Poland"s New PM Wants To "Make Europe Christian Again"

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

Poland’s new Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki shared his dream to make Europe Christian again.

The newly appointed premier replaced Beata Szydlo and symbolizes that Poland is taking a more combative posture towards the West than in the past. While Prime Ministers undoubtedly have a very important domestic role to play too, it’s important not to overlook the international implications of Morawiecki’s appointment, especially given what he shared in his very first interview after the announcement when he said that

“My dream is to re-Christianize the EU since unfortunately, in many places, people no longer sing Christmas carols, the churches are empty and are turning into museums, and this is very sad.”

 

In responding to the interviewer’s comment about how the EU might cut off funding for Poland, Morawiecki proudly said that “I do remember one former president telling us earlier this year ‘you have values, we have funds.’ Well, I would love to help the West with proper values.”

Rhetoric such as this would have been unimaginable a few years ago, but it just goes to show how far the intra-EU split has gone ever since Brussels and Berlin teamed up to pressure the bloc to accept the forced relocation of civilizationally dissimilar migrants.

It also speaks to the growing confidence that Poland feels nowadays in officially introducing a conservative-religious ideological vision to challenge the EU’s liberal-godless one, demonstrating how it plans to lead the “Three Seas Initiative” and advance its EuroRealist agenda. Moreover, Morawiecki’s words prove just how strongly Poland and its ruling Law & Justice Party, popularly known by its Polish abbreviation PiS, have been influenced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party. Hungary may have been the ideological heart of the EuroRealist movement and Orban its first national figurehead in the EU, but Poland is now carrying the torch through Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s “grey cardinal” stewardship because this Central European country is actually big enough to make a real difference.

It was one thing for a landlocked nation of less than 10 million people to have this continental outlook, and another for the leader of the regional “Three Seas Initiative” and its 40 million-strong country to promote this perspective, which makes Poland an EU-wide force to be recognized because of how ideologically different its worldview is from Germany’s.

Whereas Berlin will continue pulling the purse strings and exercising its influence through economic means, Warsaw is flexing its soft power muscle by appealing to what matters most to many of the people in Central and Eastern Europe, and that’s the national identity that they fear is under threat because of Germany’s aggressive EuroLiberalism. If Poland can succeed in winning hearts and minds in the region through its religious-conservative EuroRealist ideology, then the next natural step will be to tighten the trading bonds between its “Three Seas” partners in order to generate a stronger economic basis for turning their vision into a reality.

With the right combination of soft and economic power, Poland can return to becoming one of Europe’s Great Powers, but this time with a sway that extends across the strategic “Three Seas” space and enables it to shape the continent’s 21^st-century geopolitics.

Forget About Catalonia And Brexit, The Next European Black Swan Could Be Transylvania

Via ValueWalk.com,

Over the past 100 years, the borders in Central and Eastern Europe have been redrawn time and time again, often leaving groups of people separated from their home country by new borders. Although land often changed hands relatively peacefully, suddenly finding one-selves as an ethnic minority in a new country was bound to lead to tension and resentment.

While these resentments may reveal real disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities in Central Europe, politicians, especially populist figures, have seized on the outsider narratives inherent in the diaspora experience.

As the April 2018 election approaches in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been reaching out to the Hungarian minority in Romania, drawing criticism from Romanian leaders, while his supporters insist he is trying to lend his support Hungarians everywhere.

Rooted in History

Tensions between Romania and Hungary can be traced back to World War I and the Treaty of Trianon.

Although the Treaty of Trianon ended hostilities between the Allied Powers and the Kingdom of Hungary, the peace came at a great price to the Austro-Hungarian successor state. Hungary lost 2/3rd of its population and territory, leaving the former imperial hub landlocked in the heart of Central Europe. Most of its territory was ceded to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, as well as Austria, Italy, and Poland. Romania was granted the entire region of Transylvania, where an estimated 1.3 million ethnic Hungarians reside, making Hungarians Romania’s largest minority.

The loss of such a large chunk of territory and population would certainly leave its mark on national memory. Recently in Hungary, politicians have been revitalizing this narrative.

By derivative work: CoolKoon (talk)
Hungary1910-1920.png: The original uploader was Fz22 at English Wikipedia
(Original text: fz22 (talk)) - Hungary1910-1920.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Speaking on the June 4th anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, Jànos Làzàr, Minister of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, called on the beneficiaries of the treaty to apologize, insisting, “Trianon was a diktat, a historic injustice against a nation. The entire western world is indebted to Hungary.”

Lazar was careful to say that Hungary does not advocate for the redrawing of borders, rather they merely mean to ensure that the rights of minority Hungarians are protected everywhere. Romania has not taken it that way. The Romanian authorities used words like “provocative” and “dangerous” to describe the Hungarian government’s treatment of the issue.

Diaspora Politics

This isn’t the first time Lazar has intervened on behalf of Hungarians in Romania. Last spring, Lazar interceded in the case of an ethnic Hungarian brewer, Andras Lenard, in Romania who was being pressed by Heineken. Heineken was suing the upstart brewer claiming that their names, although different languages, were too similar. Hungarian politicians reacted by calling for a boycott of Heineken products as well as proposing legislation to ban the use of the Heineken red star as a communist symbol. Heineken responded by dropping the charges against Lenard.

The intervention of Hungary on behalf Lenard reflects a larger government policy of considering the Hungarian minority in Romania as Hungarians. In 2010, the Orban government expanded Hungary’s citizenship laws, making ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries eligible for citizenship and therefore voting privileges. As the 2018 parliamentary elections appear on the horizon, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been encouraging Hungarians in other Central European countries to register to vote.

By The Independent - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029095456;view=1up;seq=427 (Jump to 391)
The Independent, (New York), June 14, vol. 98, 1919, p. 391 (Primary source, if any, not cited), Public Domain, Link

Orban’s critics claim that he is merely trying to leverage the 1 million eligible voters in Romania to attain a coveted 2/3rd majority in parliament for his Fidesz party. Fidesz is just two seats away from a majority that would allow them to make constitutional changes. Considering that in the 2014 elections 95% of the vote from citizens domiciled outside of Hungary went to the Fidesz party, mobilizing the Transylvanian vote is of key importance to the Orban administration. The fact that Orban may be able to mobilize thousands of votes in the diaspora is a sign that minority protection in Central Europe is an issue that should not be overlooked.

Orban doesn’t just encourage the dual-national Hungarian minority in Romania to vote in Hungarian elections, drawing further criticism from Romanian figures. In a trip to Transylvania just before the 2016 Romanian elections, Orban stirred angst against the government, claiming that the government is failing to help the ethnic Hungarians. Orban went as far as to say that the Romanian government lacks respect for the Hungarian minority. He urged them to vote in their own best interest in the elections.

Romanian critics of Orban have accused him of trying to meddle in their politics. Former President Traian Basescu even called for the removal of the Hungarian ambassador from Romania.

ReConnect Transylvania

ReConnect Hungary is a birthright program for Canadian and American young adults of Hungarian heritage. The program aims to help Hungarians in North America forge a sense of Hungarian patriotism through travel in the region and volunteer opportunities. Interestingly, the study trip is not limited to the country of Hungary, rather participants visit Hungary, as well as the Hungarian Diaspora in Serbia, Ukraine, or Slovakia to witness, “how young Hungarians outside Hungary are maintaining their identity and traditions.”

As of 2017 the program offers a three month long ReConnect Transylvania program. Participants in this program will spend 3-6 months working with an NGO in Transylvania to “discover the deepest layers of being Hungarian.” ReConnect Hungary also now offers a week long extension on the original two week long ReConnect Hungary program to explore Hungarian culture in Transylvania. By including the Diaspora in the discussion about Hungarian culture, this private-public partnership builds a concept of a Hungarian nation that traverses accepted borders.

ReConnect Hungary is part of a larger trend called diaspora tourism. Proponents of the trend argue that it cultivates a sense of cultural heritage abroad and encourages tourism, while critics claim local leaders are using it to manipulate foreign nationals.

Cultivating strong national identity abroad can be a powerful tool, and not just in dual-citizens. Hungary has already seen some success in this regard. In 1987 the Hungarian Human Rights Foundations, comprising of second generation American citizens, successfully lobbied congress for the removal of Romania’s Most Favored Nation status. The lobbying efforts were in response to the human rights violations of Ceau?escu’s communist regime, as well as specific abuses of the Hungarian population in Romania.

Soros Group Vows To Stay In Hungary Despite Plans For Government Crackdown On NGOs

Submitted by Joseph Jankowski via PlanetFreeWill.com,

The Open Society Foundations has vowed to continue operations inside of Hungary despite plans from the country’s ruling party to crackdown on NGOs funded by the Hungarian-born George Soros.

Hungary plans to use “all the tools at its disposal” to “sweep out” NGOs funded by Soros, which “serve global capitalists and back political correctness over national governments,” Szilard Nemeth, a vice president of the country’s ruling Fidesz party, told reporters on Tuesday.

“I feel that there is an opportunity for this, internationally,” because of Trump’s election victory, state news service MTI reported Nemeth as saying.

Hungarian lawmakers will debate legislation allowing the European Union member to audit NGOs, according to the country’s parliamentary agenda.

The Open Society Foundations responded to the planned crackdown on Wednesday, saying that the NGO will stay put and continue working inside the country.

“The Open Society Foundations will continue to work in Hungary despite government opposition to our mission of fairer, accountable societies,”’ the organization’s president, Christopher Stone, told Bloomberg News.

“In Hungary and around the world we are more focused than ever on working with local groups to strengthen democratic practice, rights, and justice.”

Hungry’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who ironically received Soros funded scholarships to study at British universities, has made public his plans to build what he calls an “illiberal state,” similar to Russia and Turkey.

“I don’t think that our European Union membership precludes us from building an illiberal new state based on national foundations,” Orban said in a 2014 speech. He listed Russia, Turkey and China as examples of “successful” nations, “none of which is liberal and some of which aren’t even democracies.”

Orban has said that civil society groups funded from abroad were covers for “paid political activists,” and accused Soros of being a prominent member of a circle of “activists” trying to undermine European nations by supporting the migrant crisis.

Soros gave nearly $10 million to Clinton super PAC Priorities USA during the presidential campaign and handed another $33 million to the group through Open Society Foundations (OSF), which he funds and controls.

The liberal billionaire has also come under fire for giving more than $33 million in grants to the Black Lives Matter movement through his foundations.

In late 2015, Russian Prosecutor General’s Office recognized Soros’s Open Society Institute and another affiliated organization as undesirable groups, banning Russian citizens and organizations from participation in any of their projects.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the activities of the Open Society Institute and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation were a threat to the foundations of Russia’s Constitutional order and national security.