Commentaire : L'Europe centrale doit résoudre son malaise politique

Les récents succès économique en Europe centrale ne se sont pas répercutés dans la sphère politique, écrit Pawel Swieboda et Scott Salembier, dans un article publié dans le Financial Times du 6 octobre 2006.

Pawel Swieboda is director of demos-Europa – Centre for European Strategy and Scott Salembier is an analyst with CEEMarketWatch.

The authors assert that although Central Europe appears to be enjoying a golden age in terms of economic growth, recent events in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia point to a trend of political instability in the region.

An under-developed political culture is identified as the number-one problem. Low participation rates and a lack of meaningful political debate have discouraged people from entering the political arena and, in this way, created a vicious cycle of political disengagement.

In order to change this trend, the authors call for more active engagement by citizens, and in particular, changes on the part of the NGOs, the media, the civil service and political parties to focus public debate on real “rather than imagined” policy issues. The business community is also seen to have an important role to play. It has succeeded in spite of political action, but it must now organise itself better to speak up on strategic issues such as joining the euro.

The article concludes that the EU can not afford to ignore the “political malaise” in the region. The EU is called upon to find resources for courses on: “on civic participation and ways to enhance policy debate” as Brussels cannot be the “only place where EU issues are discussed”. In the same vein, the people of central Europe “have to realise that genuine challenges lie in the fields of demography, migration, energy and innovation”.

The situation can change but the citizens of these countries themselves need to take the opportunity now to be “movers and shakers” in their respective civil societies.