Month: February 2014

by Catherine Samary

Spring is in advance of the prevailing cold. Nobody knows how far the social and democratic explosion will go. But now, already, we know that it will leave deep scars and that it could spread like wildfire: the peoples of the region are beginning to see “what makes the system tick” in both the protests and the aspirations that are expressed. From the denunciation of “criminal privatizations” there could emerge a denunciation of the Euro-Atlantic institutions that have fostered them.

Source

Ukraine has been suffering a profound internal schism for some time now, one that is threatening to become one of those ugly civil wars that are occurring in more and more countries. The boundaries of present-day Ukraine include an east-west cleavage that is linguistic, religious, economic, and cultural, each side being close to 50% of the total.

The present government (said to be dominated by the eastern half) is accused in public demonstrations by the other side of corruption and authoritarian rule.

by Igor Štiks

…

[T]here is one big difference with the riots seen in other European cities, and this is where Bosnia speaks directly to Europe’s current predicament: this is not a rebellion of discriminated and ghettoised groups, territorially contained on the outskirts of big cities. It is a rebellion of the whole population that has been subjected to economic impoverishment, social devastation and political destitution. In this, Bosnia is an image of Europe’s future: ungovernable populations, exhausted by austerity measures and left to their own devices after the collapse of remnants of the welfare state – a state with no prospect for growth, run by elites of dubious, if any legitimacy who deploy heavily armed police to protect themselves against ordinary citizens.

by Georgi Medarov

The Bulgarian 2013 was marked by the largest protests since the 1990s. In February they were against austerity and high-electricity bills, toppling the center-right government praised by the EU for outstanding “stability”. It was a movement of hopelessness, triggered by the sheer impossibility to cover basic living costs. Initially protesters called for nationalization of foreign-owned electricity distribution companies, but soon denounced all parties and political representation as such. Next elections brought a wide-coalition, led by the ex-communist (now pro-business center-left) Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and backed by the liberal Movement for Rights and Liberties (DPS), supported by the Turkish minority, and the far right ATAKA (meaning Attack).