This research attempts to begin to understand the kinds of patterns and methods used by actors seeking to inflame tensions in the
region as well as to identify possible motives and inform suitable responses.
Policy Recommendations
- The EU needs to clearly state that the countries of the Western Balkans should not follow the role model of Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal democracy”, as this can hamper their accession process. Moreover, the Western Balkan states need to openly reject the authoritarian-minded ideas.
- Hungary, which several Western Balkan countries perceive as an honest broker, should closely collaborate with EU member states that have strong ties to the region (e.g. Slovenia and Croatia). Furthermore, this close cooperation should also include countries which are sceptical about a possible EU enlargement (e.g. the Netherlands and France) to overcome indifference. Eventually, the collaboration also needs a strong advocate with significant political weight within the European decision-making process (e.g. Germany).
- The EU institutions have to stand up and defend their values. If the European Commission cannot keep its role as a guardian of the treaties, it will lose credibility, and it will further fuel resistance within the EU against the accession of the Western Balkans. The EU needs to considerably speed up its “rule of law mechanism” against Hungary and Poland, or the accession of the Western Balkan countries will recede in the distance.
Wed
Jun
16
This article is summarising the conclusions of a research conducted over the Romanian mainstream and social media, seeking to identify the presence of secessionist and revisionist narratives, what are the conditions facilitating their presence, and who are the actors benefiting. The research was part of the project Revealing Russian disinformation networks and active measures fuelling secessionism and border revisionism in the CEE, conducted under the supervision of Political Capital, Budapest
Stephen Holmes, is a Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law, New York and co-author, together with Ivan Krastev, of The Light That Failed. A Reckoning published in October by Allen Lane (an imprint of Penguin Books). In a work of startlingly original political psychology, two pre-eminent intellectuals propose that the post-1989 world order has been characterised by 30 years of what they call The Age of Imitation – a period of Western democratisation in which Eastern European values would be bent to the liberal fiscal, cultural and moral politics of “integration”.
Interview Dimitar Bechev (North Carolina)
Interview with Dimitar Bechev, research fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and non- resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. In 2017, he published “Rival Power. Russia’s Influence in South- East Europe” at Yale University Press.