Central European History and the European Union: The Meaning of Europe

276 Pages·2007·4.981 MB·English

by  Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (eds.)

Central European History and the European Union
Studies in Central and Eastern Europe
Edited for the International Council for Central and East European Studies by
Roger E. Kanet, University of Miami, USA
Titles include:
Graeme Gill (editor)
POLITICS IN THE RUSSIAN REGIONS
Roger E. Kanet (editor)
RUSSIA
Re-Emerging Great Power
Rebecca Kay (editor)
GENDER, EQUALITY AND DIFFERENCE DURING AND AFTER STATE SOCIALISM
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (editor)
CENTRAL EUROPEAN HISTORY AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
The Meaning of Europe
Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest and Evgeny Vinokurov (editors)
THE CIS, THE EU AND RUSSIA
Challenges of Integration
Stephen Velychenko (editor)
UKRAINE, THE EU AND RUSSIA
History, Culture and International Relations
Forthcoming titles include:
John Pickles (editor)
GLOBALIZATION AND REGIONALIZATION IN POST-SOCIALIST ECONOMIES
Common Economic Spaces of Europe
John Pickles (editor)
STATE AND SOCIETY IN POST-SOCIALIST ECONOMIES
Stephen White (editor)
MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY IN PUTIN’S RUSSIA
Stephen White (editor)
POLITICS AND THE RULING GROUP IN PUTIN’S RUSSIA
Thomas Bremer (editor)
RELIGION AND THE CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
Stephen Hutchings (editor)
RUSSIA AND ITS OTHER(S) ON FILM
Screening Intercultural Dialogue
Joan DeBardeleben (editor)
THE BOUNDARIES OF EU ENLARGEMENT
Studies in Central and Eastern Europe
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Central European History and
the European Union
TThe Meaning of Europe
Edited by
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
DDepartment of International Studies, Glendon College,
York University, Canada
Editorial matter,selection,introduction and conclusion © Stanislav J.Kirschbaum
2007 All remaining chapters © respective authors 2007
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-0-230-54937-1
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Contents
PPreface vii
General Editor’s Preface viii
Contributors xiii
Chronology xvi
MMaps of Europe xix
Introduction 1
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
Part I Whence Central Europe? 9
1. European Roots: the Case of Slovakia 11
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
2. Federalism in Central Europe: Past and Present 23
Francesco Leoncini
3. Toward an Open Society: Reflections on the 1989 Revolution
in Eastern Europe 32
Oskar Gruenwald
Part II The Legacy of the National State 61
4. The Secularized Cult of St Stephen in Modern Hungary 63
Juliane Brandt
5. The Quest for a Symbol – Wenceslas and the Czech State 81
Stefan Samerski
6. Moldavian Prince Stephen and Romania 92
Krista Zach
7. The Invention of Modern Po´llland: Pi´lllsudski and the Politics
of Symbolism 102
Mieczys´lllaw B.B. Biskupski
8. An Ethnic Poland: a Failure of National Self-determination 123
John J. Kulczycki
v
vi Centrall European History andd thhe European Union
Part III Thhe Chhallllenges off EU Membbershhip 143
9. Intellectual and Political ‘Europe’: Rupture or Continuity in
Central Europe? 145
Bass¸ak Z. Alpan
10. Euroscepticism in Central Europe 159
Laure Neumayer
11. Europeanization and Gender Equality in the Czech
Republic and Slovakia 179
Ingrid Röder
12. Poland and the EU Constitutional Convention 189
An Schrijvers
13. The EU and Interculturality in Croatia after 2000 215
Mojmir Kriz(cid:2)an
Conclusion 237
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
IIndex 249
Prefface
Over a period of almost three decades as a Canadian academic studying
Central Europe, I was first given the opportunity to publish a collaborative
work on the region in 1988, in a volume entitledEast European History; this
was followed ten years later by Historical Reflections on Central Europe. Both
volumes represented, as the eclectic selection of articles indicates, a desire to
present, understand and explain various historical events or factors that
marked Central Europe. The first volume still reflected the conditions of the
Cold War, but the second already signalled the reappearance, as a distinct
geopolitical reality, of that part of Europe on which this volume focuses. And
while this volume still looks at the past, it does so with a view to the future.
Each author brings out an issue or a theme that marks Central Europe today,
and together they suggest the need for the European Union to embark on a
process of defining the ‘meaning of Europe’, so that its citizens need not
identify only with the unification process, but may also perceive an end
product that represents more than just a successful economic and adminis-
trative arrangement run by bureaucratic elites. All three volumes arose from
presentations at a world congress of the International Council for Central
and East European Studies, of which I have the privilege of being the secre-
tary since 1980.
My thanks go to all the contributors to this volume for sharing the objec-
tive espoused, even if some may be sceptical about the possibility of finding
a process in the European Union that will bring about the ‘meaning off
Europe’. I am grateful for their patience, understanding and cooperation in
preparing the manuscript. Oskar Gruenwald’s chapter is reprinted from the
JJournal of Interdisciplinary Studies XVIII (1/2) (2006) 25–56, where it first
appeared. My thanks also go to Carolyn King of the Cartographic Office off
the Department of Geography at York University in Toronto for the maps
that outline our theme. Last but not least my thanks go to Gemma d’Arcyy
Hughes, Editorial Assistant for Politics and International Studies at Palgrave
Macmillan, for guiding me through the editorial process.
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
Toronto
vii
Generall Edditor’’s Prefface
When the International Council for Central and East European Studies
(ICCEES) was founded at the first international and multidisciplinary confer-
ence of scholars working in this field, held in Banff, Alberta, Canada, on 4–7
September 1974, it was given the name International Committee for Soviet
and East European Studies (ICSEES). Its major purpose was to provide for
greater exchange between research centres and scholars around the world
who were devoted to the study of the USSR and the Communist states and
societies of Eastern Europe. These developments were the main motivation
for bringing together the very different national organizations in the field
and for forming a permanent committee of their representatives, which would
serve as an umbrella organization, as well as a promoter of closer cooperation.
Four national scholarly associations launched ICSEES at the Banff conference:
the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS),
theNational Association for Soviet and East European Studies in Great Britain
(NASEES), the British Universities’ Association of Slavists (BUAS), and the
Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS).
Over the past three decades six additional congresses have been held: in
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, 1980; Washington, USA, 1985; Harrogate,
UK, 1990; Warsaw, Poland, 1995; Tampere, Finland, 2000; and Berlin, Germany,
2005. The next congress is scheduled for 2010 in Stockholm, Sweden.The orig-
inal four national associations that sponsored the first congress have been
joined by an additional 17 full and six associate member associations, with
significantly more than a thousand scholars participating at each of the
recent congresses.
It is now a little over three decades since scholars felt the need to coordi-
nate the efforts in the ‘free world’ to describe and analyse the Communist
political systems, their societies and economies, and East–West relations in
particular. Halfway through this period, the Communist system collapsed,
the region that was the object of study was reorganized, and many of the
new states that emerged set out on a path of democratic development, eco-
nomic growth and, in many cases, inclusion in Western institutions. The
process turned out to be complex, and there were setbacks. Yet, by 2004, the
European Union as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
had welcomed those post-Communist states that had met all the requirements
for membership. Not all the applicant states achieved this objective; but the
process is ongoing. For, this reason, perhaps even more than before, the region
that encompassed the former Communist world demands study, explana-
tion and analysis, as both centripetal and centrifugal forces are at workin each
state and across the region. We are most fortunate that the community off
viii
Generall Edditor’’s Prefface ix
schhollars addddressing thhese issues now inclluddes many astute anallysts ffrom thhe
region itself.
TThe impact of Central Europe on the European Union, and
the importance of historical context
During the decade-long negotiations between the European Union (EU) and
the post-Communist states of Central Europe concerning membership for
the latter, one of the objectives of the former was to use the magnet of mem-
bership as a tool to influence political, economic and even social and cultural
developments in those countries seeking to join this elite Western club. As
Milada Anna Vachudova and many others have noted in a host of analyses,
through the promise of eventual EU membership the countries of Western
Europe have had a substantial impact on the political, economic and polit-
ical redefinition and restructuring of their eastern neighbours.1Slovakia, for
example, was left behind in the first round of NATO expansion and largelyy
ignored by the EU as a potential member. Only after theelectorate responded
to NATO and EU criticisms of domestic political developments under Prime
Minister Vladimír Mec(cid:2)(cid:2)iar by ousting him, followed by significant shifts in
both domestic and foreign policy, was Slovak membership in either organi-
zation considered seriously.2 However, virtually no one has examined ser-
iously, or even posed clearly, questions concerning the reverse impact of the
relationship – namely, the influence that the entry of ten generally less-
developed post-Communist states of Central and South-Eastern Europe and
the Baltic has already exerted and is likely to continue to exert in the future
on the nature of the European Union itself.
In one area in particular it has already become evident that the new states
have come down clearly on the side of the UK, Denmark and other EU mem-
bers on the issue of the central importance of the transatlantic security rela-
tionship with the USA and will not support the development of a European
Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) that would come into conflict with the
long-term relationship of Europe and the USA within the NATO security sys-
tem.3This has resulted in a substantial shift in the positions likely to emerge as
dominant on matters related to European foreign and security policy and to
relations with both the Russian Federation in the East and the USA in the
West. Poland and Romania, for example, simply do not view their long-term
security concerns from the same perspective as does France or even Germany.
Therefore, they see the US connection as central to their long-term security.
The new Central European members of the EU also bring to the organization
different perspectives on the nature of the organization itself. After decades,
even centuries, of domination by others, they are not enthusiastic about the
emergence of a European Union in which national differences disappear and
supranational institutions hold sway. In other words, most of the new EU
members are more interested in focusing on those aspects of EU integration