Sovereignty, ‘Return to Europe’ and Democratic Distrust in the East after 1989 in the Light of Brexit

Abstract

Polexit, Hungexit, Czexit: all appear in current political debates across East Central Europe, though so far only as a political option favoured by a minority. But as we know from Brexit, the situation can change quickly. The parties and movements that like to call themselves 'patriotic' have mobilised the repertoire of anti-Brussels sentiments. We cannot rule out that some countries in the region will follow the British path of exiting the European Union, even though for them this would be even more economically and politically irrational than it is in the British case. However, although these EU-Exiteers occasionally express admiration for the 'proud Albion', they rarely draw parallels between their respective countries and the United Kingdom; their Euroscepticism comes from very different sources. In order to understand the situation in the region today, we need consider its prehistory.