Abstract
The transition process of Eastern European countries has proved to be an unprecedented success. This is demonstrated by their economic and social achievements and, above all, by the establishment of stable democratic regimes and the rule of law in the ‘New Europe’. The article emphasizes that the rest of Europe should also benefit from these successful experiences, drawing on three major lessons. Firstly, the transition of post-communist countries teaches that democracy and human rights should be conceived as living ideals to be pursued with dedication. Further, old EU members should be inspired by the commitment to work in new democracies where the memory of poverty is still fresh. Finally, the courage to undertake innovative and even audacious policies should be an example for all EU Members, in a renewed endeavour to enhance democracy, freedom and prosperity in throughout the continent.
In 2007 my book Hejdå östeuropa! (Goodbye, Eastern Europe!) was published in Sweden. In this book I describe my travels in the first eight former communist countries to have joined the EU—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia—and my meetings with politicians, entrepreneurs, journalists, artists, scientists and also common people. I looked for evidence of the fantastic transition these countries have gone through over the last two decades. I found a part of Europe that is moving, changing and has hopes for the future—so much so that I believe the term “Eastern Europe” to be outdated, hence the title. In fact, I believe the transition undergone by those countries could serve as an inspiration to a Europe with little interest in giving up what sometimes are referred to as “sovereign” issues, bringing about necessary welfare reforms and sharing its stability with the world around by enlarging the Union.
There should be no doubt that the transition has been successful. The economy is better [29]. The most extreme poverty has been alleviated [1]. And the increased economic growth has benefited most of the people. The living standards are obviously higher ([7], Table 3.6.1). But it is not only about material things. Even health is remarkably better. There has been a significant decrease in infant mortality. The suicide rate has dropped in most of the countries. Altogether, the life expectancy at birth has increased. The largest increase is seen in the Czech Republic, where a newborn today can look forward to a life four and a half years longer! [28] Not only do humans feel better, the environment does as well. The introduction of a market economy called for a more efficient use of resources, which resulted in a substantial drop in pollution 1 . Most importantly, however, democracy, the rule of law and the institutions that serve this purpose are established and relatively stable in these countries today 2 .
See, for example [5, 26, 27], and European Commission ([6], p. 6f) for qualitative measures; and Eurostat [8] for quantitative figures on emissions over time.
See, for example, Karatnycky and Ackerman ([13], 22f.) vis-à-vis Freedom House ([10], pp. 6-10), OSCE ([15], p. 1), OSCE ([16], p. 1); OSCE ([17], p. 1), OSCE ([18], p. 1), OSCE ([19], p. 1), or Reporters without Borders ([23], p. 4f).
It is no wonder Professor János Kornai of Harvard University two years ago came to the conclusion that the transition of Central and Eastern Europe is “an unparalleled success story in history” ([14], pp. 217-222, 225-227). Of course there are individuals who have done less well by the changes—there always are when societies transform. Of course there are still some severe problems—but they are being fixed. If one could complain, it would be that the reform process could have been even faster. Gone is the heated debate from the early 1990s about the speed of reform. Today it has been proven that early and ambitious reforms in these countries have a positive correlation to economic growth ([9], pp. 1, 20; [12], p. 8f.), lack of social pain ([12], p. 9f.) and even life satisfaction among the population ([25], p. 1).
In fact, this transition is one of the most convincing examples of how effective democracy and a market economy is for building prosperity and human creativity. Therefore, I would like to emphasise some lessons I think this New Europe can and should teach the rest of Europe.
The devotion to democracy and freedom
Fidesz—the Alliance of Young Democrats—was founded by young Hungarians in 1988 as an alternative to the youth organisation of the Communist Party. With joy, brilliance and smartness the members were determined to get rid of the dictatorship. They were frequently harassed and arrested by the police. One of the founders was the young lawyer Viktor Orbán.
In the summer of 1989 the national martyrs of the revolution were reburied in Budapest. Orbán, only 26 years old at the time, held a speech at the funeral in which he became the first to sing out what so many Hungarians felt—he demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. A 26-year-old man saying such things in front of hundreds of thousands of people present and many millions by their television sets—this was a demonstration of the courage and integrity that an appealing politician has to have.
Orbán is still active in Hungarian politics. He was Prime Minister 1998-2002 and he still leads Fidesz, which has become the leading opposition party. The current Prime Minister of Hungary is Ferenc Gyurcsány from the Socialist Party, which is a reformed successor of the Communist Party. While Orbán was risking his life for democracy and human rights, Gyurcsány was starting a career in the youth league of the Communist Party. This is of course a matter of huge controversy in today's Hungary, but the important point is actually not whether someone was siding with the dictatorship or not. The interesting point is that these politicians nowadays are required to situate themselves relative to dictatorship and democracy. In the New Europe the struggle for democracy and human rights is still fresh in memory. Whereas in Sweden and other older Western societies politicians take democracy and human rights for granted, these are living ideals in the new democracies. In the Western societies the politicians are 1968ers, in the New Europe they are 1989ers.
The former dissidents obviously know the price of freedom. The former apparatchiks, on the other hand, are concerned to manifest their loyalty to political and economic reforms. Therefore, when it comes to the market economy and liberalisation, nowadays the former Communist and the Socialist Party are at least as open as the former dissidents in Fidesz.
In an interview in The New Yorker in 2003 the former Czech President Václav Havel said that he did not believe it to be a coincidence that the idea that evil has to be opposed had gained more attention in countries that had had totalitarian systems in recent memory [22]. It is not a coincidence that Poland and the Baltic States pushed for the EU to play a bigger role in Ukraine and Belarus. Or that the politicians in the Czech Republic have become the most outspoken friends of the democratic movement in Cuba, while Castro continues fascinating leaders at least in Stockholm. “The Estonians remember what it means to live in a dictatorship… When we now are able to help others, we consider it our duty to do so”, the Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said, commenting on the unity in Estonian society regarding the country's military presence in Iraq [21].
The Croatian author Slavenka Drakulič has written that if you grew up in a communist system you understand that politics was not an abstraction but a mighty force that had an impact on people's lives ([3], p. xv). Leaders of the New Europe have in fact experienced the profound distortions of collectivism. This gives them the grounds to stand up and tell their colleagues in the European Union to stop when they are once again practising political expansionism.
That feeling for freedom also constitutes a feeling for when more freedom is necessary. Taxation policy has been used as an arena for reforms leading to greater freedom. There is a lot of talk about flat taxes. However, the point is not that the taxes are flat, but that they are moderate, that the reforms increase the freedom and incentives to work and that their basic premise is that tax money is the property of the taxpayer.
The New Europe is shaped not only by the experiences of communism. Since November last year, the youngest voters were born in a world without the Berlin Wall. We saw the first sign of what impact this will have in the future in the Polish elections in October. The reactionary and counterproductive Kaczyński cabinet was replaced by a modern and libertarian-leaning cabinet led by Donald Tusk and the Civic Platform. The support from the younger generation was probably the most obvious force for this change. The young Andrzej and Katarzyna have grown up in societies where capitalism is the ideal to be strived for. This is not the case with their fellow generation in Old Europe, where capitalism rather is an unloved albeit established fact.
The legacy of limited resources
People in the New Europe have experiences of living in collective poverty. In some respects these countries were poor during communism, and in other respects they became poor for a while when the economies dipped in the early 1990s. This makes it possible for the politicians to be more radical in their reforms. The people are not as spoilt as in Western Europe. In Sweden many reforms are blocked by people's unwillingness to give up their privileges, but in Warsaw or Tallinn there are no such thing as a Nordic welfare state to block.
Polish scientists studying mobility made a discovery a couple of years ago. There was something peculiar with the traffic patterns in Poland. In comparison to other countries, the rush hours were a little bit earlier in the morning and a little bit later in the evening. The scientists drew the conclusion that Poles go to work earlier and leave later than people in other countries—they work more, in other words. The statistics confirm this picture, and this is true not only for Poland. In the 15 old EU Member States an average worker works 36.6 h in a normal week. In the New Europe the comparable average is 40.3 h a week. This adds up to an interesting figure: an average worker in the New Europe works more than five working weeks more every year than an average worker in the Old Europe ([24], p. 5).
In my book I ask Sandra Kalniete, former EU Commissioner and Foreign Minister of Latvia, why the politicians in the New Europe generally are so much in favour of liberal economic policies: “Because we really know that in order to be able to distribute, you have to create. In order to give welfare you need to have the resources to do so”, she explains.
But are tough labour regulations and slimmed-down welfare states the only explanation for the stronger work ethic? No, there are definitely also more fundamental differences in the attitude towards work. In Hungary, 79% of the population believes that work should come first even if it means less spare time. The fact that 29% agrees in Sweden is telling for the Old Europe. The same can be said about the answers to the statement that it is important for children to learn hard work in their homes. In Lithuania, 88% believes so. In Sweden, 4% agrees [30].
Political pioneering
The rapid successes have spurred further optimism. An Estonian academic that I interview in my book compares the relationship the Estonian people have to change to the relationship some people have to cocaine—they are dependent on it and they get high on it.
He who has accomplished the changes and possesses privileges also becomes more sceptical towards circumstances outside that can change, says a young employee at an investment agency in Riga. The changes made us Latvians more flexible. They gave us the courage to take risks.
This trend is most obvious in the Baltic States. In the other countries—some of them described by The Economist as countries where only every fifth person whose economic situation has improved would admit this [4]—the popular pressure for further change is less strongly articulated. But there are signs in those states as well. The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt argued in 2005 that the new Member States in the European Union represent only 5% of the European economy, whereas they will soon drive 50% of the changes and at the least as much of the opportunities [2].
In a political culture where a Prime Minister has confessed that he won the election partly by “making lies from the morning to the evening”, it might seem sarcastic to talk about political entrepreneurship. But I think the popular hunger for changes has resulted in a degree of entrepreneurship among leaders in the New Europe. If the rapid improvement is to continue, they must be willing to take risks and consider new ideas. Politicians in the rest of Europe should learn from this.
Of course there are reasons to criticise the populism among politicians in the New Europe. But are they really so much worse than Sarkozy, Merkel or Brown? Of course there have been corruption scandals among politicians in the New Europe. But there have been scandals in Belgium, Italy and Sweden as well.
At least the politicians in the New Europe show an energy and desire to change society in a constructive direction. There are “few sacred cows”. From the beginning they understood that democracy and a market economy was the only sustainable way to go.
For example, when Mart Laar, the youngest Prime Minister in the world, decided to establish a flat tax system in Estonia in 1994, everyone around advised him not to [11]. But he did it anyway and so did a handful of other countries after him. Today flat taxes have become a huge ideological export success from the New Europe. When Laar was asked a few years ago what a country like Sweden could learn from the experience of Estonia, he pointed to the need to encourage “crazy” politicians ([20], p. 35). I believe “crazy” should not be interpreted as clownish, but as an urge to be bold and open in the intellectual, ideological and rhetorical process.
Crazy or not, this summarises what Laar and his colleagues can teach their colleagues in the rest of Europe: during the last few years the discussion about Europe has been much about the details, and too little about the principles. One start is to recognise the fact that Turkey and other countries in our neighbourhood must be welcomed in, that economic competition and absolute freedom of movement are fundamental values, that heavy subsidies must be abolished immediately, that it is unacceptable to transform the EU into a fortress against migration and free trade and that the EU is not an instrument to be used to cover up political expansionism and interventionism. But the next step must be to involve the citizens in a voluntary and not tax-financed discussion on the future of Europe. Do we need the Union? What for? For whom? Let us take a break from the quarrel about a constitution, and focus on the real issues for a while.
The idea of Europe must be wrenched out of the hands of those who want to use it for political interventionism and as a barrier to prevent necessary changes. Europe is much simpler than that. Its attractiveness to the world around it lies in some simple fundamentals: the deepening of democracy and individual freedom, the enhancement of prosperity and the warrant of peace and cooperation. The journey that led to old Central and Eastern Europe becoming the New Europe has meant the renaissance of those fundamentals.
Footnotes