Wanted: heavyweights to pack a punch for new Europe

By Robert Cottrell

Date: 10/03/05

Say what you like about Jacques Chirac, or Tony Blair, or even Gerhard Schröder, but as politicians they are built to last. They stick at it. They take the knocks. They talk, and people everywhere listen.

Who can the "new Europe" offer as leaders, when it wants to make its presence felt? The answer is well, nobody in that league.

Back when communism was being overturned, heroic times produced heroic figures. Everyone knew Václav Havel and Lech Walesa.

These days, central Europe's top-ranking statesman is probably Aleksander Kwasniewski, president of Poland since 1995. He is known and admired across the region, less well-known outside it, and he steps down in September.

Who will be left then that even a fairly diligent follower of European politics could pick out confidently from a group photograph of presidents and prime ministers? You might recognise Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the forceful president of Latvia, the only woman in the line-up. Or Václav Klaus, the Eurosceptical president of the Czech Republic.

After that you would be struggling to distinguish between worthy people whose views you could not summarise and whose names you could not spell.

I am a big admirer of Mikulás Dzurinda, the reformist prime minister of Slovakia, but I cannot pretend that his reputation carries far beyond his national borders. Valdas Adamkus, the president of Lithuania, has the gravitas of an international leader, but he is getting tired in his second term.

Part of the problem is that leaders and parties come and go so quickly. Of the eight central European countries that joined the Union in May last year, only Estonia and Slovakia still have the same governments and prime ministers. Latvia has had three prime ministers in the past year alone.

Why have post-communist countries discarded governments so readily? One factor may be that, since the requirements of EU accession determined national political agendas, voters felt free to choose leaders on the basis of personality and style alone. Newcomers could compete easily.

Big privatisation deals have also been destabilising, at least for weak governments. Every party wants to dictate the terms of a big sell-off, or at least to stop its rivals from doing so. Coalitions can break apart as a result. It is surely no accident that the Czech government has tottered this past month just as Cesk'y Telecom has come up for sale.

The passage of time should bring more stability. Voters will learn to value parties and politicians by their track records and not just by their promises. That should favour leaders with more experience of power, more authority at home and thus more clout in Brussels.

Central Europe needs them. It has interests to defend. Big arguments with 'old' Europe still lie ahead.

One, obviously, will be over tax competition. The row will come to a head if and when right-wing parties take power in Poland this year and in the Czech Republic next year, promising to cut all main taxes - corporate, personal, and VAT - to 15%.

There are differences over further EU enlargement into eastern Europe. The new members (by and large) want it. The old members (by and large) do not.

Most of all, there is the future of Schengen to resolve. The new EU countries still talk confidently of their plans to join Schengen as full members in 2007. But they will have to fight hard. Existing Schengen members are getting more and more reluctant to enlarge. Security worries crowd out everything else.

A Havel or a Walesa could speak for the new members and win the day. Who among their successors has the stature to do that now?

• Robert Cottrell is central Europe correspondent for The Economist.

Feature suggesting the need for strong government leaders to represent the new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe on the European stage.