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MEMBER STATES AND EU VALUES: THE CHALLENGE OF NATIONALISM
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European countries to adopt hard diplomatic
sanctions against Vienna, provides a crystal-
clear idea of how much perceptions have
changed in Europe regarding this sort of politi-
cal party.
The new Austrian government’s proposal to
grant Austrian passports to German speaking
inhabitants of the Alto Adigio (South Tyrol), a
northern Italian province Austria lost following
its defeat in World War I, has not gone down
well with either the Italian government or EU
institutions horrified by the prospect of a revival
of old ethnic and territorial disputes that the
founding of the Union was meant put an end
to. Austria could decide to collaborate more
closely with the Visegrad Group – with which it
shares interests on a number of issues such as
emigration – in what would constitute a sui
generis resurrection of the Austrian-Hungarian
Empire with sufficient clout to give Brussels ad-
ditional unwanted headaches.
The Visegrad Group: the case of Poland
and Hungary
Although ultranationalist populism and Euros-
cepticism are pan-European phenomena, their
success with electorates has been greatest in
Eastern Europe, particularly in the countries per-
taining to the Visegrad Group, a political bloc
formed in 1991 by Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia reminiscent of a tradi-
tional, fourteenth century alliance.
These countries have many things in com-
mon. The first is their posture towards the EU,
which is positive as far as economic and trade
issues go but marked by a strong resistance
against anything they perceive as political inter-
vention in domestic affairs or a loss of national
sovereignty, an attitude that may well be related
to their fairly recent subjection to the Soviet
Union and historical mistrust of Germany.
Populist movements in these states do not feed
off problems such as job insecurity or inequality
but rather nationalist and identitarian senti-
ment, which runs higher in this region than
elsewhere in Europe. One indication of where
the power of such feelings can lead was the in-
troduction of a law in Poland in February that
made drawing associations between the Polish
state or people and the extermination of Jews
during World War II a punishable offense carry-
ing a prison sentence up to three years, legisla-
tion that not only restricts free expression but
also perpetuates a historical fallacy, given that
although Germany may bear the principal re-
sponsibility for the Shoah, ample proof exists
that certain Poles, just like certain citizens in
other occupied European countries, collaborat-
ed in the extermination.
While the majority of the parties governing
V4 countries would rather have a Union limited
to a free trade area than a Union headed to-
wards political union and are furthermore look-
ing to recuperate a number of competences
currently assumed by Brussels, the exit of the
UK supposes the loss of a key major ally in the
fight to bring
the EU into closer alignment with
their perceptions of how it should be. At the
end of day, they are interested in enjoying the
benefits of belonging to the EU but less eager
to comply with certain obligations that mem-
bership entails.
This was made clear not so long ago by their
repeated refusal to comply with refugee quotas
set by Brussels, a posture that sparked irritation
in Berlin, Paris and Rome and could very well
provoke a serious crisis within the Union. The
most extremist of these parties, such as the PiS
in Poland and Fidesz in Hungary, stir up fanta-
sies about a new Islamic invasion in a bid to at-