Central Europe: The Death of Dreams?

Michal Kořan, as part of the project Think Visegrad, published a Policy Brief on the stance of Central Europe within the European Union from the viewpoint of liberal democracy and its current political leaders.

It took only a few months for the Central European countries to lose their place on the pedestal of the top democracy transition achievers and acquire the label of a xenophobic, nationalist and populist bunch with zero appetite for trans-European solidarity. Many contemporary Central European leading figures tend to bark back that quite to the contrary it is the “old” Europe that lives in a jacket of outlived stereotypes, unable or unwilling to recognize the progressivity of the Central European stance. This paper aims 1) to problematize this simple division 2) to show that there are firm foundations of what can be termed “idealistic thinking” about recent Europe 3) to provide room for a more genuine dialogue about the problems of (post)modern democracy and European integration.