors and was comple-mented by other local oligarchs buying outlets. A similar process, with less polit-ical involvement, has also taken place in Slovakia. These investments were hardly profitable at the time; their real value was in furthering the oligarch’s other business interests. We could observe this in action already during the election campaign—scandals connected to Babis’ businesses made it to the first page of all papers, ex-cept for the ones owned by Babis himself.

The press has been less of an easy target in Poland, where the size of the market has so far largely guaranteed the independence and profitability of out-lets. Yet, the Law and Justice (PiS) party has already turned the public media into a propaganda arm for the government and is intent on destroying private me-dia critical of its actions. It has deprived several outlets of advertising funding and is working on a draft that would break the back of critical outlets by drastically limiting foreign ownership. Besides such plans, the government is not hiding its deep hostility toward the press; over the summer, the defence minister threatened to launch criminal proceedings against a journalist who had written about alleged links between a minister and the Kremlin.

But the country where the media are both used as a tool and are gradually being turned into an enemy is Hungary. Nearing its eighth year in power and cer-tain to be re-elected next year, the govern-ing Fidesz party has not only overhauled the legal framework, it has also overtaken the media market through sheer political will. With a subdued and weak opposi-tion ahead of the elections, it is running out of enemies to blame and—besides George Soros and NGOs—is increasingly targeting journalists. This summer, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s regular Baile Tusnad speech identified “Soros support-ed” media as the next target. Since then, smear campaigns have started to spread and some have even claimed the country’s “foreign agents” legislation should be used to crack down on the press.

If we accept that Hungary is ahead of the curve in the region, there is plen-ty to worry about. The foundations for a truly independent press were never really present in Central Europe, and the past few years’ structural transformation as well as changes in consumption habits have put the media in a very vulnerable position. Now, with populist and illiberal voices on the march, the fate of the press seems to depend only on the goodwill of politicians. For the future of the region, that is certainly not the place where we want to be.

The author is a senior researcher for Nations in Transit by Freedom House.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS SCORES

CZ

2007

182008

2009

2010

2011

192012

2013

2014 20

2015

212016

2017

PL

2007 22

2008

242009

2010

201125

2012

2013 26

2014 27

2015 26

2016 28

2017 34

SK

2007 20

2008 22

2009 23

201022

2011

2012 21

2013 22

2014 23

2015 24

2016 24

2017 26

HU

2007

212008

2009

2010 23

2011 30

201236

2013

2014 35

2015 37

2016 40

2017 44

29


This autumn, the media world in Warsaw and those tangentially connected have been anxious to see if the government will implement the hinted at restructuring of the industry.

THE SHADOW OVER MEDIA

THE SHADOW OVER MEDIA



Journalists, media executives, mediators, political scien-tists, politicians, diplomats, the advertising industry and even big business are dis-cussing only one issue: will it happen or will it not?

If the answer is yes, then how, when, and what are the costs? That fever caused a discussion of the so-called deconstruction of the market for private newspapers, radio stations and big web portals, which have so far developed thanks to the unrestrained power of the free market.

The media has ignited a conscien-tious segment of society though to a less-er extent than in the past summer when the independence of the judiciary was at risk. At that time, dozens of thousands of people spontaneously went out into the streets of Polish cities. They did not, nec-essarily, go to defend the existing system of the courts. Even though the courts in Poland have never worked well – cas-es last too long, judges are drowning in paperwork – they are still free. People, however, recognised that even being far from perfect, the courts and judges must be protected from the direct, ideologised control of politicians.

Similarly intense, but more diver-sified, emotions are being projected to-wards the media. There are voices that even object to the general state of media believing that they are of poor quality, po-larised and increasingly staffed with in-experienced journalists. Commercials are being mixed in with the journalistic mis-sion, advertisements are pretending to be serious articles and fake news is being presented as fact. Playing to the basest of our emotions, sensational journalism has become the headlines and main stories of the day, replacing the well-researched pieces which had been the norm. And

all those issues are immersed in a deep and dense political environment: you are either for the current government (PiS) or against it. There is no third option, the shades of grey have almost been com-pletely erased.

Firstly, the PiS authorities took over the public media. Those which af-ter 1989 were the loots of the successive government teams. PiS did the same as all predecessors – but they did it to a much larger extent, far more brutally and with-out any hesitation. Today, a large segment of the population has been sentenced to public electronic media consumption (in many parts of Poland it is the only option) where they get large, and repetitive doses of propaganda, which follows closely the rule of law under the Polish People’s Republic and other totalitarian regimes. It is not journalists but political officers who are responsible for the public media in Poland.

The so-called truth does not seem to matter anymore, it may even become harmful. The government is telling the people that it has the well-being of the Poles in mind while others (the oppo-sition, intellectuals, the cultural world, Germany, the European Union, NGOs) are trying to harm the Polish people and, thus, the government is demonising any-one who opposes them.

This became the tipping point where the party that governs Warsaw could not stop. The government, whose primary focus is the concentration of power in all areas of public life, has now turned their “Sauron’s eye” towards the private media. Taking a page from a fel-low Central European with totalitarian aspirations, Jarosław Kaczyński is using Viktor Orbán as the source and inspira-tion for this latest power grab as Orban was able to successfully put the media under his shoe in Hungary.

MICHAŁ KOBOSKO

31


In fact, independent private media in Poland are easy targets because of their ownership structure. Bauer, Axel Springer (now the Swiss-German Ringier Axel Springer joint-venture) and Polska Press (Passauer Neue Press) play the biggest role in the printed press and internet markets. American programming is the most pop-ular in the television market (Discovery holds the largest private television) while the French have a command over the radio market. The issue of the ownership by for-eign shareholders both helps and harms the media.

In times when nationalist and xe-nophobic tendencies are increasing, it is easy to criticise “foreigners” for their will-ingness to influence the domestic issues

of Poland. Some of the most susceptible are the German media groups who are accused of “intervening in Polish inter-nal affairs” because many are critical of the current Polish government. These groups are presented as even wanting a coup d’etat and are painted as generally anti-Polish and, therefore, hostiles.

Exactly the same narrative took place from 2005-7 when PiS was first in power. At that time, the party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski was much weaker and did not manage to bring their plans into reality. Today it is much stronger, its support reaching 50% in some polls. This is why PiS feels empowered to launch a revolu-tion against the media.

FIRST OF ALL, THE COUNTRIES POLAND IS REFERRING TO HAVE HAD THESE RULES FOR DECADES, AND IT HAS BECOME PART OF THEIR TRADITION



Their first step was taking away funding (the ad sales and newspapers subscriptions), which had come from companies and state institutions. The second step was the “repolonisation of the media”: an operation to increase the share of Polish capital in the media – which is parallel to what they did in the banking sector. PiS ultimately (which is plus!) departed from the repolonisation rhetoric and has now replaced it with “de-concentration”: a process that, according to official statements, would lead to in-creased pluralism in the market, wider media ownership and a greater variation of content providers. Here, to justify their actions, PiS refers to trends from the larg-est EU countries.

“We do not do anything different than the French and Germans. They also limited the ceiling of market shares in the media and did not let foreign broadcast-ers and publishers in,” PiS authors say. This is partially true, but they are mis-representing the situation dramatically.

First of all, the countries Poland is referring to have had these rules for de-cades, and it has become part of their tradition. These rules were created when the media market was just taking shape, in the aftermath of the World War II and as part of the creation of new Europe. The history of Poland – decades spent behind the Iron Curtain, with a fully functioning system of political censorship – is very different. Foreign investors entered the Polish media market when there was a lack of Polish capital – and Polish cus-tomers were hungry for Western models, pluralistic opinions, attractive packaging and diverse products.

Secondly, antimonopolistic law is enforced in Poland. It is acknowledged that 40% of the market shares give a dominant position and anything above is blocked. PiS was considering to reshape this restriction in their draft of the de-construction law, lowering the thresh-old to 20%-25%. It was also planning to introduce a mix of different market

participation criteria, combining a posi-tion measured by audience or readership with a position in the advertising market to revenue and the country of origin. Furthermore, the legislation might be introduced retroactively – so it could im-pose penalties on those who have been al-ready active in Poland for a considerable length of time. The law was supposed to be working in order to push out specific foreign media groups from Poland. If this sounds familiar that might be because this is reminiscent of Putin and his law from 2015 which frightened all western media companies from Russia.

In Poland, there is a fairly simple operation: the taking over of the most popular newspapers, portals, news sta-tions, companies and publishing houses by those officially or quietly linked to authorities. Instead of deconcentration there will be media concentration in the hands of PiS and the acolytes of the party. It is mostly about money, power and the supposed leap in diversity of the media in order to cement the political power of the country for years to come. The language of “increasing media freedom” used by PiS is a classic use of Orwellian “doublespeak”.

In October 2017, when I write these words, the fate of the deconstruction law is unknown. Perhaps there will be no law, instead the state-owned companies and specially-appointed “independent” investment vehicles will start offering foreign publishers and broadcasters “unrefusable proposals”, the redemption of individual newspapers and television channels. It is believed that the primary goal of PiS will be the consolidation of 20 strong regional newspapers published in the largest Polish cities by Polska Press group. Before the local elections in au-tumn 2018, such a loot would be ex-tremely tempting for the ruling party.

Both the EU institutions and the United States have spent enormous dip-lomatic effort to discourage the Polish au-thorities from monopolising the media.

Particularly in Washington, the plans of the Polish government have been frowned upon, causing protests and fears among the political decision-makers and the administration of President Trump. Due to this, Poland should not depend on tightening relations with our key po-litical, economic and military allies.

The question remains: when will the time come for Poles to go out into the streets to defend the media as effectively as they were defending the judiciary? The problem is that foreign media would be harder to shield. Many tend to think that the common-sense answer to the ques-tion (do you want the media in Poland to be German or to be Polish?) would be of course domestic ownership.

Although the problem was, is and will be completely different. Poles in a street referendum will have to answer the question whether they want the me-dia in Poland to be pluralised, diverse, multicoloured or for it to be dependent on a party and unified in ideology. It is not about the freedom of the media, but about those basic tenants of modern so-ciety: the freedom of the speech and the freedom of press.

The author is the head of the Polish office in the Washington think tank Atlantic Council. For over 20 years, he was co-creating the Polish media market, among others as editor-in-chief of the Polish editions of “Forbes”, “Bloomberg Busi-nessweek” and “Newsweek”.

33


BEATA BALOGOVÁ

A decade ago, traditional publishers in the Visegrad region had thought that their ma-jor challenge was going to be keeping their print editions on life support until they found an ideal online model to sustain their business. Yet, the escalating state pressure on media in Hungary and Poland as well as the shopping gluttony of oligarchs buy-

ing up media outlets in Slovakia and the Czech Republic has intensified the struggle of critical independent media in the region while simultaneously keeping freedom-of-the-press watchdogs on alert.

Viktor Orbán turned Hungary into a laboratory for dis-mantling liberal democracy with free press becoming the first victim of this experiment, which ended up being successful for Orbán’s Fidesz and disastrous for the power balance, media pluralism and the civil society.

JOURNALISM’S

GROWING PAINS IN VISEGRAD



State interventions and the shopping gluttony of oligarchs strangle independent media

35


At first, foreign investors were most likely to abandon their investments in print media, due to the dropping circu-lation numbers and absence of viable online business plans.

When Penta, an investment group with a bad-reputation in Slovakia, started buying media in the region, the official explanation for going into this challenging segment was that they wanted to consolidate the media and seek new business plans for the newspapers. Only very few journalists in the purchased publishing houses actually believed that Penta was buying media to help finance their critical watchdog role.

In fact, oligarchs have been buying media to redistrib-ute influence and balance the power of other oligarchs who already owned media. They looked at media as a so-called “nuclear suitcase” as a Penta top manager described it in an interview, which presumably should discourage all who might want to harm Penta business interests.

The redrawing of the Czech and Slovak media map has often made ownership non-transparent as some oligarchs did not finance the media directly but through different media-tors and even trust funds. Back in 2015, more than 90% of Slovaks were unable to name the correct owner of top media in Slovakia, according to a survey by the Focus polling agency done for the Transparency International watchdog.

A SHORT GUIDE TO THE SLOVAK MEDIA OLIGARCHYThe most influential media abandoned by traditional pub-lishers in Slovakia are mostly owned by financial groups or businesspeople with power interests, who are already spon-soring parties. The two major competitors are two oligarchical groups: Penta, which have built the News and Media Holding (NMH) company to shelter its media acquisitions, and J&T, which is entangled with the second most popular commercial TV channel TV Joj.

J&T also assisted in 2010 in the sale of the heavily pro-governmental daily Pravda, when it was bought by busi-nessman Karol Biermann. However, who actually feeds Pravda with cash remains greatly unclear.

Penta’s NMH has digested media houses Spoločnosť 7Plus, Centrum Holdings, Trend Holding and Trend Representative now controlling a number of newspapers and internet websites including one of the best-selling weeklies Plus 7 Dní, the daily Plus Jeden Deň, and the economic weekly Trend. It employs approximately 450 people.

Andrej Babiš, a Slovak oligarch with the highest political ambitions in Czech politics, maintains influence over a num-ber of key media though trust funds. Babiš has a file in the archives of the communist secret police ŠtB as collaborator, which he has denied. He is tied to media house Mafra, which officially owns the Slovak economic daily Hospodárske noviny. In the Czech Republic, Mafra publishes the dailies Mladá fron-ta Dnes and Lidové noviny.

ANDREJ BABIŠ, A SLOVAK OLIGARCH WITH THE HIGHEST POLITICAL AMBITIONS IN CZECH POLITICS, MAINTAINS INFLUENCE OVER A NUMBER OF KEY MEDIA THOUGH TRUST FUNDS.

On a similar track of illiberal democracy, Poland has tak-en a lot of inspiration from Orbán and waged what it calls the “repolonisation of media,” riding on the notion that do-mestic owners are better suited to informing the Polish public because critical, foreign-owned media is working on under-mining the government. An amorphous foreign adversary to harm Polish, Hungarian and even Slovak interests has been important ammunition of populist governments.

Yet, the so-called new “domestic” owners are often not the traditional publishers, but rather oligarchical groups tan-gled in a cobweb of power interest while seeking a redistribu-tion of influence over politics.

Public media in Hungary and Poland have relapsed to often serving as external PR departments of their govern-ments when it comes to news reporting. In Hungary, many privately owned stations either replaced political news re-porting by jolly entertainment or simply joined the govern-mental chorus line.

The governments in Slovakia and the Czech Republic have not made the notion that the state is the best master for public media an official media doctrine, but are not ready to give up their influence over the public media channels. For example, the Radio Television Slovakia (RTVS) has seen more than 15 directors since the independent Slovakia emerged in 1993. Directors have changed more frequently than gov-ernments, an indicator that Slovakia has never managed to achieve a truly independent public media.

DOMESTIC DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN BETTERMurky businesses tried to buy themselves into important media even before the oligarchic shopping fever started a decade. The global financial crisis further tightened the grip on many news-papers that saw their advertisement revenues sinking.



The information that additional private broadcast media – specifically one of the largest private broadcasters, Markíza TV (owned by American CME) – might be for sale excites the oligarchs. Local media relying mostly on unconfirmed information already reported that those standing in line for Markiza might include Penta, Czech oligarchs Peter Kellner and Andrej Babiš as well as a group of Chinese investors.

Even if so far there is only speculation, the prospect of any Chinese ownership keeps media watchdogs rather edgy as this would bring a completely different control “culture” to the media market with an unpredictable outcome for media freedom. Nevertheless, Penta cannot buy Markíza directly as Slovak laws do not allow cross ownership of print and broad-cast media. But the law never really stopped oligarchs from combining ownership of any media through mediators and investment funds.

The most closely watched media acquisition of Penta came in 2014 when the oligarchs, using a mediator, purchased considerable shares in Petit Press, home to the daily SME, one of the flagships of critical reporting in Slovakia. In response to Penta’s unfriendly and rather non-transparent entry to the publishing house, a large part of the SME newsroom left to establish an independent daily Denník N, which has since then become an important critical voice to the media market.

After a series of complicated negotiations, Penta with-drew to a minority position in the publishing house. Petit Press’s publisher, Alexej Fulmek, relies on the majority owner PSIS – one of the very few remaining traditional media own-ers – to guarantee the conditions necessary for independent journalism. Over the past three years, SME has resisted oli-garchical influences and remained a decisive critical and inde-pendent voice on the Slovak media market as well.

Moreover, earlier in 2017, Penta sold back an additional 5% of its share to Petit Press. However, as part of the deal, Penta acquired the ethnic Hungarian daily Új Szó, which raises concern if some bulky cash might not persuade the oligarchs to sell the daily to Viktor Orbán’s buddies.

THE CHALLENGES AND THE HOPEOligarchs often fail to understand that they simply cannot run media as real estate investments, bakeries or meat processing companies. Turning news production into an assembly line often demoralises journalists as their integrity can be easily interpreted as a hindrance to running a successful business.

The past decade has shown that the presence of oligarchs in media houses has often eliminated media independence and challenged the reputation of even previously trusted media. When the ownership structure allows editors and reporters to remain independent, it might still take a while to produce ev-idence that the respective media has remained a critical voice by exposing any doubtful activities of the in-house oligarch. Editors have to eliminate mechanisms that might prompt self-censorship in the reporters. Also, there is a much strong-

er pressure on media co-owned by oligarchs to remain in the black as their ability to make money for their own operation sometimes draws limits to their freedom.

Thus today, investigative journalism focusing on busting high-level government corruption as well as critical voices explaining the true nature of illiberal democracies are gain-ing even more significance. New innovative online projects that can swim around nets of state control and oligarchs are a source of hope. A huge responsibility lies with the remaining traditional media, which serves a wider readership, to main-tain their critical voice and independence, regardless of their ownership structure. It eventually distils down to the integrity of editors and journalists and their commitment to independ-ent, fair and critical work.

The author is the Editor-in-Chief of SME.

THE PAST DECADE HAS SHOWN THAT

THE PRESENCE OF OLIGARCHS IN

MEDIA HOUSES HAS OFTEN

ELIMINATED MEDIA

INDEPENDENCE AND

CHALLENGED THE REPUTATION

OF EVEN PREVIOUSLY

TRUSTED MEDIA.

37


The journalists of SME Daily, the biggest broadsheet Slo-vak newspaper, for years did their best to cover the corruption scandals in their country. One of them involved an alleged link between the country’s gov-

ernment and Penta Investment, a finan-cial group operating throughout Central Eastern (CE) Europe – a charge that the company denies.

What was to the journalists surprise was when, in 2014, they found out that Penta had bought 45% of the stocks in the Petit Press publishing house which owns their newspaper. In an act of protest, 50 journalists, including the editorial board, left the paper.

“People from this company [Penta] were open about the fact that this acqui-sition was their ‘nuclear suitcase’. They did it to protect their interests,” says Tomáš Bella, one of the deputy editors of SME who left. “We did not want to work for them”.

Those leaving SME, which counted Mr Bella as one of the leaders, decided to set up their own publication – Denník.N, where “N” stands for “nezavislost”, “inde-pendence”. To maintain it, they decided not to rely on funding from advertising and base their revenues on crowdfunding and subscriptions.

Three years later, in the relatively tiny Slovakia (5.3 m inhabitants), they have 23,000 active subscribers who pay a nominal monthly rate for the content they produce. In July, they made their first small profit.

Denník.N is one of the new media projects that have emerged in CE Europe in recent years which have turned down advertising as the main source of funding. Instead, they choose to create variations of existing business models that rely more on communities around their media.

Data gathered by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers show that the vast majority of private news publishers still choose ad-vertising as the main source of their rev-enues. But at the same time, 73% publish more sophisticated forms of promoted content, like brand or native advertising, and more than a half rely on alternative ways of funding, such as events, or read-er-generated revenue in the form of sub-scriptions and crowdfunding.

Grzegorz Piechota, researcher at the University of Oxford and Harvard Business School, says that the main reason why media business models are changing is the fact that the previous paradigm which publishers have always relied on to earn money – via monetising advertisement – is not working as well as it used to.

Traditionally, while public media have been financially backed by govern-ments and have never worried about money, private publishers have had to base their business models on adver-tising. But recently, that safe stream of money they had got from advertisers has changed direction towards internet plat-forms such as Facebook and Google.

Even though the Silicon Valley gi-ants call themselves “technology com-panies”, in reality they have the same

ZOSIA WASIK

mak

ing

When journalists and publishers are confronted with the reality of declining revenue streams, they had to become creative in finding solutions.

lem

onad

e



business model as many digital publish-ers – they aggregate audiences and mon-etise their attention with advertising. In 2016, Google and Facebook captured be-tween 60% and 77% of all digital-adver-tising spent in the USA, and between 89% and 99% of the market’s total growth.

What is more, studies show that the share of money that goes to publishers is divided by various intermediaries who create complex digital advertising ecosys-tems, such as agencies or data providers. Out of every 1$ spent by an advertiser, a publisher receives on average 29 cents, according to the European Magazine Media Association. PRINCIPLED CONSEQUENCES Groups of interest can influence the media not only via acquisitions but also adver-tisement. If the biggest share of advertise-ment in a country comes from state-owned companies, then a government can easily pressure publishers not to produce content inconvenient for the party.

This is what happened to Gergő Sáling, who was an editor-in-chief of Origo, one of the biggest Hungarian news portals. He got dismissed after he had pub-lished a story on alleged misuse of public funds by the head of the office of Victor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister.

“Every time we wrote something negative about the government’s politics, there was a pushback. The government put a lot of pressure on what we should and should not write. As a result, the whole political section left, and we decided to set up something new”, says Mr Sáling.

This is how they created Direkt36, an analysis portal with news from Hungary that focuses on what Mr Sáling calls “hard-core journalism” – the one that requires a lot of research and investigation. “We knew we could not rely on advertisers, so we started to rely on people. Many of them heard of what happened in Origo and did not agree with it,” Mr Sáling adds.

They get half of the funding from crowdfunding and the other half from private institutions, such as Open Society

Foundations and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. “It is still vulnerable,” Mr Sáling says. “All institutions have an agenda and they try to push for it. But it is nothing like the pressure of the politicians,” he adds. His next goal is to reduce the share of institutional funding in his project’s revenues from 50% to 30%.

Shrinking revenues and the increas-ing necessity to reach as many users as possible to improve advertising numbers usually cause a decrease in the quality of content. “They [publishers] invest more and more in mass and shallow content of mediocre quality, they do not compose anything unique,” says Michał Kreczmar, digital transformation director at PwC.

Consequently, the information that reaches the readers can be politically bi-ased, unresearched or an incomplete pic-ture. And the readers know it: only 46% of the Polish audience trusts the political messages in the media, according to a survey carried out for Press Club Poland.

In a world with open-access media, the more unreliable the content, the more readers are willing to pay for quality con-tent. Some new media projects use that as a way to earn money: they promise the content of the highest quality, and in return they expect monthly subscrip-tions. The widely mentioned example is Polityka Insight, a Polish analytical pub-lishing house, which offers daily analysis and briefing on business and politics to its clients, which is fully subscription-based.

Experts notice that this model can be tricky because the Visegrad market is limited. “It is different with media like the New York Times – they publish in English, so the client range is much wider. How many people would be willing to pay for content in Poland, in Polish? A few thousand, tops,” says Mr Kreczmar. That is why publishers in the region who de-cide to put their news behind the paywall, such as Polityka Insight, often decide to translate their content into English, to reach audiences abroad.

But there are also those who rely on money from readers, maintaining their

content open to the wider public. Jakub Górnicki, the founder of Outriders, a new non-fiction project, says that access to quality content for everyone is a key to a well-educated society.

Outriders aims to tell interactive stories from all around the world: they al-ready cooperate with foreign correspond-ents in Mexico and Ukraine and will soon include stories from the Middle East. The articles are translated into English as well.

They managed to gather what Mr Górnicki calls “funding capital” – 83 526 zł – to keep the project rolling on a Polish crowdfunding site, wspieram.to.

Taking a more long-term perspec-tive, they want to keep the website free for readers. Instead of subscriptions, they wish to create a community around their project – they need 5,000 – 7,000 people who will voluntarily support their journalism. This is the aim they want to achieve in a maximum of three years.

Apart from the supporters’ money, Mr Gornicki is looking for funding via cooperation with various brands, the or-ganisation of conferences and journalis-tic grants. He is also planning to set up another crowdfunding campaign – this time internationally.

Mr Górnicki says Outriders focuses on foreign reporting and features because what happens abroad often influences public debate in Poland. “For example, the refugee crisis that has been a very hot topic in Poland but in fact, the actual flow has bypassed the country,” he adds.

At the same time, the country’s me-dia have been decreasing spending on in-ternational news and dismissing foreign correspondents. “We have to start to heal the media. I miss some rebellion, I miss journalists that rebel – a rebellion creates initiatives. And Outriders is one of them,” he says.

The author is a journalist based in Warsaw who previously worked for the Financial Times in War-saw, London and Paris.

39


THE PITFALLS OF CENSORING FAKE NEWS



The election of Donald Trump as US president last year unleashed widespread concerns that people could take important decisions such as whom to vote for on the basis of lies, hoaxes and fictitious news stories circulating on social media.

In America and elsewhere, it became fash-ionable to fight against “fake news”, an ambigu-

ous term used frequently by the US president himself when dismissing criticism from American media outlets. Fact-checking start-ups mushroomed, and so did anti-Russian propaganda initiatives as disgruntled candidates claimed they had lost votes because of Russian interference.

Germany went even further and passed a law that fines internet platforms up to €50 million if they fail to prompt-ly remove slander or racist content, which had exploded on German-speaking websites in the wake of the country’s recep-tion of over a million Syrian refugees.

Visegrad Insight asked Barbora Bukovska, a lawyer and human rights activist at the London-based free speech or-ganisation Article 19, how she valued such efforts in both a Visegrad as well as a global context.

After all, Hungary and Poland have some of the worst track records in the EU according to the 2017 World Press Freedom Index that is compiled by Reporters Without Borders, with fears that the Czech Republic – where voters massively backed the media mogul Andrej Babiš in recent par-liamentary elections – could follow.

According to Bukovska, however, the problem in Visegrad is not so much “fake news” as government propa-ganda, media concentration and self-censorship as well as a failure of the democratic left – and that it would be helpful to talk about these issues instead.

What means do we have to fight misinformation?Barbora Bukovska: Misinformation exists, and it is not some-thing that should be promoted. But international standards on free speech define quite clearly what restrictions are possible to put in place. The problem is governments and corporations deciding what is “fake” and what is “news”. This is very diffi-cult to define in public policy and legal terms, and practically impossible to regulate. In my opinion, the ongoing attempts to regulate what is truth, as Germany is doing in attempt to fight

ALEKSANDRA ERIKSSON

Government propaganda, media concentration, self-censorship and the failure

of the democratic left are more of a threat to democracy in Central Europe than the global

“fake news” phenomena

with “Postfaktish” politics, are a completely futile exercise that divert us from addressing the real issues at hand, which are much more specific and manageable.

You don’t agree that it’s a problem that people are taking decisions based on the wrong information? Misinformation can be dangerous. During the 2013-2016 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, for instance, there were claims that people could be cured if they drank water from a special well. This was a real problem because people could die if they didn’t follow scientific advice.

There have also been cases where people spread rumours about another ethnic group by ways of inciting violence and pogroms. In such cases, the government has a responsibility to step in and calm the situation. Only in very specific situations are they obliged to limit free speech, in particular cases which incite violence. They can also limit free speech in narrow cir-cumstances when protecting public health, public order or national security.

Of course, the situation is different when “fake news” is coming from the government, when it in fact is a form of government propaganda. At Article 19, we are in particular concerned with the situation in Hungary, where anti-EU and anti-migrant messages have been actively promoted through official government campaigns in the wake of the arrival of many refugees to Europe.

Last year, more than 98% of the Hungarians voted against EU refugee quotas after the government launched a billboard campaign claiming relations between migration and terrorism and criminality, though the vote was considered in-valid as more than half the electorate decided to stay home. (FOOTNOTE: According to Transparency International, it was the largest advertising campaign in Hungarian history, with 5,888 of Hungary’s 20,000 advertising hoardings being used for the referendum campaign.)

Moreover, Hungary has introduced a hierarchical media regulatory system under direct control of the government. Poland has similarly initiated a series of actions aimed at plac-ing public service media broadcasters under its close watch. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, allowed a Berlusconi-type businessman to become the most influential person in Czech media within the span of just a few years. Here we are dealing with states breaking their obligations to their citizens

41


to create an enabling environment for free speech, media plu-ralism and diversity.

However, they are not the only ones failing to live up to its commitments. The EU could launch an investigation to see whether what is happening in Hungary is in line with European values as enshrined in the EU treaties, but so far, I haven’t seen any political appetite for launching the procedure.

Similarly, the European Commission was initially con-cerned over Polish reforms which led to the dismissal of the heads of public radio and TV and gave the treasury minis-ter power to choose their successors. Vice President Frans Timmermans wrote to the Polish government that “freedom and pluralism of the media are crucial for a pluralist society” before launching a probe into the rule of law in Poland, the first time the commission made such an investigation of an EU country. But we don’t hear much from Timmermans on the Polish media anymore. The topic has vanished while the Polish government is using public TV to broadcast anti-EU messages.

Could grassroots fact-checking initiatives help in this regard? Fact-checking initiatives have limited impact. There have been ideas that Facebook should allow for users to flag false information and send the disputed news to big media out-lets for verification. Journalists could perhaps be interested in finding out what happened in large-scale events of global importance. But imagine someone in a remote Slovak village writes that the local mayor has embezzled money – and this should be sent to New York Times for verification? What should a fact checker do with Ztohoven, the Czech art group that managed to hack a live panoramic broadcast and insert pictures of a nuclear explosion that allegedly took place in the country? (FOOTNOTE: The performance was called “Media Reality” and aimed to show how easily media can be manipu-lated and make people question the validity of what they see on TV. It worked: Ztohoven were indicted for scaremongering but were acquitted after Czech judges found that nobody had been scared and that people were rather amused of how easy it was to break into broadcasting.)

What could the media do instead?They could start by acknowledging that people are frustrat-ed with the current state of politics; they want change, and this is why they are refusing to support certain candidates and vote for others. It’s complicated because the media also has an agenda in this debate. They have lost the trust of the public; their readership is declining, and now they hope that fact-checking will help them win this audience back. But their claims to be objective and own the truth only make the situa-tion more complicated.

Would it help to treat Facebook like a publisher? This is a proposal put forward by Konrad Niklewicz, a Polish social scientist, in a paper for the Wilfried Martens Centre, a cen-tre-right European People’s Party think-tank.

The issue whether Facebook should be treated as a “pub-lisher” is a red herring. We need to recognise that, on one hand, it is in a dominant, even quasi-monopolistic position which allows them to decisively influence what is available on their platform. Intentionally or not, Facebook and other social media are in a position to influence the public agenda, trends in public opinion, and the topics and arguments of public de-bates. But international standards on free speech stipulates

that Facebook should not be liable for potentially unlawful ma-terial posted on its servers by its users – that is, until it comes to have actual knowledge of the unlawfulness. On the other hand, we need to ensure that Facebook and other digital giants should respect international freedom of expression standards in their terms and conditions. They should also be consistent in application of these terms and conditions and be transpar-ent about the content they delete.

So, what do we do with misinformation pestering our soci-eties?First of all, we should protect human rights, which are set down in the international standards.

Second, if we think that it’s problematic that people live their lives in online echo chambers, we should find ways of bringing them back to society, instead of trying to force Facebook to show them left-wing news stories or filter their views because we don’t agree.

In most European countries, including Visegrad, there is already a legal framework which sets out a pyramid for restric-tions. At the very top, we find incitement to genocide, which is heavily restricted. Then there is the prohibition of inciting violence and discrimination. Further down, there are possi-bilities to restrict freedom of speech on the basis of rights of others, for instance in the workplace or schools where it would lead to harassment.

There is, however, a broad range of “hate speech” which is problematic, offensive and shocking but legal; besides there are more effective ways to fight it by other means than cen-sorship. We should promote more platforms to oppose such views, rather than try to ban it because such efforts often fail.

One such example is the case of pastor Terry Jones, a US evangelical Christian who said he planned to burn Qur’ans and was banned by the British government from entering the UK. Nobody had heard of him, he had 27 followers on Twitter, and then he became a hero and a celebrity.

Limits to free speech beyond the international frame-work tend to backfire. Russia, for instance, has adopted very strong anti-hate speech laws but these are only used against LGBT people, artists and human rights activists.

This is why I was very concerned to hear Mark Zuckerberg say this autumn that Facebook had “ensured the integrity of the German elections” by taking down thousands of fake accounts. We have no clarity of what they removed and if it was under pressure from the German government. What is “fake news” for the German Christian Democrats could be legitimate information for others. Furthermore, many activists from non-European countries say they fear that their coun-tries will take the opportunity to label any criticism of the gov-ernment as fake news and use such laws to repress critics. We shouldn’t set bad examples for authoritarian leaders to follow.

But overall, we cannot address the problem without ad-dressing ownership of the media, the role of advertisements and commercialisation of the public sphere. What is really missing from the debate is a discussion on alternative media models. How do we promote pluralism and a diversity of the news so that people are exposed to different beliefs and ideas? We haven’t discovered those models yet but I am confident they are coming.

The author is a Polish-Swedish journalist based in Brussels.



In 1995, during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 189 State represent-atives adopted unanimously the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. With this step, the international commu-nity reaffirmed that women’s

access to expression and participation in decision-making in all forms of media and communication processes, including digital, are fundamental to free, diverse, plural and democratic media systems. Achieving gender equality in the media was equal to “good journalism”.

All the countries from Eastern and Central Europe have joined this call for the democratisation of the media and have become signatories of the Beijing Platform for Action. The quality of the journalistic cultures that would emerge in the process would eventually testify to the success of the democratic transfor-mation. Defined as the “character of per-formance of journalism as an institution, profession and discourse in a concrete economic, political and cultural context”, journalism culture is believed to possess explanatory power over the performanc-es of media products and media systems. The democratic transformation doesn’t, after all, happen only in the formal struc-tures and regulations of state institutions. Cultural changes in the area of “informal limitations” of media workers, the values they respect, the principles and norms they accept, their attitudes, are just as im-portant in the democratic transformation as the formal structures.

GRETA GOBER

IMBALANCE AND GLASS CEILINGSThe State of Media in the Visegrad countries

Gendered aspects of the media

landscape in the V4 reveal inequality

is rife.

The Beijing Declaration set an ambitious goal to challenge and change the structures of the global media sys-tem. Objective J.1 of the declaration was meant to increase the participation and access of women to expression and de-cision making in and through the media and new technologies of communication, and Objective J.2 portended to promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portray-al of women in the media. As global re-search shows, some 20+ years after the declaration was signed, there remains a lot to be done in moving from these dec-larations of support to actually achieving their stated goals.

JOURNALISM CULTURE IN THE VISEGRAD REGION International literature suggests that there are some common experiences shared by journalists from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The normative vacuum that was creat-ed after the collapse of the communist/ socialist regimes, in regard to what role the journalists should play in the new reality, was expected to be filled by the “Anglo-American liberal model” of jour-nalism or “the social-responsibility media model.” Journalists in this model act as a bridge between the government and cit-izens, providing objective information, necessary for the public to form opinions. For this to happen, freedom of the me-dia must be protected by the law, and, in return, media must promise to use their power responsibly and regulate and con-trol their own behaviour and institutions.

43


The normative “social responsibil-ity” theory of journalism was officially supported by the international commu-nity, but was never really sustained by the western investors who flooded the region after the fall of communism. Expectations that the western know-how would bene-fit the development of journalistic profes-sionalism and democratic culture in the region were thus never fulfilled. Quite the contrary, there is evidence suggesting that aggressive commercial policies were pursued “at the expense of journalistic standard[s].” Investors exerted influence on the content, through the way news-rooms organised and how, how staff was recruited and paid for their work.

Tabloidisation and commerciali-sation had important consequences for women’s position in the media. What happened in the region was similar to what happened in the Western European media systems back in the 1980’s. Grave changes in the marketing strategies and media advertising were later branded as a “feminisation” of the media; more ac-curately, it should have been termed as a “sexualisation” of the media. Journalism increasingly became consistent with the stereotypical, commercial and even sexualised perception of femininity, but there were important differences between Western European media systems and the developing systems in the Visegrad region.

First of all, the media’s self-regu-latory institutions were never really de-veloped in the region, while they have played an important role in mitigating the consequences of the commercial wave that swept the media in Western Europe. Press Councils were eventual-ly established and Journalistic Codes of Conduct adopted in most post-commu-nist countries.

However, these self-regulatory bod-ies in the region remain without real au-thority and the adopted Codes of Conduct lack practical meaning. For the media organisations to effectively self-regulate themselves, the system needs to be “ready to discuss media quality and ethical prob-lems openly and publicly”.

The question what is good jour-nalism is essential in this process and the example of Poland is quite telling in this context. The most known interna-tional Journalistic Code of Ethics is the International Federation of Journalists Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists. This declaration is well known in Poland, as the two largest Polish

journalist associations are members of the IFJ: Polish Journalists Association (SDP) and Association of Journalists of the Republic of Poland (SDRP).

However, neither the SDP, SDRP nor the Media Charter adopted by the broader media environment in Poland makes any reference to this point that a journalist should be aware of the dangers of discrimination in the media. It seems that after the political transformation, es-pecially the new generation of journalists in the “mental sphere’ became propo-nents of the purely liberal XVIII. media doctrine, where all attempts to impose ethical norms on the media were treated as a threat to freedom of expression and democracy.

Secondly, an important difference between the western countries and the Visegrad region in regard to women’s po-sition in the media is that, in the western countries, trade unions played a huge role in the development of the media system. In the post-communist countries, the new generation of journalists, who now dominate the profession, are less likely to become members of professional associ-ations. They don’t understand nor see the need to join.

For example, in Poland before 1981 most journalists belonged to the Polish Journalists Association. In 2009, less than 20% of journalists belonged to a professional association, and most of them were 60+ years old. The journal-istic community in the region remains fragmented, no strong professional or-

ganisation exists that could monitor the functioning of the media system from the perspective of media workers. In effect, the working conditions and the status of the profession has gradually weakened over the years. Journalists have less time to develop their stories, due to the de-velopment of online media, staff reduc-tions and financial restrictions. The fact that women constitute a significant pro-portion of the labour force in the media “requires an adapted response from the unions”. However, without strong un-ions, the challenges that women face in the media: “the extra job precariousness, the unyielding gender pay gap, the strug-gle to reconcile work and private life and the blocked access to leading roles in the media” remain unaddressed.

CONCLUSION Women’s position in the media in the Visegrad region seems to be particularly weak. Due to the historic developments of the media systems in the region, the autonomy of the journalistic community is constrained and at the moment, the re-gion does not have a single “full democra-cy” established. Recent developments in Poland and Hungary have further weak-ened the democratic score of the region.

Despite the struggles to achieve gender equality in the media, none of the countries in the Visegrad region have de-veloped any measures to promote gender equality in its media organisations (EIGE, 2013: 100-108). Leadership/management training for women or equality awareness training for staff hasn’t been introduced in any of the surveyed organisations. Neither were there any committees re-sponsible for gender equality policies, anti-harassment advisors, equality or diversity officers or departments present in the organisations. Similarly, policies to promote gender equality, including gender equality policy, equality/diversi-ty policy or policy on sexual harassment remain scarce and were only developed in Hungary and in public service RTVS in Slovakia. For there to be real progress in the region, policies, like those men-tioned above, should be implemented, so that the next generation of journalists has the opportunity to work in more fair and balanced conditions than those present today.

The author is a researcher at University of Oslo’s Center for Gender Research with a Ph.D in cul-tural studies.



A Balancing Act between a Communist Heritage and Westernisation

HELENA CHMIELEWSKA-SZLAJFER

GENDER EQUALITY in Central-Eastern Europe Media

Like all other factors of social life in the region, twenty-eight years after the fall of the Iron Curtain the media landscape in Central Europe re-mains strongly influenced by its communist past. Media content has become Westernised in the sense that it is more consumption-oriented, which entails objectifying and sexualising bodies – female in particular – in order to sell products.

However, the inside of the media industry tells a different gender story. Although comprehensive studies focusing on gender in Central

European media are scarce, some general reports – such as that by the International Women’s Media Foundation (2011) and the European Institute for Gender Equality (2013) as well as local case studies – have been published in the recent years. They all point at a somewhat ironic pattern that is specific for the region: gender equality is not the effect of adopting Western standards (i.e. free-market democracy) but a holdover from the communist period.

In fact, what the reports point out is that in Central Europe, the process of Westernising media has brought about a decline in gender equality. This has been achieved by targeting women, the former tractor-driving sexless workers – as Elza Ibroscheva put it – and shifting their role into that of objects of sexual desire. This translates into the commodification of female bodies in media content, especially ad-vertising, where they serve as vehicles intended to drive up sales. Secondly, for wom-en the contemporary shift toward the Western world has signified both less pay and, equally important, the solidifying of glass ceilings, which women have increasingly had to struggle with in the upper echelons of media companies.

45


(with the exception of Ukraine, where men in top governance positions in media earn twelve times as much as women).

Nevertheless, in Hungary, for example, women make up only 13% of those in governance and one third of top-level management positions; in Lithuania the figures are, respec-tively, around 31% and 29%; in Poland nearly 30% and 25%. Interestingly, in Poland women earn slightly more than men in middle management positions. Overall, the lower the rank and the more marketing or human-resources oriented the job, the more women can be found in media companies. In all the Central-Eastern European countries surveyed, women are offered paid maternity leave and (at least theoretical) job security after returning to work.

Communist heritage: a gender equality (of sorts)As Mojca Pajnik writes, the “capitalist mode of media produc-tion seems to have forced women out of their jobs and away from relatively equal positions – relatively, since equality was largely limited to the sphere of labour, while inequality in the private sphere persisted.” Yet, the strong position of women in media organisations in the region compared to those in Western Europe is a result of their communist heritage. The communist economic system required a large workforce and thus had to incorporate women. However, this did not mean equal jobs for all since, as the author emphasises, women had to work a second shift at home, working in total about fifteen hours per week more than women in Western Europe.

(Against) stereotyping gender rolesOn a global level, three out of four people mentioned in print, radio and television news are male, and a similar pattern can be found in online news. Furthermore, in four out of five in-stances men are the focal point of the news. Women are twice as likely to have their age mentioned than men, and they are also twice as likely to be portrayed as victims and survivors. This also points at another major trait, namely that in most instances both genders are shown in stereotypical roles: the man as active, forceful and rational; the woman as passive, nurturing and emotional.

Still, both genders share similar screen time as news pre-senters. However, hard news (i.e. news concerning politics, the economy and finance) is still the dominion of male reporters, while women, for the most part, report on topics considered soft such as social issues, health, culture and entertainment.

In Central-Eastern Europe, the picture is somewhat dif-ferent. Paradoxically, the sexless (at least ostensibly) commu-nist past has been working in favour of women in the media. According to the EIGE report, the optimistic reason may be that media organisations have been implementing wom-en-friendly policies. In a less rosy version, media as an indus-try is becoming increasingly feminised, which also translates into lower pay. Nonetheless, the IWMF report points at the relatively high numbers of women in management roles in media in Central-Eastern Europe—higher than in Western European countries—ranging from over 21% in Estonia to nearly 49% in Russia, while also noting a general wage parity



This toil is particularly noticeable in the powerful image of the resourceful “Polish Mother”, sacrificing her own well-be-ing for the sake of men; a trope that has existed ever since the Polish uprisings in the 19th century and which still continues in today’s free-market democracy. Still, higher gender equality in the workforce and state-sanctioned maternity leave have remained staples of the region even after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and in this particular respect Westernisation has been mostly detrimental. For example, gender mainstreaming pro-moted by the European Commission is not particularly visible when it comes to wages throughout the European Union, with men generally earning more than women in the media sector. In this respect, Central-Eastern Europe has been clearly more successful.

Screen timeWomen are more often television than radio presenters, looks playing a factor in attracting audiences. Yet, at the same time, they are five times less likely to act as experts. Instead, women are usually presented either as celebrities or as “ordinary” cit-izens. As for women in power, they have to prove their “mas-culinity” such as creativity, but even if they do so (all the while looking impeccable) it is at the cost of failing in the household.

According to the 2015 Global media Monitoring Project, the highest parity in the news in Central-Eastern Europe is noted in Belarus (44% women to 55% men), and the lowest in Poland (31% women to 69% men). Interestingly, the vast majority of television and radio presenters are women (95%) in Belarus, the second highest ratio can be found in Poland (64%), while Hungary and Estonia favour male presenters (61% and 63% respectively). On the internet, the biggest gender par-ity is noted in Belarus with preference given to women (55% compared to 45% men), while in Hungary male online report-ers clearly dominate (88%). In addition, the people who are mentioned online in the region are, too, overwhelmingly male, from 71% in Hungary to 88% in Poland. A similar pattern can also be found on social media in the Czech Republic, where men are far more likely than women to make political com-ments on politicians’ and political parties’ fan pages.

EXHIBIT A: POLITICSTwo instances of screen time are particularly worth mention-ing in the context of gender and media in Central-Eastern Eu-rope: one is advertising, the other politics. In their study of Czech and Slovak elections, Kovár and Kovár (2014) found that Slovakian women who are more likely to have higher po-sitions on the ballots have a higher chance of getting elected to the European Parliament rather than national elections because the former is considered less important. Lühiste and Banducci (2016) confirm this as a pan-European trend, name-ly that women are nominated for these political positions to make them less threatening to male candidates. The result is that media focus on the more viable candidates who tend to be men. At the same time, if women are in fact elected, they are judged both by their “masculine” performance (e.g. ambition, negotiation skills) and “feminine” traits (e.g. appearance).

EXHIBIT B: ADVERTISINGThe importance of appearance and stereotypical gender roles is even more magnified in advertising. In their study of ad-vertisements in Poland, Twardowska and Olczyk (2000) show that while on the one hand women are presented as responsi-ble for taking care of the household and of other people (most often children and a husband), the ads focused on their looks or portrayed women as sexual objects for the pleasure of men; on the other hand, men are depicted as experts who like to spend time with other males (drinking beer). Thus, despite the gender-equalising communist heritage, in this context, adver-tising has quickly become Westernised.

One of the reasons may be that television commer-cials especially of household goods were translated copies of German ads. However, a recent Czech example shows that gender stereotyping does not necessarily require direct Western influence: in June, the Temelín nuclear plant decided to search for candidates for an internship by creating a swim-suit contest. Further South-East, a language school in Croatia’s capital advertised English courses with billboards of Melania Trump captioned “Just imagine how far you can go with a little bit of English”. Both ads caused international media outrage and were quickly taken down.

Who is Western?It is an irony that in terms of gender equality the communist past in Central-Eastern Europe has shown to be in many ways more Western than Western Europe itself. These traditions of equality in the work force, even if limited, continue to be im-portant shapers of the region’s media reality today and should be used to further foster gender parity. At the same time, given the undeniable influence of Western-European countries on Central-Eastern Europe, the more effort is put in the West not merely to promote but to implement gender parity in media organisations’ back- and front offices, the better the chances for gender balance all over Europe.

The author is a sociologist, an assistant professor at Koźmiński Univer-sity and a visiting fellow at London School of Economics and Political Science.

47


Legislation, the business sector and the structur-ing of life in our national cyber spaces is extremely dynamic in all four Viseg-rad countries. While it is a chance for early platform building to create more

common path dependence for the future, the speed of change and the multiplicity of institutions are hindering this process. EU-level legislation is one of the driving forces behind the organisational evolu-tion of cyber structures in public admin-istration, but so too are national-level administrative cultures and political games which also play their part.

EU-LEVEL DYNAMICSActivism stems from the proliferation of cyber warfare all around us. Not only are there multiple threats, but all kinds of legal, military and organisational re-sponses as well; however, the European Union is taking more and more meas-ures to combat these issues. The General

BOTOND FELEDY

Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the directive on security of network and information systems (the NIS Directive) are pillars of legislation assuring specif-ic layers of security while, economically speaking, action was taken by the Eu-ropean Commission in May 2015 when it adopted the strategy to complete the Digital Single Market by 2018. The latest most important document is the conclu-sion of the European Digital Summit in Tallinn. Heads of member states met in late September 2017 under the auspices of the Estonian EU-presidency.

The summit reiterated several ear-lier common EU objectives, but, most significantly, it declared that “Europe [will be] a leader in cybersecurity by 2025”, an extremely ambitious goal given the current status of yet fragmented cy-ber security and defence developments in Europe. Later it concluded, “Europe needs a common European approach to cybersecurity. Europe has to function as a single European cyberspace and a single cybersecurity market”. This is facilitated

by the above legal steps like GDPR, but in no way are we ready.

The official summit document also mentioned measures and actions which might well be taken up the V4 states in advance, as a pilot programme of sorts for the eventual EU introduction. This will involve building joint standards and joint operational capacities – a com-mon CERT set up for one industry, like telecoms where most ISP providers are similar in Visegrad countries – or joint preparedness exercises with more and more extensive scenarios involving offline elements, moving further from table-top exercises, featuring critical infrastructure break downs on larger scales. National-level incidents which are publicly report-ed might be analysed on the V4 level with a moving common task force; while the information sharing and cooperation of CERTs is already developing, we need more confidence building in person.

Nevertheless, technical questions cannot and should not dominate the EU-discourse. The Brussels discussion is also


SECURITY CYBER

about tax reform regarding GAFA com-panies, where V4 states cannot really be forerunners; however, when it comes to rewriting the competition law to reflect the realities of digital economies, many proposals may come from the V4, just like new pilots for common IoT certifications or strategic discussions about the rule of engagement in offensive operations when it comes to military aspects.

WHAT CAN WE BUILD ON? CYBER SECURITY RELATED STRUCTURES IN THE V4Cyber security is a horizontal policy. This means that it does not only need a de-partment in one of the ministries, but it must be at the forefront in all public in-stitutions, whether that be education (e.g. teaching cyber hygiene and digital skills), energy security (e.g. protecting the grid) or data protection (of citizens or of public interest). Hence, the Visegrad countries have all come to grasp with the cyber re-alities and have launched legislation on the delegation of competences in their public administration of cyber security.

This is the big-bang moment for all cyber security organisations: it does matter where competences and responsi-bilities were first planted, how the organ-isational structure evolved and whether in-house or intra-administration con-currence for competences is strong or weak. All of this has contributed to the colourful and diverging structure that V4 countries show in this regard.

While in every member of the V4 the military (and intelligence units of the military) get their fair share of the budget for cyber defence, this is exactly the type of silo-thinking one must avoid: of course, it is not exclusively a military exercise.

However, the V4 countries have delegated their civilian responsibilities to different bodies. The Czech Republic reorganised somewhat its structure very recently by introducing the powerful NÚKIB (National Cyber and Information Security Agency {NCISA}), which is in charge of education, research, cryptogra-phy and a plenty of other cyber affairs. The head of the agency is nominated and ap-proved by the Czech Government while the Security Committee of the Chamber of Deputies has the right to preliminary discussion. The NCISA head is directly responsible to the Prime Minister and has its own line of budget outside of the ministerial structures.

The general trend shows that paral-lel to the high priority that cyber security gained on the public agenda, its centralisa-tion is happening in real-time: chanceller-ies and prime ministers’ offices claim more and more insight, as finally it is understood how much influence cyber yields.

This is well reflected in Beata Szydlo’s recent announcement at the CyberSec conference in Krakow early in October 2017 that the Polish Prime Minister’s office would also give place to a cybersecurity staff and department. Poland still has the Ministry of Digital and Administrative Affairs ruling the cy-ber domain of civilian affairs, besides the well-supported govCERT institution.

While CERTs/CSIRTs exist under (or inside) different bodies in the V4, his-torically the Slovak Ministry of Finance has had a large say in cyber issues, so path dependency is linked with this ministry, releasing its competences to other ad-ministrative units as the network of cyber bodies increases.

Interestingly, Hungary has entirely reshaped its cyber landscape during the early wave of administrative reorganisa-tion done by the 3rd Orban government, though without completing the cyber se-curity strategy review. This means that the reforms were more of a political nature, providing examples of intra-administra-tive competition for competences. Now, the Special Service for National Security (SSNS) together with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) are under the control of the Ministry of Interior and through the state secretary for law en-forcement. The new NCSC competences involved the GovCERT-Hungary man-agement, uniting earlier competences from the National Electronic Information Security Authority (NEISA) and the Cyber Defence Management Authority (CDMA).

Most probably the only way to over-come the costly burdens of silo-thinking in the public administration of cyber se-curity is to create central competences at the prime ministerial level, directly under government control. One major chal-lenge all EU countries face is the growing lack of human resources. While Germany has just opened (September 2017) its new Cyber Command in Bonn, with the set purpose to recruit 12,500 staffers (so far only a couple of hundred are employed), Poland has also openly called for 1000 cy-ber security public employees, after the more-humble initiative of the “golden

The promising, but quickly waning, cyber cooperation niches among the V4 countries.

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CYBER SECURITY

hundred”. All administrations are striving to find legal solutions to pay near mar-ket-level salaries for IT specialists, other-wise all these cyber quests would remain impossible to solve.

V4 PROJECT OPTIONS IN LOW-RISK DOMAINSThe Tallinn conclusions also put respon-sibility on the states as model actors of the cyber space: “[O]ur public sector should facilitate the digital transforma-tion of our societies by leading in the use of electronic and innovative procurement and making all communication between public authorities, businesses and cit-izens digital, and introducing digital practices and services as default options (e.g. e-invoicing, digital mailbox). Public administrations should lead the way by becoming enablers and (early) adopters of new and breakthrough technology.”

Seemingly, the national capitals are seeking their own niche in the sector: who will organise the most recognised interna-tional conference, who will host the best higher education institutes, whose CERT or CSIRT will serve as a model for others in third partner countries, not to mention NATO centres of excellence. One might say that there is a feeling of competition among the Visegrad governments, despite all the rhetoric of mutual understanding.

However, cyber security offers an excellent platform for cooperation where path-dependency might have less im-pact – unlike in classical public policy domains. In this area, procedures and structures are still – and will be for the coming years – in the making, and this means it should be easier to harmonise, engage and reach out to trusted partners.

Neither the EU nor NATO would be against any enhanced cooperation of the Visegrad countries related to cyber security. It offers plenty of potential not only to give some substantial institution-alised level of cooperation of the four CEE states, but it might well serve as best practice and as a pilot project for future larger enterprises. President Macron just proposed in his Sorbonne speech a mili-tary academy for the EU. Starting a new common education platform centred on cyber security, where the V4 could share scarce teaching resources, actually poses the least amount of risk even if connect-ed with national security. Not to men-tion the enormous potential if certain parts of the national cyber security staff are working and training side-by-side

for one or two years; we cannot overes-timate enough the potential added-value once they are in operative positions. This might be translated as a real confidence building measure, next to the existing NATO-level cyber exercises.

If such a V4 undertaking is open for transatlantic partners, or builds on the Finnish and Baltic experience, the more the better. Nevertheless, higher education is not the only venue for collaboration. V4 countries could try to pilot successful, na-tional-level awareness raising campaigns for targeted groups, ranging from the retired (those susceptible to the growing threat of attacks like ransomware, IoT, etc.) to high-level decision-makers. This latter group is an extremely valuable tar-get for attackers while their mindset, in part due to generational differences and a lack of management practice, as well as their vulnerability is crucial in most of our public policy sectors. So simple ques-tions as setting up the culture of travel phones among leading decision-makers is a cornerstone.

We rarely talk about regional mu-nicipalities, though in January 2017 one might have witnessed in Poland that this level of public administration cannot be left behind as an Achilles heel easily prone to attacks. Several Polish municipalities suffered serious incidents while hosting the U.S. troops for NATO operations. Again, the V4 best practice for sharing and mutual comprehension of threats at the level of municipalities might turn out to be very useful. Why not organise a special CyberSec for Municipalities and Regions, especially that these are running the phys-ical infrastructures of general elections, when voting booths are set up in schools and other municipality facilities. Just im-agine a black-out during election time.

Finally, there is one particularity of cyber legislation which presents an asset for cooperation. All assemblies and pub-lic authorities have realised, in the last few years, that the technical development is far too quick to follow up on it with timely regulation. Hence the importance of the review process, enshrined in all our cyber security strategies and action plans. Impact assessment has become a cornerstone of effective and successful cyber legislation, but not only a prelim-inary assessment is done, but a regular retrospective evaluation as well, which should, in principle, drive the next round of legislation and fine-tune cyber security strategies. The methodology of such re-

views, from interview techniques to third parties helping the evaluation after public procurement, from comparability of data from civilian and military branches of cyber security and numerous other as-pects might be extremely helpful for the Visegrad countries to set up a common scientific body for perfecting the review mechanisms.

Such a multi-national academic or-ganisation could also run a with higher chance of success for the funding provid-ed by the European Union Research and Innovation Programme “Horizon 2020”, where apparently €450 million will be available for cyber related projects.

Plenty of other venues are wide open on which this article will not elab-orate, such as common elevated security standards for hardware procurement, common NATO DEEP or other missions and eventually a common centre of ex-cellence, but these need more political dedication and further CBMs apparently.

Poland is key in all these questions due to the size of its economy and the dedication with which it has refocused on cyber security. If Poland does not provide incentives for cooperation for the other three Visegrad members, then another serious fracture will be born. There is the risk that Warsaw will turn to Finland – just like the newly signed cooperation agreement – or to the Baltic states while the Czech Republic would fall into the sphere of interest of German partners.

From the point of view of the V4, however, the best option would be to fol-low on the trails of the Central European Cyber Security Platform (an earlier vehi-cle developed by Hungary together with the V4 and Austria) and to create further agreements with potential V4+ partners. After which they could involve Finland, contributing together at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki for example, to build more and more personal rela-tionships among our cyber security staff.

While all the NATO member states are feeling the urgent pressure to advance their cyber security and simultaneously EU-member state governments are driv-ing fragmented regulation further along, it is fundamental to plant the seeds of cooperation at this early stage of institu-tion building because it will require much more effort later on.

The author is foreign policy expert and analyst.


SECURITY CYBER

On June 27th of this year, Ukrainian officials confirmed that a major cyber-attack took place in the country. The attack was so ex-tensive that it spread through the region striking government institutions, media organisations, Ukrainian banks, the main airport in Kyiv, post offices and mobile providers within a few hours.

Michael Chertoff, the former US Secretary of Homeland Security, has commented on the nature of the cyberattack and the changes it might possibly bring to the cyber world as well as the ways of protecting oneself from similar attacks.

The nature of the cyberattack, which not only affected Ukraine but also Central Europe and the rest of the world, was not as predictable as it may have seemed at first glance. Despite the fact that similar instances have already taken place before, the reaction of people was still unpredictable consider-ing that there are those who benefit from the vulnerability of the operating system said Mr. Chertoff.

Other issues which are quite new, from the point of view of Michael Chertoff, are the precise motivation which is not entirely clear from this particular attack, and the fact that it is one of the very few attacks recorded globally that has exten-sively damaged a country’s economy and infrastructure.

However, there are some basic, quite available methods of protection from cyberattacks. It is possible for people to defend themselves from the cyberattacks as some of them are “not terribly sophisticated”. Malware often affects computers which have not updated their systems or software, which is

the reason companies like Microsoft put out patches every so often. So, the only measure which should be taken here is “to make sure that the patches are up-to-date”. As well as, making sure to secure your email box while entering different web-sites. Thus, a “big part of cyber security is actually educational and good practice for the everyday user of any computer or electronic device. Just good old habits.”

As for the government’s role: if hundreds of smaller at-tacks can be simply prevented or solved at the private level, au-thorities have the opportunity to tackle the more sophisticated attacks. The role of the government is to share the information about the ongoing attacks and/or possible defensive measures.

The private sector is developing widely and might be more flexible in fending off a cyber-attack. However, one cannot underestimate the role of government in this case. Particularly, Michael Chertoff thinks, that governments can warn about the attack that may be coming or share some tech-nical possibilities which are not widely shared. In addition to that, governments can provide guidance and direction from where the threats are coming and set up the legal structures which will encourage private enterprises to share the informa-tion among themselves. The best examples to follow, in this case, is New York and the US in general. The system there enables the private sector to respond more quickly as the fi-nancial sector and banks share information about potential cyberattacks.

Though there is a big opportunity for Central Europe to develop in the sector of cyber security, leading to a situa-tion where the transfer of knowledge will not come from the US and the UK to the Central European states but the other way around. Major investments in this sector might be quite valuable. The major western companies which have offices in Central Europe, like Aki and Scheiber, already have provid-ed opportunities for the Europeans to engage directly in the process in cyber security sphere. “Cyber security is a partly defence related topic but, at the same time, it is about to be-come an important part of the economy, perhaps, for Central Europe”, concluded Michael Chertoff.

One of the leading countries in cyber-security in Central Europe has recently become Poland. This can be observed from the newly released draft Cyber-Security Strategy for the years 2017 to 2022 by the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs.The Strategy aims to improve cyber-security capabilities un-til 2022 as well as to create the separate fund for the devel-opment of the cyber-security capabilities. Besides, Poland is the only country from Central Europe which hosts one of the global ecosystems from Ecosystem Platform in Innovation and Cybersecurity. The project consists of 14 global ecosystems involving 10 different countries from 3 different continents which co-work together to adopt world-changing solutions to cyber-security challenges. One of the meetings took place in Krakow on 9-10 October, 2017 that was called the European Cybersecurity Forum (CYBERSEC). CYBERSEC was the first conference of its kind which gathered people from different backgrounds and countries to discuss the strategic issues of cyberspace and cyber-security in Europe.

Michael Chertoff

about the June 2017 cyber-attack in Ukraine

Visegrad Insight spoke with the former United States Secretary of Homeland

Security, Michael Chertoff. Earlier this year, at GLOBSEC 2017, Secretary Chertoff introduced the latest report of GLOBSEC Intelligence Reform

Initiative talking about the strengthening of international cooperation of intelligence

agencies.

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CYBER SECURITY

INTERVIEW WITH TOMASZ MATUŁA

HOW VULNERABLE IS THE POLISH CYBER WORLD TO

ATTACKS?

Is the internet in Poland seriously threat-ened? And, if so, in what way?TM: There are no borders when it comes to online threats. We can see it even when we look at two attacks only from this year using malware – WannaCry and Petya which spread rapidly affecting compa-nies and institutions in many countries. Cybercriminals’ activities are supported by the development of popular and mass communication systems, such as email or social media. They often become a con-venient medium for malware.

In recent times, the scale of some of the threats has increased dramatically. In the first half of 2017, in Orange Polska, we have recorded more than double the number of attacks using ransomware and over four times as many attacks on mo-bile devices than last year.

In what way do you categorize the threats and what is the biggest one?The largest category of incidents (40%) – handled by CERT Orange Polska, which is our specialised unit caring for online security – concerned the distribution of offensive or illegal content, including spam. It is junk mail that is the main source of the most dangerous, malicious software such as bank Trojans, ransom-ware or malware that steal corporate data. An important group of threats are “denial of service” attacks which result in

a lock of an institution or company’s web-site. For a bank or company that run their business online, this means serious losses and damage to their image.

How can we improve Internet users’ safety?By educating Internet users consistently and by increasing their awareness. We often install malicious software ourselves, due to our unawareness or carelessness. It is enough that the attacker appropriate-ly formulates a message or poses as our friend. I believe that it is worthwhile to invest in protection tools. This applies to both individual users and companies or institutions. In Orange Polska, we have introduced free CyberShield for our cus-tomers. It allows each Orange internet user to check the status of their home net-work and in the event of a serious threat, they are immediately informed of the fact.

Only in the first half of 2017, Cybershield protected almost 400 thou-sand customers against data loss or con-necting to an infected network. The activity of cyber-criminals is forcing companies to increase their competence. CERT Orange Polska participates with the greatest or-ganisation associated with the largest CERT teams across the world – the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams. This gives us access to the most up-to-date knowledge and good practices. One of the

most important aspects is cooperation, and a good example of this is the coopera-tion of national cybersecurity units – both commercial and from the public sector – launched in 2016 under the National Cybersecurity Centre (NC Cyber).

What are the key trends for 2017/2018?It’s hard to expect that the number of attacks through the ransomware or mal-ware on mobile devices will decrease. We have observed a constantly growing trend of smartphone infections, but also DDoS attacks on mobile devices infrastructure. We expect further development of both security and new attacks when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT). The num-ber of infections associated with legiti-mate software and with its use as a source of transmission to both government in-stitutions, companies and individuals is also growing.

A dangerous trend is the growing market of “Cybercrime as a Service”, in-creasing availability of services that al-low to “hire” attacks using ransomware, botnets and DDoS. The market of cy-bercrime is becoming increasingly bold; therefore, we have to learn, educate oth-ers and work together – these are the key aspects in the fight against criminals.

Tomasz Matuła, director of ICT Infrastructure and Cybersecurity at Orange Polska.


SECURITY CYBER

CERT Orange Polska – a special Computer Emergency Response Team unit within the largest Polish telecom, established in 1997, responsible for the operator’s network security and safety of its users. In 2006, it became the third unit in Poland and the only telecom to hold the right to use the CERT name. It is the first unit in Poland with the “Trusted Introducer Certified Team” status and one of 22 such units across Europe.

Data presented in partnership with Orange Polska

Increase in attacks registered by Orange Polska network from January-June 2017

Type of security incidents handled by CERT Orange Polska from January-June 2017

Ransomware attacks 230% increase Year to Year

Mobile malware attacks 460% increase Year to Year

11 billion registered network events

illegal / abusive content (i.e. spam):

45.5%

gathering data (i.e. phishing)

13.7%

resource availability (e.g. DDoS):

17.5%

malicious software:

4.5%

attempted break-ins (i.e. brute forcing passwords):

15.2%

other:

3.6%

1100 security incidents

120 thousand analyzed alarms

Monthly

Glossary:Botnet – a network of infected computers remotely controlled by the attacker. Botnets are used mainly for DDoS attacks and spamming.

DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service; a network attack consisting of flooding the targeted system with such a volume of data which the system is unable to handle. The aim of the attack is to make network resources unavailable. In the case of DDoS, a number of computers and network connections are used for the attack. This differentiates it from a DoS, which involves one computer and one internet connection.

Ransomware – a type of malicious software that encrypts files on the drive after being installed in the user’s system. Decrypting involves paying ransom to the cybercriminals.

Malware – software characterised with malicious intent with respect to the user’s computer, including computer viruses, computer worms, Trojans or spyware.

Phishing – a type of online scam aimed at stealing the user’s identity, i.e. such confidential information as passwords or personal data, that will allow the cybercriminal to impersonate the victim. In most cases, victims are lured into providing information as a result of opening a malicious attachment or clicking a fake link.

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CYBER SECURITY


INTERVIEW EU ON THE EDGE

At the third Prague European Summit, Visegrad Insight talked to Roland Freudenstein – Deputy Director and Head of Research at Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, a think tank of the European People’s Party – about the current mood among politicians in Brussels, the difficult choices regarding Viktor Orbán and about what really matters in the debate about the future EU budget.

TREMORS IN EUROPE’S

FOUNDATION

ROLAND FREUDENSTEIN FOR VISEGRAD INSIGHT

55

EU ON THE EDGE INTERVIEW

(VI): What does the future of Europe look like now, and how is it connected with the eurozone?(Roland Freudenstein): First of all, the atmosphere in Brussels and amongst those in Berlin, Paris and other cap-itals who deal with Europe has changed 180 degrees. At the beginning of this year, it was all doom and gloom; it was the lowest point in what I would call a 12-year depression.

It started in 2005 with a referendum in the Netherlands and France about the constitutional treaty: that was the begin-ning of a roller-coaster ride where it went from low to even lower. I would say the lowest point was after the Brexit referen-dum and the US election. Trump, Brexit, Orbán, Wilders and Kaczynski, these were the factors that brought optimism to a standstill. We have recovered suspiciously fast, I don’t really believe this is going to last, but it’s certainly a more construc-tive atmosphere. The European Union looks strong, like it is capable of acting, and within this the eurozone – or perhaps a smaller grouping within the eurozone – will attempt to play the role of the avant-garde. To what extent that is going to work out is a different question, especially after the German election. But this is the mood at the moment; it’s springtime in Brussels.

Will the future of Europe be about the future of the eurozone much more than the future of the EU?That’s an open question, but I don’t think we are there yet. Even when the mood slightly picked up at the start of the year, treaty change was still a no-go area.

90% of politicians at the national level were still saying “no way”. Even Juncker, even Timmermans were ruling out treaty change. After the first round of the French parliamen-tary elections, there was, for the first time, serious talk and intellectual effort to go for some kind of treaty change, but this is the beginning of a process and there are still numerous ob-stacles. So, I would say the official line of governments is: let’s do what we can within the framework of the existing treaties.

Strengthening of the eurozone – yes. New institutions – there is a big question mark. Perpetuating a two-speed model of the EU? I think many people would view this as a problem, including Angela Merkel. One should distinguish between multi-speed and two-speed.

If you look at the European Commission’s White Paper, it deliberately talks about smaller groups of countries going forward in specific areas. Basically, this would happen in three areas: financial and economic co-operation – which is almost equivalent to the economic and monetary union, i.e. eurozone – the second would involve institutions dealing with Justice and Home Affairs and Counter Terrorism; and the final would revolve around defence.

But let’s be clear, EU defence is not about defending Europe from Russian aggression or deterring Russian nuclear weapons. This is not on the cards, NATO takes care of that

and I think people with sober heads in Berlin and Brussels know this; in Paris, I’m not so sure.

So, the idea of a multi-speed Europe is that you will have different groups of countries going forward in these three dif-ferent areas.

I think for Central Europe, and especially for Poland, that should be good news because it is a deliberate negation of the principle of a two-speed Europe, one at the core and the other on the periphery. I think Poland can be sure that countries like Germany would be happy to see Poland as a core member in one or two of these three groups. It all depends on what kinds of groupings you will have in Europe.

The Polish view, coming from the public debate, is unsurpris-ingly simple when it comes to Europe. This has been sold to the Polish public as a cash cow. True, but, in the deep strategic sense, the EU is in Poland as-sociated with soft defence compared to the hard defence of NATO. The eurozone table is also going to be the place for a discussion about the European budget and Poland for the time being. It is a pity that Poland’s current government does not want to sit at this table. I hope in a differentiated structure, the eurozone table is going to be integrated within the EU. There should definitely be a parallel table at which those countries which are not members and are less interested in majority vot-ing are going to sit.

Do you think that a scenario where a two-speed Europe, with the eurozone as a core, is realistic? If you define a core group as a group that would like to go ahead and make decisions without the others, then these would be countries that have a clearly defined common inter-est as opposed to the rest.

I think if you look at the eurozone and the governments of different political parties that are in there, I do not see such an easily-defined core interest in that group which would be different from the interests of the periphery, or whatever you want to call them. We need to really look at exactly what countries are in there, and how these countries imagine the future of Europe, as we are now talking about economics and finance. There are such fundamental differences in economic thinking and economic philosophy between the political class of Germany and the political class of France that there is very little common vision between those two, and there is a lot of common interests that each one of them has with countries outside, especially Germany.

Germany – when it comes to trade and when it comes to open markets, particularly the four freedoms – has a lot of in-terest in common with countries outside the eurozone. It will, therefore, consider their interests, too, before meetings with the EU group. I’m not trying to claim everything is sweet here. I can see there is a problem, but it is not as black and white as it is sometimes presented in the media. It is a complicated matter that is sometimes hard to explain to the public.

If I were Polish, I would look at what’s in it for us, where can we directly co-operate? Where can we make our voices heard? Where can we use Slovakia to represent the Visegrad group? Where can we bilaterally talk to Berlin, as the strong-est member of the euro group, without forgetting about the interests of the other countries: essentially, Poland should take a constructive approach.


INTERVIEW EU ON THE EDGE

Would you then advocate the position of Poland, Hungary and Czechia becoming eurozone members?It is the straightest and safest way to have Polish, Czech and Hungarian interests represented in the eurozone, of course. Logically, if in a sandbox a group of kids start playing amongst themselves, the easiest way for others to not feel left out is to join them. Of course, for the “in” group, there is the question: how are those kids outside the sandbox behaving? Are they go-ing to play nicely and peacefully – because that behaviour has an effect on all of us. If the kids outside say, “we want to be able to hit each other but still be part of the peaceful kids group,” there is a paradox. It seems to me that there is a tendency among the outsiders – in terms of Poland and Hungry – to assume that they can behave according to different rules, politically speak-ing, and yet be part of the core group. That just won’t work.

What is the EPP’s strategy towards Hungary and Viktor Or-bán? Up to a point, the EPP seemed to contain Mr Orban, but now it is more problematic. What is the EPP’s strategy towards this kid who doesn’t play by the rules?To paraphrase an old and slightly vulgar proverb [Lyndon Johnson speaking about J. Edgar Hoover] which I have heard used verbatim in this regard, “it’s better to have a bad guy in the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.” It’s an American saying but you know what I mean. As long as Fidesz is within the EPP, there will always be some kind of compromise, also from Fidesz’s side; that’s the guiding philosophy. As far as de-tails are concerned regarding deadlines and membership red lines that can’t be crossed, I can’t say. I’m afraid there is no coherent plan for this among the others.

From the EPP in the European Parliament, there were 50% who voted against the resolution asking the council to begin a procedure which could potentially end in levelling sanctions against the Hungarian government: 25% abstained and 25% were in favour. Interestingly, if you look at Fidesz’s as well as the Hungarian government’s websites in the weeks after this vote, there was no mention of the fact that half the EPP group refused to support Orbán. There was only talk of an alleged leftist majority in the European Parliament.

The future of the EU budget (yes, it comes to us again) is present in public debate in Poland – and I hear it in other arenas as well, especially with the Nordic countries – they have a hard time explaining to their taxpayers why they should contribute to the development of Central Europe, especially when concerning the positions of the current gov-ernments in power. We know that, with Brexit, this budget will shrink while simultaneously there are countries that do not match the criteria set by the rules of cohesion. The aver-age prosperity level in these countries is increasing, but do you think beyond these two obvious factors what else can change that will affect the structure of funding? I think the EU budget will probably shrink for the first time. The first obvious reason is Brexit, so the EU budget for after 2020 is going to be smaller. I think we are precisely at the beginning of a debate: there is no masterplan, there is no clear strategy. There are individual statements from individual politicians saying this or that, but yes, in the end, I think politics will play a role in the allocation of European funds in the future.

The idea has been around for some time that countries should return to self-funding agriculture, for instance.

Do you think there is a split?Of course, there is a debate. It hasn’t started very intensively yet. I think the real debate will start after the 2019 elections and after Brexit. In 2019, I think we will see a really big budget debate. What we see now is preliminary comments, but there is no co-ordinated debate.

There was a lot declared with the previous commission or are there new ideas in Brussels about how to move Europe forward regarding defence, security…Yes, security is a buzzword. Within the council, anti-terrorism and defence at the start of this year were considered the only light at the end of the tunnel. Now, we have some other fresh developments, but to me the battle lines seem unchanged compared with the past couple of decades.

We still have two opposing philosophies. One side be-lieving in the huge investment possibilities such as the Juncker Plan with 360 billion euros, most of it coming from member states but some coming from the EU budget itself.

You know I heard a very courageous proposal com-ing from, I think, a Green member of the EU Parliament, a German named Mr. Sven Giegold, who said we should double the Juncker plan. Now, I’m impressed. He must have thought about this for a long time, But it’s still complete nonsense. Why not triple or quadruple, to be even more courageous!

So, what is at the heart of the budgetary debate then?You can see I belong firmly to the other side which believes any centrally distributed funds, whether it is on agriculture, on entrepreneurship, on jobs, on digital, would be of very limited value. I’m trying to be diplomatic here. It’s not always useless, but it is of very, very limited value. I think this money is usually much better spent according to the time-honoured principle of subsidiarity: as low as possible within the hierarchy of na-tional, regional and local governments. Our prosperity should be used to cut taxes in certain areas, to increase other incen-tives and, especially, to cut red tape.

Maybe the latter is the most important point of all: If you make it easier to fire, you also make it easier to hire. That is the core of the French debate on the labour market now, but it takes leadership. I’m afraid that Macron is now willing to pay the price for reforming France, and this will actually lead to a strong limitation on the freedom of movement just in order to pacify French public opinion vis-à-vis his labour market reforms.

So, what the British government initially, pre-Brexit, tried to achieve (which was a total reversal of what they did in the 2000s) is actually now becoming a reality without Britain’s involvement. This is because other countries, suddenly, seem to be thinking along those same lines: that the eastern enlarge-ment was probably a mistake, and that the worst aspect of the eastern enlargement is the proverbial Polish plumber.

I’m sorry, I cannot buy this line. I find it terrible, and I am afraid that some in Paris are playing geopolitical games with this because ultimately, they are undoing part of the east-ern enlargement of the European Union. They want to drag Germany to the West. They want to shut the gates to Central Europe, and they are depriving Central Europe of the only sec-tor in which it can really compete economically for the benefit of everyone, ultimately.

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EU ON THE EDGE INTERVIEW


TYTUŁ DZIAŁU ROZWINIĘCIE TEMATU

While many have seen the inauguration of President Donald Trump in Washington DC as the turning point in this year’s political calendar, it is fair to say that the elections in France and Germany have unmade this trend, at least for now. Don-ald Trump holding the president’s office of a country which to many was a guarantor of the European order has put Euro-peans on edge. As much as his electoral success empowered nationalist and isolationist trends, the victories of Emmanuel

Macron and Angela Merkel has brought about a belief that Europe can defend and redefine itself against the rise of these radicalisms.

Numerous European elections this year were nervously considered as potential doomsdays for the established institutional order. Political apocalypse has not yet ar-rived. Nevertheless, the level of experimentation with institutions of democratic sys-tems, especially in Central Europe, has been unprecedented and is not likely to stop unless the EU is infused with new energy that would lay down tracks for the future. 2017 may not be the end to the political and social turbulence unfolding, but it defi-nitely has marked the end of the democratic transformation paradigm. Countries of the Visegrad Group are ready to discuss the path set forth 28 years ago not in terms of pure speculation but also by casting their ballots.

To the peoples in Central Europe, the driving factor of change has been conver-gence – catching up with the West. Today, this fuel is nearly depleted and it is mani-fested by many political leaders from the left to the right. Although enormous progress has taken place, as measured by any possible index, the political debate is moving away from past achievements to future challenges. This includes a new institutional order in Europe and a European method of economic development with the expected reforms of the eurozone.

In this context, we present analysis and reflections of several distinguished experts and politicians from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Poland and Slovakia on the role the countries of the region will play in shaping the future of the EU. Next to political motives, it is hard to overlook the economic interests of German companies in all Visegrad countries. The economic exchange between each of the V4 economies and Germany accounts for roughly 40% of the trade and is one of the defining factors in the future political developments.

Articles for this section were written over the summer and autumn of this year by authors who took part in a conference organised by Visegrad Insight and the Polish-German Cooperation Foundation. The meeting was initiated by Dr Rita Süssmuth, former President of the Bundestag, and to whom we are thankful for the idea and for her remarks at the conference. While we prepare for the follow up meeting in 2018, we present our readers with the opinions and analysis inspired by the Warsaw meeting.

Cornelius Ochmann, Member of the Board – Director, Foundation for Polish-German CooperationWojciech Przybylski, Editor-in-Chief, Visegrad Insight

The endof convergence

59

V4 ABROAD FUTURE OF EU

The strong and restrictive position of the group with regards to the EU migra-tion crisis has drawn con-siderable attention to the four countries. In a simi-lar vein, developments in domestic affairs, notably

far-reaching reforms in Hungary and Poland have sparked discussions about the state of democracy in the region. Of course, there has been a Visegrad group before the squabbles around asylum and migration policies – and it is worthwhile to envision the different and changing image and self-perceptions of the Cen-tral European quartet. With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible to distinguish four unique stages of Visegrad.

First, there was a highly value-driven, a sort of “idealistic” Visegrad. Of course, the initial meetings of the (then) three states had a manifest political component. But the essential message was to show that in a situation of change and uncer-tainty these countries want to decouple from the disintegrating East and want to re-join the West, to which they felt a be-longing – according to their traditions and identity. The Visegrad countries, their political leaders backed by their so-cieties, then translated this idealistic and normative yearning for the West into po-litical and economic reforms. Apart from Slovakia’s detour between 1993 and 1998, the Visegrad countries became the para-digm of post-communist transformation.

With the enlargement of the EU in 2004, the old members – especially Germany – witnessed a new, unexpected version of Visegrad. The Central European “reform states”, which hitherto had always adapted to European laws and principles and which appeared to take German lead-ership for granted, now started saying “no”. For example, still standing at the doorsteps of the Union, the countries of the region sided with the US during the Iraq war. Poland tried to block Germany and others in their attempt to introduce a new system of voting for the EU council – a project that was regarded by Berlin as a key insti-tutional change to make the EU suitable for the accession of new members.

However, after these first disagree-ments, Visegrad continued its successful pre-2004 path of reforms and modern-isation. A huge and continuous influx of foreign direct investments and EU fund-ing made the region an economic power house. In the EU, the Visegrad countries

deepened and completed their accession, and as a testament to their integration, Slovakia joined the eurozone in 2009.

Each successful turn at EU coun-cil presidencies – the Czech Republic (2009), Hungary (2011) and Poland (2011) – proved that the countries were de jure members of the European communi-ty and not just de facto affiliates. More importantly, after the financial and sov-ereign debt crises had severely hit many EU countries (including Hungary), the V4 supported Germany’s approach of fiscal conservatism and tough economic ad-justments. In the eyes of many Western European observers and also reflecting a change in their own self-image, Visegrad moved away from the old East and became part of the new North in the EU during this period of development.

Finally, the refugee crisis of 2015 brought about a restive and restrictive Visegrad. The four countries have been adamant about rejecting the idea of oblig-atory mechanisms for the redistribution of asylum-seekers in the EU. According to their concept of “flexible solidarity”, migration and asylum are common chal-lenges for the EU; however, it should not be solved by distributing refugees among member states but by improving border security and assistance on the hotspots in crisis regions. At the same time, the governments in power in Hungary (since 2010) and in Poland (since 2015) have stressed their willingness to push through domestic agendas of fundamental change and to defend national sovereignty con-sistently. Budapest and Warsaw have also signalled that they would not allow the EU to interfere in matters which they regard to be the core of their statehood (i.e. the political system or the control of migra-tion from non-EU countries).

In sum, Visegrad has run through various stages since its existence, and the region will certainly change its action plans and its self-perception in the future. In any case, Visegrad will remain multifac-eted. Its partners in the EU will encounter a denying and defying Visegrad as well as a cooperative and innovative Visegrad. For Germany, as the closest and most impor-tant neighbour of the V4 and the country which is burdened to keep the Union to-gether, the varying faces of Visegrad mean both a chance to intensify contact as well as accept the inherent differences within the region.

KAI-OLAF LANG The D

ifferent Faces of Visegrad

Visegrad has become a visible and, for many, a controversial factor in European affairs.


FUTURE OF EU V4 ABROAD


Their EuropeanFoil

Their EuropeanFoil

The Hurdles Ahead for Central EuropeThe challenges facing the CE region are the continuing market reforms, the attempts to build and solidify democracy and the struggle against corruption.

IVETA RADIČOVÁ

buyers in East Germany had to place their orders 15 years in advance. In Romania, the dictator Ceausescu put all citizens on a low-calorie diet to save money for repaying the country´s foreign debt. He limited lighting to one 40-watt bulb per room, heating in public buildings to 14 degrees and television pro-gramming to two tedious hours per day.

When the communist systems collapsed in 1989, infla-tion hit 640% in Poland and 2700% in Yugoslavia. The need for reforms was inevitable, such as: deregulating prices, un-leashing trade, balancing budgets, cutting inflation, creating competition, privatising state enterprises and constructing social welfare programs.

Reforms reshaped the countries into market friendly economies where state-owned industrial dinosaurs gave way to private firms. In no other region has international trade ex-panded so fast, being reoriented to foreign markets with the lion share heading to the EU.

The countries transformed their militarised, over-indus-trialised and state-dominated systems into service-oriented market economies based on private ownership and integrated into global commercial networks.

Before considering the current and future options for the post-communist societies of Europe, it is important to be reminded of the circumstances facing the group dur-ing the old regimes.

Politically, all the countries were de facto authoritarian states governed by a single ruling party. Each one had propa-

gandists to tell the people what to think, secret police to detect dissidence, prison camps to house regime critics and all staged farcical elections in which the party won more than 95% of the vote. With the exceptions of Yugoslavia and post-1960 Albania, each took orders from Moscow, which collectively sent tanks to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush popular uprisings.

Besides having a centrally controlled economy, most if not all property belonged to the state, prices were set up by planners and heavy industry dominated as services languished. Satisfying consumers, to say the least, was not a priority: to get a flat in the 1980s applicants in Bulgaria had to wait up to 20 years, in Poland up to 30 years, and a quarter of the people filling the Soviet waiting lists were already pensioners. Car

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The Report Card THE HURDLESAHEAD FORCENTRALEUROPE

Their EuropeanFoil

Their EuropeanFoil

Despite the initial contraction, the median post-communist country in terms of growth expanded slightly

faster between 1990–2011 than median countries elsewhere

in the world.

The rise in consumption was equally dramatic. From 1990 to 2011, household con-sumption per capita in the post-communist countries grew, on average, by 88% com-pared with the average increase of 56% elsewhere in the world.

So too, these countries witnessed considerable improvement in living standards: the number of passenger cars climbed from one for every 10 people to one for every four. Information technology in the region evolved from being a backwater bumpkin to a practiced overachiever (in 2013, the region´s cell-phone subscriptions per person had overtaken the rate in West). The post-communist world now boasts a higher percent-age of internet users than any other region except North America and Western Europe. The citizens travel more than ever before, and they occupy larger flats.

When it comes to the environment, communism had left behind a forest of smoke-stacks, but since 1990, the 11 countries that joined the EU have slashed their emissions by more than half. The average life expectancy has risen from 69 years in 1990 to 73 in 2012. Significantly, infant mortality fell faster in % terms than in any other region.

However, the most fundamental transformation was political. Governments are more free and open today than at any point in their history; the extent of political change is remarkable. Today, the average post-communist country is exactly as free as one would expect it to be, given its level of income.

Though problems still exist, and the countries are far from perfect: the level of cor-ruption is higher than their western partners. There is a lower standard of living coupled with higher unemployment, the weak rule of law, a low trust in justice, and a lamentable level of civic participation as well as the diminished trust in democratic institutions in general, and this is not to mention the often criticised state of public and social services.

All of this is reflected in the important factor of citizen happiness. Residents express dissatisfaction with their jobs, governments, educational and health-care systems.

Northern Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK) This fortunate group is comprised of the richest economies worldwide, with a fairly equal income distribution, relatively low unemployment and highly developed institutional frame-works. (Crisis impact – average GDP contraction of 4.4%, which was largely due to high involvement in global trade, low inflation rates and an increase of unemployment, about 2% on average.

The reaction included distinctively Keynesian measures with large fiscal stimuli and several rescue packages for troubled banks, which lead to a pronounced increase in public debt of on average 27% of GDP since 2007. The recession is still being felt by many countries, but Germany, Austria and Switzerland have managed to return to their pre-crisis level of GDP per capita.

Juxtaposed with these powerhouses, Ireland has had to face severe difficulties. Specifically, Ireland has a highly stressed banking sector, exploding private and public debt and a sharp rise of unemployment. Ireland was the first country to use the credit line offered by the EU via the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and engaged in harsh austerity policies to offset the loan. Ireland exited this rescue program in late 2013 and is now showing the first signs of recovery.

Southern Europe (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain) This region is beset by the worst economic problems with negative growth rates, extremely high levels of unemployment (20% in average) especially for the young generation and sus-tainably high public debt. The reasons for these developments came between 2000 – 2007 where the steady increase in income, production and the inflow of foreign capital led to a prolonged period of economic growth which was accompanied by increasing real wages and prices. This resulted in real appreciations (since nominal depreciation which would cushion these effects was impossible due to eurozone-membership) and ultimately in a loss of productivity and competitiveness. This combined with unsound fiscal policies resulting from low interest rates (again due to eurozone) led to the cur-rent situation and inability of these countries to overcome the crisis.

Therefore, the only possibility for these eurozone countries was a policy of aus-terity with institutional reforms and severe cuts in spending which should lead to an internal depreciation in order to regain competitiveness on the world markets. This

THE REPORT CARD

The Report Card THE HURDLESAHEAD FORCENTRALEUROPE

Their EuropeanFoil

Their EuropeanFoil

There are significant differences among the countries and

regions of the EU.

THEIR EUROPEAN

FOIL




Their EuropeanFoil

Their EuropeanFoil


Their EuropeanFoil

Their EuropeanFoil

policy was accompanied by large financial aid via the ESM in order to avoid debt cuts and expansive monetary policy by the ECB in order to stimulate economic activity.

Portugal and Spain are now showing the first signs of recovery and have left the ESM scheme, while Greece is still in a desperate situation.

The spending cuts led to severe losses in living standards and were coupled with a strong increase of emigration as well as political tensions which manifested in the successes of political forces that oppose further austerity measures. Worryingly, the most crucial case for the future of the eurozone seems to be Italy.

Central Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) This block of countries had between 2000 – 2007 an average increase in per capita GDP of 52%. The reliance on foreign capital and heavy involvement in international trade is one explanation for the extreme imme-diate crisis reaction in these countries: in 2009 GDP contracted with more than 8% on average, in the Baltic States even with 15 – 18% in one year. Production fell as well due to the collapsing world markets and the international capital flow which stopped abruptly because of general uncertainty on financial markets. (Poland constitutes an exception here without GDP contraction.) The Baltic States answered via strong austerity measures with deep spending cuts, especially at pensions and unemployment benefits.

The group of South Eastern Europe consists of relatively poor countries and are much less developed than other countries of wider Europe. They are facing several in-stitutional weaknesses (corruption, deficient legal systems, low level of socioeconomic development) as well as economic problems such as consistently high unemployment of an average around 18%. These countries are less integrated into the world economy, so the crisis did not hit them as hard in terms of GDP growth as it did elsewhere.

Croatia constitutes a special case, since it clearly is the most advanced country of the group and, since 2013, an EU-member state. The Croatian economy faced strong contraction of GDP in 2009 and sluggish growth since then combined with soaring unemployment.

Europe will have to concentrate on a few major tasks: to develop a unified strategy for the main socio-economic challenges currently facing Europe, namely globalisation and an ageing population. The second task will be to make ground in areas of research and development as well as the establishment of trans-European information networks. Third, we will need a single European system of justice and security if we are to fight crime more effectively. Finally, we need to set up joint armed forces and conduct uni-fied foreign policy through which Europe could speak with one voice.

Europe is at a crossroads: either we allow Europe to atrophy into a mere free trade area in which member states compete with each other to see who can come up with the best response to globalisation, or we take up the European thread once more and cre-ate a close-knit political Europe that is capable of playing a role at the global level and fashions for itself the instruments required to modernise the European economy, and thereby respond to the very phenomena which breathe fear into the continent today .

The citizens of Europe have several fears, a fear of job loss, the erosion of social protection and also the fear of losing their identity. Finally, there is the fear of organ-ised crime growth. On the top of various terrorist attacks perpetrated both inside and outside Europe, peoples’ feelings of insecurity and fear of foreigners have deepened.

What do the people want? People want a decisive Europe that develops foreign policy and a credible security and defence policy and, above all, comes up with com-prehensive economic and social strategies.

Europe can be constructed in line with the previously mentioned two main mod-els, the first being a “Europe of Nations” as advocated by Charles De Gaulle. Namely this would constitute an intergovernmental model that primarily takes account of na-tional interests. The second would be a federal Europe, a union of citizens not just Member States, seeking to act in the general interest of the European Union as a whole.

Some see the union primarily as a free trade area, and others want to continue building Europe into a fully-fledged political union.

The author is former prime minister of Slovakia, currently professor of sociology at the Bratislava International School for Liberal Arts.

THE ROAD AHEAD

There is a scenario where Europe will be comprised of two

concentric circles: a political core, a “United States of Europe” based on the eurozone, and

surrounding it, a confederation of countries or “Organization of

European States”.

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Let me begin with a disclaimer: I realize that it takes more than a healthy dose of foolishness to lump Germany and the Visegrad countries together into one future-oriented article without appearing a little gloomy.

Indeed, you can tell times are difficult when you see Polish TV airing a slogan “Reparationen machen frei”, when you witness the French President Emma-nuel Macron purposefully meeting with his Central European counterparts in the so called “Slavkov Format” and spit in anger at the Polish government afterwards, when you are surprised by the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico miraculously fishing out a fiery sentiment for Slovakia belonging to the Euro-pean core, when you cannot escape noticing how eloquently the Hungarian Prime Minister lashes out against Germany and the EU or when you watch

the Czechs sheepishly paving the way for an unpredictable oligarch to take over the reins of their own country after the October 2017 parliamentary elections.

The scale of tensions, differing and mutually exclusive views, perceptions, interests, mistrust and apathy have been on the surge across the Central European region (including Germany), and there is little to suggest a positive change. On the contrary, there is a strong tendency to believe that a new rigid division of the continent will form; leaving open the possibility that the future of Europe might include a new boundary, one running between Germany and the V4 countries.

So why bother thinking against this tide? Without a cooperative, multifaceted and trustworthy relationship among the Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles and Slovaks, there is no real future for Europe to speak of. We tried to live in a divided Europe in the past, and it is not an experiment worth of repeating.

Before moving to the set of questions that could lead us to creating a deeper sense of regional cooperation, there are a few critical remarks to be addressed towards the expert and journalist community. The reason is that we have fallen prey to three broad sets of fallacies concerning the Central Europe relationship to the EU. These fallacies are – tempocentrism, presentism and determinism.

Tempocentrism is the belief that our own time represents the norm and that all other times are to be judged by it. In other words, it is a tendency to believe that we know better than anyone that has ever lived before. Therefore, we tend to think that our wisdom and analysis of the past and present is the best mankind has ever achieved.

Next is presentism which is the inclination to use past developments and events selectively to validate one’s recent belief and political standpoints (presentism is the “history of the winners”).

MICHAL KOŘAN



Finally, determinism is an illusion that the present state of affairs has been determined by clearly identified caus-es (usually outside of one’s reach), thus leading to the conclusion that the future has been more or less already chosen and will look like a further projection of the immediate past trajectories. This leads to rejecting alternative futures to smirk-ing at people that argue that things can change.

To put these three fallacies into one simplified example, we can use the Eastern EU enlargement. In December 2006, the Financial Times ran an editorial proclaim-ing that the “EU’s (Eastern) enlargement has been its biggest achievement”. Things were good in Europe and the future was looking rosy. We had just accomplished a great triumph of humanity and there was nothing that could possibly derail this sparkling linear future of Europe.

Following the disillusionment with Central Europe in 2015, the same news-paper argued that the enlargement was a “big mistake that ruined Europe”. The actual act of enlargement did not change a bit, yet, its account has been acquir-ing a fascinating charge of negativism. The prevailing narrative is that there are structural societal reasons while the Central and Eastern Europeans cannot really change, and with our recently acquired wisdom, we finally know that their European future is once and for all sealed, leaving the idealism of the 1990s finally behind.

Let us not dwell into the actual as-sessment of the EU enlargement. I believe the main message is clear: no matter what the actual impact of the enlargement might have been, we need to realise that it is the future that matters, and we should stop using past events to legitimise our current political views or future actions. We have a habit of changing our accounts of the past in such a way that it corre-sponds to our current perceptions, beliefs and even political interests. If the expert community, media and politicians do not at least try to strip away these three falla-cies, we will be caught in vicious circles.

Consider this article as an attempt to escape the presentist and determinist approach to contemporary Europe. What follows is a list of pertinent questions, the answers to which the author does not pretend to have. If a debate is provoked by these questions, that is all the article can hope for.

How to engage in a dialogue and cooperation between Germany and the V4 countries despite the fact that there is little agreement on the most pressing issues of the day? A recent piece in the Economist showed what enor-

mous challenges lay ahead of the next German Chancellor. Apart from the obvious topics, like integration of migrants, a troubled relationship with Turkey and Russia, a fraying transatlantic partnership and an ever more technologically competent China, there are even more demanding domestic tasks for the future German representation. Underinvestment in infrastructure, lagging behind in hi-tech research and de-velopment and innovations, demographic challenges, un-derinvestment in education and low educational mobility, education and employment gender gaps and a slowing transi-tion to non-carbon energy production: all these are structural domestic problems that – if not tackled soon and properly – will make Germany less competitive, weaker and as a re-sult more fragile and vulnerable. Of course, no one wants to see Germany weak, fragile and vulnerable, but – more im-portantly – the list of challenges is strikingly similar to what haunts – albeit on a much more urgent and extensive level – the Visegrad countries themselves.

The solutions to the dilemmas facing a multispeed Europe, possible treaty changes, Eurozone governance, Russia, China or even migration – on which Germany and the V4 countries truly do not see eye to eye – will be derived and dependent on the competitiveness and social stability of European countries and not bickering about who gets what, specifically.

One practical example where the refocusing might help is the expected EU budget talks. Most of us expect fierce fight-ing over the cohesion funds. There are those who argue that the Central and Eastern Europeans did not show enough soli-darity during the migration crisis – which is a fair assessment – and so they will feel the consequences as the next EU budget cuts their cohesion money. The CEE countries snap back that a large part of the cohesion money goes back to the wallets of the West Europeans anyway. This quid pro quo mentality is not only childish but extremely unhelpful in the long run.

People in Europe have become lost and even afraid of the future. There is a growing frustration stemming from the feeling of being left behind, neglected, under-represented and unprepared for what the future might bring. These are not only – not even predominantly – political issues. These are issues of social preparedness, resilience and competitiveness. If we agree that instead of mere economic convergence and cohesion, the structural funds should be used so that they tackle – in a very focused way – the key questions of physical mobility, social mobility, educational mobility, research and development, fair access to information and data, a consensus would be much easier to find.

These are issues that knit Europe together by their severity, urgency and excessiveness. Germany and the V4 countries are actually best suited to serve as an opening of this avenue be-cause of their geographical and economic proximity. Such a di-alogue would not only bypass the topics that they cannot agree on, but, more importantly, it could lay down the foundation for a new pan-European narrative of solidarity and progress that is more powerful and long-term oriented than the recent political skirmishes about who pays whom for what and when.

Path dependency and how to escape it

65


How to help the Central Europeans understand better what enormous challenges and responsibilities Germany bears on its shoulders and, ideally, think about their own policies with this understanding in mind? Unless the Central European leaders will be capable of

looking at the world, at least partly, through the lenses of the German leadership, there is little hope for a genuine dialogue and trust. For example, the dramatic weeks that unfolded in the summer of 2015, when the refugee and migration crisis was at its height, was not meant to demonstrate any German asser-tiveness or lack of respect for other partners in Europe, nor was there any sense of German overconfidence as it was mostly interpreted in Central Europe. Instead, these weeks and the ensuing German actions were merely desperate cries for help.

But the Central European perception of Germany is such that it does not allow for viewing Germans as being in need. We need to find ways of helping Central Europeans to real-ise that Germany needs their input, effort and help, and that Germany’s potential has its well-defined limits. So too, the Central Europeans need to lower their level of suspicion and, also, to understand that the Germans have plenty on their plate to be considerate to everyone at every turn and step they make.

How to help the Germans really listen to the Central Europeans and to actually consider what they have to say?Despite the previous question, the Germans have their

bit to do, as well. Having witnessed several debates about Germany and the V4 countries in recent months, I couldn’t help but notice a particular trait that just does not seem to go away: there is a very low level of ability to really listen to what the other party has to say. It seems that each side of the aisle sees a completely different world and no one bothers to try to hear out the other.

Quite frankly, the nature of the dialogue usually gives an impression that it is the German representatives trying to explain how things actually are and convince the room ac-cordingly. But the Central Europeans have begun to ask ques-tions: are we actually part of the “we” that defines the future of Europe? If not, how can we become part of this “we”? Does the EU want the Central and Eastern Europeans to emancipate and become truly equal partners in dialogue?

“Are you actually ready?” Could be the response from the Germans and the EU Commission itself.

There is a widespread feeling that Central Europeans lack a sense of joint ownership regarding the recent spree of initia-tives in the EU, of which most comes from Germany. It is not really important whether this feeling among Central Europeans is based on real or imagined causes. There is a real risk of al-ienation – the Hungarian government, closely followed by its Polish and sometimes Slovak counterparts interpret the “new” Visegrad Group as a maturing sub-regional pressure group that finally got rid of its shyness as it is finally able to speak up for it-self and safeguard the region against the oppressive practices of Brussels. This is a very dangerous narrative, owing its existence to toxic political ambitions, prejudices and misunderstandings on the side of the Visegrad countries, but also by a lack of will-ingness to listen and engage in a genuine dialogue on the side of their Western European partners.

How to tap into the pro-democratic and pro-EU energy that resurfaced after the series of populist bursts in the last two or three years? Looking for something positive that has emerged out of

the recent political bedlam in the developed world is not an easy task. But there is definitely a silver lining embodied in the fresh feeling of frankness, engagement and energy. True, there are large parts of societies – especially in Central and Eastern Europe – that actually grew more apathetic to what is happening around them but the overall atmosphere has changed. Only a few years ago, intellectual debates in the European conferences halls were running on autopilot and were lacking any genuine ef-fort to push the limits of our critical understanding of the world.

This is not the case anymore. There are political move-ments in Central Europe (like NEOS in Austria, Nowoczesna in Poland, Progressive Slovakia or Momentum in Hungary) that try to politically frame such an energy.

The crucial question is, how to tap into this resurfaced vigour without causing further divisions among and within the European societies. To start with, the emerging clash be-tween the progressive, open-minded and globalised parts of European societies on the one hand and the defensive, anxious and perhaps intolerant ones on the other should not be viewed and depicted as a clash between some ultimate good and evil – which is, unfortunately, usually the case.

Let us take an off-spring of the pro-EU and progressiv-ist energy – French President Emmanuel Macron – as an ex-ample. His victory was celebrated throughout Europe, yet his political and progressive drive is poised to touch significant and negative sentiments among those members of European societies that feel ill prepared for the globalised, borderless and tech-driven future.



The Central Europeans are among those that feel – rightly or not – perhaps most vulnerable and least confident. President’s Macron trip through Eastern Europe was, sadly, a demonstration of his incapability to understand that blaming those who do not necessarily share his progressivist vision of Europe was about the worst possible political choice. If the fu-ture of Europe is what lies close to his heart, instead of driving a wedge between those who support his views and those who do not, his message should have been that as Europeans, we need to work together to create conditions where as few as possible should fear the open and globalized future he proposes.

This is where Germany might step in. Angela Merkel – provided she will form a coalition after her party won the largest portion of seats in the most recent election – is much better positioned, individually, socially, politically and cultur-ally to, to moderate the emerging social clash. And again, the geographical, historical and mental proximity of the Visegrad countries and Germany should serve as a natural platform for such a debate.

How to communicate to the Central European public that a full economic convergence with Germany and the other developed European countries is unlikely to take place? Much of the “European dreaming” of Central Europeans

was – and still is – based on the promise that through EU membership, their respective countries will be able to catch up not only politically, but also economically with the West. The farther away such a convergence lies, the more frustration seems to follow. The regional political leadership, including Germany, should find the courage to carefully pass the mes-sage that EU membership is not about the mirage of full eco-nomic convergence.

EU membership offers a wide variety of instruments to improve political, social and economic conditions – through common regulations, the single market and basic freedoms and rights. But arranging policies so that we can attain an ev-er-closer convergence with the most developed countries in Europe will only fuel further outbursts of anger.

ConclusionThis article purposefully tried to shift away from the daily

political and policy questions facing Europe today. Instead, I attempted to refocus our attention to broader European and regional questions with the underlying notion that there is no positive European future without a more trusting relationship between Germany and the Visegrad countries.

Present day Europe does not offer many reasons for opti-mism about this relationship. Too often the mutual prejudices and misunderstanding are actually provoked and utilised by the political representatives with the aim to score important domestic political points. The problem is, however, that the expert community reproduces and even amplifies the general trajectories offered by these politicians. That is why the expert community needs to think reflectively and critically about our inclination towards presentism, tempocentrism and determin-ism. Then, perhaps, we will see that the conditions are actually quite suitable for trying to build a more genuine dialogue about the European future between Germany and the V4 countries.

The economy is recovering, unemployment is low, posi-tive dynamism in Europe is resurfacing and there are political movements that are already able to frame this dynamism in political terms. The risk of not recognizing this as an oppor-tunity is nothing less than allowing new divisions of Europe to creep in.

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Hungary fulfils all but one criteria set by the Maastricht Treaty. Since it was our indepen-dent monetary policy which helped the coun-try overcome the financial crisis, Hungary does not wish to enter the fixed exchange rate mechanism. But taking such a step depends only on our own decision. The introduction of the euro can become relevant if Hungary’s economic development approaches the aver-age of the eurozone, otherwise the country may fall victim to the accession, just like some Mediterranean countries. Moreover, the eu-rozone has to reform and stabilise itself, to re-gain its previous appeal. Only the fulfilment of these two conditions could lead to seriously considering the accession. Momentarily, the introduction of the euro in Hungary is not on the agenda – reads the official statement of the ministry.

On a hot summer day, Mr. István Újhelyi, an MEP from Hungary’s Socialist Party, published an online petition on his per-sonal website (ujhelyi.eu) urging a debate on Hungary’s accession to the eurozone. He even ventured to the Sziget Festival, one of Europe’s biggest outdoor parties, to convince young partygoers that the

future of the country lies in the eurozone and not on the pe-riphery where the current government would like to position Hungary. Some media reported on the initiative, but – partly due to the summer vacations – a truly ground-breaking public debate has not followed. A public debate has been launched by the conservative daily Magyar Nemzet with prominent economists and former politicians, arguing for and against the common currency, but it has stopped short of becoming a real public debate.

The governing party, Fidesz, once a keen supporter of the idea of early eurozone accession, is refraining from all public debates. The official line, promptly sent to Visegrad Insight from the Ministry of National Economy, argues that the government is proud of its successful economic record of the last few years, which would enable Hungary to join the eurozone. However, its sovereign decision is not to do so.

Paradoxically, the government, which never tires of boasting about the miraculous figures of the Hungarian economy, acknowledges that there is still a lot of work ahead. Hungary’s catching up with the EU should be a matter of real concern. No other country in the CEE region has produced such sluggish development since the transi-tion as Hungary. Starting off as an eminent student in the end of the 1980s, Hungary’s per capita GDP stood at 43% of the EU average in 1993 and has since climbed only to 63% by 2015, due to a prolonged stagnation.

THE EURO, ALWAYS ON THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN

Hungarians would embrace the euro but politicians are cautious

EDIT INOTAI



At the same time, countries like Estonia, which start-ed off at 29%, has overtaken Hungary, and the often looked down upon Slovakia became a country of envy (reaching 71% of the EU average GDP/capita); even Romania is on track to catch up with Hungary in the near future.

One might ask where it would all end without the gen-erous EU transfers, amounting to 3-5% of the GDP every year? Would there be any growth at all, or an outright re-cession? If the decision about the Hungarian euro would be based exclusively on real convergence of the Hungarian GDP, the date of the entry would be relegated to the very distant future. Mr György Matolcsy, the President of Hungary’s National Bank, already indicated that he saw no urgency at all and forecasted the date of accession no sooner than 2031.

Yet real convergence and successful euro acces-sion are not necessarily interlinked: many countries (the Baltics and Slovakia) joined the eurozone as relatively poor members of the community and – although undoubtedly there was a price to pay – have been considered successful members ever since. The question is how competitive and flexible an economy is since once inside the eurozone, it is no longer possible to devalue its currency to boost growth.

“It is not an economic, but a geopolitical pressure which should push Hungary into the eurozone,” explained István Újhelyi, a Hungarian MEP. From his Brussels-perspective, each European political debate of the last three years has ended with the conclusion that there should be a change of pace in the EU. Brexit and the rise of the two illiberal states, Poland and Hungary, suddenly opened new perspectives: if no significant amalgamation of the entire EU is possible, it is the eurozone which should offer a path of deeper integration. “And” – says Újhelyi – “Hungarians have the right to decide where they belong.”

Interestingly, despite the anti-Brussels rhetoric of the Fidesz government, the European Union is still popular in Hungary and even the euro enjoys support. A growing list of prominent Hungarians, including conservatives, are supporting an initiative to launch a national referendum on the adoption of the euro in Hungary, and according to the latest polls, 52% of Hungarians would prefer the com-mon currency (more than in Italy and in Cyprus), which is close to the EU average of 54% with only 41% opposing it. A certain type of wishful thinking prevails in the opposi-tion that a stronger commitment to Europe – vis a vis to the Moscow-friendly attitude of the current government – could unite and rally voters behind them in the upcoming election in spring 2018.

Nevertheless, the common ground ends here since the opposition itself is even split on the euro. Jobbik, the radical right-wing party on a course of Europe-friendly metamorphosis, started a campaign on the somewhat un-realistic European wage union but would not touch the national currency. The smaller, left-leaning (globalisa-tion-critical) LMP is also sceptical whether the adoption of the euro could be beneficial for the society, rather than only for the multinational companies. As László Heltai, spokesperson for economic affairs of the party explained to Visegrad Insight:

The symbolic effect of the euro should not be overemphasised. There are many other fields where our commitment to the EU could be strengthened, like the harmonisation of taxes, environmental policies or labour laws – they would all offer more benefits to the society. Adopting the euro, however, would entail a lot of risks and would deprive the country of the necessary instruments for fighting back a po-tential financial crisis, says the LMP politician, voicing similar arguments as the government.

Support comes from intellectual circles as well: while mainstream economists bother little with promoting the euro (it will come someday, they shrug), a well-known left-leaning economist from the University of Western Hungary and fierce critic of austerity programs, Zoltán Pogátsa, warns that adopting the euro would only lead to low growth, and without real convergence, it is akin to a suicide mission. He would go halfway: “fixing the ex-change rate – entering the ERM – would be just enough as a stability anchor”. In a way, this is like having your cake and eating it too: stability is provided but the country would still have the chance to devalue should a crisis hit. According to other experts, however, the Hungarian forint is momentarily overappreciated which makes the economy less competitive.

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It seems that the government has a bit different position than the National Bank of Hungary. Is there a position of the Hungarian government on the euro adoption now?Yes, we are not going to introduce it in the nearest future de-spite the obligation, as it is up to the country to decide when to introduce the euro. Our past experience shows that we can better cope with our economic problems without the euro. We have signed the Maastricht Treaty in which it is stated that we should adopt the euro, but it is up to the candidate when to do it. We are not ready to make that step because we are better by our own standards, at the moment.

Are you setting any special conditions that need to be met?There are numerous conditions. The eurozone has to deal with a number of issues by itself, first.

The President of the Hungarian National Bank enumerat-ed several conditions.

Yes, but those are the perspectives or figures enumerated by him. The ones he mentioned represent more the position of the parliament than of the government.

Does the government set any additional conditions?We believe that, in many respects, the idea of the euro should be a little bit refurbished. There are not only monetary condi-tions that matter. There are other issues as well, and if you do not adjust other issues like competitiveness, capital income and the unnatural tensions within the system, it is going to be ripped apart.

Provided that there is a reform of the eurozone, will you change your position?We will see, we shall see what the changes are going to be. Under the existing treaty that we signed, it is the end of the game. We’ll see.

Talking about a crisis: things could have turned out quite differently if Hungary had entered the eurozone as early as it was originally planned. The accession was once on the agenda of both the Fidesz and the Socialist govern-ment right after joining the EU. Even the dates were set for 2008 or 2009. However, in 2003, the social-liberal co-alition, led by former finance minister Péter Medgyessy, decided on a massive wage increase in the public sector instead of a strict budgetary policy, and blew off the chanc-es of a rapid integration. When Fidesz wants to strike back against the socialists in the euro-debate, it never forgets to mention this “eternal sin” of the party. The irresponsible expansionist monetary policy contributed to the vulnera-bility of the Hungarian economy and the Swiss franc loan crisis, which could have been avoided should the country already belong to the eurozone. As most socialist politi-cians, Újhelyi finds himself in an uncomfortable position, but defends the controversial wage policy as a necessary step. “Otherwise social tensions would have exploded the country,” he said, “now we face a different situation”.

For some politicians, the adoption of the euro is like a race. Romania and Bulgaria, which have vowed to enter the waiting room of the eurozone, the ERM, would not like to remain on the periphery. Many see the current revital-isation of the French-German tandem as a push for deeper integration in Europe, and there seems to be a rush to join the so called “core-Europe”, built on the current eurozone. Slovakia already stated that it wants to sit at the Brussels/Frankfurt table where vital decisions on the future of the EU are to be taken. This would clearly weaken the Visegrad project. Even the traditionally Eurosceptic Czech Republic is eyeing the euro and announced their intention to seek observer’s status at the eurozone meetings.

This is apparently not the intention of the Hungarian government as the official statement of the Ministry of National Economy has implied. But it would be difficult to ignore the threat of Visegrad falling apart due to their various approaches to the future of Europe. The visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to the CEE region – and leaving out the two “rogue states”, Hungary and Poland, also signals that there is a growing intolerance to-wards countries which do not play by the European rules.

There is a rumour that Hungary will receive an ir-refutable offer from Brussels this fall, but nobody knows whether there will be more carrots or sticks in it – and whether it would have any effect on the Hungarian gov-ernment. For Újhelyi, the talk about the economy is just an excuse. He thinks there is a strong political reason for staying out of any deeper integration: the illiberal state is incompatible with the idea of a having a common finance minister and a common budget, which would not allow to pay projects like building grandiose soccer stadiums nor enriching companies run by the Prime Minister’s friends and relatives. This would be incompatible with the essence of the system, transferring more competences – especially in the economic and business sectors – outside their cli-entele. The usual argument about the Hungarian curren-cy anchored in the constitution is just a pretext: with the necessary political will (meaning the two thirds majority) it can be amended any time.

The author is a senior fellow at the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy (CEID).

ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS

On October 13th, 2017, Zoltán Kovács, Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations of the Ministry of Administration and Justice of Hungary, was asked by the Visegrad Insight about the adoption of the euro in Hungary.



THE FACTSThree out of four countries of the Visegrad Group have not adopted the common currency. Slovakia adopted the euro in 2009 and popular support for membership in the eurozone is one of the highest in all EU countries – over 80% (August 2017).

As Flash Eurobarometer 453 (May 2017) noted on the popularity of the euro in member states that have not yet adopted the currency, the majority of the population in the aforementioned countries do not feel informed enough about the euro (from 50%–59% feeling ill-informed).

In Central Europe, popular support remains high in Romania (64%), Hungary (57%), Croatia (52%) and Bulgaria (50%). At the same time, in Poland (41% for; 56% against) and the Czech Republic (29% for; 70% against) the eurozone is not popular. And while the demand for quick membership is low, it slightly increases over time.

Interestingly, Hungary and Poland are the only countries where a majority of respondents disagree that adopting the euro will mean that their country will lose control over its eco-nomic policy (58% and 52% respectively).

THE GAME:The Czech Republic: the outgoing socialists in Czech Republic highlighted the euro in their electoral campaign, going against the popular sentiments of voters. The new majority in parlia-ment has campaigned against the euro in the 2017 elections. In March, the Czech National Bank decided on a new policy to not intervene on currency exchange – essentially taking one step closer to joining the eurozone.

This October, the Polish Finance Ministry official pro-claimed that Poland does not exclude adoption of the euro after the future of eurozone reform is known, which is a move from NEVER to MAYBE in the PiS government’s position. While in June 2017, the president of National Bank outlined his arguments against joining the eurozone.

In Hungary, despite popular support, the government stresses that Hungary will not join the eurozone. The President of the Hungarian National Bank listed a number of his own criteria next to the Maastricht treaty.

THE DEBATE:Visegrad Insight has followed and continues to stir the debate on the eurozone in the V4. Here is a selection of our coverage so far between 2015-2017:

Luděk Niedermayer, former deputy chairman of the Czech National Bank “countries like the Czech Republic should sup-port the club instead of questioning it, which might ultimately bring the date of our joining the eurozone quite a bit closer.”

Mojmír Hampl, from the Czech National Bank said, “despite its geographical proximity o and close trade links with the euro area, the degree of spontaneous euroisation within the Czech economy is low and is not growing.”

Ádám Balog, the CEO-Chairman of MKB Bank Ltd criticised that the “whole euro system was based on a delusional idea.”

Balázs Romhányi, from the Fiscal Responsibility Institute in Budapest, espoused that “Hungary should join the eurozone, more specifically its further integrating part because it would be a better, more consistent economic policy package than what we have now.”

Leon Podkaminer, from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, warned “There is no reason to believe that Poland’s eventual euro area membership could bring about sustainable and fast growth.”

Lajos Bokros, the former Hungarian Minister of Finance 1995–1996, took a pragmatic approach saying, “If we don’t join now, in 20 years when we will have to, we will be rule takers not rule makers. So, in my humble view it will be much better to participate still in this incipient stage.”

Krzysztof Blusz, from the WISEuropa think tank in Warsaw, looked past the binary nature of the question and focused on its feasibility, saying “It is pertinent for Poland to reflect be-yond the decision to enter the eurozone or not, and ask: what kind of eurozone would Poland be willing to join and what sort of structure would best foster Polish aspirations?”

EUROZONE MEMBERSHIP – Visegrad Insight is Spurring the Discussion

The 2017 State of the Union address by Jean Claude Junker outlined the future of European integration that will allow for a further integration around the core of the EU, effectively members of the eurozone. Meanwhile the question of eurozone membership becomes an important issue in national public debates.

WHEN WOULD YOU LIKE THE EURO TO BECOME YOUR CURRENCY?

HUNGARY CZECH REPUBLIC

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28 2936 35

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19 22 2116

22

As soon as possibleAs late as posssible / Never

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The Parisian Mirror



Reactions to the

recent French

initiatives confirm

that the V4 has

become a region of

convergence

for various EU

vectors functioning

at different

integration speeds.

BY MILAN NIČ

Although the main attention is now on the Austrian and Czech elections, it is worthy looking back at the Central European re-sponses to a more assertive France in the EU. With perfect timing at the end of September, two days after the German elections and two days before the informal EU summit in Tal-linn, President Emanuel Macron stole the

spotlight. At the Sorbonne on September 26th, he presented the most ambitious French proposals and ideas on the future of the European Union in more than a decade. In sharp contrast to Berlin’s limited vision and ambitions, Macron reclaimed the leading role of Paris in shaping the future of the EU.

The momentum for EU reform is now with France, not with Germany, goes the popular argument.

After Macron’s tour to Central and Eastern Europe some weeks ago, I wrote a critical piece about his plan to limit the “social dumping” from poorer member states while pushing for protectionist measures in the EU directive on “posted workers.” Among other things, I argued that the issue of “post-ed workers” is two-sided, given how painfully and slowly the process of economic convergence between the EU’s East and West has been moving. Pushing too hard to limit the rights of Polish construction workers or Romanian truck drivers – which comprise only a fraction of foreigners in the French labour market – might play into the cards of anti-EU political forces in Central Europe; it is a notable risk which should not be underestimated in Brussels, Berlin or Paris.

Now, after President Macron’s big speech on the future of the European Union, I’d like to shift focus to the broader picture and the political dynamics in Europe, looking criti-cally at the short-sighted response from some of the Visegrad countries. My argument is similar but with the opposite twist: Macron’s drive and momentum on the EU level should not be underestimated.

President Macron achieved at least three things by his Sorbonne speech: First, he framed the agenda for substantive debates on EU reform in six policy areas from defence to de-velopment. Second, he increased pressure on Berlin by offer-ing Germans a partnership to further take the lead in some of these initiatives. And thirdly, he outlined a plan of how to sus-tain momentum behind his EU reform agenda – by organising “democratic conventions” in some EU member states, pushing for “transnational list” for the EU Parliament and teaming up with grass-root, progressive movements across the EU for a joint campaign in the European elections in 2019.

It’s a formidable workload. As a centrist and political novice, President Macron is not part of any relevant EU polit-ical grouping. All that enthusiasm and symbolism around his Sorbonne speech could not hide a simple fact: on the EU level, Macron is hostage to others, in particular to Germany. When it comes to the eurozone, Berlin still calls the shots. Germany also carries most of the weight in most other EU policy areas.

The Parisian Mirror

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Compounding all of this, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was just re-elected to her fourth mandate but her new government with liberal FDP and Greens will be weaker and internally more diverse than all previous ones. It will face loud opposition in the parliament – led by the increasingly populist SPD and the xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD). As Daniela Schwarzer observed, “given the Bundestag’s central role in shaping Germany’s EU policy, this could weaken the capacity of Merkel’s government to provide the kind of lead-ership Europe now needs.”

The process of post-Brexit reconstruction of the EU is now expected to move in the coming months. It was formally started a year ago at the Bratislava summit but then never re-ally took off. The main actors were waiting for the European political calendar to clear up, and only after the French and German elections is the EU political scene finally set for se-rious talks and decisions. In the following months, we will probably witness intensive attempts to shape the direction Europe takes over the coming years. It was confirmed at the informal EU summit in Tallinn on September 28th as leaders held a frank debate on future common policies concerning, though not limited to, budgets, defence, migration, economic issues and the eurozone.

Based on this discussion, which had a significant French overtone due to Macron’s Sorbonne speech, the EU Council President Donald Tusk was tasked to consult his partners in the EU’s capitals and propose how to take the process forward. An intensive “special period” of formulating and negotiating new policies for deeper EU cooperation is expected to start in earnest only in early 2018 when Germany will have a new government. The window of opportunity for hard decisions could last until the next European Parliament elections in Spring 2019. Around that time, talks about the next EU budget (or Multiyear Financial Framework – MFF), ahead of the next 2020-2027 period, should also be closing down.

President Macron knows perfectly well what he needs from other EU leaders. In spite of being in the Elysee for only a few months, he has already held talks with 22 out of the 28 EU leaders, some of them repeatedly (with Chancellor Merkel, al-ready nine times!). These intensive consultations allowed him to get an overview of the interests as well as potential flexibil-ities of his EU partners.

Macron’s long list of new initiatives was a deliberate tac-tical choice to make sure that each EU country or constituency can find something there to support. There was a number of issues that the V4 countries could be satisfied with, including their own agenda of food quality or Macron’s inclusive ap-proach to EU security and defence. It means that the French agenda for EU reconstruction is not only based on the eu-rozone but also on several other EU policy areas, in which Paris might take the lead, not Germany. On the other hand, Visegrad capitals are rightly cautious about French proposals for converging corporate tax rates (rather than living stand-ards), raising labour standards and scaling down the number of commissioners in the next EU executive body.

Yet most reactions to Macron’s speech in the Visegrad countries were timid at best, and some even outright dis-missive. The Hungarian Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjárto, told Al Jazeera that, in his country and across the whole region, Germany is much more important than France. Andrej Babiš,

widely assumed to be the next Czech Prime Minister after the upcoming elections (October 20-21), remarked that President Macron should focus more on reforming France rather than the EU, warning that a drive for deeper integration could lead for more members following the U.K. in leaving the EU.

In contrast, most reactions of political leaders in Germany on President Macron’s speech were either politely sceptical or outright positive. As expected, the Greens and FDP, two smaller parties likely to form the new coalition gov-ernment with Merkel’s conservative CDU-CSU block, showed different approaches. While the co-leader of the Green Party, (and potential new German Foreign Minister) Cem Özdemir, welcomed Macron’s “strong speech” and called for closer col-laboration with Paris on the EU reforms, FDP’s leading candi-date for that position, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, was more reserved. He also welcomed the Sorbonne speech as “brave and refreshing’ but criticised the French proposals on tax har-monisation and the eurozone budget.

Seeing it from an optimistic angle, the Central European reactions mostly fell within the same range as in the post-elec-tion Germany. However, I believe that there’s a huge underlin-ing issue. As the German democratic establishment is coming to terms with the shock of having the extremist AfD as the third largest group in the new Bundestag, it will be more sensi-tive to extremist language and behaviour from other EU part-ners, and the language of Central European populists sounds, in the German political context, very much like the AfD.

What I hear in Berlin is not encouraging for the current Polish and Hungarian ruling parties: a prospective Jamaica coalition could be a tougher partner to the Central European governments than the grand coalition used to be. Both the Greens and FDP will be more outspoken when it comes to any disrespect of EU laws and values, including media freedoms, human rights and democracy.

Some V4 leaders and governments might be naive to think that they can continue to rely on Berlin while dismiss-ing the new wind for the EU future blowing from Paris. If they are suspicious about the new wave of French protectionism creeping into EU policies on the back of the President Macon’s enthusiasm for Europe, they better be busy coordinating with the Dutch and Nordics about defending the rules of the single market. Yet, there are few signs from Warsaw and Budapest about such considerations.

At this decisive moment in Europe, the long-term inter-ests of Central Europeans also depend on the realignment of Europe as a whole – and therefore also on their bilateral rela-tions with France and Germany. By casting themselves as the main opponents of the French-driven reform agenda, Poland and Hungary are very likely to lose even more influence in the EU; further weakening the whole Visegrad Group and the combined negotiating power of all four countries before talks about the new EU budget have even started.

In the meantime, because of Slovakia’s eurozone mem-bership and constructive approach to President Macron’s ini-tiative as well as the Czech’s pragmatism (which might to some extent continue under Babiš) coupled with their strong bilater-al relations with Berlin and Paris, both countries will become more influential in the post-Brexit EU than their Visegrad neighbours. After the French and German elections, Central Europe continues to evolve into a region where different EU vectors and integration speeds are converging.



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Even the seating arrange-ments had a symbolic significance during the first meeting of the V4 and Emmanuel Macron: the recently elected French president was followed by Slovakian

Prime Minister Robert Fico and then his Czech counterpart Bohuslav Sobotka, while Viktor Orbán and Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło were seated to-gether on the other side of the table.

Macron’s win does not bode well for the Hungarian and Polish leader-ships because, among other reasons, the new French premier believes the Central European (CE) countries are failing to com-ply with EU regulations and should face po-litical consequences; this is not to mention Macron’s plan of further developing the two-speed model of Europe by deepening cooperation within the eurozone.

Then, in August, Macron only met with Fico and Sobotka (excluding their Polish and Hungarian counterparts) to raise another sensitive issue affecting the CE countries, namely the posted work-ers directive dating back to 1996 which allows for European companies to send employees to work in other EU member states while continuing to pay benefits and taxes in their own home country. Although Hungary and Poland had pre-viously objected to the idea rather loud-ly, in this meeting the Slovak and Czech leadership proved to be open to discuss the reform.

Macron’s meeting with the Slavkov Triangle also signalled that the leftist Austrian government might want to try and weaken the Visegrad Group them-

selves. The French president did not nec-essarily sit down with Fico and Sobotka because he could not garner the qualified majority’s support for the reform of the EU directive on posted workers in the council (16 member states) without any Central or Eastern members. It was rath-er a message to the Hungarian and Polish leaderships who are unwilling to cooper-ate, and, at the same time, it is an effort to detach Bratislava and Prague from their renitent neighbours.

THE CURRENT V4 CONUNDRUMThe fact that Fico clearly declared, early in 2017, that Slovakia’s interests coincide with those of the eurozone is indicative of the current state of the V4. The EU has been overwhelmed by an integration-al paradox for more than two decades: while there is an increased stress on member states to find community-level solutions for migration issues as well as general job creation, they would like to refrain from handing over new compe-tences to Brussels.

The comprehensive economic-polit-ical crisis of the EU and Brexit has turned the questions of multi-speed integration and the subsequent transfer of sovereign-ty into a practical affair. In this changing situation, Slovakia does not only want to belong to the core Europe aiming for closer integration, but it is showing more and more willingness to agree to Brussels taking further competences away from eurozone members.

Similarly, the traditionally Eurosceptic Czech Republic announced that Prague wants to get an “observer seat” in the Eurogroup, even though it does not aim to join the eurozone. They

obviously wished to have a say at one of the most important fora, unless, to par-aphrase Viktor Orbán, “they want to be served for dinner”.

While Viktor Orbán successfully channelled the frustration of anti-estab-lishment voters towards international actors and the EU, the Hungarian govern-ment seems to be unprepared for changes to the macropolitical environment or to the EU’s transformation with the associ-ated political and economic challenges therein.

Unlike the Czech social democrats, the Hungarian conservative Fidesz gov-ernment even declared that it does not want to try to get an observer seat in the Eurogroup, which could lead to the con-clusion that Budapest is simply not in-terested in the economic and monetary union. This is especially short-sighted behaviour in light of the fact that there is a large number of economic regulations that could be important for non-euro-zone member states, and most of these are decided on in the Eurogroup meetings preceding ECOFIN sittings. The most im-portant questions affecting the Eurozone will be decided on at this intergovern-mental platform, and it is unknown what effects such decisions will have on non-eu-rozone members in terms of taxes, the banking sector, the investment fund, etc.

Despite all this, the Orbán gov-ernment seems to be solely focused on the “stopping Brussels” campaign; the Hungarian PM alleges that the EU is trying to gain strength at the expense of member states through legislation. Moreover, Orbán said that the issue of migration is the main reason for the at-

EDIT ZGUT

After having been rather divided on the Ukrainian crisis and sanctions against Russia, the Visegrad Group managed to unite over the migration crisis – which has shaken any developments of European integration as well as the EU’s core values. Still, they might end up in different positions after the post-Brexit EU transformation due to their differing economic-political preferences.



tacks on Hungary, and “everything else is irrelevant”.

However, Orbán and Jaroslaw Kaczynski missed their window of oppor-tunity for their “cultural revolution”. On the contrary, the recent decision regard-ing migration quotas taken by the EU’s court gave impetus for the Hungarian government’s anti-EU campaign, which shifted into high gear with the national consultation entitled “Let’s stop Brussels,” and even more so after the resolution ap-proved by the European Parliament on the preparations for the Article 7 proce-dure against Hungary. As a sign of this, the Hungarian government will shift into an even higher gear by launching a new National Consultation in autumn 2017, which claims that if Fidesz wins for a third time in next year’s general election, “Brussels won’t be able to beat Hungary and the Soros-plan will fail”.

While the two governments are running highly visible anti-EU cam-paigns, Polish and Hungarian socie-ties are overwhelmingly pro-European. According to the Chatham House re-port, Warsaw and Budapest are aiming to transform the pro-EU public attitudes of their citizens.

UNFULFILLED EXPECTATIONS OF THE NOT SO YOUNG REBELThe most important source of the Hun-garian prime minister’s political capital was that he looked like a successful rep-resentative of the new wave of right-wing populists. In fact, his political stunt failed with the new wave of energy for main-stream politics. Although Germany has voiced its concerns and reservations nu-merous times about Hungarian processes negatively affecting the rule of law, it has refrained from intense, open criticism and diplomatic offensives. This behaviour is underpinned by rational economic and political reasons. Germany is fundamen-tally interested in political and econom-ic stability in the region, and from the German perspective, Hungary currently seems to be stable: Fidesz must be seen as a safeguard against the far-right Jobbik, the country generally follows the German line in the EU and internationally and the image of economic stability is presum-ably mirroring the opinion of German companies.

But when Angela Merkel was asked what she thought about Macron’s meta-phor of the EU not being a supermarket for CEE to freely pick-and-chose what

components it wishes to include in its policy shopping cart, the German chan-cellor said she generally agrees with the French president, and she is happy that Brussels is exerting pressure on reluctant member states.

This is in line with a German posi-tion paper published in May which sug-gests that there should be a connection between the compliance with the rule of law and projects financed through the EU budget. This definitely shows a shift from Merkel’s previous, more cautious ap-proach. As a point in fact, in just this past spring, the chancellor did not support the idea that reluctant member states should be disciplined by measures involving fis-cal tools.

The governments of the V4 need to keep this in mind as the European Commission’s discussion paper pub-lished on June 28th confirmed that the EU, partly due to Brexit, is getting ready for the most comprehensive European Union budget reform ever, potentially in-volving setting tougher requirements for the distribution of EU funding.

The German government came up with a number of proposals unlikely to be supported by the Visegrad Group: for example, the German administration suggests that more developed regions should be allocated funding to meet new challenges such as the integration of refugees and solving demographic problems. Additionally, it was suggested that the country-specific recommenda-tions issued within the framework of the European Semester should be tied even more closely to structural funds, which has since been confirmed by the German European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Gunter Oettinger.

Clearly Germany does not believe Hungary plays an important enough role on the European stage for Berlin to sup-port the Article 7 procedure against the Orbán regime, which was exemplified by the European Parliament’s vote on this is-sue where only two out of the 34 German EPP representatives voted for the reso-lution condemning Hungary, while five abstained.

What we have seen so far is that Brussels holds no effective legal tools to use against Hungary. The hearings and debates in the European Parliament, the infringement procedures, OLAF’s inves-tigations, the temporary suspension of EU payments, the rule of law and Article 7 procedures do not work, and domes-

tically they even play into the hands of Fidesz that has remained the most popular party in Hungary. Moreover, it remains to be seen if the EU will have tools to manage the situation in Poland in the long run. Merkel and Macron are among the Western EU leaders who have thrown their weight behind the European Commission in the dispute with Poland.

BERLIN BACK IN THE GAMEThe real question is whether Berlin will show more willingness to discipline non-compliant member states with economic tools, or to explain the economic necessi-ty derived from Brexit and the migration crisis for considering the interests of net contributors even more seriously at the expense of reluctant members during the budget negotiations.

It is telling that despite Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s previ-ous objections, “enfant terrible” member states could for the first time feel the ef-fect of their destructive approach on their pockets.

Berlin seems to be engaged in the debates on the possibilities of economic pressure, such as tying cohesion funds to requirements, and the post-2020 financial framework, focusing especially on actors urging to bind structural and cohesion funds to certain requirements. In relation to this, some actors might propose intro-ducing a comprehensive set of consider-ations based on a combination of several criteria (e.g., respecting the rule of law and joining the EU Prosecutor’s Office).

In the end, the V4 (currently more of a V2+2) will not be able to represent their interests in a unified manner around a solidified position against the refugee quota system. The question is only when the cracks will become too obvious to ignore.

Edit Zgut is foreign policy analyst at Political Capital.

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THE SMALL

STEPS OF EUROPE

Paweł Kowal, former deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, discusses the results of the

German elections in the context of the Visegrad Group with

Wojciech Przybylski editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight.

WP: In Germany, the party of resentment took a very high position, which is a turning point for the post-war history of Europe and particularly important for Central Europe.PK: Personally, I think that dark, potentially bleak, scenar-ios might be waiting for us in Germany, but this is not yet that dark scenario. After those elections, I, myself, am asking whether the worst is yet to come, or because of its character, its polity, its political culture and its prosperity, Germany is softly experiencing the trend sweeping the world.

There is this world trend, but there is also a regional aspect, which is the Visegrad Group countries that have spoken very strongly and directly against Angela Merkel. When refugees suddenly were standing on the borders of Austria and Hun-gary, we had the problem of what to do; the answer from An-gela Merkel was “We can do it!”, and she invited in the emi-grants. Then, because of the very strong opposition from the Visegrad Group, she quietly withdrew from her statement, without any grand pageantry. I think, she withdrew in a very characteristic, for herself, way of political governing. This is the so-called “politics of the small steps”. It can be misunderstood by Polish politicians be-cause there is a big blast in Poland with every political change – it is noticed, every step is announced, and often the blast at the announcement does not mean any efficiency in the implementation.

PAWEŁ KOWAL, WOJCIECH PRZYBYLSKI



THE SMALL

STEPS OF EUROPE

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Angela Merkel, from this point of view, is at the opposite end. We do not know her big political declarations when, for instance, have you heard her say that tomorrow something will be considerably different from what was yesterday. That is why she did it in her own way. I think she was under pressure from her own party, which was the real reason why she decided to withdraw. And she did it in such a way that the moment of withdrawal was invisible for observers and even for her polit-ical competitors.

She had to take those few steps back and several to the side for her historic win – entering a fourth term as the Chan-cellor, which equates her to Kohl and Adenauer, and that is, in some way, her time to be written in history. Indeed, Europe and Germany’s relationship to Europe are facing a historic moment. Will Merkel be a prisoner of her own small steps, or will she try to change the direction of Europe? There is Brexit, France seems pivoted for change, and they are a partner who wants to work with Germany. Thirdly, there is the danger of a growing authoritarianism from their eastern neighbours. Germany once again has to face the policy is-sues of Central-Eastern Europe. After the elections, we always think about the outcome of the election: where the elections give legitimacy and where not. Obviously, these elections give Angela Merkel a legitimacy to govern in Germany and decide when to leave the stage. If we were to tell the story of Angela Merkel, this is certainly not the peak of her career, it is rather the end of her career. And I do not say it meanly as it is a very natural situation. She won in these elections something which is not the privilege for every, even well-deserving, politician.

Thus, she will probably be able to decide when and in which way to leave the political stage, but the fact that we are approaching this point is probably clear for everyone. On the other hand, it seems to me that the support she received in the elections does not give her legitimacy for such an intensive change to the situation in the European Union. Neither is it definitive that Macron will continue his support and remain a strong French partner, which was previously certain. Everyone expected, even Macron himself, that he would succeed in gar-nering enough support in France for a Bonapartist govern-ment, but today that optimism is outdated.

In such a situation, is it possible to predict what the German influence on European policy will be? The question is, when will Germany realise that the European Union is not to be rescued. In my opinion, even though the economic union is doing well, there is also a generally positive economic trend – like what we have in Poland – but this is-sue is politically impossible to raise. Catalonia will be another trauma for a year or maybe several years, and these “non-cre-ative” crises connected to Brexit, Catalonia, Central Europe should finish the EU.

If no one finds a way to stop this, then it will end the political union. That does not mean that there will not be any other “union” created immediately, because, I think, it will happen right away. Although, I have an impression that still one or two deep crises like these will occur in larger European states, and the leaders themselves will recognise that this for-mation of states, in its current shape, does not have any reason to exist.

There is even an illusion, especially coming from the Polish right, that there might be no European Union, but if we know anything about the European continent, we know one thing – another union will arise immediately.

The issue which is now being discussed is based on the euro, even if the project of Macron is not fully implemented, what will be the eurozone scenario as a political project? This is the question of the outcome of the AfD and whether Germany will not identify the situation at some point, and in such a way, that the union will not be protected and even the eurozone will not be saved. This new union will emerge in a soft way based on the eurozone, or at least this is the most likely scenario.

However, I am talking about something else. I think there might be a moment when Germany will see the situation on the ground as something impossible to build anything else. Then, after withdrawing from building the union (on the basis that they want to focus on the eurozone), they will weaken the European Union and will look for a completely new solution.



Perhaps, the solution will be found even within the same states but based on some completely different set of principles or for some time based on similar values. And this question will depend on whether the AfD is at the top of its power; as it is difficult to exclude the fact that any postponed demand for Germany’s own ascension to superpower status might fall on deaf ears. If that is the case, it will not make much sense to spend time on developing a two- or three-speed Europe because Germany has the potential to try to go another way.

I also recall a slogan which said that the German power, in-cluding their economic power, would not exist if it was not for the eurozone and staying in the good relations with all its neighbours, especially those in Central Europe, which boosts the economy while simultaneously serving as pro-duction lines for the region. But here we are already talking about a completely different Germany, more focused on the military production. Let’s say openly and sincerely, if there are any resentments from 70–100 years ago – we can mostly observe it in the UK and Catalonia. Since Catalonia is the story of the Catalans who did not take from the table what was easy to get after the First World War. Thus, we have some sort of delayed problem that has broken out today. Hungary is also a very profound historical problem that was not solved in the 20th century.

So, we have several of such cases and, therefore, we can-not easily assume that this will not happen in Germany. We can discuss how it might happen and when. We have so much expe-rience with different elections lately that we cannot talk about the prospect for the next few years. It seems that the most likely scenario is that it will last longer and, eventually, drift apart. There is no regularity here. I am just emphasising that this turn back to the 20s and 30s, in various forms, is very strong.

I hear from you the echoes of Victor Orban. In March, he wrote in the Hungarian Quarterly an essay about a year of revolutions in Europe. Orban naturally ties it with a chance to improve, in his view, the radically ugly, unequal situation of Hungary in Europe. Precisely, the use of revolution and Brexit should bring Hungary into wider waters, which, un-fortunately, can also mean some border revisionism, and, thus, a political conflict with its neighbours. It was about the

better position of his country within this puzzle of forces in Europe. Meanwhile, the main beneficiary of such changes may be Russia.

Therefore, I am very sceptical of Poland’s support of the policy of Victor Orban, I am no longer speaking of Russian policy because it is not happening now. I think we are dealing with three states – Russia, Hungary and Turkey – which are looking for some historical revenge and return to a state that is perfect from the perspective of their historical memory.

Let’s not hide this, in Hungary it also applies to territory. I think that, in this way, Polish politics differ from Hungarian, and their interests vary as well. No one in Poland is interested in anything that might lead to a revolt in Europe or which will bring the situation to a point where changing borders would be possible or necessary.

On the other hand, I think that in Hungarian politics, gently speaking, there is an element of their doctrine that I would call the “what if ” – of which nobody, of course, is speak-ing openly about. Although listening, reading and, especially, analysing Hungary’s minority policy abroad, I think that in these elements of politics the “what if ” is present.

Of course, the key is to understand the difference be-tween Poland and Hungary. Hungary lost its empire in 1918. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is one of the best periods of Hungarian history; the proof that a small nation is better for the interests of the nation than being part of a larger construc-tion. For everybody – Hungary was better off as the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austria-Hungary Empire than as a small Hungary without the possibility of developing on such a scale.

At the same time, thanks to the disintegration of this em-pire, Poland became a relatively large country, though clearly less than its Polish ambitions, and regained its independence. Hence, our situation and the situation of Hungary – I cannot comprehend that some of the political elites do not under-stand this – is not just different, but they are completely op-posed to one another.

This means we should make sure imperialism is not re-born. While for Hungary, it depends on what kind of lead-ership they have. Hungarians can imagine themselves in different scenarios. In our case, a scenario involving the return to nineteenth-century imperialism, even in a liberal version, is a bad scenario.

The author is former Director of the Polish Institute for International Af-fairs and senior associate at Visegrad Insight.

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Although the German elections returned An-gela Merkel to power for the 4th consecutive term, the overall re-sults of these elections show more rapture than continuity. Clear-

ly the biggest electoral upset is the better than predicted result for the far right-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which managed to attract voters from all the other parties and came up as the third force in the Bundestag. In area encompassing the former GDR, the AfD attracted the second largest share of votes, and regarding regional elections, it took first place in Saxony. As long as the AfD will not weaken itself through inter-nal divisions – which is likely to be the case – it could emerge as a serious force in German politics.

As of now, however, Germany will be ruled by mainstream parties, most

likely by a coalition of the Christian-Democrats with the liberal FDP and the Green party. This will be a considerably weaker coalition than the CDU-SPD gov-ernment that ruled Germany for the last four years. The FDP and the Greens agree with each other on practically nothing, and they both should be worried about being eclipsed by the CDU and possibly sharing the fate that befell the SPD, end-ing in their worst result since 1945. There is also no doubt that the SPD will lead a strong opposition; it will be emboldened by its defeat that it blames on its co-op-eration with Merkel’s CDU.

What does this rather confusing result mean for Central Europe? Several things are already clear. First and fore-most, by voting for the AfD the elec-torate showed a yellow card to Merkel’s European and immigration policy. She will have to reckon now with an existence of a violently Eurosceptic force inside the Bundestag, which no German chancellor

MARCIN ZABOROWSKI


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ROZWINIĘCIE TEMATU TYTUŁ DZIAŁU

has had to contend with since the mid-1960s. Merkel has never been bold in her approach towards European integration but she will be forced to be even more cautious now. In particular, Merkel will have to counter the perception of the EU as a “transfer union’, which has been the impetus behind AfD’s momentum. Central Europeans can therefore expect a far tougher German position on all issues that have budgetary implications.

Perhaps even more significantly, the drop in Merkel’s popularity is attributed to her stance on the migration crisis when she declared that Germany would be able to accommodate the flood of refugees in the summer of 2015. Central European governments were always critical of this statement, seen as an encouragement for further migration and then refused to ac-cept the quotas of refugees in the system agreed by most member states. Following the elections, right-wing politicians and commentators in Central Europe did not

hide their glee at the success of anti-im-migration AfD.

This may seem contradictory since the resentments stirred up by German Eurosceptics have also referred to nega-tive stereotypes about Central Europeans, in particular about the Poles. The AfD has also been known for questioning Germany’s responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War. It is at best rath-er odd that the Central European political factions that have called for Germany to pay war reparations to Poland are also seemingly pleased about the good per-formance of the revisionist AfD.

However, the pro-AfD sentiments that were expressed by right-wingers in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere in the re-gion are first and foremost the expression of their disdain for the European main-stream, which clearly runs deeper than their views on history or their attachment to national interests.

From Central Europe’s point of view, it is difficult to see a better outcome than the so-called Jamaica coalition of CDU/CSU-FDP-Greens taking the reins of the government. Such a coalition would be more Atlanticist and firmer on Russia. The participation of the Greens would bring into the coalition a force sceptical about Russia and hostile towards the NordStream2 project. All three parties are clearly pro-European and have in the past supported the Eastern enlargement of the EU. None of them have yet sup-ported the notions that would split the EU around various speeds of integration.

Whilst such a coalition would be most beneficial for Central Europe, there is no denying that a considerable part of ruling elites in Hungary and Poland do not wish to see it coming into fruition.


DON’T MERCHANDISE DOUBT


INTELLIGENT MIND SLOVAKIA

One afternoon this past summer, Visegrad Insight interviewed HE Rastislav Káčer, Ambassador of Slovakia to Hungary and the Honorary Chairman of the Board for Globsec. We spoke about Slovak attitudes to regional groupings and the EU.

RASTISLAV KÁČER, WOJCIECH PRZYBYLSKI

How does Slovakia see the future of the EU? What is your strategy for the future? For Slovakia, the European Union has been a successful pro-ject though it’s not perfect. Human creations are never perfect, maybe God’s creations are perfect, but those built by humans definitely are not. They are as perfect as we make them and the EU has got one strength: it is a living creature. It is not an authoritarian regime; it is not an illiberal autocracy which you can’t reform. This is a system which evolves, and it is evolving into a success story.

The EU needs to go deeper in some areas that need more integration and in others where it needs less regulations to keep flexibility and a more competitive edge. So, the Slovak strategy is focused on making the EU better.

This spring in Warsaw, at a meeting with all four Visegrad prime ministers as well as their Belarussian equivalent, Robert Fico said at one point: “We should stop talking in ideologi-cal terms of ‘federalisation’ or ‘stronger nations’ because this is a senseless debate. We need to cut the debate into ration-al chunks, into which areas we need to be more efficient, in which we need to integrate closer and in which not.”

He stressed, for example, the importance of internet se-curity. We cannot cope with the threat of terrorism without working much closer in this area. He mentioned as well the importance of the eurozone. He said clearly the eurozone is a cornerstone of European integration. We are enthusiastic about the reforms within the eurozone which will make it a stronger and more competitive framework for the future, which will include the fiscal union and a much closer cooper-ation in budgeting and planning. So, these are the areas where we see a future for Europe.

Is Slovakia for a fiscal union? Again, I would quote PM Robert Fico’s answer from an inter-view: “We have to complete the eurozone. We have to finish it. We cannot have a common currency for a long period without having a banking union.”

Our position is that there is no alternative for the euro-zone. So, to us the creation of a core around the eurozone is a natural process that will occur within the EU, and we want to be part of this, but we want it to be a very transparent pro-cess. Whatever will be done, must be done transparently and consulted with the rest of the EU. There should be a balance between eurozone and non-eurozone members.

But this balance does not exist with the V4. The countries of Visegrad – and Visegrad has always played an important role for Slovakia –today it has manifested that they are not interested, in the short term at least, in joining the eurozone. Hungary says that it is not ready for the euro, and the euro-zone is not ready for Hungary – whatever that would mean. Similarly, Poland has declared that it would not be beneficial to join. What is the role of Slovakia in the Visegrad Group which members do not want to integrate further? How do you imagine your role here? Once alienated, you now have become the most integrated EU country in the region. I agree with you. In Slovakia we are not frustrated nor con-cerned because of those differences within the V4. We respect other countries choices, whether it’s made for ideological or for economic reasons or as the combination of both. That’s the choice of each individual member, and we have chosen our way. Let me say that the Visegrad countries have already prof-ited a lot from Slovakia being part of the eurozone. We meet the other countries more often and in different formats. But

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Visegrad only benefits from that because Slovakia was never shy to share our views which we exchange within the euro-zone. So, our neighbours only profit from that. Additionally, you never know when one country will change its politics or economy. Whenever a V4 country will choose to become a member of the eurozone, then Slovakia is here, ready to share all the experience and practical knowledge we have.

Let’s focus again on the Visegrad Group. Is it united and does it have a strong voice that matches its current bad reputation? It often seems that the only policy position on which all the V4 countries agree is illegal migration.We think that the problem of illegal migration it’s a real prob-lem. We think that the problem of homegrown terrorists in Europe is a real problem that we all need to deal with. On the other hand, we don’t think that one should build hysteria around these issues.

We think we should approach those two problems calm-ly and efficiently. We need to, first of all, tackle the sources of migration and sources of terrorism, and work on long-term solutions of how to curb them. What we were critical about, and then we shared the opinion with the rest of the Visegrad countries, was the mechanism of relocation by quotas. Here Slovakia has the same view as the rest of the Visegrad. We simply don’t think that this mechanism will work. We are not against the principle of solidarity, we are against the principle of relocation.

During the Slovak presidency, we offered, I think, a much more flexible solution to show that countries like Slovakia are ready to be in solidarity with the rest. We offered the principle of flexible solidarity. It means that a contribution by the states will be more efficient if you can contribute in the way which is efficient for all and which is feasible for you.

We even think that the mechanism for relocating refu-gees is simple fantasy. It’s been proven that it doesn’t work, even countries that were critical but accepted some number of relocated migrants or asylum seekers, they were gone very quickly. We have the free movement of people within the EU. It’s very difficult to have a hard relocation. Are you going to keep them on chain or lock them up? So, we are not against the principle of solidarity; we understand we should share the burden, and we absolutely support that notion. We just want to share the burden in the way which will work and not in the way which will be just dreaming that it will work.

Can I ask you what would work in your opinion? Because there is a real problem where two EU countries are heavily burdened, Italy and Greece, and the rest is not so willing to help.There is no miraculous fix. I know that there is temptation on the side of politicians who think that there are quick fixes, but there are no quick fixes at all. This will require a lot of moving parts; this will require a reworking of Schengen. Schengen will

have to curb and limit illegal migration, which will require the efficient sharing and use of data, so we know that there is no risk of double or multiply identities of the asylum seekers.

We need to curb down the abuse of social benefits for migrants and asylum seekers. We need to have more efficient expulsion mechanisms for those who are not eligible for asy-lum seeking. There is a whole array of measures we need to do but the last thing which would help would be to create hysteria and create xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiments because this will solve nothing; this will only bring tension to society.

The solution to migration is a long-term solution. We need to take external measures which are out of the EU which will stabilise the system, either in terms of security or defence, or to development assistance, etc. But, as I said, we also need internal measures – internal security, an expulsion procedure, and a more unified asylum procedure for every country. There is a whole set of very practical measures, but the last thing we need is populism and cheap fixes associated with such ideology because those fixes don’t really exist. And populism will only unleash the devil – the devil of nationalism and xenophobia. And once it’s unleashed it’s very hard to get him back on chain.

Couldn’t agree more. Let’s step away from this particular is-sue and come back to the different aspects of groupings in the region. The Visegrad Group, Benelux, the Nordic Council, the Slavkov Triangle and recently the Three Seas Initiative, have I forgot any important grouping in the EU? Slovakia is part of three of the above mentioned, how important do you see these different groupings for Slovakia?Out of those formats you mentioned, the Visegrad format is the most important. Slavkov is more supplementary and with another set of neighbours with whom we share a lot of our common history.

The Three Seas project: we don’t see this is a grouping at all. For us it’s more like a one-time event; there is just no political context. The Three Seas meeting can have a single purpose, discussing how to improve North-South practical communication in terms of interconnectors, gas oil connec-tion, energy flows and other sub-regional projects on infra-structure, but only in the way we could support. It’s better to work with Europe as a whole. Traditionally, in Europe, most of the interconnectors we made were in the East-West direction, so we do lack a more efficient North-South interconnectors system. But beyond that, there is no political, no security com-ponent; there is no political dimension for us.

The last thing I would like to see is anybody interpreting this initiative as Central and Eastern Europe uniting against the West. This would be a complete tragedy and misconcep-tion, a completely distorted, false perception. We don’t look at it like that, at all.

We will never accept a situation where we are positioned against the EU. We are part of the EU and Visegrad. The mem-bership of Visegrad, for us, was only a vehicle for better inte-



gration in the EU, nothing else. And this will remain for us so. Prime Minister Fico, in one of his interviews, said: “Should I be forced to choose between V4 or EU I choose EU.”

But we are lucky, we are not in front of any dastardly choice like this. For the Slovak perception, Visegrad is and will remain, as far as I can see, an instrument for a better cooper-ation within the EU, and it is part of our contribution to make the EU stronger. There is no other inspiration for us in this nor in any other grouping which you mentioned. There will be no policies which Slovakia will support which would help to create any new dividing lines within the EU. We don’t want this, and we will not support it.

Well that is good to hear, and it is reassuring. Nevertheless, a general sense of suspicion towards the EU is taking hold in Central Europe. During Globsec, there was much discus-sion revolved around fake news and the disinformation campaigns in the region directed at undermining Western alliances.It’s not only in Central Europe. This is all part of the hybrid war which does contain propaganda. We call it in Globsec De-fending Democracy in the Digital Domain were propaganda is only a part of the cake. So, we see that there is Russian-driven propaganda. It’s clear who is behind it, here in Central Eu-rope, but not only in Central Europe. We saw it in Brexit, the referendum in the Netherlands on Ukraine, and we saw the less successful attempts during the French elections. It was also readily noticeable in the campaign in the United States. So, nobody is immune. I think the target is to bring about an imbalance. The whole system is set by the EU and NATO, the whole web of liberal democracies working together on a unit-ed project.

The aim of this disinformation campaign is to loosen up European integration and to create a lack of trust into the sys-tem of which it is all based. These, or similar, tactics have been used before, not only for political purposes but also for com-mercial campaigns. I think the technique is called “merchan-dise of doubt”. We’ve seen these doubts in people, “God knows what is true”, “all is equal”, “either the domination by Russians or the Americans, it’s all equal, and Brussels is just another…Warsaw treaty,” which it is not. We simply should admit it’s not, but the aim is to merchandise doubt and to soften up the union, to weaken people’s dedication to the values which are beyond NATO and the EU.

The last question then. It seems like the political leadership is one of the essential points on how to counteract this, and also how to drive through the country in a difficult mo-ment for the European Union or the West in general. I see in the pictures that we’ve got here two outstanding leaders: George W. Bush and Vaclav Havel. Who do you see as the statesman of today?

This is a very hard question because the world is evolving in a way where the leadership we used to see in the past, like Mitterrand, Kohl, De Gaulle or Adenauer or even Reagan and Thatcher, that type of leadership is harder and harder to find. This is not that we have less courageous and more stupid peo-ple, that’s not true. But the world is changing and the way we interpret news, the impact of social media, is just changing the world. And it’s making leadership much harder than it was before, that’s the first thing. The second is that it is encourag-ing short term views which is a temptation for populism and manipulation.

Previously, we were in a different era where there was much more responsibility in politics, where people had a more noble attitude towards politics, when they isolated certain types of politicians who were perceived simply as not accept-able. And these types of politicians who were too populist or too extreme, they were put into quarantine, in isolation by the rest of the political spectrum. That’s not happening anymore.

We see more temptation and false assumptions. We see the growth of political extremism, and our reaction is that mainstream parties will take some part of that extremism say-ing: “but this will help to weaken the extremism” which is com-plete lunacy. It’s just helping extremism and once extremism takes over, they’ll be more credible on the message.

I think what we need is to bring personal responsibility into every communication. We need to have more clarity in where our news is coming from. Who is making these claims? Who is behind the news, whether this is true or whether this is fake? We are confronted with the warfare of fake news, which is a warfare. We should name it, label it as the hostile activity and contract against it. We should not let the democracy be killed by its own weapons because it can lead to illiberal and intolerant systems.

We should not let democracy be killed by those who say “we just have different views”. These are not different views, these are extreme views. “We just have different policy” but this is not different policy, this is a prologue for an authoritar-ian, non-democratic system.

We should not tolerate this, and if we don’t, then true leadership will emerge. We need to bring personal responsibil-ity back into politics, and we should not tolerate things which go against the substance of democracy in our European world. We have to stop it.

Transcribed by: Gabriela Rogowska

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BOOKS FICTION WE LOVEIll

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tion:

Paw

eł K

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ński

In Literature

JULIA SHERWOOD

Central Europeans recognized the corrosive influence of Russian propaganda well before the West woke up to disinformation campaigns aimed at swaying the outcome of crucial elections. As early as February 2015, one of the first to connect the dots between various conspiracy theories spreading across local social media and the fake news emanating from Russia was Juraj Smatana, a history teacher and activist in Považská Bystrica, Slo-

vakia, who compiled a list of 42 Czech and Slovak conspiracy websites. The dark world of Russian troll factories is also the setting of the novel Troll by popular Slovak writer and columnist Michal Hvorecký, reviewed here by translator Magdalena Mullek. The fake news phenomenon is a by-prod-uct of globalisation, a theme explored in Love in the Time of Global Climate Change, a novella by Czech writer Josef Pánek. Czech critic Michal Mareš reviews this story of a scientist struggling to find his place in our hectic globalized world. Ecological issues and curiosity about the natural world are at the heart of the short story collection Close Countries by the rising star of the ecopoetics move-ment, Polish writer and poet Julia Fiedorczuk, reviewed by translator Anna Zaranko. And finally, Slovak-Hungarian literary critic Emőke Szabó Lovas’s essay introduces the most recent works by two giants of contemporary Hungarian literature: Pancreatic Diary, the late great Péter Esterházy’s swan-song describing his odyssey from hospital to hospital, from chemotherapy to radiation treatment and László Krasznahorkai’s latest novel The Return of Baron Wenckheim.

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FICTION WE LOVE BOOKS

EMŐKE SZABÓ LOVASON

Pancreatic Diary by Péter Esterházy The Return of Baron Wenckheim by László Krasznahorkai

It’s hard to tell a story without simultaneously commenting on itPéter Esterházy, Pancreatic Diary

Even a year after the publication of Pancreatic Diary, which appeared just a month before the author’s death in June 2016, it is difficult to approach it from a critical perspective. Most Hungarian reviews were either purely descriptive or com-prised a collection of extracts from the book. One reason for this is no doubt that the Diary is in a form located on the cusp of writing addressed to the public and of a very personal “death diary” certainly not intended for publication.

“Maybe I have to choose some other kind of perspective – but I remain wedded to writing. For example, it’s rather disturb-ing that the quality of this piece of writing depends on the prospects of its author’s sur-vival. Think what a sentence that is, in itself. So, once again: this has traction if my ‘fairy’ kills me.”

[Esterházy uses the name of the witch Mirigy, from the great Mihály Csokonai’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream-like classic Csongor és Tünde (1831), which happens to be the final element of the Hungarian word for “pancreas’ (hasnyálmirigy, calqued on the German Bauchspeicheldrüse), to refer to his pancreatic cancer as his “Pancreas Fairy’-trans.]

“You have to finish at some point and, of course, keep on writing.” Péter Esterházy’s Pancreatic Diary is in fact a book of non-writing. The story is in essence, one might say, a cancer patient’s odyssey from hospital to hospital, from chemother-apy to radiation treatment, amidst a welter of data on blood pressure measurements and the continuous diminution of weight – and time. The writer does offer the reader quite a few reference points (chiefly Harold Brodkey’s This Wild Darkness:

The Story of My Death), stories of his own family, and events of Hungarian public life and politics, such as the migration issue for example, but making it plain that his cancer too is a fact of public life. In his obituary, the critic Sándor Radnóti points out that Esterházy’s oeuvre “was a convoluted response to the Kádár dictatorship, namely the radical separation between the private and the public: though you cannot be free in the politi-cal sphere, no one can interfere in your private sphere.” This is clear in Pancreatic Diary, which is a radical literary intertwin-ing – “interwriting” – of the story of his family, of his illness,

and of the nation.The entries begin on Sunday, May 24th,

2015 and conclude on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016. The last fragment is a meditation on the final, closing sentence (“I have crossed out “always’ and improved it to “forever’ “), yet it none the less carries within it the possi-bility of completion, of a kind of rounding off.

In the textual terrain of Pancreatic Diary there is continuous interplay be-tween the love story of the gorgeous blonde bombshell Pancreata (Muci) and Esterházy, and then the ravishment and murder of the author by the Pancreas Fairy, as well as the watercolour diary entries and murderous histories in one of his recent books with the painter Miklós Szücs, The Sinner: “There are no new words. A. groaned, his bulk steadily increasing, blocks of cement in the region of

his stomach, dull aches alternating with sharp stabs of pain, like shafts of light, shafts of light and shade.” “Love is not the same thing as happiness, but there are no colours, forms, or shifts of paint that treat of this.” Nor is there any point discuss-ing the passage of the mortally ill from hope to hopelessness, or precisely how far and how many pancreatic cancer patients are needed for the world to be more sympathetic. Eventually the words: “I’m dying” and the doctor’s “This isn’t something you recover from.”

Péter Esterházy: Pancreatic Diary

Budapest: Magvető, 2016.

Picking out the top books of the 2016–17 publishing year is no easy task. In the words of the noted critic István Margócsy: “Thankfully, this year’s crop quite spectacularly frustrates any attempt at a comprehensive critical reckoning. Criticism was always, and remains, fragmentary in nature, and the only se-rious question is whether this fragmentation permits us to

discern any kind of outline of this literary mosaic.” Here, I will review two pieces of this mosaic: outstanding works by writ-ers I believe to be of international significance. They are Péter Esterházy’s Pancreatic Diary and László Krasznahorkai’s The Return of Baron Wenckheim.


BOOKS FICTION WE LOVE

A (chorus) masterly warning to a dictatorshipLászló Krasznahorkai, The Return of Baron Wenckheim

In László Krasznahorkai’s latest book, we encounter again the leaden skies, the music and almost the same frozen, isolated moments that we first met in his Satantango (1985). It is in this timelessness that the terrifying nature of this apocalyptic satire resides. The Return of Baron Wenckheim – and this is something that all the reviews agree on – sums up and brings closure to something: whether to the (hopeless) metaphysical yearning that began with Satantango, or to the gigantic reckonings of War and War, Seiobo There Below, and his short story collection The World Goes On (English translation scheduled for 2018).

The story is a kind of distant homage to the expanses in, inter alia, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot or perhaps Marquez’s Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. An unnamed town (but recognisably Gyula, Krasznahorkai’s birthplace in south-east Hungary) awaits and welcomes “the end of its democracy” in the form of the homecoming of its local Baron. The citizens’ exclusive source of information about this is the archetypal tabloid Blikk, which claims that he is coming in order to distribute among them his untold wealth. Accordingly, a celebration is organ-ised (within the space of 24 hours) with the aim of dispelling the Baron’s melancholia: it is a parade of unalloyed political kitschiness. The local enforcers of order have klaxons fit-ted to their motorbikes to play “Madonna”, the women’s choir tries its damnedest to learn “Don’t cry for me...Armengita”. A “sneezing-while-shrieking” competition is organised, and another for “throwing chicken backs”. The theme of the welcoming speeches at the railway station is, naturally, how each speaker intends to spend the Baron’s fortune. Even the orphans are made to move out of their home in the castle, in case the Baron should wish to reclaim it.

In reality, however, it is the Wenckheim family that has rescued the Baron from Buenos Aires, thus also rescuing the reputation of the family since the Baron has lost everything at the gambling table. The Baron’s sole driving-force is the memory of a love from forty years earlier: Marietta: now Marika, a lady in her sixties employed in the tourist office. Yet Hungary today is hardly a place anyone, even the Baron, could or would want to escape to. On the other hand, resettling in the land of one’s birth, bringing money and expressing one’s gratefulness to the motherland is a most welcome notion. The endless, if finite, wait for the Baron, the picture-postcard quality of the locations, the filmic cutting, the frozen images, the set-ups, the suspicion that all this forebodes something dreadful – none of this allows us for a single moment to fail to recall the black-and-white mise-en-scène of Béla Tarr’s films.

When Satantango was first published in Hungary, the au-thor, who is famously attracted to the culture of the Far East, did not want even his own name on its dust-jacket, as a further indication of his wish to deny that this story was about anything real – other than human existence in general. In contrast to the radical nature of the conception of art characteristic of Far Eastern cultures that appears in, for example, Seiobo, – which

asserts that it can have no conceivable relationship to contem-porary reality – The Return of Baron Wenckheim apprehends society at its most fundamental, basic level. As a matter of fact, with its comprehensive account of the various kinds of the rhetoric of power, and the precise and colourful notating of contemporary (and not merely Hungarian) reality, the book is extremely timely.

It opens with words of Warning: the orchestral command tutti, in other words the conductor’s direction for the whole or-chestra to start up after the solo. Accordingly, everyone whose name is given in the list of scores at the end of the novel, joins in. Yet the picture of the world that emerges from these virtually documentary-like “witness statements” is extremely, and hope-lessly, dark. The city powers are allowed to speak, and although they compulsively claim that their own speech is straightfor-

ward, they are, in fact, obscure in the extreme. The overarching motif of the novel

is undoubtedly fear, which tends to mani-fest itself as a deathly face seen behind the dark-tinted windows of a convoy of Rolls-Royces, Mercedes, and BMWs as it sweeps through the town. This passing convoy, which also stops time in its tracks, followed by the tankers that swamp the town and then dis-appear overnight, the aliens, and finally the explosion that destroys the town – these all recall the atmosphere of permanent menace in War and War. This condition of being en-dangered permeates the entire novel, yet it is not simply political or related to public life, or a symbol that obliterates everything evoking a comprehensive apocalypse, but it is also some kind of assault on the central nervous system, a mixture of humour, satire and tragedy that is almost unbearable in its unpredictability.

Krasznahorkai’s long, undulating sentences, and indeed Krasznahorkai himself, have an elemental relationship to music. The orchestra, i.e. all the characters in the novel, these typical-ly Krasznahorkaian maniacal persuaders tell their own stories, but ultimately it is out of these contrasting movements that the universe is born, that very much finite but of course inconceiva-bly vast agglomeration of events that lead from one scene to the next. In this universe, the most profound sentiment, penetrating the entirety of nature, just happens to be fear. It is “the terrifying power of fear that brings culture into existence”, and this is the “general force field whence the gods, in their vapours, arise.”

Thus, Krasznahorkai’s novel goes on and on; there is no way of stepping out of it nor out of our own situation. We can step away only in so far as the rules of the Argentine tango permit (that is, in the way that the chapter title Arrepentida suggests): minimally in terms of space and in order to avoid a collision. And perhaps this lasts just until we manage to concre-tise the context in which that certain Greatest can exist for us. But until then we have to keep on dancing. Da capo al fine.

(Parts of this text first appeared in Hungarian on the Slovak cultural por-tal dunszt.sk. Translated by Peter Sherwood and edited by Peter and Julia Sherwood)

The author is a graduate in Hungarian and aesthetics of the Comenius Uni-versity of Bratislava (Slovakia). She is currently an editor with dunszt.sk.

László Krasznahorkai: The Return of Baron Wenckheim

Budapest: Magvető, 2016.

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MAGDALENA MULLEKON

Troll by Michal Hvorecký

Michal Hvorecký, a well-known Slovak writer, commentator and translator, takes the reader into the world of paid Internet trolling in his latest novel, Troll (Trol).

Reading Troll is like stepping into quicksand. While the first few pages give the appearance of a solid surface, offering the backstory of its young protagonist, the book quickly collaps-es into a massive web of information control, scandal and data manipulation, leaving the reader questioning everything he has ever read on the web, seen in the news or even heard spoken in a public venue.

This fictitious world is all the more frightening because, with every passing day, it resembles more and more closely the world we live in today. When I attended a book reading of Troll at Christiania in Poprad, Slovakia, Michal Hvorecký said that when he started writing the book two to three years ago, he felt like he was writing science fiction, but by the time the book went into print, it was as if reality had gotten ahead of him. Indeed, the idea of paid troll factories that influence the outcome of elec-tions is becoming part of the mainstream dis-course, with Facebook’s recent announcement on September 7th that it had unwittingly sold $150,000 of advertising to a Russian troll-farm during the US presidential campaign season being only one such example.

The book’s setting, a fictitious small coun-try under the sphere of influence of the also fictitious Reich, is loosely based on contem-porary Slovakia and Ukraine although it could just as easily be anywhere in Eastern Europe. A hybrid war, a combination of armed conflict and information warfare, has destroyed many of the country’s institutions and all of the population’s hope. In a dictatorship headed by the Leader-Son, who has succeeded his Leader-Father, power is no longer secured by weapons or mon-ey: it is gained and lost through misinformation and media ma-nipulation. Professional trolling organizations make and break leaders, governments, and private individuals. Hate campaigns can be unleashed in a matter of minutes and have the force of a hurricane, destroying everything in their path, quickly moving from the Internet to the real world, and destroying lives and rep-utations built over decades.

“Men and women spoke about the information war as if they were expecting it to bring them everything they desired and believed in. Their favourite phrase was that duty and honour demand that they bravely defend their country. I thought they were trolling because they were bored with their everyday rou-tine. The conflict had ripped them out of an organized existence.

They spoke of courage, but to me they were cowards, paralyzed by fear of living in a world full of threats and uncertainty. They were looking for sacrificial lambs.”

At the heart of the story is a friendship between an obese young man who has spent more than a year in a hospital that de-stroyed his health, and Johana, a drug addict who loves Russian literature. Together they decide to take on the entire machinery of misinformation. They want to expose the endless web of lies, but to do so they must become part of it. They get hired by a large trolling firm, headed by a man named Valys, and turn into cogs in the very machine they seek to destroy. In the process, they nearly lose their own identities through the natural assim-ilation which occurs when pretending to become proponents of

the same system they want to expose, eventu-ally competing at who can produce more rep-rehensible lies, losing a grasp on what is real and what isn’t.

In the end, they succeed in bringing down the organisation they work for, and perhaps even shed a little light onto a truth, shocking the citizenry into a moment of lucidity. But like an octopus, the trolling machine regenerates its arm – it sets up in another country to wreak havoc on another unsuspecting populace. While the ending offers a glimmer of hope, it also points out that any chance of freeing our-selves from the web of lies and misinformation rests entirely on our own shoulders and re-quires a tremendous amount of effort. It is so much easier to succumb to the stream of false information than to battle for even a single grain of truth.

During the aforementioned discussion, Michal Hvorecký said that “real violence is born of language.” Indeed, in his book, filled with strong language, words have the power to destroy. Verbal violence readily transcends the page, or in this case, the computer screen, and turns into physical vio-lence. Hate envelops its victims like quicksand. And while it may not be possible to drown in quicksand, the danger of both the literal and the literary varieties is that panicked motion results in becoming ever more trapped. The only way out is stillness. In the case of our information-overloaded world, this stillness trans-lates into careful evaluation and thought. Wading through the endless stream of misinformation is nearly impossible, increas-ingly impracticable, and yet absolutely imperative. Troll stands as a warning against the lull of succumbing to the complacency of blindly trusting any source. It is a cutting-edge piece of writing which takes some time to get used to, but it is enlightening and well worth the read.

Michal Hvorecký: Troll,

Marenčin Media, 2017.



ANNA ZARANKOON

Close Countries by Julia Fiedorczuk

Julia Fiedorczuk, based in Warsaw where she teaches Amer-ican literature at the university, is a prize-winning writer, translator, and essayist, and well known for her poetry: her collection Oxygen: Selected Poems (trans. Bill Johnston), appeared earlier this year – the first full-length volume of her work to appear in English. The 22 stories which make up the collection Close Countries (Bliskie kraje) range from extended narratives to brief, two-page forays. Written with the same restraint and simplicity that mark her poems, these stories are studded with startling images and sudden insights, emerging from unexpected points of contact – of both recog-nition and confrontation – between one being, or one world, and another. The characters are often located on the margins of society, both metaphorically and literally – their stories unfolding among the things, memories, even people, that have been left behind or hidden, along the uncomfortable limits of affluence, old age, dislocation, pain, anxiety – other “countries” existing along-side our own.

The devoted secretary of a writer de-cides after his death that she must requisi-tion his papers and finish his magnum opus, assimilating his identity like a starfish absorb-ing its prey; a girl plants a hidden garden on top of a Warsaw block of flats, secret until the roots of the trees start to prise apart the building; a professor copies the Song of Songs by night, one Hebrew word at a time, onto slips of paper and folds each one into an ori-gami crane; a girl addresses us in a startling monologue, voicing a profound revulsion towards the matter of which she herself is constituted.

There are stories which touch on the vulnerability of women who find themselves in places of acute social depri-vation: Ewka who sleeps rough and whose days are measured from beer to beer; the adolescent naïve and neglected misfit Maria, whose agony at not fitting in leads to a day of playing truant, is only one of the characters for whom the appear-ance of other human beings, three boys in this case, provokes an instant intuitive and well-founded alarm, deafened by her profound urge to belong. The tenderness of understanding between children and grandparents; the enchantment of an-imals who speak; magical grandmothers who grow into the landscape and tame death; little girls who suffer agonies over addressing the wrong saint for the wrong reason, or for tug-ging a worm apart, are placed alongside moments of anguish and violence: from a deliberate sudden lunge at an intricate

spider’s web to a fatal accident; from cruel, taunting children to sickness, decay and suicide.

In all the stories, Fiedorczuk’s interest in ecological is-sues and curiosity about the natural world is always evident and many of her metaphors use scientific knowledge to great poetic effect. Fiedorczuk is particularly connected with a movement or critical school known as ecopoetics, a genre in Anglosaxon literature which foregrounds and examines relations between man and “nature”, probing the opposition between “objective” scientific knowledge and the “spiritual” remit of the arts. Taken directly from the Greek (oikos, and poesis), ecopoetics means “home-making” and examining it is no optional extra, but an urgent necessity when the world

in which we make our home finds itself in a state of crisis induced, in part, by our very manner of inhabiting it.

Though ecological issues do not take obvious centre stage in Fiedorczuk’s fiction, it is nevertheless, profoundly informed by her engagement with ecopoetics. In a sense, this engagement is less deliberate than accidental; as a poet, she observes the world around her in a way that is reminiscent of the late John Berger, stepping in close to look – and then bringing back what she has seen. Indeed, it was precisely for this practice of “bringing back” that Berger wanted to be remembered most. He maintained that the questions found him rather than the other way around, identifying “migration” as his own central preoccupation. In this understanding, ques-tions of “ecology” are something that appear to have “found” Fiedorczuk; one issue all too visible throughout Close Countries is “stuff”,

and lots of it: humans own things. In fact, more humans own things than make things.

In the wry “God made of plastic”, a woman hopes to transform her life with the help of a relentless life coach who promises enlightenment, fulfilment and freedom with the help of black plastic sacks into which she urges and assists her clients to deposit all superfluous possessions (seemingly oblivious to the sacks’ subsequent destination). By the time the client has filled eleven sacks, she finds herself without glasses and obliged to drink straight from a tap. One can’t help specu-lating whether the content of these sacks constitutes the litter which drifts persistently through other stories… Zetka lives from hand to mouth, suppressing memories and collecting objects from the woods, taking them back to a decrepit home which then burns down. “On the Road”, in which a woman

Julia Fiedorczuk: Bliskie kraje (Close Countries),

Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Marginesy, 2016.

93


travels in India, is punctuated by snippets of information: how much fuel to fly from Warsaw to Delhi; how much clean water to produce enough cotton to make her jeans and t-shirt; how much wood to burn a single body on the banks of the Ganges. Yet, despite these facts which overwhelm her (and us), in the traveller’s eyes the most important thing she brings back is a sudden understanding of a single line of poetry.

Fiedorczuk doesn’t work on our outrage; she is more for planting seeds in the imagination than igniting fireworks in the conscience to deal with mountains of frankly insurmount-able “stuff”. And so, without sacrificing the vitality of individ-ual characters, the stories take on the contour of fables whose

characteristic detachment can be formulated as a democratic generosity of attention which favours no particular creature and, like Old Testament rain, falls on the just and unjust alike. Moving beyond concepts of human responsibility and stew-ardship (which retain the privilege of deciding – and trumping – priorities), perhaps even beyond empathy (and any temp-tation toward sentimentality or anthropomorphism): ecopo-etics as reflected in these stories challenges the imagination, through the experience of fragility, to formulate new questions in order to engage with the world above all through the reali-sation of a profound kinship.

MICHAL JAREŠON

Love in the Time of Global Climate Change by Josef Pánek

Though Josef Pánek’s first short story collection, The Opal Dig-ger [Kopáč opálů] (Triton, 2013) appeared four years ago, its author has yet to make his mark on the Czech literary world. Born in 1966, he has lived in Norway and Australia, and this experience is reflected in his new novella Love in the Time of Global Climate Change [Láska v době globálních klimatických změn] Argo, 2017).

The plot is fairly straightforward: the protagonist, Tomáš, travels to a conference in Bangalore. He is a man struggling to pull himself together after a divorce, a scientist forced by our hectic, globalised world to learn to work with others and sup-press his individuality for the sake of research. A more or less chance encounter with an attractive Indian participant at the conference leads to a night of intense passion, both in terms of sex and conversation. While the ending may seem predictable, the author’s playful treatment leaves it to the reader’s imagina-tion to decide what has really happened.

But one ought not to dwell on the plot too much, since what is more important in Love in the Time of Global Climate Change is that Pánek’s writing continues a tradition of Czech literature that started with Bohumil Hrabal and can be traced to more recent writers such as Emil Hakl. This pedigree is ap-parent in the author’s relentless verbosity, story-telling for the sheer pleasure of story-telling, the verbal deluge sustained for pages on end, alternating between outright bragging and mas-ochistic (self-)denigration. At the same time, Pánek’s writing shows a kinship with writers such as Josef Škvorecký, particu-larly in the portrayal of life “elsewhere”, i.e. outside the Czech environment.

Pánek’s protagonist Tomáš is brilliant at ranting about the ways of the world, his job and the global academic estab-lishment, with its impact factor journals and grant funding. He also relishes discussing and analysing the Czech national char-acter and xenophobia, or pondering the various guises taken by racism in today’s global village. His sarcastic comments of-ten eschew political correctness: “There’s a good reason why, before going to India, you’re told that black females are dirty. Those who tell you this are the same people whose parents grew up during the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia.” Despite this undiplomatic language, Tomáš suggests that rac-ism is outmoded, that notions of homeland, nation and race are vestiges of past centuries. Pánek’s character defies pigeonhol-ing: he has lived in South Australia, his ex-wife is Colombian, one of his best friends is Chinese, and during the conference he goes drinking with a Hungarian and sleeps with an Indian woman. Can he still be regarded as being “just” Czech or is he more of a “European”? Tomáš is aware that he is doomed to re-main an outcast, a loser, a psychologically deprived individual typical of this day and age. He doesn’t really know where home is, since in our globalised era of globetrotting lifestyles people like Tomáš are more at home in hotels or various temporary abodes. And although he’s not lacking in make it any-thing (or precisely because of that: take your pick) he is ultimately discontented. Uprooted and unhappy with himself, he is left alone with his phobias and memories. The phobias prevent him from getting a proper night’s sleep in India (because of the incessant noise and smog) or having a drink of water (for fear of falling ill). At the same time, he is annoyed by the contented



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Josef Pánek: Love in the Time

of Global Climate Change, Argo, 2017.

and placid nature of the people of Bangalore who go about their business smiling and have found peace of mind in their karma, some-thing that Tomáš fin

While he can’t really communicate with the people he meets in India, he also has problems communicating with his ex-wife, who lives in Australia with their two-year-old son. He is dismayed to learn that the son’s first word wasn’t “Daddy” but “id-iot”, but he can never be sure if his ex-wife is telling the truth or not. Her sinister, spiteful messages only exacerbate his general sense of unease. And while globalisation facilitates physical contact, the constant connectedness also leads to misunderstandings, as people no longer listen and everything carries the same weight, whether it is fact or fiction. Everything unique is disappearing, erased by things that are shared.

The combination of a homeless nomad with a mildly autistic commentator on world affairs creates an explosive mix. Pánek’s character relishes in self-denigrating accusations, self-pity and nostalgic reminiscence. If it weren’t for Tomáš’ one-night stand, the book might offer just an interesting but one-sided look at our world and an individual in it, another example of what has become known as expat fiction. However,

what makes Pánek’s book stand out is that he doesn’t stop at taking his character on a journey to a distant place to open his eyes to reality. Halfway into the novella, he does something unexpected: loosened up by the “conference sex”, Tomáš discovers in him-self a dormant desire to recount stories that may seem trivial but are actually crucial. At this point, we are suddenly taken back to the 1990s and follow Tomáš as he hitchhikes his way through Iceland. A greater contrast between the permanently teeming Indian megalopolis and the quiet, deserted northern landscape would be hard to find. By acknowl-edging his nomadic condition and retrospec-tively making sense of things that happened over thirty years ago, he is able to find his own inner peace, akin to the karma of the Indian culture but which had eluded him hitherto.

Admittedly, this sudden finding of peace doesn’t last long, if for no other reason than Tomáš’ propensity for iro-ny and seeing everything as relative, especially the great, enduring notions such as love, truth, happiness and even, ultimately, replace with home. Readers should take note of this novella, which takes Czech literature into the European league despite an intentionally misleading title that may make it sound “unbearably heavy”.

Series: BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies

“Central Europe” is a vague and ambiguous term, more to do with outlook and a state of mind than with a firmly defined geographical region. This book explores the concept and the meaning of the term and casts a great deal of light on the complex nature of the region.

november 2017: 234 × 156: 528pp, £92.00

Understanding Central Europe edited by Marcin Moskalewicz and Wojciech Przybylski

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* Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount and only applies to books purchased directly via Routledge website

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Illustrations by Pawel Kuczynski. VICE wrote about his political cartoons: “they stick in your mind as much as your social media feed. Kuczynski’s work is constantly circulating Reddit, Facebook, and Insta-gram.” His illustrations were already on our cover twice before in 2016 and 2017.


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