Jiri Pehe observe les tumultes politiques que l’Europe centrale et orientale connaît actuellement dans cet article de Transitions Online du 6 octobre 2006 et conclut que ces événements ne donneront pas lieu à une instabilité permanente.
Jri Pehe is a political analyst who served as an adviser to former Czech president Vaclav Havel.
In his article, Pehe says that the recent political developments in some new EU member states, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have raised fears that the region may be a source of lasting political instability in the EU. He follows that one could either assume that these countries have been admitted to the EU too early or that these are merely the reactions to the radical political and economic modernisation that has taken place.
He argues that, prior to accession: “There was a general consensus that major domestic quarrels and frustrations must be suppressed in order to reach membership,” and that after accession “the lid on the pressure-cooker blew off”. Pehe points to the paradox that “candidate status served as a much stronger disciplining factor than membership itself”.
The author finds that the radical institutional change “has not been matched by an equally fast transformation of attitudes”. Nevertheless, he concludes this does not pose a major threat to these countries and political and economic systems are not going to collapse. Rather, he assumes that such deficits will be eliminated in the long run and the current generation of politicians with roots in the communist era will be gradually replaced by politicians who grew up in free societies.
The article concludes that there is no risk of Central Europe becoming a major source of instability for the whole continent.