Eastern Europe Top 10 June 29

Compiled by Eva Jovanova and Hristo Voynov:

1. The presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey paved way for Erdogan’s “sultanism”, which was approved by the constitutional referendum last year. With all votes being counted, Turkey’s incumbent president had secured more than 52,5% of the votes, while Muharrem Ince, the party candidate of the secular opposition CHP party won more than 30%, according to Anadolu Agency. The pro-Kurdish HDP, whose presidential candidate, as a result of Erdogan’s purges, was running from jail, passed the 10% electoral threshold by winning more than 11,5% of the votes. This makes the HDP the second largest opposition party in parliament. Vladimir Putin was among the first leaders to congratulate Erdogan on his re-election.

2. Major protests continue after the Moldovan Supreme Court upheld the decision to null the results of mayoral election in the capital city. The number of protesters appear to be waning, but have been consistent since the decision occurred on the 19^th. The decision to cancel the results was on the basis that both candidates campaigned on social media the day of the elections. The EU’s High Representative Federica Mogherini and Commissioner Johannes Hahn as well as the US State Department all released statements urging for the results to be respected, which is no surprise considering that the winner of the elections was a liberal reformer who beat a socialist who is considered friendly towards Moscow.

3. The meeting in Luxembourg of the EU ministers of foreign affairs last Wednesday gives optimism to Macedonia and Albania. The ministers agreed that June 2019 would be the date when accession negotiations will be opened for the two Balkan countries. France and the Netherlands were the EU members that were reluctant to give a green light, requiring more reforms before negotiations begin, but, nevertheless, acquiesced during the meeting. This conditional “green light” was followed by a pledge by Commissioner Hahn for the European Commission to immediately begin the screening process.

4. Russia and the US are in the middle of a series of high profile meetings which serve to find understanding between the two at a time of heightened tensions between the world powers. The first of which was between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US National Security Adviser John Bolton, during which Putin stated that internal US politics are keeping US-Russian relations from improving. Bolton, a notorious US war hawk, made an interesting change in his position where he went from claiming that Russian meddling in US elections was “an act of war” to praising Putin’s leadership. Bolton also met with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister. Lavrov will soon be meeting with the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and both meetings seem to be getting ready for the major summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump, which has been set for July 16 in Helsinki.

5. Macedonia President Gjorgje Ivanov is obstructing the ratification of the name deal between Macedonia and Greece. He claimed he would not sign the deal reached last week by the two governments. 69 out of the 120 MPs in Macedonia’s parliament voted in favor of ratification of the deal, and if the president refuses to sign the bill to ratify it, second vote in parliament will decide the future of the deal.

6. The negotiations over Czechia’s foreign minister is proving to be much more complicated than expected. PM Babis and his ANO party need the support of the Social Democrats to form a ruling coalition, but they, along with the president, are refusing to budge on the Social Democrats’ demand for Miroslav Poche to become the new foreign minister. ANO wishes to entrust Social Democrat leader Jan Hamacek with this position for now, but it is unclear if this compromise will work. Poche is problematic for ANO because he is sympathetic to refugees, as well as having corruption complaints against him, though the latter is probably not as important as the former because of the similar accusations against Babis which have not resulted in any issues with his presidency.

7. The world cup football match between Switzerland and Serbia last Friday had provoked reaction internationally, as Switzerland had celebrated their win with Albanian nationalistic gestures and Serbian fans held nationalistic banners. The two goals for Switzerland were scored by ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, who fled the then Serbian province as refugees in 1999. Both, however, celebrated the win with displaying ethnic Albanian symbols, and were both fined. The Serbian football federation was also fined with a hefty fine for allowing fans’ unsporty behavior. The world cup fiasco did not end there, as some Kosovo Albanians, among who were senior government officials, offered to pay the footballers’ fines.

8. The European Parliament released a report regarding Hungary’s alleged infringements of EU values. This comes the same time as the UN Human Rights Commissioner as well as the Venice Commission both made statements against the ‘Stop Soros’ bill for being xenophobic. While these are all likely to hurt Hungary’s standing within the liberal camps of the EU and UN, it is unlikely that Hungary will face any form of sanctions. This is because of the limitations of the ability to implement such sanctions, along with the strengthening alliance between the V4 (Hungary, Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia) which has seen Austria closely position itself closer since their recent elections.

9. A 70-year anniversary on the Tito-Stalin split was marked in Croatia’s capital yesterday. The 1948 split paved the way for the global Non-Aligned-Movement, whose founder was Tito, and led to bed relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR till 1955. The formation of the movement did not go smoothly, but was accompanied by mass prosecutions best illustrated by “Goli Otok” – a prison camp for political prisoners.

10. Poland has backed down from its notorious “Polish death camps” law which threatened to jail anyone using that term. Now, those that use the term will face legal actions in civil court, not a criminal court, which takes some of the teeth out of the laws original wording. When it was originally announced, it heavily strained tensions with Israel over perceived inaccuracies of the Holocaust, which were also dealt with by a joint statement by Polish and Israeli Prime Ministers which helped find a middle ground between the two. What is unclear is what will happen to other aspects of the law that received more attention, such as whether the criminal punishment of denying the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Ukraine will stay on track, or if it will also be pushed to a civil court.