Abstract
Fifteen years ago it counted as received wisdom that accession to the European Union implies arrival to a safe haven concluding the ups and downs of post-communist transformation. Quantitative assessment (Papi et al. in JAMA 60(2): 271–290, 2018) indicates a considerable degree of convergence, especially in Central European countries and much less in Southeast Europe and the NIS. Despite improved performance, in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic Euro-skepticism has been elevated to the level of governmental policies for a decade by now. We ask why and scrutinize a single case: that of the former frontrunner of transition, Hungary. We offer four plus one theses for reflection on the relevance of economics versus politics in shaping outcomes, in a broader comparative perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
It is a different story that the “natural environment” of West European capitalism has undergone perhaps its most fundamental change in the half century between 1940 and 1990 Stone (2015), thus there were no shortcut solutions available.
- 2.
The function of the Court has darmatically changed in part by the adoption of the new, highly politicized Basic Law of 2011, as well as by the appointment of Party loyalists to the Court from 2010 on Sólyom (2015).
- 3.
Soós, K. A. (2019), p. 122 rightly draws attention to this eventuality,which happened in peacetime, without being confronted with crisis phenomena. The lasting decline of the Forint exchange rate is usually being de-emphasized by the triumphant official accounts of the past few years.
- 4.
The unprecedented electoral support of anti-EU/EMU parties, like Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and Rassamblement Nationale in France are cases in point. It is a different story, if and to what degree electoral systems give way to representing those ideas, but in both countries 13% of voters supported them last time.
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Csaba, L. (2021). The Limits of Europe: Lessons from Post-Communist Experience for the Post-Brexit Union. In: Andreff, W. (eds) Comparative Economic Studies in Europe. Studies in Economic Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48295-4_10
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