EU shaken by rising nationalism in Eastern Europe

In the general election in Hungary, the ruling centre-right alliance led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban won a landslide victory, retaining a two-thirds majority in parliament. Orban, who made a comeback in 2010, will shortly launch his fourth administration overall.
During the race, Orban said, “Migration is like rust that slowly but surely would consume Hungary”, mounting a blatant anti-refugee campaign. Under the banner of an exclusionary nationalism, he repeatedly criticised the EU’s migration policies.
Orban tightened control of the media and also started clamping down on the activities of civil groups that support refugees. It cannot be overlooked that he rejects liberal democracy and makes light of freedom and tolerance, which the EU advocates.
It is grave that the antagonism with the EU is conspicuous in other countries in Eastern Europe as well.
Poland is promoting judicial reforms through which the administration controls the selection of judges. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has started procedures to impose sanctions, saying there are suspected violations of the rule of law.
In Romania, where corruption is rife, politicians are attempting to lighten penalties through legal reforms, which the EU considers problematic.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in his recent address, indicated alarm over these moves in Eastern Europe, and emphatically vowed to “protect democracy”.
More than 10 years have passed since Eastern European countries joined the EU. They may not have been able to expect that member countries would fail to deepen their sharing of values, but instead let the rift widen.
Lying behind this is the turmoil that developed when there was a large influx of refugees to Europe from the Middle East and Africa in 2015.
The EU allocated to member countries the quotas of refugees that they would take in, in accordance with their economic scale and other factors. The three countries of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic rejected refugee quotas, replying that they were “imposed” by major EU members.
One factor behind this was that a large majority of the refugees were Muslims, and people in Eastern European countries that were communist states during the Cold War era had little experience of coexisting with them.
The refugee quota measures that German Chancellor Angela Merkel promoted on the basis of Europe’s traditions of humanitarianism may have been rather coercive.
EU member countries differ in their historic and cultural backgrounds.
Unifying policy is not easy. For Germany and France to promote the integration of the Eurepean Union, it will also be necessary to pay studious attention to the state of affairs of each country.