Much to the delight of Romania’s two TV and two radio stations, which specialize in anti-Western subversion and Kremlin-style relativistic rhetoric, and their associated litany of influencers, the two rounds of elections taking place in our region next month will bring plenty of joy and ammunition to use against the Ukrainian case. The fact that they have not discovered this yet is only because our people are fundamentally lazy, provincial and uninterested in current news, preferring ready-made thoughts collected in Telegram, conspiracies and opinion, that is, because it does not require much effort. . But serious things can happen to neighbors.

The first parliamentary elections in Slovakia, September 30. Until now, the country has been a strong partner in the EU and NATO and a source of economic and military aid for Ukraine – but this is because the political elites, which are in rather unstable power, with fragmented and then interim governments (the current one), as pro-Kyiv public support is one of the lowest in Europe (39%); only Cyprus and Bulgaria have lower levels. In Bratislava, one might have expected the infamous “we do but don’t say” policy that made Bohdan Aurescu headlines for the BBC, but Slovakia has been firm and transparent in its aid to Ukraine, including the military, publishing time lists each time. with the help provided.

Thus, few people abroad have noticed how complicated the political balance is in this small country with a population the size of two Bucharests, where coalition governments are the rule, squabbles between ministers are frequent, and laundry is washed incredibly publicly. This is how it happened that after the breakdown of the majority last December, the country spent four months in uncertainty, and from May onwards with a government of technocrats with limited powers, all without much news in the foreign press. Currently, the party of Robert Fico, Viktor Orbán’s Slovakian counterpart, is leading the polls over the Social Democrats and Civic Progressives.

Fico (pronounced Fico), an anti-EU and pro-Putin populist, used to be prime minister in a more moderate period of his life (like Orbán in his youth) but became radicalized in his old age. And it is absurd that there are auristic parties to the right of Fico with whom he could form a governing alliance. Of course, there are enough players on the pro-European side of the spectrum, the fragmentation is greater than in Romania, so a majority can be found there as well, if the vote allows it. But at the moment, the wind is blowing in the sails of Fico’s SMER party, and the situation in Europe will be seriously complicated if Slovakia becomes Hungary 2.

It would be really worrying to have Hungary 3 in the shape of Poland, a state with more weight and prominence than Slovakia. Parliamentary elections will be held in Poland on October 15, and the election campaign is in full swing. Regional folklore has trained us to believe that Warsaw is Ukraine’s best and unconditional friend in this conflict, that most refugees have gone there, and that support for this political trend is unwavering due to the anti-Putinism of its citizens. So, as in Slovakia, the world has lost the patience to notice that in recent months the ruling PiS party, a good ally of FIDESZ before Russia attacked Ukraine, has been in permanent conflict with the EU on both serious and non-serious issues. , seriously addressed anti-Ukrainian nationalism as it became clear that he was falling in the polls and was no longer as confident as last time that he would win the election.

It is not only about disputes with Kyiv regarding grain transit, which we also have in Bucharest. But during 2023, various Polish ministers began to take historical and identification topics out of mothballs, recall the mass murders committed by the Bandera militia in 1943 in Volyn, demand public apologies and symbolic compensations. It came to the mutual challenge of the ambassadors for explanations, where only six months ago everything was in good peace and brotherhood, with the official vision of a “Polish-Ukrainian community” that was to be built within the EU. Without these public apologies and gestures of reparation, PiS threatens, Poland may even block Ukraine’s accession to the EU: a strategic 180º turn.

Of course, someday Ukrainians will have to find out for themselves the difficult episodes of the world war, based on their own historical guilt and coming to terms with the past, like any European country. But to suddenly make him the head of state, as some Polish leaders found themselves in 2023, right in the middle of an existential war, in which there is no doubt who is the aggressor and who is the victim, is pure hypocrisy.

And the bad thing is that it is not even the ruling PiS party that is the most radical political actor at the moment, but the right-wing extremists of PiS, who have a kind of anti-Kyiv rhetoric and an open campaign against the “Ukrainization” of the Polish homeland. It is the far-right Confederation party, which has 10% in the polls and is likely to be the deciding vote in the formation of a future coalition if PiS is expected to finish at around 35% and not far from the pro-EU opposition. We are actually witnessing downward competition for the votes of farmers, pensioners and poorly educated youth mobilized to the polling stations to punish “Ukraine’s ingratitude”, increasingly nationalist and isolationist slogans.

A former Polish foreign minister, alarmed by this extremist clamor as voting day approached, declared that “opportunistic politics of hyenas and jackals” were now being pursued in Warsaw. The paradox of 2023 is that while such important old member states as France and Germany have gotten used to the idea of ​​Ukraine in the EU and are working in this direction, where even two years ago this issue seemed unthinkable, the new member states , such as Poland and Slovakia (perhaps also Romania?), which have officially declared themselves reliable allies of Kyiv and brothers until death, are beginning to subtly hint at a future serious competitor for structural funds and agricultural subsidies. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro