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| EU's New Members Left Out in the Cold |
| [Analysis] No European Marshall plan for 'New Europe' means more new divisions |
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Michael Werbowski (minou)  |
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Published 2009-03-03 10:45 (KST) |
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So where's the EU Marshall plan for its new eastern members? No bail out is in sight it seems, for Europe's poorer cousins besieged by a regional debt crisis, and "zombie banks" wallowing in toxic assets. Desperate moneymen in Austria and Italy heavily exposed to this mire want the Eurocrats to come to the rescue like the US Federal Reserve did for its failed banks. But can Brussels save half of Europe from sinking into third world status economically? No it can't because of low cash flow closer to home.
For their part, it's obvious "New" Europe's individual members all wish to each be treated with special status and nuanced with differentiation. After decades of being clustered as satellites within the straightjacket of the "Soviet bloc," they wholeheartedly deserve to each be given as much consideration as possible during this "home grown" and "unprecedented" banking crisis in Eastern Europe.
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FROM THE SECTION |
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| These new capitalist democracies don't want to be lumped into one bunch by an outsider like a Moody's in Manhattan, and rightly so. But then who cares what they want anyway? Not Brussels nor Moscow nor Washington or Wall Street it seems. Perhaps they wish to be seen through a Darwinian lens instead? Certainly, some of them will weather or survive this unprecedented financial calamity more or less intact or better than the others. Let's divide them up for the sake of reassuring spooked investors into three categories then: "The good, the bad and the ugly."
First the "good": Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia (the last two have adopted the Euro this year is angelic and thus limited the impact the side in currency value in the rest of the region). Then we have the "bad' ones; the profligate spenders or truants like Hungary, which has de facto defaulted on its debt payment to western creditor followed by Latvia also a basket case economically speaking also engulfed in political instability.
Bulgaria for its part is teetering on verge of bankruptcy. And finally the "ugly" or "failed state." Those financial fruitcakes like Ukraine which is on IMF loans or life support and situated in a death trap or "no man's land" and thus neither being anchored within the safe harbour of the EU nor enjoying the security blanket which Russia has currently extended ( somewhat over obligingly ) to Belorussia.
Europe Divided Between Rich and Poor States
Sadly history is being replayed again and the great powers (the US, EU and Russia) are once again guardians of the region's destiny. In other words, they the New Europeans are being relegated to the margins of "old Europe" to the delight of Russia. Now that that Brussels has decided not to fork out billions on a global aid package to the region as a whole. And let's stop the folklore and picturesque peasant dancer inspired hogwash by pretending we are dealing with a quaint patchwork of nations. This is not a cultural tour of the region, as some benighted commentators wish it to be.
These states sandwiched between east and west Europe are very similar in the sense that each applied the same in a clone like fashion, neo liberal policies concocted by the west. They willingly and unquestionably swallowed the bitter medicine prescribed by among others "the shock doctor" Professor Jeffrey Sachs. And they are today, two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall, feeling its side effects: economic, social and political turmoil.
Meanwhile, Brussels looks broke. The EU's coffers have been hit hard by the "made in USA" financial meltdown. Eurocrats are not feeling very munificent these days and who can blame them? Germany the EU "cash cow" or "paymaster" can no longer bear the burden to bail out its eastern neighbour. It has already done so with East Germany at a huge expense. A Berlin subsidy to its eastern federal states costs some €70 to €80 billion a year. ("The price of failed reunification," Spiegel on line, 09/05/2005)
New Division on the Continent or Redrawing the Curtain?
When in 2003 Donald Rumsfeld, the ousted former defence secretary , branded the post communist states east of the river Oder as "new Europe" or a sobriquet or a clever euphemism meaning a group of sycophants , he really put on a curse on them all. Six years after the fall of Baghdad and the US led invasion the "coalition of the willing" has practically all but disintegrated or withdrawn from Iraq.
The US' NATO partners to the east, which back then rushed into war in 2003, hoping to get lucrative reconstruction contracts have been left out of the loop on the big deals and now have once again tragically found themselves again on the wrong side of history just like during the Nazi and Stalinist occupation: this time partners in war crimes committed during a failed neo colonial war while playing the role of cohorts and second class sidekicks to ruthless occupiers. And all this wanton adventurism took place in spite of the disapproval among the general populace.
Poland and the Czech: New Europe's Last Crusaders
Now shall we separate the new Europeans on the basis of strategic importance? Poland and the Czech Republic wish to be whatever the cost to bilateral relation with powers such a Russia (very hostile) to France (very reticent about the idea) at the forefront of the US defence shield in central Europe. They seem to see themselves as the new bulwark against a menacing growing bear to the east of the post old war new order. Or in realpolitik terms a sort of cordon sanitaire or buffer zone to the east.
This "line of control" is surly meant to contain a remerging Russia and not as the official Pentagon claptrap expounds to protect Europe from incoming Iranian missiles. The heated exchanges between Washington and Moscow over the shield has reignited a new cold war and in the process has forced states such a Byelorussia to move closer to Moscow both economically (Russia announced a $2 billion loan package to Minsk last Nov (Bloomberg, "'New Europe' longs for Bush as Obama turns focus to EU, Russia," 02/02/2009)) and strategically by signing new military cooperation agreements with its Russian neighbour recently.
Without doubt the proposed US shield is a thorn in Moscow's side. But this arms deal also has the potential to create a new, ominous and perhaps unbridgeable breach between states situated in the post Soviet space such the Baltic Byelorussia and Ukraine and separate them from those states seeking to host new American military installations on their soil. "New Europe" is once more threatened with the divisions and subjugations of the old days.
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The reporter is a graduate in Post Communist studies from the University of Leeds, UK.
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©2009 OhmyNews
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