The Danubian Democracies
A more adequate geopolitical concept was needed to replace the expired New Europe cliché
In 2003, the countries of Europe east of Vienna were mislabeled by Donald Rumsfeld, former Defense Secretary in the George W Bush administration, the “New Europe”. He was referring to Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia and Romania. The new geopolitical concept was a circumstantial creation meant to obtain NATO support for the US’s invasion of Iraq, in view of the opposition he faced from major Western European states. Although formally legal, according to the NATO treaty, France and Germany’s objections to being dragged into Iraq had infuriated Washington. The New Europe geopolitical concept was to give priority within NATO structures to countries of the ex-Soviet bloc, most notably to Poland and Romania.
Since then, this distinction made by American policymakers has been used with the intent to highlight this group of states’ satellite status within the Western alliance.
Two decades on, the inadequacy of the New Europe concept is being highlighted by two major events: the war in Ukraine and the US-EU crusade to impose the latest values of Western liberal democracy on all EU member states and beyond.
Accordingly, there is an obvious need for a more accurate geopolitical concept covering former Soviet satellite-states, subsequently lumped together into “New” Europe. The latter has proved to be an inadequate reflection of realities on the ground.
Looking for commonalities and shared political agendas, one such grouping could be called the Danubian democracies.
The Danube, as one of the most important European rivers, has historically linked various states and ethnic groups and this is no less true today. It flows through 10 countries (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine) and 4 capitals: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.
For the purpose of highlighting like-minded polities currently defining one of the most distinctive geopolitical axes of Europe, I have left out from the group of Danubian democracies the German-speaking states (Germany and Austria) and also Danubian delta-bordering countries such as Moldova and Ukraine, which its political culture influences only in an insignificant way. Poland, a former linchpin of the New Europe concept, is also left out due to its Baltic geopolitical agenda.
Thus my Danubian democracies concept includes only 6 countries: Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia share a common history as former imperial provinces of Austria and of Austro - Hungary (starting 1867). By contrast, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania - with the exception of Transylvania- were dominated for a few hundred years by the Ottoman Empire and share a different political legacy.
Eventually, even before the fall of the Austro -Hungarian empire from 1918, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria became independent national states, with Russian military help. Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia also gained their independence after 1918. Slovakia was united with Czechia for a few decades in a single state until 1992, while Croatia together with Serbia were part of Yugoslavia, until 1991.
During the Cold War, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria became satellites of the Soviet Union, whereas Serbia and Croatia joined the non-aligned movement, although Yugoslavia was also a communist state.
The 1989 revolutions put an end not only to the USSR’s domination of Central and Eastern Europe, but also to the political union between Czechia and Slovakia and that between Croatia and Serbia. Since then, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania have joined the European Union.
The much-diminished Serbia, now a country of only 6.4 million inhabitants, almost the same as Bulgaria, has remained an outlier, but does hope to obtain EU membership sometime in the future. For the Serbs, delayed membership of the EU gives the polity in Belgrade an inferiority complex, as former Yugoslav states such as Slovenia and Croatia are already EU members and even Montenegro seems closer to joining than Serbia.
Although for most of their history they have been under different imperial masters, with some states having obtained their political independence relatively recently, all 6 Danubian democracies are functional democracies, where free and generally fair elections are organised, and most of them are NATO and/or EU members.
What makes these countries different from Western, Northern or Southern EU members is their reluctance to adopt the Western liberal democracy agenda in full, to accept illegal immigrants, or to blame Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Indeed, parts of the liberal agenda promoted by Western democracies has proved unpalatable in Bratislava, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia and even in Bucharest. These capitals’ polities adamantly refuse to be coerced into recognising same-sex marriages or giving the LGBT lobby in their countries the possibility to promote alternative lifestyles within their school systems. In other words, gay propaganda among the youth is largely forbidden in most if not all the Danubian democracies. On account of this, they have been labelled “illiberal democracies” by the likes of Fareed Zaharia, mainly because Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and even Romania have more characteristics in common with other majoritarian democracies than the rest of the EU member states. That however does not make them illiberal or authoritarian at all.
An important area where these countries’ policies converge is illegal immigration. Their reluctance to accept it, which is stronger than that of EU main countries like Germany and France, brings them into stark opposition with the plans imposed on most members by the EU leadership and Western political elites.
In addition to this, the Danubian democracies are adamantly opposed to the federalisation of the EU. After struggling for centuries in order to obtain their national independence against various empires, having to abandon it now - in favour of a huge federal state governed by Brussels, enjoying limited autonomy and no independence to speak of - is unacceptable.
Finally, practically all these states - with the exception of Romania - are against NATO’s expansion up to the Russian border, as well as the sanctions imposed on Russia or continuing the war in Ukraine. In this sense, the most vocal advocate for peace in the region, as well as against the federalisation of the EU, is Hungary. Slovakia, Croatia and Bulgaria are on the same page.
To be sure, the Danubian democracies never feared Russia militarily. The geopolitical area they occupy in Europe had not been threatened from the East (except by Tartars and Mongols in the 13th century), the USSR’s military occupation during the Cold War notwithstanding. For most of their history, their enemies had invaded from the South, the West or the North. By contrast, Poland, Sweden and the Baltic countries had continuously antagonised Russia, repeatedly invading its territory until the 18th century.
Lately, the political leaders of Hungary and Slovakia, for example, are regularly being sanctioned by the EU’s leadership for supposed violations of the rule of law, citing their stance on LGBT rights in their countries, their de facto neutrality within NATO and their opposition to sending weapons to Ukraine.
Still, future developments will prove that the Danubian democracies’ stance on LGBT rights, on the federalisation of the EU, on illegal immigration or NATO expansionism to the East was correct, certifying these democracies as the trailblazers of the EU and not the laggards.