Welcome back. Here’s a thought for Americans and the peoples of central and eastern Europe. In the late 20th century, the US was a democratic inspiration to a region struggling to rid itself of Soviet-imposed communism.
Now, as the Trump administration gleefully tramples on liberal democracy at home, can Americans learn something from the resistance to strongman rule and misgovernment in central and eastern Europe and its neighbourhood?
I will focus on four cases: Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary and the south Caucasus nation of Georgia. You can find me at tony.barber@ft.com.
First, the result of last week’s poll. Asked if Europe should draw closer to China, 49 per cent of you said yes, 30 per cent said no and 21 per cent were on the fence. Thanks for voting!
A springtime of nations
A week ago, the historian Simon Schama drew a comparison between protests in three countries and the 1848-1849 revolutions in Europe:
“Something 1848-ish is unfolding on the streets of eastern Europe: Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest against authoritarianism and corruption — is anyone noticing this 3B spring?”
May I suggest that Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, is a better choice than Bucharest?
Only in a limited sense have recent demonstrations in Romania resembled protests elsewhere against democratic backsliding. Mostly, they have been in support of an ultranationalist politician prevented by the authorities from running in Romania’s presidential election.
But Schama’s general point is correct. In various capitals, people are massing on the streets in the name of liberal ideals and national self-determination — seen as hijacked by bullying, self-serving autocrats — in a manner that recalls 1848 and also 1989, the year of the pro-democracy revolutions against communism.
In a continent sometimes portrayed as losing faith in liberal democracy and drifting towards the hard right, it turns out that freedom really is precious to people in central and eastern Europe. A month ago, I tried to capture the mood:
“The common theme is a yearning for justice, accountability and freedom of expression. Such liberal values are supposed to typify western European democracies.
“They remain a beacon for many people in parts of central and eastern Europe where the democratic promise of the 1989 revolutions has fallen short of expectations.”
Serbia: no EU flags
The region’s largest protests are taking place in Serbia. They are distinctive for a number of reasons.
First, although the protest movement involves hundreds of thousands of people, it has no official leaders or representative structures. What a contrast to 1989, when Poland’s Solidarity, Czechoslovakia’s Civic Forum and East Germany’s pro-democracy groups rose to the occasion.
Second, the activists are not (yet) trying to overthrow President Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia’s strongman. They have little if any faith in Serbia’s opposition parties. Rather, they want root-and-branch reform of a state apparatus they regard as corrupt, secretive, incompetent and contemptuous of civic freedoms and the rule of law.
But what comes next? It’s not entirely clear.
Perhaps the protests will eventually topple Vučić. But the movement’s reluctance to work inside Serbia’s political structures distinguishes it from opposition activities in Hungary today or Poland in 2023, when the Law and Justice party was removed from power in free elections.
Third, there’s a striking absence of pro-EU sentiment at the Serbian protests. Like Georgia (though its authoritarian lurch has frozen its candidacy), Serbia is supposed to be on the road to EU membership. But unlike their counterparts in Tbilisi, no protesters in Belgrade are holding aloft EU flags.
This article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung argues that the EU is to blame:
“The young people involved expect nothing from the European Union. The EU generally supports Vučić. The bloc’s greatest wish is stability, not democracy. That is why the students are not carrying European flags, only Serbian ones.”
Don’t forget the EU’s keen interest in Serbian raw materials, specifically lithium, essential for electric vehicles’ battery production. (I recommend this analysis by Melanie Müller, Lea Maria Strack and Marina Vulović for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.)
Slovakia: the new illiberal kid on the block
Unlike in Serbia, many Slovak demonstrators enthusiastically support the EU. Those filling the streets of Bratislava are alarmed at what they see as the anti-democratic, Russophile drift of government policy under Prime Minister Robert Fico — described in this report by Aleksej Tilman for the New Eastern Europe website.
Fico is one of the region’s most tenacious political survivors. His career seemed finished after he was forced to resign in 2018 amid large-scale protests at the murder of Ján Kuciak, an investigative journalist, and his fiancée.
But Fico bounced back and, having won elections in 2023, is now in his fourth term as premier. (See this excellent analysis by Tim Haughton, David Cutts and Marek Rybář for the journal East European Politics and Societies.)
The protests have erupted largely because of Fico’s sharply illiberal turn at home — cracking down on NGOs, limiting the right to dissent, overhauling the public broadcaster and closing an anti-corruption prosecutor’s office.
To Fico’s opponents, these measures borrow more than a leaf or two from the strongman playbook of Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán.
Slovakia is unusual in the region for its rather low levels of support for Ukraine — 32 per cent, compared with 44 per cent in the Czech Republic and 68 per cent in Poland, according to a poll conducted in the last quarter of 2024 by the Central European Digital Media Observatory.
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Another recent poll suggested that, although a majority of Slovaks want to stay in Nato, almost half warm to the idea of neutrality. That seems confusing, but Thomas Brooke, writing for Remix News, offers a plausible explanation:
“The data … reveal deep contradictions within Slovak public opinion, reflecting both a desire for Nato protection and an aversion to military commitments, which Fico is very much aligned with.”
Hungary: an “electoral autocracy”
What about Orbán, the kingpin of European illiberalism? At first glance, it appears that he is in more trouble than at any time in his 15-year reign.
Anti-Orbán protesters are out in force on the streets — though not in as large numbers as in Serbia.
Opinion polls, portrayed in the chart below, suggest that the upstart opposition movement Tisza has edged ahead of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party.
But in many ways these polls miss the point. It seems naive to me to hope that Hungary will go the way of Poland in 2023 — that’s to say, to imagine that next year’s parliamentary elections will be completely free and fair, and that Orbán will peacefully transfer power to the opposition if he loses.
Hungary is what some specialists call an “electoral autocracy” — a system in which Orbán controls all the important levers of power, from the judiciary and security services to the state media. From the start, elections are tilted in his favour.
What will Orbán do if the opposition continues to rise in popularity? I refer you to his speech on March 15 marking the 177th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising of 1848.
Orbán directed these menacing words at the opposition:
“After today’s festive gathering will come house cleaning for Easter. The bugs have survived winter … We will disperse the entire shadow army. They are the latter-day Habsburg troops, the minions of Brussels, paid to do the empire’s bidding against their own country …
“If there is justice, and there is, there is a special place in Hell for them.”
Georgia: the most vulnerable
Finally, Georgia. Anti-government demonstrations erupted there after the nation’s billionaire de facto ruler, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and his Georgian Dream party won flawed elections in October.
But in contrast to Serbia, Slovakia and Hungary, Georgia is vulnerable because it is next door to Russia and Moscow’s forces have occupied parts of its territory since a short war in 2008.
A clampdown on the opposition has intensified since October, and western democracies are doing almost nothing about it.
This report by the Centre for European Policy Analysis think-tank explains why:
“The US is not only preoccupied with Ukraine, the Middle East and tariff policy, but its depth of interest in Georgian developments is moot.
“The EU is meanwhile dealing with the profound aftershocks of Washington’s disinterest (or even hostility to) the continent and must focus on its own defence.
“Neither has an appetite to deal with Georgia’s rogue leadership in a relatively far-flung region. Internally, too, street protests have somewhat subsided to a few thousand demonstrators in Tbilisi’s centre — heavy fines against protesters and other pressure are having an effect.”
Figuratively speaking, it seems more like winter than springtime in Georgia.
But I don’t wish to end on a pessimistic note. In all four countries, the demand for civic rights and national dignity will not go away. Remember the proverb: it’s always darkest before the dawn.
China’s growing influence in the western Balkans — a commentary by Alicia García-Herrero for the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank
Tony’s picks of the week
European companies that have added a US listing often do not see an uplift to their valuations, putting in question the argument that a New York stock market presence leads to higher share prices, the FT’s Nikou Asgari and Patrick Mathurin report
The Trump administration’s “America first” foreign policy revolution risks rebounding on the US by prompting more countries to consider acquiring nuclear weapons, Ankit Panda, Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi write for the War on the Rocks website.
