Eastern European heritage of four empires

The prerequisites of today’s successes and defeats of Central Eastern Europe lie in their history

A hundred years ago on the enormous space from Baltic to Adriatic sea, which is now defined as Central-Eastern Europe, dominated three empires – Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian. There was also the fourth empire – the Ottoman but its centuries-old governance had already come to the end, and in 1913 the defeat of the Ottomans in the 1st Balkan war reduced their presence in Europe to minimum.

Therefore, at the start of 1910 there existed only 4 sovereign states (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro) on the territory from Tallinn to the Greek border. Nowadays there are 19 states in the region (and 20, if we’ll include Kosovo as an independent state). The political map of Central-Eastern Europe changed several times during the life of 3-4 generations. And it changed dramatically. But all these states emerged from the shade of empires, which influence is still prominent both in the political culture and on well-being of society’s regions.

The Balkan countries inherited from the Ottoman Empire weak agrarian economies and political culture prone to authoritarianism. At the beginning of the 20th century more than 90% of Albania’s population, 80% of Bulgaria’s and Serbia’s population, 75% of Romania’s labor force was employed in agriculture. The industry persistently lacked capital and raw materials. Despite of 100 years of efforts, aimed to industrialization and modernization, economies of these states are still lagging behind.

The richest states of the region Czech republic and Slovenia came out from Austro-Hungarian empire. Meanwhile, the first possessed advanced industry even in Habsburgs’ age, and the second was the prosperous but though agrarian area. Though both territories belonged to Cisleithania – Austrian part of Danube monarchy. And therefore, even internal division of empires reflected on the modern development of central European countries.

Today’s Poland combined erstwhile provinces of straight three empires. And this heritage is evident in the economic progress and every time during elections. The economic locomotive of Poland is area which belonged to Germany and, to lesser extent, to Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the former Russian Congressuvka is chronically lagging behind.

The similar situation has been observed in the former Yugoslavia, where “Austro-Hungarian” Slovenia and Croatia were at the cutting edge of economic and social development. In relation to Romania the former Ottoman protectorates Walachia and Moldova are still the poorer than Habsburg’s Transylvania. The level of corruption is higher in Balkans that has been a part of Turkish political culture. The freezing of EU’s financial aid to the government of Bulgaria which was unable to overcome corruption has become the talk of the town in Brussels.

The last but not least factor in the development of the region was the interbellum period. Firstly, just in that period territorial disputes among almost all existing states were laid down. Secondly, the Great Depression showed immaturity and unavailability of all young states, apart from Czechoslovakia, to resist the authoritarian forces. Playing upon the domestic and interstate contradictions in Central Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany subordinated in armed or peaceful way all the region rather easily just at the starting stage of the Second World War.

The war brought significant changes in the ethnic composition of some states where the Jew and the German components almost totally disappeared. Poland became monoethnic power and shifted geographically to west. Czechoslovakia, seeing the back of the Germans and the Ukrainians, became the state of the Czechs and Slovaks. However, the Hungarians remained the powerful minority both in Romania and Czechoslovakia, so the ghost of aggressive ethnic nationalism never left the region even in the age of “advanced socialism”. Meanwhile, it was necessary for Berlin wall to fall as tension among some states popped up again. Then Yugoslavia fell into civil war.

Just the European Union has become the driving force which renewed peace and stability in Central Eastern Europe. The prospect of membership in this organization (and in NATO as well) pushed region’s states to forget about old insults and turn to reforms’ path. The changes weren’t easy and it appeared for states to roll back. Slovakia stopped its advance toward the EU because of authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Mechiar. The return of the left to power in the 1990 significantly slowed down reforms in Bulgaria. But the left could be different: just the ex-communist Alexander Kvasnevskiy brought Poland to NATO and the EU.

The recent years proved that Central Eastern Europe cannot be regarded more as a monolithic region once various states picked up different speeds. For instance, one of the least corrupt states in the EU are Slovenia and post-Soviet Estonia, but not Italy or Greece. And it nourished hope that a fate of each nation, especially in information age, depends less on its historical luggage, but more on the efforts of their people and elite.

The European diplomatic Service

In her statement in front of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, said on 2 December 2009 that her mission would be possible only if she "were supported by a powerful new service, a service which will be envied from the rest of the world. This is why the construction of an external action service, that I will direct, will be my priority for the coming months “. We can clearly perceive from these words the ambition to create something new, which will finally enable the EU to count on the world scene.

A predictable innovation …Although the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS) thus appears like one of the major changes brought by the Lisbon Treaty, it would seem than it is rather based on the external delegations of the Commission, which have existed since the ECSC Treaty with the foundation in 1954 of a Representation of the High Authority in Washington.

It is easily forgotten today, that while the organisation of the EEAS is still vague, more than 5000 European officials work already abroad. From Kenya to Bolivia, they defend the interests of the Union and negotiate agreements between the EU and the rest of the world. These officials however, were at the beginning distributed within various Directorates-General of the Commission, and it is only following a reform of 2002 that they were gathered in the same service under the Directorate-General for External Relations.

A service at the High Representative’s disposal

Why then has the EEAS announced as such a major reform? We can understand it only by connecting it to the creation of the role of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, a role that the constitutional treaty of 2004 meant to call “EU Minister for Foreign Affairs”. This service is supposed to become the military arm of the High Representative, thus creating a true Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the EU.

Since the High Representative also chairs the meetings of Foreign Affairs of the Council of the EU, which brings together the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 27 Member States, the European diplomatic service will also be required to represent the Council, and no longer only the Commission. Consequently the EEAS would make it possible to create a single embassy of the EU wherever it is present.

How will it be set in place?

Article 27 of the Lisbon Treaty specifies that the organization and the operation of the EEAS are defined by a Council Decision, on a proposal of the High Representative. It is therefore up to Catherine Ashton to work out a formalized structure for this service, also taking into account the budgetary constraints as the European Parliament outlined in a statement of 25th September 2009 on the setting up of the EEAS.

The organization of the EEAS will also have implications on diplomatic work on the ground, since it is the delegations of the European Union which will be required to chair the long term coordinating meetings between ambassadors in all the countries where they are present.

The question of recruitment

It is envisaged that the officials of the Commission are supported by national ministries’ diplomats and officials of the Council. In spite of their varied origin, all the members of the EEAS would have equivalent statutes and roles, thus seeking to create a genuine esprit de corps.

Indeed, according to the statement of the European Parliament, the aim of this statute standardisation is to achieve “a common European diplomatic culture regarding the international relations of the EU”.

Obviously, the question of personnel represents a real challenge. The integration of national officials’ into the delegations of the EU – in order to be successful - will require a training procedure “to Europeanise” the national diplomats, which is likely to take time. In that regard, this especially involves a change in mentality of the national administrations.

What kind of proposals can we thus expect Catherine Ashton will submit to the Council? She has in fact little room for maneuver insofar as foreign affairs and diplomacy remained up to now an exclusively national competence in the view of the heads of government. There is no doubt that negotiations will be particularly rough in the Foreign Affairs Council.

In particular, what is to be decided is how the national agents’ recruitment in the delegations of the EU will be done: by competition or by internal decision of the national ministries? At the same time, the European Parliament will be certainly anxious to strictly exercise its budgetary control power, in order to weigh in on this process of which it did not ceased to denounce the lack of parliamentary control.

Clear answers however, shall be found to the questions which arose regarding the capacity of the High Representative and of this European diplomatic service to finally give a true face to the EU at the international level. The European reaction to the Haiti disaster is not very encouraging. In any case, the most optimistic forecasts do not seem to picture the EEAS turning to full capacity before 2014. Europe therefore, still has time to reflect.

Monday 8 February 2010 by Miguel Castro Mendes, Clémentine Chaigneau, Translated by Elena Montani