7 ms·

Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. A prime example is Czech rep

Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. A prime example is Czech republic, a very euro-skeptical nation despite all the benefits it brought them. Hungary would be another one. That being said, as somebody coming from east too and seeing clearly all the direct and indirect benefits of EU, its far from ideal. The whole concept of central planning resembles old east communist block when soviets forced down our throats whatever they pleased (we had to refuse Marshall's plan, they took all of our uranium reserves for free for which more appropriate term is stealing, and many many other cases) and that's an association many older people have knee-jerk reaction of.

ThalesX 5y ago
> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. I’m a globalist and think nationalism and regionalism should be relics of the past and I keep getting put in the same box as nationalists because I am Euro-realist. With this frame of mind I think the EU politicians are shit at building the foundations for a truly globalized civilization and the current system devalues entire areas of the continent both of natural resources as well as human resources.
- Y-bar 5y ago
  > I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment is almost exclusively echoed by members of the refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties. Other parties also have their qualms about government institutions, of course, but for different reasons and expressed with different attitudes.
  - suction 5y ago
    We should stop because it bothers them that the "clever" ways they try to undermine democracies and the EU aren't that clever at all and easily observable.
    - darebak 5y ago
      EU is trying to undermine democracy, atleast in my country.
      - martimarkov 5y ago
        I feel this would be headline news if correct so do you want to elaborate or is it just a throw away comment with no backing?
        darebak 5y ago
        Why would it be headline news? It doesn't benefit any big capital. Most significant incident was definitely in 2012 when Serbia had tight elections on all levels including parliamentary and presidential elections. The problematic part was that German PM at the time congratulated the new president even before the polls were officially closed. I'm not saying that Germany is the EU but various EU commissioners were not much better over the years, praising Serbian EU path days after controversial anti-democratic actions by the government. Lately this has began to change but it's a little bit late, Serbian president consolidated power not unlike Orbán or Putin. All this has contributed to lowest support for EU ascension among Serbian population in a generation.
        NicoJuicy 5y ago
        The EU is probably not at ease adding a lot of "recent democratic" countries. As shown in Hungary for example, that democracy is still very fragile. The goal of the EU is to remain a partner for now and see that democracy mature and stabilize. As can be seen that the main economic partners are from Europe. But they are still very dependant on Russia ( more than average) for gas, for example.
        darebak 5y ago
        It would not be headline news because bit doesn't benefit any big capital player. Continuous support of Germany to autocrats is so widely known it even has a name, stabilocracy meaning that a country is ruled by an autocrat that is favourable to German and by extension EU business. Most blatant support to that kind of leadership happens to be when the German PM and EU commissioners congratulated Serbia on its EU path often just days after some protest or antidemocratic measures done by the Serbian dictator. Or the support that Quinta gave to constitutional amendments which reinforced the control of the current regime over the judicial branch.
  - ThalesX 5y ago
    > Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment is almost exclusively echoed by members of the refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties. This is the 2nd post ignoring the fact that I have declared I am, in fact, not a member of such a group. Assuming that I'm lying, you'd be correct in holding your stance. Considering I am not lying, you are basically closing in the door to communication and possible expansions of subject matter from someone that's really not an extremist in any sense of the word.
    - glogla 5y ago
      You might not be formally member of such groups, but if you are spreading their values and repeating their propaganda, you're working for them. That would make you de facto member even if you're not de iure member. e: and based on Paradox of Tolerance, shutting down communication with anti-system efforts might be the only way. You can't be tolerant to intolerance, you can't be democratic to anti-democracy, etc.
      - ThalesX 5y ago
        Mind underlying where I am spreading the values and propaganda of 'refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties'? I would like to not do such a thing if possible. I'm quite surprised that so many don't realize that there exists an entire category of people that are not radical, but do hold opinions on some reforms that should be taken, including the quote that started this conversation "our ineffectual administration".
        glogla 5y ago
        I'm not saying you are. I'm saying that if someone says X and there's groups saying X than expecting that person to be part of that group is kinda normal and not some kind of character assassination. Speaking of ineffectual administration - I think it might be hard for some people to grasp that any bureaucracy is going to look inefficient. The point of bureaucracy is to replace ad-hoc decision making with a repeatable, documented, audited and justifiable process. Ad-hoc "the dictator decides" is always going to be faster.
  - nec4b 5y ago
    In Eastern Europe before joining the EU, the most anti EU parties were the "ex"- communist and neomarxist and the conservative parties couldn't wait to get in. There can be 2 explanations why this has changed today. 1. The "ex"-communist and neomarxist parties became enlightened democrats and the conservatives changed to nationalistic anti democrats. 2. Something changed within the EU, which made it a suitable environment for "ex"-communist and neomarxist to thrive in and reminded the conservatives what was it like to live under old communist regimes. I think the number 2 is the right explanation. The news about undemocratic Poland, Hungary and occasional other eastern-southern countries is mostly spreading through leftist western media by activist reporters who take for granted what their leftist activist colleagues from eastern countries are feeding them. For a person who reads newspapers in both parts of Europe, that fact is painfully obvious. Throw in some leftist activist MPs (like Sophie in 't Veld) and good old geopolitical power struggles and the world quickly becomes black and white (us vs them).
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      You should also note that across much of Eastern Europe, the "ex"-"communist" and "neomarxist" parties were always either nationalistic and populist (e.g. the PDSR/PSD in Romania) or subservient to Russia. This means that there was a very easy pivot from "communist" parties to far-right ultranationalism, usually with a good dash of oligarchy, authoritarianism, and/or kleptocracy which also characterized the old regimes. There are very few, if any, leftist ideals held by any remnants of the Cold War-era government parties.
      - nec4b 5y ago
        Yes, communist never had troubles with nationalism. And communism is by definition a populist ideology. The legendary elusive communist who shapeshift the moment one points a finger at one (no true communism), is more of an idea of western leftists. Unfortunately the communist ideals are very much alive and well, especially in those countries where communism arose from within, without an external force.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    > but for different reasons and expressed with different attitudes What reasons / attitudes / sentiment are you referring to?
    - Y-bar 5y ago
      Two quick examples would be the left party consider the secret mass surveillance by government entities to be wrong on multiple levels and is continuously criticising the government for it. Another would be that the same group of parties consider the government being too slow to implement carbon taxation and other measures to prevent further damages due to climate change.
      - Chris2048 5y ago
        I mean the original ones, that you consider right-wing.
        Y-bar 5y ago
        It's a continuation of the thread started by OP: > [...] ineffectual administration [...] Those two words are verbatim what our right-wing parties use to describe the EU as a whole, especially when arguing why we should do our own Brexit and leave the union because we are better on our own.
        Chris2048 5y ago
        But that's the phraseology. You specifically mentioned reasons / attitudes. If this is another "dog whistle" argument, I think you need far more evidence before you smear another user what you assume their motivations are; It's possible to use terminology borrowed from right-wing parties, language is free to use - and ThalesX has explicitly stated their position.
        Y-bar 5y ago
        Care to clarify your question?
- krageon 5y ago
  > Euro-realist It's not realism to believe the EU can't exist within or facilitate your idealised frame of reference (assuming it makes sense and is something people should want), it's just negativity. > I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. Quite frankly nationalistic resurgence is the #1 indicator for "euro realism", so this is a very reasonable stance to take.
  - cameronh90 5y ago
    Before the whole brexit issue, even most ardent EU supporters would admit that the institution was terribly dysfunctional and would need to be reinvented to survive the next few decades. The Brexit debate seems to have polarised the whole issue into either you hate the EU and everything it stands for, or you think the EU is perfect and if it wasn't for these damn national governments then we could live in utopia. Unfortunately my country is no longer part of this project, but I hope that pro-EU people take on board some of the valid criticism of the institution and make the necessary changes. Otherwise, what happened here will inevitably happen elsewhere.
    - toyg 5y ago
      > even most ardent EU supporters would admit that the institution was terribly dysfunctional That's a mischaracterization. "Most" would have accepted that there was (and is) room for improvement, but "terribly disfunctional" is an extreme term. The view that the whole institution had to be reinvented has always been a very English idea, based on the fact that some key policies (like agricultural support) benefited other countries over Britain. Most of the continent, much more pragmatically, always understood that the EU is fundamentally a set of compromises that will continue to expand. As such, it can look confusing from a distance, but once you unpack it, the compromises actually make sense (or are the only possible way towards cooperation among such different peoples). Britain benefited hugely from infrastructure support programs, for example. The EU has always been kept together more by the sheer will of European middle-classes at large, than by this or that particular set of rules. National governments are in a constant state of tension with something that they see as a new competitor for the absolute power they enjoyed for centuries. This will likely continue to be the case for a very long time.
openplatypus 5y ago
> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. That kind of gas-lighting should not have place on HN. That's unfair and dismissive generalization. We, Europeans from west and east, center, north and south walked blind into privacy abuse. If awareness coincides with increase of nationalist movement in Europe and US, that is not a correlation.
tremon 5y ago
As if England didn't broadcast its share of fact-free euro-skeptical gaslighting all over Europe. As if their voice wasn't echoed by both PVV and FVD in The Netherlands, FN in France, AFD in Germany or M5S in Italy.
robtherobber 5y ago
I must echo the other comments in this thread and point out the fact that this sort of generalisation does more harm than good by helping to cement one of the negative stereotypes concerning Eastern Europe (EE) (that somehow they lack the ability or the drive to work towards a more democratic society), which is also not backed by data. According to this 2019 BBC article [0] that looks at where in Europe's political landscape the right-wing nationalists hold sway, 8 out of top 10 countries are in Western Europe (WE). The UK is not on that list (nor other EE countries like Croatia for that matter), but I think it should be. There's also a noticeable increase in right wing terrorism, which appears to take place more in WE than EE ("measured by overall volume of right-wing terrorism, Germany and Italy, the two former World War II Axis powers, lead the way"), where most targets show that the substantial majority of right-wing terrorist attacks have been aimed at immigrants and Muslims [1]. Possible explanations include the displacement of people from conflict zones like Syria and Afghanistan, but also the fact that most migrants in Europe are economic migrants, which means that they go from less economically developed countries to more developed ones, thus from EE to WE, which is why the rise of nationalism is higher in WE than EE. This, of course, is but speculation on my part, especially since countries like Hungary, Poland and Czechia have behaved rather poorly in this respect, on par with Austria, Italy and the UK. Plenty to discuss here and there's a lot of information available, but I doubt we can simply point to EE and consider the matter closed, since this seems to be a global phenomenon. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36130006 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36130006 [1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/western-europe-right-wing-terrorism-rise/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/we...
suction 5y ago
True. If you compare Hungary / Poland and for example Ireland and Portugal, the difference couldn't be greater in terms of effectiveness of government.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence Speaking as an American (and a Swissman), the country that has done the most to undermine the EU has been Germany. First with austerity. Next by hyperventilating over nuclear. Then by implementing the results of said hyperventilation by vacillating over Russia. Almost pathologically, it has been Berlin putting its interests ahead of Europe that has caused Brussels’ stumbles. If these issues weren’t blocked (nor the common defence and deposit insurance schemes) nationalism in Eastern Europe wouldn’t be as pressing.
jagrsw 5y ago
> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements This is seriously an uncool statement. Such generalisations, are both unethical and unfounded.

ThalesX 5y ago

> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. I’m a globalist and think nationalism and regionalism should be relics of the past and I keep getting put in the same box as nationalists because I am Euro-realist. With this frame of mind I think the EU politicians are shit at building the foundations for a truly globalized civilization and the current system devalues entire areas of the continent both of natural resources as well as human resources.

Y-bar 5y ago
> I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment is almost exclusively echoed by members of the refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties. Other parties also have their qualms about government institutions, of course, but for different reasons and expressed with different attitudes.
- suction 5y ago
  We should stop because it bothers them that the "clever" ways they try to undermine democracies and the EU aren't that clever at all and easily observable.
  - darebak 5y ago
    EU is trying to undermine democracy, atleast in my country.
    - martimarkov 5y ago
      I feel this would be headline news if correct so do you want to elaborate or is it just a throw away comment with no backing?
      - darebak 5y ago
        Why would it be headline news? It doesn't benefit any big capital. Most significant incident was definitely in 2012 when Serbia had tight elections on all levels including parliamentary and presidential elections. The problematic part was that German PM at the time congratulated the new president even before the polls were officially closed. I'm not saying that Germany is the EU but various EU commissioners were not much better over the years, praising Serbian EU path days after controversial anti-democratic actions by the government. Lately this has began to change but it's a little bit late, Serbian president consolidated power not unlike Orbán or Putin. All this has contributed to lowest support for EU ascension among Serbian population in a generation.
        NicoJuicy 5y ago
        The EU is probably not at ease adding a lot of "recent democratic" countries. As shown in Hungary for example, that democracy is still very fragile. The goal of the EU is to remain a partner for now and see that democracy mature and stabilize. As can be seen that the main economic partners are from Europe. But they are still very dependant on Russia ( more than average) for gas, for example.
      - darebak 5y ago
        It would not be headline news because bit doesn't benefit any big capital player. Continuous support of Germany to autocrats is so widely known it even has a name, stabilocracy meaning that a country is ruled by an autocrat that is favourable to German and by extension EU business. Most blatant support to that kind of leadership happens to be when the German PM and EU commissioners congratulated Serbia on its EU path often just days after some protest or antidemocratic measures done by the Serbian dictator. Or the support that Quinta gave to constitutional amendments which reinforced the control of the current regime over the judicial branch.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  > Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment is almost exclusively echoed by members of the refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties. This is the 2nd post ignoring the fact that I have declared I am, in fact, not a member of such a group. Assuming that I'm lying, you'd be correct in holding your stance. Considering I am not lying, you are basically closing in the door to communication and possible expansions of subject matter from someone that's really not an extremist in any sense of the word.
  - glogla 5y ago
    You might not be formally member of such groups, but if you are spreading their values and repeating their propaganda, you're working for them. That would make you de facto member even if you're not de iure member. e: and based on Paradox of Tolerance, shutting down communication with anti-system efforts might be the only way. You can't be tolerant to intolerance, you can't be democratic to anti-democracy, etc.
    - ThalesX 5y ago
      Mind underlying where I am spreading the values and propaganda of 'refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties'? I would like to not do such a thing if possible. I'm quite surprised that so many don't realize that there exists an entire category of people that are not radical, but do hold opinions on some reforms that should be taken, including the quote that started this conversation "our ineffectual administration".
      - glogla 5y ago
        I'm not saying you are. I'm saying that if someone says X and there's groups saying X than expecting that person to be part of that group is kinda normal and not some kind of character assassination. Speaking of ineffectual administration - I think it might be hard for some people to grasp that any bureaucracy is going to look inefficient. The point of bureaucracy is to replace ad-hoc decision making with a repeatable, documented, audited and justifiable process. Ad-hoc "the dictator decides" is always going to be faster.
- nec4b 5y ago
  In Eastern Europe before joining the EU, the most anti EU parties were the "ex"- communist and neomarxist and the conservative parties couldn't wait to get in. There can be 2 explanations why this has changed today. 1. The "ex"-communist and neomarxist parties became enlightened democrats and the conservatives changed to nationalistic anti democrats. 2. Something changed within the EU, which made it a suitable environment for "ex"-communist and neomarxist to thrive in and reminded the conservatives what was it like to live under old communist regimes. I think the number 2 is the right explanation. The news about undemocratic Poland, Hungary and occasional other eastern-southern countries is mostly spreading through leftist western media by activist reporters who take for granted what their leftist activist colleagues from eastern countries are feeding them. For a person who reads newspapers in both parts of Europe, that fact is painfully obvious. Throw in some leftist activist MPs (like Sophie in 't Veld) and good old geopolitical power struggles and the world quickly becomes black and white (us vs them).
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    You should also note that across much of Eastern Europe, the "ex"-"communist" and "neomarxist" parties were always either nationalistic and populist (e.g. the PDSR/PSD in Romania) or subservient to Russia. This means that there was a very easy pivot from "communist" parties to far-right ultranationalism, usually with a good dash of oligarchy, authoritarianism, and/or kleptocracy which also characterized the old regimes. There are very few, if any, leftist ideals held by any remnants of the Cold War-era government parties.
    - nec4b 5y ago
      Yes, communist never had troubles with nationalism. And communism is by definition a populist ideology. The legendary elusive communist who shapeshift the moment one points a finger at one (no true communism), is more of an idea of western leftists. Unfortunately the communist ideals are very much alive and well, especially in those countries where communism arose from within, without an external force.
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
- Chris2048 5y ago
  > but for different reasons and expressed with different attitudes What reasons / attitudes / sentiment are you referring to?
  - Y-bar 5y ago
    Two quick examples would be the left party consider the secret mass surveillance by government entities to be wrong on multiple levels and is continuously criticising the government for it. Another would be that the same group of parties consider the government being too slow to implement carbon taxation and other measures to prevent further damages due to climate change.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      I mean the original ones, that you consider right-wing.
      - Y-bar 5y ago
        It's a continuation of the thread started by OP: > [...] ineffectual administration [...] Those two words are verbatim what our right-wing parties use to describe the EU as a whole, especially when arguing why we should do our own Brexit and leave the union because we are better on our own.
        Chris2048 5y ago
        But that's the phraseology. You specifically mentioned reasons / attitudes. If this is another "dog whistle" argument, I think you need far more evidence before you smear another user what you assume their motivations are; It's possible to use terminology borrowed from right-wing parties, language is free to use - and ThalesX has explicitly stated their position.
        Y-bar 5y ago
        Care to clarify your question?
krageon 5y ago
> Euro-realist It's not realism to believe the EU can't exist within or facilitate your idealised frame of reference (assuming it makes sense and is something people should want), it's just negativity. > I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. Quite frankly nationalistic resurgence is the #1 indicator for "euro realism", so this is a very reasonable stance to take.
- cameronh90 5y ago
  Before the whole brexit issue, even most ardent EU supporters would admit that the institution was terribly dysfunctional and would need to be reinvented to survive the next few decades. The Brexit debate seems to have polarised the whole issue into either you hate the EU and everything it stands for, or you think the EU is perfect and if it wasn't for these damn national governments then we could live in utopia. Unfortunately my country is no longer part of this project, but I hope that pro-EU people take on board some of the valid criticism of the institution and make the necessary changes. Otherwise, what happened here will inevitably happen elsewhere.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > even most ardent EU supporters would admit that the institution was terribly dysfunctional That's a mischaracterization. "Most" would have accepted that there was (and is) room for improvement, but "terribly disfunctional" is an extreme term. The view that the whole institution had to be reinvented has always been a very English idea, based on the fact that some key policies (like agricultural support) benefited other countries over Britain. Most of the continent, much more pragmatically, always understood that the EU is fundamentally a set of compromises that will continue to expand. As such, it can look confusing from a distance, but once you unpack it, the compromises actually make sense (or are the only possible way towards cooperation among such different peoples). Britain benefited hugely from infrastructure support programs, for example. The EU has always been kept together more by the sheer will of European middle-classes at large, than by this or that particular set of rules. National governments are in a constant state of tension with something that they see as a new competitor for the absolute power they enjoyed for centuries. This will likely continue to be the case for a very long time.

openplatypus 5y ago

> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. That kind of gas-lighting should not have place on HN. That's unfair and dismissive generalization. We, Europeans from west and east, center, north and south walked blind into privacy abuse. If awareness coincides with increase of nationalist movement in Europe and US, that is not a correlation.

tremon 5y ago

As if England didn't broadcast its share of fact-free euro-skeptical gaslighting all over Europe. As if their voice wasn't echoed by both PVV and FVD in The Netherlands, FN in France, AFD in Germany or M5S in Italy.

robtherobber 5y ago

I must echo the other comments in this thread and point out the fact that this sort of generalisation does more harm than good by helping to cement one of the negative stereotypes concerning Eastern Europe (EE) (that somehow they lack the ability or the drive to work towards a more democratic society), which is also not backed by data. According to this 2019 BBC article [0] that looks at where in Europe's political landscape the right-wing nationalists hold sway, 8 out of top 10 countries are in Western Europe (WE). The UK is not on that list (nor other EE countries like Croatia for that matter), but I think it should be. There's also a noticeable increase in right wing terrorism, which appears to take place more in WE than EE ("measured by overall volume of right-wing terrorism, Germany and Italy, the two former World War II Axis powers, lead the way"), where most targets show that the substantial majority of right-wing terrorist attacks have been aimed at immigrants and Muslims [1]. Possible explanations include the displacement of people from conflict zones like Syria and Afghanistan, but also the fact that most migrants in Europe are economic migrants, which means that they go from less economically developed countries to more developed ones, thus from EE to WE, which is why the rise of nationalism is higher in WE than EE. This, of course, is but speculation on my part, especially since countries like Hungary, Poland and Czechia have behaved rather poorly in this respect, on par with Austria, Italy and the UK. Plenty to discuss here and there's a lot of information available, but I doubt we can simply point to EE and consider the matter closed, since this seems to be a global phenomenon. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36130006 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36130006 [1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/western-europe-right-wing-terrorism-rise/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/we...

suction 5y ago

True. If you compare Hungary / Poland and for example Ireland and Portugal, the difference couldn't be greater in terms of effectiveness of government.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence Speaking as an American (and a Swissman), the country that has done the most to undermine the EU has been Germany. First with austerity. Next by hyperventilating over nuclear. Then by implementing the results of said hyperventilation by vacillating over Russia. Almost pathologically, it has been Berlin putting its interests ahead of Europe that has caused Brussels’ stumbles. If these issues weren’t blocked (nor the common defence and deposit insurance schemes) nationalism in Eastern Europe wouldn’t be as pressing.

jagrsw 5y ago

> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements This is seriously an uncool statement. Such generalisations, are both unethical and unfounded.