Europe Country

Towards a New Central Europe

The End of the Post-Soviet Epoch

This blind alley is where what was known in Central Europe as the "transitional," or "post-Soviet" period has ended. The rhetoric, the points of reference, the objectives, incentives, and motives of the different actors on the scene became irrelevant, as of around 2004 (when ten countries from this region joined the EU). What happens next will have to involve a new paradigm in politics and government, free of the ideological baggage of the past, and oriented toward the practical solution of a whole array of acute problems, both in the world at large, and in the region.

One of the most evident symptoms of the crisis of the "post-Soviet" way of thinking, is the need for a radical change in how socio-economic results are evaluated. Olga Vlasova, in her Nov. 6, 2006 Expert article, headlined "Enough Lying!", described the inadequacy of traditional macroeconomic indicators: "Despite their seemingly tolerable macroeconomic performance, the East Europeans gained no real dividends from joining the EU. Poland remains, as it was before, the country with the highest unemployment and least efficient agriculture in Europe (the 16% of the Polish work force, employed in agriculture, produces 3% of the country's GDP; in France, the 3% of GDP from the agricultural sector is produced by 4% of the work force). Hungary is on the brink of bankruptcy, to avoid which the government raises taxes and cuts spending on social needs. The Hungarians are waking up to a cold reality: the country is already a member of the EU, but its standard of living remains below that of Italy, or even Spain."

Thus, the traditional summary indicators, like GDP, express almost nothing of the real state of affairs in these countries. Continuing to use them as the sole guidelines for economic and political decision-making will only widen the gap between the declared state of society and its real condition. A true assessment has to be based on structural indicators, on the overall level of development of the society's productive forces (as expressed, for example, by potential relative population density, in the science of physical economy), and other indicators of the development of material living standards and culture. Furthermore, the economy as the material basis for the existence of society has to be strictly linked with the quality of that existence; in other words, one set of indicators of social development needs to link the economy with demographics: quality of life, satisfaction with conditions of life, confidence in the future, and so forth.

The need for such changes is apparent in every area of social activity. In sum: the intellectual instrumentarium for social management, in the broadest sense, has to be adequate to the task of solving the new, actually existing problems in social development, which were absent from the political and governance concepts and models of the "post-Soviet" paradigm. This is the methodological nature of the challenge, set by the new social, economic, and political conditions in East Central Europe, and the whole world, after 2004.

Bulgaria and Romania did join the EU on Jan. 1, 2008 and other countries in the region continue to seek membership as soon as possible. These tendencies, however, are no longer the only determinants of East Central Europe's future. Coming more and more into play are acute problems of development, such as a demographic crisis, migration, unemployment, degradation of the composition of employment, and the shortage of electric power. EU membership gives the region's nations practically no advantages in addressing these problems. If they are not to abandon their identity as nations and turn into mere passive observers of the destruction of their own societies, they will have to look for a way out of the situation themselves—and some new horizons would open up for analysis and planning on the scale of the region as a whole.

It would only be possible to achieve high rates of development in East Central Europe, as a way of addressing the key problems facing the countries there, if those nations assert their identity as nations. East Central European national leaders who see themselves primarily as EU members, or candidates for membership, are incapable of conceptualizing strategic development goals and organizing the achievement of those goals, because they have abandoned the position from which they might have the overview and independent vision, which are prerequisite for shaping a real picture of how things are, and for setting real, substantial objectives. Only sovereign nations, uniting their efforts on the basis of a principle of equal sovereignty, can set strategic goals and organize their own development. Non-independent development is impossible by definition. Yet, the juridical limitations on sovereignty, imposed by European integration, do not represent an insurmountable obstacle to real sovereign action, since the latter means the ability of a country's leadership to set an overriding goal, and mobilize society to achieve it. There are many ways, under existing national and international laws, to circumvent or overcome the restrictions on cooperation among countries in East Central Europe, which follow from the different status of these various countries in their relations with the EU (ranging from full membership, such as Poland and the Czech Republic have, to being the target of economic and political sanctions, as Belarus is).

It would only be possible to achieve high rates of development in East Central Europe, as a way of addressing the key problems facing the countries there, if those nations assert their identity as nations. East Central European national leaders who see themselves primarily as EU members, or candidates for membership, are incapable of conceptualizing strategic development goals and organizing the achievement of those goals, because they have abandoned the position from which they might have the overview and independent vision, which are prerequisite for shaping a real picture of how things are, and for setting real, substantial objectives. Only sovereign nations, uniting their efforts on the basis of a principle of equal sovereignty, can set strategic goals and organize their own development. Non-independent development is impossible by definition. Yet, the juridical limitations on sovereignty, imposed by European integration, do not represent an insurmountable obstacle to real sovereign action, since the latter means the ability of a country's leadership to set an overriding goal, and mobilize society to achieve it. There are many ways, under existing national and international laws, to circumvent or overcome the restrictions on cooperation among countries in East Central Europe, which follow from the different status of these various countries in their relations with the EU (ranging from full membership, such as Poland and the Czech Republic have, to being the target of economic and political sanctions, as Belarus is).

 

Towards a New Central Europe

In order to develop at a faster rate than other areas, the nations of East Central Europe need a common economic program that addresses key regional problems. The list of such problems should be drawn up and agreed upon in international analytical and planning groups, so that the problems be formulated with proper care, taking into account specific regional, national, and local circumstances. Nonetheless, it is already clear what some of the key ones are:

1. Demographics: achieving population growth throughout East Central Europe, raising life expectancy, reducing infant mortality, and so forth.

2. Migration: stemming the outflow of the labor force from East Central European countries.

3. Labor: qualitative and quantitative changes in the structure of employment in the nations of East Central Europe, through the absolute and, and also the relative, increase in the number of skilled jobs.

4. Energy: saturation of the region with generating capacity, creating a surplus of cheap electric power, as the basis for the intensive development of industry and agriculture.

5. Social and cultural: preservation and authentic development of all the peoples of the region, as the basis for preventing inter-ethnic strife (above all, through developing and implementing unique educational approaches).

6, Political and juridical: formation of institutions and practices that provide real sovereignty for the states of East Central Europe, so each nation may be an independent political agent, regardless of membership in international organizations.

7. Ecological, and other problems.

To solve these problems will take a profound type of interaction among the countries of the region and the formation of the basis of a Central European identity, to which Brussels has been an impediment since the beginning of the 1990s. Such an identity, centered on the ideas of rapid development and a decent life for every person, would represent a healthy alternative to the identity of the region as merely "anti-Russian," promoted out of the U.S.A. in the recent period.

The development of programs and projects for solving the region's key problems, listed above, requires the creation of an international network of interdisciplinary analysis and planning groups—call it the New Central Europe network— and very serious work on the content of a New Central Europe integration project. This project cannot be reduced to a recreation of the production and technical ties of the Comecon period, since most of the countries of the region have managed to destroy, in whole or in part, not only the key plants, but the entire material culture of that industrial system. Therefore, the creation of the New Central Europe can be based only on the principle of co-development: the creation of new areas of activity, with attention to the immediate, long-term, and historical requirements and interests of the countries of the region. It is obvious that such a project should include the formation of unified regional transportation infrastructure, the concentrated development of nuclear power, the development of ecologically clean manufacturing (waste reprocessing, scrubbing technologies, etc.), as well as other sectors. In addition, it is clear that the New Central Europe will be oriented to productive cooperation with the leading political powers in the region, such as Germany, Russia, and Turkey, but cooperation will not be limited to them.

Thus, the New Central Europe project can open the pathway to solving a whole array of regional problems (EU-Turkey, EU-Russia, the Balkans), as well as world problems. The concatenation of Western Europe-East Central EuropeRussia-EurAsEc-Shanghai Cooperation Organization defines the space, in which the foundations of a new, just world order should be laid during the next five to ten years, in order to provide all or most of the nations of the world the opportunity to develop. Otherwise, the remains of the old order will be destroyed, leaving behind only the preconditions for a plunge of the whole world into the chaos of a New Dark Age.

Implementation of the New Central Europe project can be a first step on the road to a just world order, based on the principle of development.

Belarussian Development Group invites think tanks and public associations from all over Europe, CIS and Asia to take part in discussing and promoting the project of New Central Europe.

You can contact us through website www.bgr.by or emails mail@bgr.by or b2018@bgr.by

 

About the Author

Yuri Tsarik is the Director of Belarussian Development Group http://www.bgr.by/ an official think tank of the republican public association "Belaya Rus" which includes more than 100 thou. people all over Belarus.

He is a postgraduate international law scholar and has been working as a political analyst for the Government of Belarus for a number of years.

Personal blog http://y-tsarik.livejournal.com/

Europe is a country and everyone speaks french there