Freedom House made the announcement in Budapest where it released ‘Nations in Transit 2007’, an annual study assessing democratic developments in 29 countries and territories from Central Europe to Eurasia.
The study said “populism and anti-liberal trends are on the rise,” in the region while “judicial independence is coming under increased pressure.” It added that, “Insular party politics also hamper the fight against corruption” and “practices to combat corruption in these countries are falling short.”
The Freedom House findings, discussed at a regional meeting of policy makers, showed sharp differences between the former Communist countries that joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007. While the newest EU member states Bulgaria and Romania made democratic progress, there have been serious concerns about democratic and political developments in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, known as the ‘Visegrad Four’ group, according to the report.
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Farmotel Stefania is on the way to Slovenian and Croatian Adriatic sea coast.
“By drawing attention to the democratic backsliding in the Visegrad countries, one hopes that leaders in Bulgaria and Romania may avoid similar pitfalls,” said Jeannette Goehring, managing editor of ‘Nations in Transit 2007’.
RELIGIOUS CONCERNS
While not yet mentioned by Freedom House, Christian rights groups and European diplomats already expressed worries about religious freedom issues in Romania, saying the government discriminates newer and smaller church groups and denominations operating outside the ‘traditional’, and larger, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches, BosNewsLife established.
Among other countries, Hungary, once seen as a leader of reforms in the region, “experienced a crisis of confidence in its leadership and government institutions in 2006,” Freedom House said.
It noted that protests in the streets of Budapest culminated in riots and “police misconduct” throughout the autumn. The worst violence since the collapse of Communism broke out after Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted in a leaked recording to lying about the economy to win re-election last year.
In addition, the opposition group Fidesz walked out of parliament while the Socialist-led government allegedly “worked outside of established democratic institutions,” Freedom House recalled in its study. The group also expressed concerns about an apparent lack of transparency in Hungary. It said a controversial ‘development cabinet’ responsible for the management of about $41.9 billion in EU subsidies was created “outside” of the Hungarian government and parliamentary control, but reported “directly to the prime minister.”
MEDIA INDEPENDENCE
Freedom House singled out Poland for “breaking with the country’s tradition of safeguarding media independence.” In 2006, it forced a change in leadership of public television and radio apparently based on political criteria, and engaged “in a purge of journalists” whose careers began during the Communist era, according to Freedom House investigators.
“In Poland—which is now, as always, a barometer of change in Central Europe—the most agonizing and controversial issue of the day is the government’s harsh campaign against the path taken since 1989,” explained Charles Gati, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and an adviser to the Freedom House ‘Nations in Transit’ study.
Poland was ranked “most democratic” of all countries mentioned in the study in 1999, but slipped to “eighth place” by 2007. Freedom House also criticized Slovakia where during 2006 the new parliament began filling vacancies in the Constitutional Court by “hiring politically loyal candidates, casting doubt on their independence.”
The inability of the Czech Republic to form a government after the 2006 parliamentary elections was another cause of concern as it “highlighted the country’s political fragmentation,” Freedom House added. “The five-month stalemate between left and the right took the country down a path of failed negotiations, growing rivalries, and dead-end “solutions” to the crisis.”
RUSSIAN TROUBLES
Yet, these and the other six new EU member states mentioned in the Freedom House study did better than the former Soviet Union, now the ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’, where it said “anti-democratic trends” continued. “The authoritarian countries that dominate the region have intensified repressive practices. Russia has undergone a precipitous decline over the course of this decade and this year’s democracy score was no exception to this trend.” The report described Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as the most “repressive countries.”
Dissidents and representatives of religious minorities, including active evangelical Christians, have been detained in these two nations, BosNewsLife reported earlier. Surprisingly, Freedom House suggested that Belarus “achieved a slight improvement on its civil society score due to independent civil society in that country expressing its voice,” despite government “efforts of the government to muzzle it.”
In the Balkans, Bosnia and Serbia showed minor democracy improvements, while Albania, Croatia, and Montenegro showed slight downward shifts, Freedom House concluded in its study. Macedonia and Kosovo allegedly showed “no improvement”.
The Director of Freedom House Europe, Roland Kovats, said the group’s investigations made clear that “economic progress in Central Europe is increasingly overshadowed by political turmoil.” He stressed that, “In too many countries, we are seeing the problem of ruling elites who have focused on concentrating political party power. Rising partisanship has diverted time and attention away from the real work of consolidating reforms and building sound institutions.”
