THE Zac Rupnikdistinguished historian and professor at the School of Political Sciences in Paris (Sciences Po), director of the Center for International Studies of the same School (CERI) and author, has personal experience of illiberal regimes. Born in Prague in 1950, he moved with his family to Paris in 1965. Having studied Political Science and History at the Sorbonne and Harvard, he is an expert on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Former adviser (1990-1992) of Vaclav Havel, the first democratically elected president of the Czech Republic after the fall of communism, a former adviser to the Commission (2007-2013), Rupnik spoke at “Vima” about illiberal democracy in Europe.
Does Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in Hungary signal the retreat of illiberal forces in Europe?
“It is certainly the case that they sought to create a network in Europe centered on Orbán and aimed at weakening the EU. However, the general trend in Europe rather shows a shift of the political center of gravity to the right and, in many cases, to a harder Right. National populist parties are in power in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In Poland, the president is a hardline nationalist and it is possible that similar forces will return to the government.
In the rest of Europe, we see the rise of the far-right AfD in Germany while in France, ahead of the 2027 presidential election, the far-right National Rally (RN) candidate is leading the polls. We certainly draw some optimism: on the one hand, because Orbán’s defeat showed that illiberal movements can be defeated at the polls, as happened with the 2023 elections in Poland.
But the main issue is how an illiberal regime can be deconstructed: in Poland we have a “cohabitation” of a center-right government with a hard-right president who blocks dozens of laws. In Hungary, the new government secured a two-thirds majority to be able to amend laws. The question, however, is whether he will be able to dismantle the financial network connected to the oligarchy around Orban.”
The pro-Russian Rumen Radev recently won in Bulgaria. How do you interpret this development?
“As a failure of all previous governments. In five years, Bulgaria has experienced so many successive electoral contests that it gives the impression of an ungovernable state. Radeff prevailed because of the failure of his predecessors.
Bulgaria is historically the most pro-Russian country in Europe: Orthodox Russia was considered the protector of the Orthodox against the Ottomans. This does not mean that Bulgaria wishes to come under his influence Putin. On the war in Ukraine, Radev does not appear openly pro-Russian, but opposes military aid to Ukraine – a stance similar to that of Orban, the government Fico in Slovakia and the government Babic in the Czech Republic”.
Migration was the common element of populist far-right parties. Some of them seem to recognize that Europe needs immigrants. Did they replace Immigration with another issue to attract votes?
“First of all, they haven’t left Immigration at all. I see it in France, Germany and also in Britain. What is more noticeable today is that some parties of the Right realize that they cannot ignore the Immigration. Thus, they partially adopt the arguments of the hard nationalist Right. Look what Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni did in Italy: she halved the number of new arrivals in Italy.
At the same time, he proceeded to legalize 400,000 illegal immigrants, under two conditions: that they have not committed crimes and that they have a job. And he did it to meet the needs of the Italian economy. A more pragmatic attitude is therefore being formed, towards which the European Right seems to be heading as a whole: stricter border control, but also a more realistic approach to the legalization of those immigrants who are already in Europe.”
You argue that Europe is going through a very difficult time, facing three “predatory empires”: China, the US and Russia. And that Europe is the last bastion of liberalism and must endure.
“This view is confirmed every day: in the East we have Putin’s war against Ukraine, in the West we have US President Trump who completely despises Europeans and threatens them, as happened with Greenland. In addition, Trump launched yet another war, against Iran, while the Middle East was already destabilized by the war in Gaza. Under these circumstances, if Europeans do not realize that they must take their destinies into their own hands, no one will do it for them. Europe’s strategic autonomy depends on the Europeans themselves: this is the subject of the public debate, which is progressing but slowly, as is usually the case in the EU.’
AIf Vaclav Havel were alive, what would be his view of the current state of liberal democracy in Europe?
“It is difficult to speak for the dead but I remember one incident: in 1999, on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the communist regimes, there was a big conference in Vienna where three former dissidents from Central Europe participated: Havel, Orban and Poland’s Adam Michnik. Havel talked about how we went from a totalitarian regime to democracy and were now moving towards joining the EU. Orbán claimed that 1989 was not a real revolution, but a compromise between the moderate elites of the communist regime and the moderate opposition elites who agreed on a peaceful transition, which allowed them to control the economy. This, however, gave birth to a new oligarchy.
The real rupture, he said, was happening then and he embodied it himself. At the age of 35, Orbán was then the youngest prime minister in Europe. The contrast between the “heirs” of 1989, such as Havel and Michnik, who defended the liberal revolution, and Orbán was therefore evident. When I asked Havel about Orbán, he replied: “The slower they arrive, the more radical they become.” Bearing in mind that Orbán and his associates founded the Fidesz party just a year before the fall of communism in 1988, and that just before the collapse of a regime, it is easy to come across as a radical. On the contrary, Havel and Michnik had lived through the harsh repression of the communist regimes, which had imprisoned them, each, for five years.”
