Lithuanian President, Dalia Grybauskaite. Demotix/Mikhail Palinchak. All rights reserved.In late June, debates in the European institutions reached their lowest point ever. Xenophobia, parochialism and flawed economic thinking shaped the two main debates, which focused on Greece and immigration. The statements of Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite during the European Council and on social media exemplify the substance of the debate. With a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Greece, Grybauskaite tweeted that “The Greek government still wants to party but the bills have to be paid by somebody else”. Note: this came from the president of a country that is among the largest net recipients of EU funds, both in per capita terms and as a proportion of GDP.
Unrepentant, Grybauskaite displayed her complete lack of states(wo)manship again at the European Council meeting on June 25. In a discussion on the European refugee crisis, Grybauskaite stated that she had no intention of contributing to any solution. Her statement accompanied Lithuania’s rejection of the European Commission’s Agenda on Migration, which required the country to host a few hundreds of refugees escaping conflict and poverty. Lithuania’s position on the migration issue was echoed by that of most other east and central European EU member states. European Council president and former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk sided with this “regional alliance”, completely disregarding the impartiality that his current position requires, which caused an unprecedented clash with Commission president Jean Claude Juncker.
Their position appears all the more parochial if the broader picture is taken into account. Thus far, the refugee crisis has had little or no impact on these member states, with the exception of Bulgaria and Hungary. By contrast, hundreds of thousands of central and east European citizens have left their countries for western Europe in recent years, thereby enjoying the benefits of European integration. And yet, today their European leaders want to keep their borders closed (to poor refugees). Hungary has even announced the construction of a wall on its border with Serbia, a move evoking memories of another wall that separated Eastern Europe from the west. Polish prime minister Ewa Kopacz declared that Poland was ready to welcome 60 Christian families from Syria, suggesting that the concept of religious tolerance is still foreign to her. Hence, many leaders of the “new” EU member states have not fully understood that xenophobia should be left out of the European institutions, or that solidarity is not a concept that applies exclusively to debates concerning Russia and EU structural funds.
