In April, the world economic crisis continued to be the main
issue in the region. Austerity measures have become even harder to implement in
the Baltic States, while Macedonia and Albania were considering a loan. Albania
also applied for membership in the EU. At the beginning of the month Eastern
Europe was shaken by riots in Moldova, but it seems that the tension has
already calmed down. The second round of the Slovakian and the Macedonian
election was a much easier case. Sochi saw a mayoral election
taking place. Croatia and Slovenia made steps to resolve their conflict, and
also the Turkish and the Armenian government signed a historical agreement. The
Georgian opposition has been protesting for almost over a month now, and there
has been discontent among unions in Croatia as well. In Bosnia a corruption
scandal made the task of the government, preparing to introduce austerity
measures, even more difficult. In the Czech Republic the new government is
about to line up.
The month began with the Moldovan riots. After the
parliamentary elections on the 5th April, where the governing Communists won an
absolute majority in the parliament, the opposition began to protest. The
participants of the riots called themselves the heirs of the Orange Revolution.
They set the presidential palace and the building of the parliament on fire.
There have been casualties as well. Because of the events, relations with
Romania worsened significantly. The opposition was allowed to check voter
lists, but by the time they did this, the constitutional court had already
declared the results valid. The Communists will have a majority of 60 deputies
in the parliament, thus they will be short of one deputy when electing the
successor of the President Vladimir Voronin. Unaffected by the riots, the talks
about Transnistria continued. The two other elections of early April were much
more peaceful. In Slovakia, the incumbent Ivan Gasparovic was elected for a
second term, while his main rival, Iveta Radicová had to resign from her
mandate as a deputy after breaching the code of conduct. The minister of
construction Marián Janúsek also had to resign after giving unlawful advantage
to several companies linked with the junior governing National Party. His
successor, Igor Stefanov, who had been close to Janúsek, was ordered by Prime
Minister Robert Fico to annul the contracts. While the justice minister Stefan
Harabin drafted his plans for the reconstruction of the judiciary, the Party of
the Hungarian Coalition was on the verge of splitting, with three deputies and
hundreds of members having left the party, criticizing the leadership of the
chairman Pál Csáky. Macedonia also elected its new president during the month:
in line with expectations, Georgi Ivanov won the vote, and his main supporter,
the senior governing party scored a sweeping victory at the local elections as
well. However, the low turnout almost thwarted the vote, and with the majority
of ethnic Albanians staying home, the junior governing Democratic Union of
Integration lost a good part of its positions. The party is also disappointed
with the progress of the Greek-Macedonian talks: if the name-issue is not
settled by this autumn, the party will leave the government. After the
election, the incumbent Branko Crvenkovski will return as the leader of the
opposition, and the main right-wing rival of the Prime Minister, Ljubco
Georgievski is also about to return to the political scene. Macedonia is still
hesitating whether it should apply for a loan from IMF, but the budget has
already been cut by 9% in April. Albania is in the same situation with asking
for a loan. The country, after having applied for membership in the EU is
preparing for the June elections. The two main parties, after lengthy debates,
agreed that the new IDs will be distributed quicker and cheaper, but it is
still questionable whether every Albanian citizen will be able to vote. As for
the economy, the tax on profits has been limited in 10%, but the Prime Minister
Sali Berisha announced wage and pension hikes for before the elections. Bulgaria
- similarly to Albania - changed its electoral system before the parliamentary
election scheduled for the 5th July. The threshold, doubled for coalitions is
clearly disadvantageous for the 'Blue Coalition' of smaller right-wing parties,
what is more, the court has denied the registration of the new leadership of
Űnion of Democratic Forces', the leader of the coalition. According to the
government, the country will be able to maintain the surplus of the budget, and
after having been unwilling at first, the government included reducing social
sphere contributions among its election promises. The main issue concerning the
leading party of the opposition, GERB, was the unresolved litter management of
Sofia.
Politicians tried to alter the party system in Russia too:
here, of course, only 'cosmetic' changes took place: the number of people
required to found a party was lowered, parties in general gained more access to
media and a minimal representation was guaranteed for small parties. The
mayoral election in Sochi, however, was far from being democratic: the
incumbent Anatoly Pahomov won by a landslide, while his main rival, Boris
Nemtsov was intimidated in several ways. Meanwhile, an amended budget, based on
an oil price of 41$ was adopted with a deficit forecast of 7,4%, but there is
still an ongoing debate about the increase of social expenditures. At the same
time, Armenia was preparing for an election as well: Yerevan will hold its
first-ever local elections on the 31st May. The Heritage party announced its support
for the leader of the opposition, Levon Ter-Petrosyan. An even more important
event was however the signing of a roadmap agreement by the Armenian and
Turkish governments about the opening of the borders, although Karabakh has not
been mentioned. This was disapproved of by the party of the diaspora, the
junior governing Revolutionary Federation, which left the government in
protest. The party’s ministers have not been replaced yet. The thaw in the
Armenian-Turkish relations annoyed Azerbaijan the most: the country saw several
protests against the roadmap agreement, with some politicians speaking even
about a betrayal. The prospective opening of borders will be quite
disadvantageous for Azerbaijan from the aspect of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars
railway. Meanwhile, the government was negotiating with the EU about a possible
solution for the Nabucco pipeline, although Azerbaijan had already made an
offer to Gazprom as well. A plan for regional development by 2013 was adopted;
this would strengthen the non-hydrocarbon sector.
Another conflict continued in April, but came closer to
being resolved: Croatia and Slovenia agreed with the proposal of Olli Rehn
about the setting up of a team of international arbitrators to make suggestions
on their border conflict. No concrete answers have been given so far from the
part of the two governments, but the process was evaluated positively, so there
is a chance that Croatia’s accession may continue soon. Croatia also scheduled
local elections for the 17th May, with the opposition Social Democrats
criticizing mainly the government’s crisis plan. It is also true that unions
have not reached an agreement with the government yet, and announced protests
for the week before the election. In Zagreb the opposition People’s Party
announced that it would not support the Social-Democrat mayor, Milan Bandic,
and problems arose between the governing Democratic Union and its coalition
partners as well. In Slovenia the coalition was also shaken, after the
social-liberal Zares accused the Prime Minister Borut Pahor with cooperating
with business tycoons. The conflict was settled, but the popularity of the
government fell considerably. An undoubted success for the government is that
the judges, who had been striking for months, suspended their strike and are
now willing to negotiate, this at a time when the opposition is criticizing the
government for the concessions given to lawyers. The Prime Minister promised a
unique social crisis package for the summer, which is being worked out now. Lithuania
also saw tensions in the governing coalition. Here anti-crisis measures caused
the parties quarreling. These, drafted by the Conservatives were not voted by
the coalition partners of the party. The finance minister, Algirdas Semeta, at
the same time, would introduce even stricter measures. The minister called for
a reduction of the minimum wage, arguing that the budget would need to be cut
once again. The Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius denied this. What is for sure
is that state contributions to the second pillar of the pension system will be
reduced, at the same time reducing the budget of the state social fund. The
speaker of the parliament, Arunas Valinskas canceled his candidature for the
presidential election on the 17th May because of his growing unpopularity.
Amending the budget is a difficult case in Estonia as well: the finance
minister Ivari Padar, urging for the introduction of higher taxes became
involved in a lengthy debate about this matter with the party’s centre-right
coalition partners. For the time being, the minister has not been dismissed,
but the Social-Democrats seem to propagate a new program, considerably
different from the government’s. Contributions to the second pension pillar
have been lowered in Estonia as well, and steps have been taken in order to
join the eurozone sooner. This stands less and less chance because of the inner
debates of the governing coalition. The hardest measures had to be implemented
in Latvia, as it turned out that even the planned general budget cuts of 40%
would not be enough to achieve a deficit of 5% that the IMF would have required
to grant the country the next part of its loan. The Prime Minister Valdis
Dombrovskis, for this reason, called a deficit of 7% negotiable. The finance
minister Einars Repse announced further cuts for next year, with the education
and health ministers already having denied to bring the cuts to effect. The
parliament adopted the amendment to the constitution according to which voters
will be able to initiate the dissolution of the parliament in the future.
Meanwhile, in Serbia, unions protested against the anti-crisis steps, necessary
to get a bigger IMF loan. The package was hard to push through the parliament,
because the province of Vojvodina insisted on the increase of the budgetary
funds allocated for itself. This was achieved, but the government may still
count on a growing discontent, because of wage cuts in the public sector. The
new law on parties has been adopted, but it caused an uproar, and the number of
ministers has not been decreased yet either, due to the resistance of the
Socialist Party and G17 Plus party. In Kosovo, on the contrary, the Prime
Minister, Hashim Thaci is about to increase his government. The purpose of the
reshuffle would be the integration of ethnic Serbs, which remains a seemingly
impossible mission. In Mitrovica riots were restarted in April, possibly also
strengthened by the visit of the Serbian President Boris Tadic. The question should
be resolved before calling for the autumn local elections. The government,
meanwhile, called upon the mission UNMIK to leave the country.
No riots, but large-scale protests took place in Georgia.
The opposition movement, which started on the 9th, demanding the resignation of
the president, has been going on ever since, although with a waning number of
protesters. This is due to the tactics of the government: the speaker of the
parliament, Davit Bakradze first proposed negotiations, then an increase of the
ombudsman’s rights, and, after the denial of both, the government started to
ignore the opposition. In Romania, the popularity of the president has
decreased too, but, what is even more curious is that the candidate of the
opposition National Liberals, Crin Antonescu, according to surveys, may stand a
chance against Traian Basescu in the autumn presidential elections. The
chairman of the Social Democrats, Mircea Geoana will probably be 'sacrificed'
for the sake of distancing the party from the Democrat-Liberals and getting to
a more advantageous position in a possible new government. The main sources of
disagreement between the two coalition parties during the month were the
Criminal Code, the Brasov airport, and local cooperation, although steps have been
made to resolve the latter.
In the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina the
broad coalition is clashing as well. The situation became even worse
particularly after the Prime Minister Nedzad Brankovic had been accused with
abuse of office. The party of Brankovic, the Party of Democratic Action is
preparing for a congress, and the fate of the whole government is dependent
upon the outcome. The Federation needs to implement further budget cuts of $
350M to be able to get the loan of 400M $ from the IMF that would save the
country from collapsing. The opposition parties of Republika Srpska, at the
same time, are preparing for a possible fall of the Prime Minister Milorad
Dodik, who may face further corruption charges in the coming month. Serbs have
also protested against the USA’s will to appoint a special envoy to the
country. Ukraine is also desperately trying to comply with the conditions of
the IMF-loan. The inoperability of the parliament allows the measures to be
taken only by ordinances of the government, and not without balks. April saw
the nomination of a new finance minister, Igor Umansky. In the backround, we
suppose that Yulia Timoshenko’s Bloc and the Party of Regions have been talking
about a possible coalition, while the President Victor Yushchenko asked the
constitutional court to decide on the constitutionality of the planned early
presidential elections. There will probably be new, unknown candidates, from
outside the world of politics. Poland will also get a loan from the IMF, using
the so-called 'flexible credit line'. The accession to the eurozone will
probably be postponed, as the country cannot join the ERM2 phase until July.
After the falloff of the government’s corruption cases a major issue was the
debated decoration of several members of the Institute of National Remembrance
(IPN). According to the government the President Lech Kaczynski did this
because of political considerations. The Prime Minister Donald Tusk, thus,
recommended for the parliament to restructure the leadership of the
organization. On the opposition side a source of conflict was that the Law and
Justice party would not include the MEP Martin Libicki on its list for the
European Elections, which caused several party members to quit the party. At
the end of the month, a rather embarrassing case happened: the candidate for
the ambassador to the UN, Anna Fotyga criticized the foreign policy of the
government.
In the neighboring Czech Republic the government of Ján
Fischer is about to be formed and to take over the powers of Mirek Topolánek’s
cabinet. A considerable debate within the Christian-Democratic Union was caused
by the fact that the party chairman Jiri Cunek did not support the new
government, while his main rival, Miroslav Kalousek did, so the latter
distanced himself from the party. The leaders of both political sides are
preparing for the autumn elections. Topolánek called for the union of the
right, with the emblem of the former president Václav Havel, while Social
Democrats have been looking for possibilities to cooperate with Communists. In Belarus,
a major government reshuffle is about to happen as well, according to the
President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who, in April, dismissed the interior minister
Vladimir Navumov, making yet another step towards a complete generational
change in the country’s leadership. The government is still hesitating whether
to recognize the independence of Abkhazia, demanded by Russia, but it is highly
possible that this will be resolved only after the May summit of the EU, where
a possible inclusion of Belarus in the EU’s Eastern Partnership Program will be
decided. Lukashenko will not take part, but Belarus will be represented. In Montenegro
the main issue was personal changes too. After it turned out that the National
Coalition would not be included in the new parliament, the distribution of
positions started. The legislature will have only two vice-speakers, one from
the opposition and one from the governing Democratic Party of Socialists, while
the president of the smaller governing party, Ranko Krivokapic will remain the
speaker of the parliament. The Bosniak minority may have only deputy ministers,
but there are still various disagreements within the governing parties,
concerning positions. The privatization tender of the company Elektropriveda
ended, and the government also announced a social program of € 41M and a new
collective agreement for the striving aluminum industry, threatening with a
considerable social crisis.
In May, Albanian parties will start their election
campaigns. The new Moldavian parliament will hold its first sitting, while Croatia,
Lithuania and the city of Yerevan will hold elections. In the Czech Republic
the Fischer-government will be sworn in. In Romania the congress of the Social
Democrats will be held. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the fate of the Federation’s
government will be decided. The Baltic States will adopt austerity measures.
Croatia may carry on with accession talks with the EU.
7th May: an EU-summit in Prague, of key importance for
post-Soviet countries
9th May: the government of Ján Fischer will start its tenure
in the Czech Republic
17th May: the first round of the Lithuanian presidential
election, and the Croatian local election
31st May: local election in Yerevan
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