• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Views on American Foreign Policy The Atlanticism of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe David Král, Věra Řiháčková, Tomáš Weiss 2008 EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy VIEWS ON AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY The Atlanticism of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe David Král, Věra Řiháčková, Tomáš Weiss Published 2008 by the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy Rytirska 31, 110 00, Prague 1, Czech Republic www.europeum.org Proofreading: Dustin Edge Graphic Design: (v) design, Vít Šmejkal ISBN: 80–86993–08–6 Published with the fi nancial assistance of the Embassy of the United States of America, Prague. This publication is an outcome of a project funded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. VIEWS ON AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY The Atlanticism of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe David Král, Věra Řiháčková, Tomáš Weiss EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, 2008 Content CONTENT Acknowledgments . 6 Word from the Ambassador . 7 Overview of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe: Cleavages and Foreign Policy Attitudes . 9 THE CASE STUDIES: Bulgaria (Věra Řiháčková) . 29 Czech Republic (David Král) . 63 Hungary (Tomáš Weiss) . 105 Poland (David Král) . 135 Romania (Věra Řiháčková) . 163 Slovakia (Tomáš Weiss) . 187 About the Authors . 217 About the Institute . 219 Acknowledgments ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Th is publication is an outcome of a year-long project on the foreign policy agenda, positions, orientation, and behaviour of political parties in selected Central and Eastern European countries. Th e research was funded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and co-funded by the Konrad- Adenauer-Stiftung. Th e authors would like to thank all experts and politicians that were interviewed for the purpose of this research for their valuable time and input. Th e interviews were held under Chatham House Rules. Any errors of the analysis or the factual interpretation are the authors’ sole responsibility. Th e authors would also like to thank the US Embassy in Prague for additional fi nancial assistance, which allowed for the publication of this book. A special vote of thanks is due to the proofreader who contributed to the fi nal outlook of the publication. Word from the Ambassador WORD FROM THE AMBASSADOR Dear readers, Th e world today is characterized by increasingly multipolar communica- tion, where the ideas and agendas of respective players interact and overlap on the global stage. In no arena is this more evident than in politics. Th e transatlantic interaction between European countries and the United States is a prime example. Americans value the long-standing partnership with our European allies. Th e Transatlantic ties between our cultures are far more varied and far deeper than the requisite communication between nations. Although our governments’ policies may not always align, our concern for the welfare and views of all elements of society – be they political, economic or individual – remains constant. I am therefore very pleased to see this substantial year-long research project conducted by Europeum. Th e U.S. Embassy in Prague is happy to help publish its contents in this book. We hope you fi nd it enlightening. Richard W. Graber Ambassador of the USA in the Czech Republic Overview of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: Cleavages and Foreign Policy Attitudes Th e object of this study is the foreign policy agenda, orientation, and behav- iour of political parties in selected Central and Eastern European countries. More specifi cally, the authors assess the position of major political parties in six countries of Central and Eastern Europe that have recently become members of the European Union (2004 in the case of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary; 2007 in the case of Bulgaria and Romania) vis-à-vis the United States. Th e attention was not devoted to the examination of particular issues in bilateral relations between the countries at stake and the United States, but mainly to topics that became somehow contentious in a wider international context, where US policy diverged from that of the other international actors, notably some EU member states. Th e reason why we selected to examine the attitudes from the new member states of the EU is given by their recent accession to the European Union. In the previous studies that we examined, inter alia, what is likely to be the behaviour of the new EU members in shaping (or not shaping) EU foreign and security policy (Král and Pachta 2005). Th e experience of previous accessions, as well as the accession process itself, suggests that the acceding countries are by nature reshaping their foreign policies in a process known as “Europeanisation.” Th is is explicable in terms of the necessary alignment of the foreign policies of the acceding countries along with the common positions of the EU within the framework of the CFSP, adjusting the framework of foreign policy-making to the EU requirements, necessity to engage in more foreign policy issues than the traditional priorities of the individual countries would dictate, etc. In a sense, this adjustment in the area of foreign policy was not less important that in other Overview of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe policy areas, despite the low amount of “acquis”¹ in this fi eld that might sug- gest the opposite. Th e whole process of the “Europeanisation” of the acceding countries’ foreign policy was facilitated by the fact that there was a wide national consensus that the EU accession itself was the foremost foreign policy goal, although we can still see diff ering degrees of this consensus among individual countries. What is, however, also very important in this context is that all the countries surveyed were trying to achieve another foreign policy goal, which was integration into NATO. For all the countries surveyed, these two goals were seen as complementary, not competing. In the Central European discourses, the description of the primary foreign policy goal was integration into “Euro- Atlantic” structures,² which basically meant the twin goal of acceding both to the EU and NATO without hierarchy, i.e. putting one of the objectives ahead of the other. In addition, for most of the countries covered in this study, these twin goals of EU and NATO accession were not achieved at the same moment, with the exception of Slovakia. Th e existence of these twin goals plays a crucial role in examining the Trans- atlantic dimension of the foreign policy adjustment. It was one of the key factors in describing the foreign policy of the EU accession countries as ‘Atlanticist.’ Precisely because NATO and EU accession were viewed as complementary and equally important throughout 1990’s, it was diffi cult for the political elites that supported the both processes to recognise possible controversies between them. Th us, there was a large degree of stability in the behaviour of foreign policy dur- ing the course of the 1990’s that would presumably continue even after accession to the EU. In reality, however, cleavages had already started to appear before the countries joined the EU; although, to an external observer, they were not always overly visible. Th e key question that must be asked, therefore, is whether a foreign policy consensus exists even after the twin goals of Euro-Atlantic integration have been achieved. In this respect, it is the political parties that come into the play. With the changing governments in Central and Eastern European countries, the examination of their foreign policy agendas, including their relationship to the United States, might change as well. Th e research, thus, builds on a premise that, as the new member states integrate more deeply into the European Union after the accession, it is likely that we will see similar cleavages in the relationship vis-à-vis the United States that we see in Western Europe. 1) By the term ‘acquis,’ we refer to the binding instruments adopted by the European Union applicable inter alia to its member states. 2) With the exception of the position of the BSP in Bulgaria and the PSD in Romania until the mid 1990’s, when these post-communist parties made a policy U-turn. Overview of Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe Th e basic premise or hypothesis is that, in a Western European typology of political parties, there is a distinction in foreign policy behaviour from the right and left-wing parties. It is also refl ected with the main issue in question of this paper – the relationship and attitudes towards the United States. While the right-wing parties tend to align more with the foreign policy goals, objectives, and means of the United States, this applies to a far lesser degree to their left- wing counterparts. As we see in the previous section, this is a simplifi ed premise; nevertheless, at least in the case of some countries, this description is largely accepted and was used as a starting point for a comparison with the situation in Central and Eastern Europe. One challenge that must be tackled at the beginning is the specifi city of par- tisan systems in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of diff erent histories and transformation processes. As we will shortly explain, diff erent cleavages endure that determine the partisan scale in the new EU member states, making the political scene diff erent from Western Europe. Nevertheless, as the transforma- tion process is in the fi nal phase (or nominally considered to be completed) and as those countries integrate more deeply into the EU, it is assumed that their partisan systems will also move more closely towards the traditional cleavages existent in the majority of Western European party systems, which is already quite visible in some countries (the Czech Republic or Hungary), while it might still take longer in others.

Load more

  223

Copy Link