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The Crack in the Wall
Strategic Vision vol. 8, no. 40 (February, 2019)
Central European countries play a role in the EU policies of Israel and Turkey
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Csaba Moldicz
Throngs of refugees from the Middle East at a makeshift camp in and around Budapest’s Keleti railway station in late 2015.
photo: Dean Karalekas
Last year, when the Visegrad Four countries held a closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister said “We have special relations with China and they don’t care about political issues. Modi told me he has to look after the interests of India; Russia doesn’t set political conditions and Africa doesn’t either. Only the European Union does – it’s crazy. It’s contrary to European interests.”
Though these words were not meant to be heard by journalists, a hot microphone conveyed the message to the leaders of the European Union (EU), and more importantly to German and French politicians. This interpretation of foreign policy is very much aligned with the interest-based approach of Central European countries, revealing a crack in the European interpretation of foreign policy.
The dilemma of interest-based versus value-based foreign policy is not a novelty since the history of the European political order can easily be described by the duality of these alternative approaches. First, when the balance of the power system was put in place with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), this policy approach could be utilized fully. The basic idea is that permanent political stability can only be secured by an international system where alliances and hostilities are based on the core political and economic interests of the states, not different ideologies or faiths. This order was disrupted several times over the centuries, but it was always restored, at least until the end of WWII, when the balance of power approach in the West was replaced by a values-based framing that underlined the salience of common values in foreign policy, shared by North America and the Western European countries.
As a result of a long period of development, for the time being, the EU institutions and their daily functioning are very much based on the idea of common values, specified in Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty, while the Central European countries seem to have shifted the focus more on core interests lately, rather than ideologies or values represented by the EU itself. In the Middle East, there are two countries at the present time that could clearly benefit from this change in foreign policies and capitalize on that: Turkey and Israel.
The narrow focus on core interests in American foreign policy has been palpable lately; not only in the Middle East but in other relations, too. There has been a slow, but in many ways very determinate, withdrawal from former American commitments (the Paris climate agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Iran nuclear deal, etc.) in recent years. At the same time, the willingness of the Trump administration to export American values and ways of living seems to have diminished.
Similar changes took place in the foreign policies of several Central European countries, (Poland, Hungary, Rumania, the Czech Republic, and even Austria) over the last few years, putting more and more emphasis on the representation of core interests. Since then, relations with Turkey and Israel have been improving and deepening in these countries.
Members of the police force in Prague confront anti-communist protestors during the March 2016 visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Prague.
photo: Dean Karalekas
It must also be highlighted that this is the reason why Central European countries have been able to improve their relations with China so significantly over the last few years.
In mid-2018, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Austria made clear gestures toward the new American foreign policy, that broke with its traditional approach in the Middle East and in the case of Israel and acknowledged Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the embassy from TelAviv to Jerusalem. These countries also attended the official opening of the United States’ new embassy while the entire European diplomatic corps boycotted the event. To the dismay of Germany and France, this group of four countries effectively blocked the release of a statement of the European Union too that would have condemned the American move. After protests broke at the Israeli and Palestinian border leading to casualties on the Palestinian side, many countries raised concerns (Russia and China, for example), and whereas the United Nations, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany officially condemned Israel, the four countries were silent on this issue.
Tourists and locals shop in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. The Visegrad Four continue to support Turkey’s path to the European Union.
photo: Dean Karalekas
Expanding economic relations
While Turkey has often been assessed by Western European politicians and pundits as an institutionalized autocracy, the Hungarian Prime Minister has tried to strengthen ties with Ankara in recent years. When the Turkish President visited Budapest in October 2018, the two trade partners agreed to double their bilateral trade volume and expand bilateral economic relations in other ways. Moreover, Hungary and Turkey aim to start a cooperation in the defense industry. The Hungarian Prime Minister said a few weeks before Erdogan’s visit, “Today, the whole safety of the Carpathian Basin and Europe lies on the stability of Turkey, Israel, and Egypt, who can stop the influx of Muslims.”
The link between anti-migration policy and the political stability of Turkey, Israel, and Egypt was pointed out by the Hungarian Prime Minister as a core Hungarian interest in this case.
The episodes mentioned above are only a few pieces of proof of the apparent changes in the Central European countries’ attitude towards the Middle East. The Czech Republic’s pro-China and pro-Russia stance is also known, and the opposition to migration in Slovakia and Austria seem to be strong enough to create a common point for cooperation with Israel and Turkey on the one hand, and their interest-based foreign policy seems to offer another point for cooperation. The question, however, arises whether and if these countries can benefit from this new era. As for the Central European countries, we can argue their turn away from the values-based foreign policy approach is very much motivated by the recognition that there is a need for technology and capital import to diversify relations, and thus reduce the asymmetric dependence on the Western European partners. Deepening relations with Israel and Turkey can clearly serve this goal.
There are obvious critics in Israel too, underlining that there has been a change in ties with the Visegrad countries that reflects Israel’s slow movement away from liberal democracy. But this is not the point to make here. Obviously, both Israel and Turkey can use the Central European countries—the crack in the wall—as bargaining chips in the more important negations with Western Europe. In the long run, Western European countries (in particular Germany and France) are more important partners than Central European countries. The leverage these countries will have in European affairs in the future can rise, but it is dependent on their success or failure in catching up with the West.
The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are the Visegrad Group.
Buda Castle looms in the background behind The Shoes on the Danube Bank, a memorial to honor the Jews who were killed by fascists in World War II.
photo: Dean Karalekas
Dr. Csaba Moldicz is with the Budapest Business School’s Department of World Economics and International Trade and is head of research at the Oriental Business and Innovation Center.
