European Union faces political turmoil amid populism’s rise in East - The Washington Post
Trouble is brewing in the east for the European Union — and Russia’s refusal to halt its grinding war in Ukraine is only part of the problem.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, long the 27-nation bloc’s most pro-Russian leader, has stepped up his anti-E.U. and anti-Ukraine rhetoric ahead of national elections next spring. He’s accusing European leaders of drawing up “war plans” against Moscow and pledging to veto any attempt to fast-track formal E.U. membership talks with Ukraine.
In neighboring Slovakia, Europe’s main center-left political party, has suspended — and this month is expected to eject — SMER, its affiliate there. SMER’s leader, Prime Minister Robert Fico, infuriated his fellow Social Democrats by attending Victory Day celebrations in Beijing and Moscow and meeting with Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic on Sunday, another populist Euroskeptic and Ukraine critic, Andrej Babis, won national parliamentary elections. The billionaire former prime minister aims to replace the pro-Western, pro-Ukraine coalition led by conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala.
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Babis, 71, who donned a Czech version of the red MAGA cap during the campaign, has been shadowed by a fraud case that is unfolding in the courts, and his party did not win an outright majority. But if he succeeds in forming a government coalition, officials in Brussels expect he will join Orban and Fico to obstruct assistance for Ukraine and oppose new pressure on Russia.
“This coincides with an unprecedented ideological alignment between MAGA and those rebellious E.U. member states,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law and policy at HEC Paris, a French business school.
“The recent developments,” Alemanno said, “may further tip the E.U. political balance to the right, with Babis joining Viktor Orban and Robert Fico in opposing support to Ukraine and testing domestic and E.U. democratic institutions.”
Even little Lithuania — dependably dull, staunchly democratic — saw mass protests over the weekend, as artists took to the streets to demand the ouster of a culture minister from the populist Nemunas Dawn Party, whose leader has been dogged by charges of antisemitism.
Nemunas Dawn joined the government after Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas resigned this summer under a cloud of corruption allegations, forcing his Social Democratic Party to find new coalition partners.
Normally, when the E.U. is in turmoil, it would turn to its foundational pillars — Germany and France — for stability. But Germany is mired in economic malaise, and France is in a soap-operatic financial and political crisis; its latest prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, resigned Monday after less than a month in office.
“Obviously, the French political crisis further complicates and delays E.U. action on its most direct challenges,” Alemanno said.
In the Czech Republic, Babis and his right wing ANO (Yes) Party, ran under the banner of “Czechia first.” He promised to raise wages and pensions — and to shut down the Czech-led program that sends most of Europe’s artillery shells to Ukraine, denouncing the country’s outgoing government for giving “Czech mothers nothing, and Ukrainians everything.”
Babis has said it’s not the arms, but how they are procured, that is the problem. He claims the program is corrupt and that Czech arms merchants are making a fortune. He wants the program shifted to NATO.
Babis and ANO won just a third of the vote, far short of an outright majority, and must form a coalition agreement to govern, which will be tricky. Most of the major parties appear resistant to partnering with him.
Babis said talks have begun with the fringe — the Freedom and Direct Democracy party, which has called for Ukraine immigrants to be deported, and the new Motorists for Themselves party, which opposes the E.U.’s “green deal” to fight climate change by reducing carbon emissions. Both potential partners are deeply skeptical about the European project.
Before the vote, Czech President Petr Pavel said the question of the hour was whether the Czech Republic “remains firmly part of the West, or drifts off toward the East.” After the election, he cautioned Babis that any new government must preserve “all the institutions of a democratic state” and move in a “pro-Western direction.”
Tabea Schaumann, an analyst at the European Policy Centre, a think tank in Brussels, said Babis’s return could add another disruptive leader to the European Council who would be paralyze decision-making. She said a lot rides on who Babis brings into a coalition and that she expected support for Ukraine would not end, but would be “reevaluated.”
After the election, Babis said the Czech Republic would remain a reliable partner in the E.U. and NATO, and he waved away concerns that he would undermine democratic institutions. “We criticize the European Union, but we don’t want to destroy it,” ANO deputy leader Karel Havlicek told the BBC. “We want to reform it.”
Babis boasted he has meet President Donald Trump multiple times. He is also good friends with Orban, who on Monday declared that his country should not adopt the euro currency because the E.U. is “disintegrating.”
“Hungary should not tie its fate closer to the European Union than now, and adopting the euro would be the closest possible link,” Orban told the news site EconomX.
Since 2010, Orban has fashioned himself as a champion of “illiberal Christian democracy” attempting to ban LGBTQ+ Pride parades, weakening judicial independence, and curtailing press and academic freedoms — which led the European Union to suspend $21 billion in funding.
At a leaders’ summit in Denmark last week, Orban dismissed as a nonstarter a plan by European Council President António Costa to open membership talks with Ukraine. “I do not agree,” Orban said. “So this plan is dead.”
With French President Emmanuel Macron seriously weakened at home, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz yet to achieve the stature and influence once commanded by Angela Merkel, other E.U. heads of state and government are clashing openly with one another.
After Orban accused E.U. leaders of developing “war plans” against Russia, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sniped at Orban in a social media post, lecturing his counterpart: “It is Russia that started the war against Ukraine. It is them who decided we’re living in the time of war. And in such a time, the only question is whose side are you on.”
Tusk faces challenges at home, with the June election of conservative historian Karol Nawrocki as president of Poland. Supported by Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party and endorsed by President Donald Trump, Nawrocki ran a successful “Poland for Poles” campaign.
Nawrocki, who wants Germany to pay steep reparations for Nazi crimes during World War II, has said he plans to fight illegal immigration, defend the Polish currency and limit the powers of the European Union. Nawrocki is highly critical of Russia — he recently called Putin a “war criminal” — but he is wary of Ukraine, which he insists should not be allowed to join NATO or the European Union.
Orban and Fico have resisted calls to stop purchasing Russian oil and natural gas, which Trump has demanded as a condition of imposing new sanctions on Moscow after Trump failed to convince Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine — raising questions about whether any new pressure on the Kremlin will be forthcoming from Washington.
Fico said during a televised debate on Sunday that the goal of his country “is not the defeat of the Russian Federation. Our goal is to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible. These are Slavs killing each other. War is not a solution.”
He added: “If the E.U. spent as much energy on peace as it does on supporting the war in Ukraine, the war could have been over long ago.”