The Eastern Critics of Brussel

In late July in the small spa town Baile Tusnad in the Transylvania mountains, many young Hungarians gathered to listen to the speech of their prime minister Viktor Orban. He has done that before, but this year in addition to backing Donald Trump as a president, we also talked about the immigration problem. He stated that the economic crises had turned into a political crisis, and that the migrants flow brought terrorist attacks to Europe.

Mr. Orban is known to be the most severe critic from the inside of the European states that have joined the union after 2004. He and some of the other country leaders are using the situation with the migrants and the Brexit vote to undermine the authority of the European Union and to push their conservative vision on the values of Europe. The split between the eastern and western countries in the union is not clear however. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are still enthusiastic about the European Union. Romania and Bulgaria do their best to join the Schengen passport free zone. Yet, Hungary and Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are the so called Eastern Critics. According to the political risk consultants, the former communist EU members would not vote to leave, yet many of their citizens are disappointment by the membership.