Europe is facing a major split, with the more nationalist, conservative and largely Catholic central and eastern EU states increasingly going their own way, against a more liberal, progressive and secular western Europe. The fact this division is continuing despite the ongoing war in Ukraine suggests this unhappy marriage between two competing views of Europe is getting beyond the point of salvaging. Continued support for ruling governments in Hungary and Poland, evidenced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s election victory this year, suggests support for traditionalism remains high.

Yesterday, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and lawyers urged the European Commission to stop transferring EU funds to Hungary due to alleged violations of the rule of law. According to an analysis commissioned by German Green Party MEP Daniel Freund, the Commission should freeze all payments. For Hungary however, this is all a thinly-veiled attempt to impose what it sees as alien and progressive values on the country. Soon after coming to power, Orbán oversaw a new constitution with references to God and Christianity; funded Catholic schools, and banned content deemed to promote LGBT issues to minors, none of which endeared him to Brussels.

But it isn’t just Hungary. On July 1st, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that Poland’s payment of EU recovery funds risks delay, after the Commission detected a missing element from its judicial reforms. Previously, von der Leyen had set three conditions for releasing funds: dismantling a disciplinary chamber for judges within the Supreme Court; changing the judicial disciplinary system; and reinstating judges suspended under current rules. 

The reforms revolve around the chamber, seen by Brussels as a tool of executive overreach, and one which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has deemed incompatible with EU law. The chamber has the power to punish judges for the content of rulings, and for asking questions to the ECJ. Polish President Andrzej Duda proposed a replacement to supervise magistrates which was endorsed by Poland’s Parliament. Critics argued the new body still grants the Government too much power, while von der Leyen said the Commission has noticed the new chamber still allows judges to be punished if they carry checks on their peers. 

Like Hungary, Poland generally believes criticism about the rule of law is nothing more than a thinly-veiled ideological attack. Already Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is fending off Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro’s calls for Poland to turn down any cash if the Commission insists on conditions. Ziobro said the milestones on disbursing money were “millstones” around the country’s neck, and fulfilling them would lead Poland to lose sovereignty. Poland, like other countries in central and eastern Europe, increasingly finds itself on the EU naughty step – somewhere conservative Ukraine would likely find itself if it ever joined the bloc. Indeed, 40-million-strong Ukraine would have nine per cent of the EU’s total powers. Little wonder many western European leaders are worried about Ukraine joining. 

As William Nattrass argued in the Spectator, while “in western countries, the shedding of religion’s influence over policy making is seen as part of a historical shift towards the secular and enlightenment ideals of freedom and democracy”, by contrast “in Poland (and to a far greater extent than in other ex-eastern-bloc states) religion itself became symbolic of those same ideals during twentieth-century Communist rule.” Indeed: “Freedom from Communism also meant freedom of faith – which, for most Poles, meant freedom to be Catholic. When St. John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, was elected pontiff in 1978, the Polish Pope came to symbolise the sense of alienation – and yearning for spiritual freedom – closely linked to the authorities’ suppression of Catholicism.” 

For many Poles, and other central and eastern Europeans, freedom and democracy are interpreted very differently than in western Europe. Poland shares the general central and eastern European positions on immigration, LGBT issues, and traditional values. For instance, many parts of Poland have declared themselves free from “LGBT ideology”, although an appeals court has since sought to ban this in four municipalities. Meanwhile, with already tough abortion laws, Poland has risked the EU’s anger again by requiring doctors to record every pregnancy within the country. For many countries in central and eastern Europe, the EU is using money as a means of bullying and blackmail. This sentiment was echoed last year by the former Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Janša, who warned that imposing “imaginary European values” on central Europe could lead to the EU’s collapse. “We are not a colony – we are not second-class members of the EU,” he said. 

Although majorities across central and eastern Europe still back EU membership, it is largely on the proviso that Brussels backs off and the EU returns to a trade bloc more than a political union with federalist aspirations. Orbán himself proposed a major restructuring of the European Parliament. Since central and eastern European countries are likely to be net contributors to the EU by 2030 rather than beneficiaries, the costs of EU membership could soon begin to outweigh the benefits. Moreover, having never joined the eurozone, most countries in central and eastern Europe can more easily extricate themselves from the bloc than most western European EU states.

The cultural division across Europe as a whole is now impossible to ignore. Not only are central and eastern Europeans more likely to say being born in their country and having a background there are important to national identity, but are more likely to see religion as key to national identity. Central and eastern Europeans are also less supportive of same-sex marriage, and more opposed to abortion. Generally, those in the EU’s east are more likely to believe in God, and see religion as important to life.

The groundwork for a breakaway confederation of conservative and largely Catholic states is there, firstly with the Visegrád Group which brings together the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, as well as the Three Seas Initiative (a grouping which has now effectively incorporated Ukraine), and the Central European Defence Cooperation, which also incorporates Austria. Indeed, the Czech Republic will soon protect Slovakia’s airspace. The EU perhaps risks not only alienating central and eastern Europe but traditionalists, including Catholics, in western Europe who see in the east a values system which they are more at home with.

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