Societies Formerly under Soviet Rule Are More Attached to European Values, Says Minister

The ideological debates that dominate the functioning of the European Union today are rooted in the fact that societies formerly under Soviet rule are more attached to traditional European values, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office said at the MCC Fest 2023 in Esztergom on Saturday.

Speaking at the MCC Fest roundtable organized by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), Gergely Gulyás said that in the 1990s, Western Europe felt responsible for where and how the Iron Curtain was created after the Second World War, and considered it its moral responsibility not to block the path to accession for countries wishing to join the European Community.

At the same time, Brussels did not really have a vision of a common future with the acceding countries, only the elementary idea of gaining markets while retaining political influence, he noted.

It turned out, however, that the 40 years that half of Europe spent in Soviet captivity and the other half in freedom were not without consequences. Paradoxically,

those societies that suffered under Soviet yoke are much more attached to traditional European values than those that enjoyed the freedom and prosperity that came with it after the Second World War,

he explained.

He added that the old EU Member States’ response to ideological disputes was to try to transfer as much power as possible to Brussels. As a treaty amendment to allow this would require unanimity among EU Member States, the old Member States are now trying to extend Brussels’ powers, even going beyond the rule of law, without a treaty amendment, by a kind of “creeping extension of authority.”

The EU institutions, not only the European Parliament but also the European Court of Justice, are providing the old Member States with considerable assistance in this, he pointed out.

Speaking about further enlargement, Gulyás stressed that

if the European Union really considers itself European, then there is room for all countries of the continent, but objective conditions must be set for accession, applying to all, equally.

He noted that solidarity must be shown with Ukraine, still under attack, but the principles necessary for accession cannot be transgressed on the grounds of war. Being attacked does not make a country less corrupt, and it is not enough to say to the Balkan countries also wanting to join and being much more prepared than Ukraine, that they are subject to other conditions.

He pointed out that it was in Hungary’s interest that countries “significantly closer to us on key ideological issues for their social order” than the founding countries of the EU should join the Union.

Oszkár Világi, deputy CEO of the MOL Group, said that when the European Union was founded and even when Hungary joined the EU, everyone accepted the dominance of the French and German economies and tried to adapt to them.

The problem started when Member States began talking about values that had not been defined as European values before.

There will be no consensus on this debate, so the EU is trying to put in place mechanisms to circumvent consensus.

Member States already understand that the newly acceding countries will not resolve the debate, but will sharpen it, and are speculating which of the new entrants will strengthen which camp.

Asked about the issues that will bind the countries of the region together in the future, Gulyás said that in recent years, the best responses to crisis management have been mostly national ones.

At the same time, the Minister underlined that “we do not want societies in Central Europe like the ones that Western Europeans have become,” and this is a kind of negative identity. This, he said, is an important opportunity for economic operators as well, and could open new doors.

The politician said he was confident that

the future of Central Europe was a shared future, and that it was important that the economy should also have the driving forces for this.

He stressed that in contrast to the German economic dominance of the 1990s, economic powerhouses have now also emerged in Central Europe, thus Central European states no longer compete with each other, only on where an investment from Western Europe or elsewhere in the world comes.

According to Oszkár Világi, even after the war in Ukraine, the countries of the region will be forced to cooperate, for example in developing new routes for energy imports.

Széchenyi Prize-winning philosopher, András Lánczi, said that retaining and preventing the brain drain of intellectuals is key to the future of Hungary and the region.

“Today, young people from the Czech Republic or Poland do not choose to attend a Hungarian university, just as no Hungarian goes to study in neighboring countries. The ‘brain drain’ from the region has been going on for decades, and the university model change and the MCC are trying to improve this,” emphasized Lánczi.

Featured image: Facebook/MCC Feszt