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We still rather like the Americans
Jan 30th 2003 / PRAGUE AND WARSAW
From The Economist print edition
Feelings about the United States are warm but changing
A CLUTCH of conservative parties in central Europe recently launched a joint attack on anti-Americanism in the region. It was left-wing governments, they said, that were threatening “Euro-Atlantic civilisation” by spreading hatred of the United States.
Really? Poland and Romania, the region's two most populous countries, are both run by ex-communist governments that are also probably its two most pro-American ones. Although Poland's prime minister, Leszek Miller, was in his country's last communist-era Politburo, it was he who happily gave the go-ahead, last month, for the largest purchase of American military hardware ever made by a former Warsaw Pact country. In so doing, his government annoyed several European countries by turning down their companies' bids in favour of a fleet of American F-16 fighters costing $3.5 billion.
“Europeans should buy European,” muttered a French businessman, whose Mirage 2000 was an unsuccessful bidder. “This decision was made purely on political grounds,” moaned an advocate of the Swedish-British Gripen fighter that is cheaper than the F-16 but just as high-tech. The Gripen bid included an offer to build an assembly plant in a depressed part of Poland, with knock-on jobs for up to 50,000 people. But the Poles reckoned that failed to outweigh the apparent advantage of ensuring continued American industrial-military engagement in the region.
Most people and governments in central Europe remain instinctively pro-American. Tales of émigrés returning from across the Atlantic, the enduring potency of the American dream (not to mention its pop culture), a residual fear of the Russians and a consequent desire to join NATO: these all still foster friendly feelings towards the Americans. A trio of central European countries—Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic—are already in the alliance; another seven have been invited to join, probably in 2004. But the biggest reason for pro-Americanism is still sheer gratitude. The Americans did most to win central Europe's freedom from the Russian yoke, then did much to bankroll the first years of the post-communist transition.
Still, things do change. In 1990, the Stars and Stripes was most visible amid foreign flags. Money-changers did most of their trade in dollars. Street vendors sold American jeans. Nowadays, the flags are more often the EU's blue and gold. Jeans are more likely to be bought with credit cards issued by European banks in shopping centres with names like Europark and Europlex. America has become less prominent in business and in investment. EU countries account for three-quarters of the region's trade. People in once-communist countries may still like the Americans. But they increasingly also like being Europeans.
Where American influence still prevails is in defence. In this regard, most of the EU's new entrants are likely to be closer to Britain than to France. But in foreign policy the former communist countries look closer to the French and the Germans. Whatever their governments say, most people in central Europe are loth to encourage the Americans to bash Saddam Hussein, especially without a new UN mandate. Even the Poles, who are the region's most martial nation as well as its most ardent pro-Americans, are reluctant to endorse an American attack; a recent opinion poll found that only 4% thought the United States should go ahead on its own.
Public support for American foreign policy has become most tepid in the former Austro-Hungarian parts of Europe, including Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where German influence is increasing. Although the historical memory of the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 still stirs pro-American feelings, a more recognisably European mindset has emerged since the early 1990s. Many editorials in the region's papers depict President George Bush as a lightweight and accuse his administration of being driven by a desire to get hold of Iraq's oil. Though the Czechs' outgoing president, Vaclav Havel, this week joined other European leaders in signing a letter praising the Americans, only 13% of his compatriots say they would endorse an American attack on Iraq without a UN mandate.
This is not to say that anti-Americanism in the former Austro-Hungarian empire is anything like as strong as it is, say, in France and (at least over Iraq) Germany. There are few votes to be won by bashing Mr Bush. And the idea of a European defence identity still attracts little enthusiasm; NATO is still the name of the new game. The Czechs, moreover, are keen to shed their reputation in the Pentagon as fair-weather friends: soon after their country joined NATO, in 1999, its government was reluctant to let American aircraft fly over it on the way to bomb Serbia. More recently, at the Americans' request, the Czechs have been quick to beef up a 250-strong chemical-warfare unit in Kuwait.
The Americans' influence may be more durable in the poorer parts of the old Soviet empire. In November Mr Bush got a wildly joyful welcome in Romania, where he addressed a huge crowd. These days he would be unlikely to address a similar open-air rally in France or Germany. Romania, by contrast, has strongly supported his policy since the attacks of September 2001; the Romanian intelligence service has passed on useful information about al-Qaeda, and Romania's foreign minister, Mircea Geoana, a former ambassador in Washington, is fiercely pro-American.
Elsewhere in central Europe, pro-Americanism is less strong than it was. If the Americans do fight Iraq, most of the bigger countries will rally round. But they are slower to see the Americans' case than they would have been a decade ago.
