Central-Eastern Europe in Post-COVID-19 International Politics

The article is based on the hypothesis about the transition of the development of international processes from the stage of uncertainty to the stage of the negative certainty – the increase and synergy of the impact of negative factors in the environmental, climatic, epidemiological, socio-economic, technological, and security spheres against the background of worsening geopolitical contradictions and confirmed by the crisis caused by the COVID19 pandemic. The article examines the dynamics of socio-economic and political development and the changing role of the Central-Eastern European region. Having strengthened their positions in the European Union through adaptation to EU policies and norms, by the mid-2010s the CEE countries began to pursue an increasingly independent course. By 2020 their policy became one of the factors hindering the further deepening of the EU integration, primarily in the foreign policy sphere, and the process of federalization of the Union. The analysis of the state of public opinion conducted in the article testifies to the dualism of the perception of citizens of the CEE countries of the EU membership. High support for the EU is combined with frustration at the partial loss of national sovereignty, which is actively used by nationalist political forces in the region. During the early months of COVID-19 pandemics the countries of the region performed better than the EU as a whole, which created prerequisites for reformatting the position of the CEE countries in the EU. The enormous resources provided by the EU to Central-Eastern Europe to overcome the crisis and move towards sustainable development serve as a tool for even deeper economic and political integration of the CEE into the EU. Conditionality of support for the implementation of the EU strategies could have an impact on the CEE countries that is very similar to the period of their accession to the integration grouping and lead to the next stage of desovereignization. Meanwhile, for the European Union closer binding of the CEE countries allows not only to take another step towards federalization, but also to strengthen its actorness in world politics and the global economy.

1. (2007). Rossiya i mir: 2008. Ekonomika i vneshnyaya politika [Russia and the World: 2008. Economy and Foreign Policy]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 147 p.

2. (2019). Rossiya i mir: 2020. Ekonomika i vneshnyaya politika [Russia and the World: 2020. Economy and Foreign Policy]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 172 p.

3. (2019). Rossiya i mir: 2024. Ekonomika i vneshnyaya politika [Russia and the World: 2024. Economy and Foreign Policy]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 42 p.

4. Baranovsky V.G. (ed.) (2010). Mir 2020: rossijskaya i trenstral’no-vostochnoevropejskaya perspectivy [World 2020: Russian and Central Eastern European Perspectives]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 195 p.

5. Baranovsky V.G., Kobrinskaya I.Ya. (eds) (2017). Restrukturatsiya politicheskogo landshafta evropejskikh gosudarstv [Restructuration od the Political Landscape of the European States]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 69 p.

6. Baranovsky V.G., Kobrinskaya I.Ya., Utkin S.V., Frumkin B.E. (2019). Metod situatsionnogo analiza kak instrument aktual’nogo prognozirovaniya v usloviyakh transformatsii miroporyadka [Method of Situational Analysis as an Instrument of Relevant Forecasting under the Transformation of the World Order]. Vestnik MGIMO Universiteta. Vol. 12. No. 4. P. 7–23.

7. Butorina O.V., Borko Yu.A. (eds) (2006). Rasshirenie Evropejskogo Soyuza i Rossiya [Enlargement of the European Union and Russia]. Moscow: Delovaya literaturа. 567 p.

8. Frumkin B.E. (2019). Zasedaniya Evropejskogo sovets (sammity), iyun’ – avgust 2019 g. [Meetings of the European Council (Summits), June – August 2019]. Bulleten’ ‘Evropejskij soyuz: fakty i kommentarii’. Issue 97. P. 5–9.

9. Glinkina S.P., Kulikova N.V. (eds) (2010). Strany Tsentral’noj i Vostochnoj Evropy – novye chleny Evropejskogo Soyuza: problem adaptatsii [Countries of Central and Eastern Europe – New Members of the European Union: the Problems of Adaptation]. Moscow: Nauka. 495 p.

10. Kobrinskaya I.Ya. (1997). Rossiya i Tsentral’naya Vostochnaya Evropa posle “kholodnoj vojny” [Russia and Central Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War]. Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center. 198 p.

11. Mikheev V.V., Shvydko V.G. (eds) (2016). Kitaj i Vostochnaya Evropa: zven’ya novogo Shyelkovogo puti [China and Eastern Europe: Chains of the New Silk Road]. Moscow: IMEMO RAN. 70 p.

12. Mladek Ya. (2020). 30 let spustya: kak Vishegradskaya gruppa preuspela v postsotsialisticheskom tranzite [30 Years Later: How Vishegrad Four Succeeded in Post-Socialist Transit]. Mir peremen. No. 2. P. 157–170.

13. Orlik I.I. (2020). Tsentral’no-Vostochnaya Evropa: zavershenie postsotsialisticheskoj transfor- matsii [Central Eastern Europe: the End of Post-Socialist Transformation]. Mir peremen. No. 2. P. 66–80.

14. Stiglitz J. (2019). Sadis’ dva [Sit Down – You’ve Failed]. IPG. URL: https://www.ipg-journal.io/regiony/mir/statja/show/sadis-dva-933/ (accessed: 24.04.2020).

15. Tsymburgskij V.L. (1999). Rossiya – Zemlya za Velikim Limitrofom: tsivilizatsiya i eye geopolitika [Russia – the Land behind the Great Limiptrophe: Civilization and Its Geopolitics]. Moscow: URSS. 141 p.

16. Turcsányi R.Q. (2020). China and the Frustrated Region: Central and Eastern Europe’s Repeating Troubles with Great Power. China Report. Vol. 56. No. 1. P. 60–77. DOI: 10.1177/0009445519895626

17. Wike R., Poushter J. et al. (2019). European public opinion three decades after the fall of communism. 4. The European Union. Pew Research Center. URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-union/ (accessed: 30.05.2020).

18. Zagorski A. (ed.) (2015). Russia and Central Europe After the Cold War. A Fundamentally Transformed Relationship. IMEMO-Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung- Human Rights Publishers. Prague. 427 p.