Autor: Roland Freudenstein

  • Values-Based Realism and Its Enemies: How to Tackle the new Geopolitical ‘Realism’ from Left and Right

    Values-Based Realism and Its Enemies: How to Tackle the new Geopolitical ‘Realism’ from Left and Right

    (Martens Centre Blog, together with Dr. Peter Hefele, uploaded on 24 February 2026)

    This year’s Davos World Economic Forum stood out for many things, not least the Greenland crisis, but it will also be known for two memorable speeches: Those of US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. While Trump’s 90 minute rambling, self-congratulatory, passive-aggressive rant may have been the most overcrowded event, Carney’s well-crafted 15-minute speech will enter the history books, not only for its succinctness (as opposed to Trump’s rambling) but for its sketch of a ‘values-based realism’ as a viable alternative to the new transactional pseudo-realism Trump stands for.

    Carney acknowledged the end of the old rules-based international order and proposed a coalition of middle powers that pragmatically cooperates in diversifying its trade while still sticking to essential values as the basis of their international behaviour. But just looking back at the last 5 years, values-based realism has two powerful counter-narratives.

    Great power geopolitics of the Alt-Right

    Geopolitics is back in fashion. For more than a year, we’ve heard from the White House that a new era of global power politics has begun. Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller summarised it neatly in early January 2026: ‘We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.’ This transactional, might-makes-right ‘America First’ approach to world affairs is underpinned by official documents such as the National Security Strategy of November 2025.

    In a perfectly clear departure from ‘spreading liberal ideology’ and ‘hectoring … nations into abandoning their traditions and historic forms of government’, the administration dismisses at least eight decades of global democracy support and values-based foreign policy. The partial or total destruction of America’s formidable instruments of democratic solidarity – USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – is entirely in line with this thinking.

    To put it bluntly: In this perspective, what used to be the greatest strength of the West – individual freedom, checks and balances. rules-based multilateralism, and the belief in universal human rights – is now considered its biggest weakness in the global power struggle.

    But there is a new phenomenon arising next to the Trumpian view on great powers eternally jostling for spheres of influence. We observe a rising movement and global alliances on what we would like to call a new realpolitik of Progressives and the Global South.

    After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many in the West, freshly self-confident with a newfound sense of purpose, were disappointed to see so little support for Ukraine in the ‘Global South’, from Latin America via Africa to much of Asia. That should not have come as a surprise.

    British foreign policy expert Fiona Hill in 2023 spoke of a ‘rebellion’ in the Global South against the collective West. One of the tenets of this mindset is to see the rules-based international order increasingly as a poor disguise for the great power politics of a dominant West – and not as a level      playing field. Another central element is that the Global South very pragmatically forges alliances to defend itself against any Western ‘preaching’, weakening or obliterating ideas like global democracy support. Those are allegedly poorly disguised instruments of Western imperialism.

    What is striking in the context of 2026 geopolitics is how many overlaps there are between the neorealism from the radical right and the progressive Southern philosophies – including their left-progressive acolytes in the West –  of the new global disorder and what to make of it. The messages and consequences are clear: in the end, countries, or rather their often autocratic regimes, have to fight for themselves, or even help each other crush Western-inspired democratic movements. Civil society is not a valid concept and a voice to be heard; democracy support is tainted.

    The challenges of Carneyism

    Mark Carney’s fascinating speech in Davos proposed a new coalition of democratic middle powers, believing in values such as human rights and democracy, but capable of creating partnerships with autocracies.

    The latter come with some unpleasant consequences and bitter pills to swallow. And politicians have to explain this to their voters. Canada’s plans for a free trade agreement with China, for the time being withdrawn, is an example of such dilemmas. The most recent EU-India Free Trade Agreement is another one: it means buying more products made with Russian oil, thus indirectly financing Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

    For Europe’s democracies, there is no alternative to navigate the geopolitical storm without illusions, but still based on principles worth defending, and in cooperation with civil societies and democratic forces across the world. We need to hedge against over-dependency on an unreliable and often hostile US by diversifying, obviously not by replacing one dependency with another. Neither the cynicism of the Alt-Right, nor the relativism and defeatism of many progressives and Global South propagandists, should keep us from promoting our values of a free and open society, contributing to making the world at least a bit safer and freer.

  • Would Péter Magyar Be a Better Hungarian Leader Than Viktor Orbán?

    Would Péter Magyar Be a Better Hungarian Leader Than Viktor Orbán?

    Asking for a friend…

    In all fairness, the short answer is: most likely, yes. Unless you’re Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, both of whom emphatically agree that Orbán must stay in power. But from the point of view of most other people in Europe, Hungarian and non-Hungarian, the answer should be yes.

    Hungary’s parliamentary election on 12 April will arguably be this year’s most momentous European poll, with consequences far beyond Hungary, and even beyond Europe. After 16 years in power and an elsewhere unparalleled push to turn his country into a de facto autocracy, for the first time since 2010, Viktor Orbán faces the possibility of electoral defeat.

    A lot has been made in recent weeks of all the caveats to a positive answer to the title question. They range from a very unfair advantage for Orbán’s ruling FIDESZ in the electoral system to an uneven playing field when it comes to government control of media, the vote counting etc. Magyar’s TISZA party would have to gain a supermajority of votes in order to get a majority in Parliament. And even if power changes hands, the deep state that Orbán has had four full terms to create, with centrally controlled courts, administration, law enforcement and intelligence services, will at least partly work against any new government.

    Most of all, Péter Magyar would probably not signify a clear, 180 degree turn in everything Orbán stands for, from populism to nationalism, vis-à-vis Brussels, Kyiv or other places in Europe. After all, Magyar was a loyal follower of Orbán until 2024. And for example on Hungarian minority rights in neighbouring countries like Slovakia, he has been challenging the current gouverment ‘from the right’. Magyar wouldn’t be an easy partner for Ukraine and Hungary’s fellow member states, either. His character begs some questions. He and most of his teammates lack governance experience. But the following assumptions about him are justified, in my view:

    1) He would be significantly more cooperative than Orbán on EU security and assisting Ukraine. He would stop making fighting ‘Brussels’ an element of Hungary’s political DNA.

    2) He would end the strategic use of corruption as an element of building and maintaining power, if only to fulfil his campaign promises and prevent an early return to power by FIDESZ.

    3) He would try to re-establish, step by step, the rule of law with strong and independent institutions, if only to make sure the EU funds are flowing again and he can show some immediate economic effect to Hungarians.

    4) While continuing the policy of not sending weapons to Ukraine, he would refuse to be Putin’s mouthpiece in the European Union that Orbán has become.

    5) He would stop the culture wars, freeing up a lot of political energy.

    6) While there may be chaotic conditions for a while, don’t underestimate the burst of enthusiasm and creativity, the return of expats and the general sense of a better future that will take hold of most of the country.

    Now, whether in April Magyar can actually turn a majority of votes into a government, is a different question. The electoral playing field is anything but level. FIDESZ is going full steam ahead with a Musk/Trump/Putin-enabled campaign about alleged foreign interference in favour of Magyar, preparing the ground for biased courts to nullify the election results. The ensuing protests could then even serve as an opportunity to declare a state of emergency.

    But such a scenario would hopefully be a reason for EU partners to get serious about altering Hungary’s status as a member state. Precisely because Trump might want to openly interfere with fundamental EU affairs at this point, this might quickly become another Rubicon moment for Europe, with a strong imperative to prove we can still remain who we are, even in catastrophic circumstances.

    But first and foremost, fingers crossed for a resounding victory of Péter Magyar’s TISZA at the ballot box!

  • Ukraine freezing, Trump raging, Europe reacting

    My latest for TVP World, on Ukraine and Trump/Greenland:

    1) There is, as there has always been, a real danger of Trump ending US support for Ukraine, even if the Europeans are paying for it. Just to blackmail Zelensky into accepting a bad peace deal, or now to coerce Europe on his latest fantasy, annexing Greenland.

    2) This is happening as Russia intensifies its airstrikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. So far, Ukrainians have shown an admirable resilience and ingenuity in repairing and improvising, but now more European deliveries of air defence systems and ammo are urgent.

    3) Macron’s claim that 3/4 of Ukrainian battlefield intelligence is provided by France, not US, is ambitious but intelligence doesn’t replace weapons.

    4) There are ways to tackle the manpower problem of the UA armed forces, by limiting length of service and multiplying pay to get more people to sign up, but also by having younger and more convincing officers and NCOs for training, as most defections happen after basic training – and finally by replacing humans by ground based combat robots, as recently happened very successfully in Donbas.

    5) Trump’s latest tariff threat is clearly crossing a Rubicon for Europeans. The mood in Brussels and other capitals is: „Enough is enough“. There will be a unified answer by the EU, and it won’t be nice. A threat of retaliatory tariffs on US products and services (incl. digital) is definitely on the cards.

    6) Norway and UK are totally on board with this (so much for Brexit). Even many of Europe’s national populists are now attacking Trump, such as Farage and the Denmark Democrats.

    7) Cooperation and coordination of the Europeans with Congress is crucial, and has already begun. There are hopeful signs that Senators and Congresspeople, at long last, man up to prevent Trump from destroying NATO and throwing Ukraine under the bus.

  • Ukraine’s Road to EU Membership

    TVP World, the Polish Public TV English language channel, has a new format: „Wider View From Brussels“. Here’s my take, of 2 days ago, on Ukraine’s road to EU membership, the geopolitical, political and economic implications, comparisons with the 2004 big bang enlargement, and the eminent question of how to overcome the fatal Hungarian vetoes – together with Rosa Balfour from Carnegie Europe, moderated by TVP World’s Marcin Zaborowski.

  • The Cost of Failure

    The Cost of Failure

    A Russian victory in Ukraine would reshape Europe

    In these days of hectic diplomacy around a ‘peace deal’ in Ukraine, it’s easy to lose sight of the long term and the big picture. There is a real possibility of a botched deal that leaves Ukraine weakened, Vladimir Putin triumphant, Europe in disarray and America withdrawn. We ought to give more attention to what it might mean.

    A notable exception to this collective denial is Carlo Masala, the German political science professor whose short book If Russia Wins: A Scenario describes how a catastrophic deal for Ukraine leads Russia to ‘test the West’ with a limited hybrid incursion into Estonia in 2028, taking the Russian-speaking town of Narva much like it took Crimea in 2014.

    The North Atlantic Council decides not to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, leaving the incursion unpunished. As Russian strategists celebrate and NATO’s Secretary General mutters about a “dark day for the alliance”, the question of what exactly could happen next is left unanswered. This op-ed will build on Masala’s scenario, developing a plausible trajectory for 2030.

    NATO after Narva

    The Narva scenario would immediately render NATO meaningless, and it could even cease to exist entirely. The Nordics, Baltic countries and Poland might try to form a more limited alliance but most NATO members would re-nationalise their defence, probably trying individually to exchange security guarantees with Russia and accepting limits on their national sovereignty.

    German chancellors and French presidents would have to call Moscow before doing anything relevant on the world stage. To soften the blow, a purported peace dividend would let them reduce their military spending and strike more or less favourable energy deals with Russia. Nord Stream would be reopened with great fanfare.

    Formally, of course, we would all remain democracies. There would be elections, independent media and open public debates – ‘Russophobes’ could scream until they’re blue in the face. But checks and balances would be undermined, and Russian intelligence services and online trolls would provide discreet assistance to national-populist parties, many of which would already be in power by 2030.

    The EU would hang on by the skin of its teeth, but with a much reduced Single Market and neutered supranational institutions. The inevitable economic stagnation would only serve to reinforce the cynicism on which populists and autocrats thrive.

    With Russian influence on the rise, our daily lives would be marked by corruption and organised crime to an extent we can hardly imagine – echoing what the Kremlin has already achieved at home in amalgamating the public administration, secret police and mafia.

    Last but not least, China would enter the fray in increasing our supply chain dependence and strengthening illiberal forces, in limited competition with Russia, but with the same enemy: liberal democracy.

    How not to get there

    This catastrophe can of course be avoided, but we need to change course. Ensuring our long-term independence means pursuing three interdependent strategies: Helping Ukraine remain free and sovereign, mounting a credible European defence as soon as possible, and getting back to dynamic economic growth.

    Europe must fix its defeatist attitude with relation to Ukraine. The coalition of the willing can, in partnership with like-minded democracies around the world, enable Ukraine to hold out against Russian aggression – still with weapons bought from the US, but with little direct US involvement. European leaders can also help Ukraine develop its own weapons industry, and encourage military reform to ease recruitment difficulties.

    This should naturally be financed by frozen Russian assets, as the European Commission has proposed, and tough sanctions must remain in place.

    In building Europe’s own defence and deterrence, Southern and Western member states will have to follow more closely the example of the Eastern flank. Unpopular cuts in welfare spending may be required, which is why the negative 2030 scenario should get much more attention in political communication. We will need more European leaders delivering ‘blood-sweat-and-tears’ speeches akin to Churchill’s masterful oratory of 1940.

    Nevertheless, much of the pain can be offset by economic growth, which Europe must now redouble its efforts to create. Deregulation and trimming of bureaucracy will create the surplus that makes high military spending more palatable; and injecting this funding into the European economy will set in motion a virtuous circle that will make Europe richer as well as safer.

    The past eighty years have made Europeans accustomed to peace and prosperity, to the extent that we struggle even to imagine a return to conflict. The bad news is that change is upon us, and we may indeed fail to meet the moment. The good news is that we still have the tools to avert catastrophe – if we choose to use them.

    Appeared in: The Sentinel 9 December 2025

    https://substack.com/home/post/p-180624914

  • Germany’s new Ukraine doctrine: more money, harder questions

    My latest interview for TVP World, 14 Nov 2025


    – Germany under Chancellor Friedrich Merz is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to helping Ukraine defending itself: On top of the planned 8,5 bn Euros, in 2026 Germany has pledged 3 bn additionally.
    – The EU will use the frozen Russian assets as backup for a 140 bn Euro loan to Kyiv, but:
    – Belgium is right to insist on iron-clad guarantees from its EU partners for possible lawsuits.
    – Merz combines ramping up aid fur Ukraine with some frank language on solving the Ukraine Armed Forces‘ manpower problem and fighting corruption more effectively.
    – Putin wants to hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure more massively than ever before in order to cause waves of refugees. That’s why Ukraine urgently needs more help on air defence.

  • To protect Europe, promote democracy

    Europe’s swing from soft to hard power projection is necessary but risks going too far. Promoting democratic values is part of our strategic interest, not a nice-to-have.

    Russian aggression, American self-interest and a return to great-power conflict are the defining features of 2025. With liberal democracy under assault from several directions, the EU is finally grappling with how to make its democracies more robust and resilient, at home and globally.   

    The consensus around European foreign policy has moved towards a more ‘realistic’ approach to power: more hard than soft, pursuing interests over values, with fewer conditions governing international agreements. Deals with autocrats are on the table if they give us something we need. 

    And yet internally, we still recognise the need to protect democratic values. The European Commission last year unveiled the EU Democracy Shield, a worthwhile initiative to bring the various efforts to protect our liberties under a common framework. 

    The problem is that these emerging external and internal approaches are diametrically opposed. If this contradiction runs its course, it will weaken both the domestic resilience and the external power of the European Union — and, therefore, of freedom on a global scale. To avoid that, we must develop a new balance between soft and hard power. 

    Values are long-term interests  

    In the brave new world of 2025, the old distinction between essential interests and nice-to-have values doesn’t hold water. The world is more peaceful, stable and prosperous the more democracies and fewer autocracies there are. While a deal with the devil might help us in the immediate term, it will bring harm further down the road. 

    America’s arming of the Taliban in the 1980s helped weaken the Soviet Union in the short term, but created huge problems two decades later. Closer to home, the EU’s China policy gave the immediate benefit of lucrative export markets and cheap imports, but we are now paying dearly through painful supply chain dependencies on those very markets, which are often distorted by Chinese political interests. 

    To promote the universal values of freedom and democracy, in other words, is to promote European interests in the long term. The dilemma is not so much whether to promote interests or values, but whether we pursue values in the short or long term. 

    With this understanding, we can see that a deal with an autocrat might help us to, say, curb illegal migration through a certain country — but empowering civil society in that country would create a more stable and prosperous neighbour, something of much greater long-term value. 

    Democracies in decline worldwide

    The increasing self-confidence of autocrats and the sense of democratic decline is not new. The number of free countries in the world has been falling for almost two decades, according to Freedom House. It has been clear for some time now that the optimism of the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, was premature and bordered on hubris. 

    Nonetheless, the first months of Donald Trump’s second presidential term have already indicated an acceleration of democratic backsliding, in the form of more aggressive autocracies and a further undermining of the rule of law both in Europe and in the United States.

    Most dramatically, the US has practically ceased its support for democracy and democrats across the globe, reversing a seven-decade-old policy that underpinned America’s role as a global advocate of freedom and human rights. This reversal arguably marks the low point of freedom globally since the end of the Cold War.  

    China, Russia and other autocracies now feel enabled to fill this gap. They are free to spread their narratives and their influence, creating dependencies through financial, medical and technical assistance without giving any support to civil society and the rule of law. 

    The EU may not be able entirely to fill the gap left by the US, but we owe it to ourselves to step up and at least aspire to take on the mantle of leader of the free world.   

    Time to adopt smart power

    The EU has neglected hard power for decades and is now reaping the consequences. To make things worse, it also developed a rather self-congratulatory attitude about its own soft power.  

    But as we reverse course, we risk pouring the baby out with the bathwater. There is still a role for soft power alongside Europe’s military renaissance, supporting democracies around the world as an outer line of defence for our own freedom. Our new approach to power projection should not be entirely hard or soft, but balanced. Call it ‘smart power.’ 

    In supporting democracy, the EU needs to think beyond its neighbourhood. We have spent a lot of energy and money on supporting democracy and the rule of law in the countries adjacent to the EU, or across the Mediterranean. Now, institutions such as the European Endowment for Democracy should broaden their geographical scope.  

    Civil society is key, not only on the receiving end but also in the EU itself. The EU should offer financial support to organisations in member states that help foster civil society worldwide.   

    Local specificities and sensitivities need to be taken into account. Autocrats will always accuse of us of destroying family values and traditions, but we shouldn’t make it easy for them. Insisting on gender and LGBTQ policies that the vast majority of people in a target country disagree with is counterproductive. 

    The EU should treat global solidarity with democrats as a central interest in defending our own democracy. By mobilising civil society in the EU itself, we can reach out globally and fill at least part of the gap left by a US which has — hopefully temporarily — ditched its efforts to support freedom on a global scale. 

    By combining elements of hard and soft power, we can stop the democratic backsliding and support freedom-loving people across the globe.  

    https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/oped-to-protect-europe-promote-democracy

  • A Europe Secure Between Gaullism and ‚Daddy‘

    A Europe Secure Between Gaullism and ‚Daddy‘

    Only roughly four months separate Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp’s “We’re all Gaullists now” statement (in early March after the Oval Office shoutout) and that of his compatriot NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s flattering messages to President Trump, praising the latter’s leadership, imitating his language and referring in slightly unsettling language to an American “Daddy”.

    These two positions mark the extremes in the ongoing debate about Europe’s new security architecture and the future of transatlantic relations: Between a Europe that is trying to become independent from the US, and a Europe that is bending over backward in order to keep the US interested and invested in Europe as an ally. 

    In fact, these two tendencies are not mutually exclusive as long as Europeans regard traditional Gaullism as a thing of the past, distinguish between the short- and the long-term, and think beyond NATO and the EU as the exclusive instruments to make freedom sustainable on our continent. I would call that strategic responsibility.

    One thing is clear: Gaullism is a poor blueprint for Europe’s future. That grand old man of wartime and postwar France may, from today’s vantage point, seem clairvoyant with his distrust of the US and his fear of America and Russia one day ganging up on Europe. 

    But he was not only anti-American but also anti-British, and today it is clear that Britain is indispensable to the future of European security. Indeed, we should be grateful to Donald Trump for making this so clear and thereby helping to overcome the effects of Brexit and weld Britain and the continent together, at least in defense and security. 

    Moreover, de Gaulle not only weakened NATO during the Cold War (through withdrawal from the military structure and the expulsion of US forces in the 1960s), but he was also opposed to any supranational integration in the European Economic Community (the precursor of the EU). In today’s terms, his “Europe of the fatherlands” would be closer to Viktor Orbán than to the EU mainstream. Confronted with an unprecedentedly aggressive Russian (and Chinese) threat, neo-Gaullism is simply not the answer.

    Neither is its opposite  — pandering to a completely transactional US whose definition of national interest, at least at the moment, does not include the necessity of maintaining present US troop levels in Europe, let alone maintaining consistent assistance to Ukraine in its existential defense (Trump suggested on July 7 that suspended military aid might once again be restored.)

    Plus, a United States whose current government can’t seem to make up its mind whether Europeans should continue to buy American in significant parts of their arms procurement, or develop true independence in defense production. 

    Moreover, how should Europeans tackle the fact that the credibility of NATO’s Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) has already been undermined by Trump’s vacillation, and yet, for the upcoming years, no European replacement for US protection — especially in nuclear terms — is on the horizon? 

    The answer is to make a clear distinction between the next couple of years, and the decades thereafter. In the near future, even a reduced US engagement in European security is better than none. Equally, it is better to have British and French nuclear deterrents (both are currently being renewed at enormous national expense — around $100bn in total) than not to have them, even if they are purely national.

    And as long as Europe cannot come up with sophisticated fifth-generation fighter aircraft, for instance, it will need to buy some weapons systems in the US. To create a truly independent deterrence against Russian or other threats, the work has to start now, but Europeans will need stopgaps in the meantime. There is opportunity here; if the transatlantic relationship is to be transactional, then the enormous contracts Europe can offer US companies can be a significant element of the new grand bargain.

    While NATO will remain the primary instrument to maintain transatlantic security, it has already been complemented by the EU (with its remarkable recent efforts in common rearmament policies) and increasingly, by ad hoc coalitions of the willing. 

    NATO has the advantage that it includes non-EU members like Canada, the UK, Norway, and Turkey. But at the moment, it has the severe disadvantage that it is not the primary instrument anymore for either helping Ukraine or for even openly discussing the Russian threat. 

    After all, both NATO and the EU are too easy to paralyze by national vetoes from Kremlin-friendly states such as Hungary and Slovakia. One solution to many of the challenges would be to create a European Defense Community — including countries like Britain and Norway but excluding Hungary. 

    But that is for the long term. In the meantime, not only should the EU make every effort to circumvent national vetoes — and that includes more serious attempts to withdraw voting rights from repeated violators of basic EU values, as well as much more bilateral economic and political pressure by member states on leaders such as Viktor Orbán. It also includes enhanced cooperation in coalitions of the willing, possibly going beyond the EU and reaching out to like-minded democracies around the globe in a new “Ramstein” format. 

    Europeans have to grow up. It was the double shock of an increasingly aggressive Russia and an unprecedentedly transactional US, which brought us closer than ever to adulthood in security and defense. 

    If our continent is to have a future in freedom, we will need to avoid two delusions: that of Gaullist-style autarky and that of excessive pandering to the whims of whoever is the current US President. 

    European strategic autonomy is not on the cards in the near future — and yet, a Europe able to take care of its own security is the only viable long-term goal. And one thing is for sure: Trump is not history’s last word on America. That is why we should not slam the door on a future, more balanced and, therefore, more mature transatlantic partnership based on the shared values of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. 

    Roland Freudenstein is Co-Founder of Brussels Freedom Hub and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with CEPA.

    Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.

  • Poland’s War Over Knives and Forks

    Poland’s War Over Knives and Forks

    In Poland’s presidential election last Sunday, the unprofessional national populist Karol Nawrocki won over the highly skilled former Member of the European Parliament and now Mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski. This result had nothing to do with the qualification of the candidates, and everything with crude, ‚us vs. them‘ identity politics of the rural, socially conservative ‚real Poland‘ vs. the urban middle class open to Europe and the world. In a milder form, this antagonism exists in West European countries as well, but the vitriol of the Polish case is not only stunning but also rooted in a very specific political culture. In a 1999 op-ed for Krzysztof Bobinski’s biweekly ‚Unia & Polska‘, I described this ‚war over knives and forks‘ and predicted it will influence Poland’s EU accession and membership for some time to come. The title is derived from a sarcastic remark that Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski made to me at a Warsaw conference in the late 1990s. Sikorski (with whom I get along brilliantly today) at that time was a British-style Eurosceptic clearly feeling sidelined by the Warsaw establishment and therefore flirting with national populism. He accused me of overfocusing on ‚Unia Wolnosci‘ (the precursor of Donald Tusk’s Platforma Obywatelska‘) because ‘they are more comfortable partners for you, they know how to eat with forks and knives‘. That stuck with me, and a few weeks later I wrote the op-ed. I would call it prophetic, but judge for yourselves.

    Roland Freudenstein

    Director, Warsaw Office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

    February 2, 1999

    The War Over Knives and Forks, or:

    the Conflict Poland Will Take into the EU

    As part of the larger debate on Poland and the EU, it has become quite fashionable to ask what will be Poland’s ultimate contribution to the integration process. Many answers are offered: Catholic values as well as a youthful spirit, a „special relationship“ with the United States next to a sense for hard work (as the bumper sticker says: „PL – we try harder“), a reinvigouration of the nation state as well as a particular love of freedom (as Bronislaw Geremek keeps pointing out). My feeling is that there will be a bit of all of these elements in Poland’s contribution. But there will be something else about which there has been very little debate:

    In my view, ranking high as an element of Poland’s contribution is a conflict. A conflict so divisive it will influence (and hamper) much of Poland’s behaviour before as well as after accession. I’m talking about the difference between those Poles who constantly have to prove they are not traitors of the Nation (with a capital N), and those who equally constantly have to prove they know what a knife and fork are. Between those who feel the need to demonstrate they still speak Polish, and those who always have to show they already speak a few words of English. Now don’t get me wrong: Almost all current member states of the EU have more or less of an internal split over European policy, even the Germans who for so long seemed to be the good boys in class. But these are arguments about two different ways of defining integration. In Poland’s case, we have to do with a conflict about two different ways of being Polish.

    What is the nature of that conflict? – First of all, it is very old. In fact, it came into being long before Poland regained independence in 1919, so except for extreme situations like WW II or martial law, it has been with this country for most of modernity, from the tiffs between urban intelligentsia and organized peasantry to the difference between Unia Wolnosci and most of the rest in Poland’s political spectrum today.

    Second, it is, of course, extemely important. It will ultimately shape Poland’s relationship with her partners within the EU. It is about the future of the nation state in a globalized world, about the true meaning of sovereignty and national identity, about what it means to be Polish at the beginning of the 21. century. But it is also about persons and personalities, parties and social milieus.

    Third, it is rather intense and waged with all available means. The conflict between Ryszard Czarnecki and Piotr Nowina-Konopka in June 1998 may serve as an example. The dailies „Zycie“ and „Gazeta Wyborcza“ are regularly used as weapons for one or the other side in the conflict.

    Fourth, it has some disastrous effects. Precisely in preparing Poland for EU accession, the friction created in the War Over Knives and Forks leads to much waste of energy, time and nerves. For instance, the eternal crisis surrounding the distribution of competences among Poland’s European institutions (UKIE et al.) can only be understood as part of this conflict: „Europe“ is much too important to be left to the domination of one of the sides in the conflict, so they fight. And will continue to do so for some time. The tinge of hysteria in some Polish demands for a target date for EU entry is another product of this conflict. West Europeans will have to take this into account when trying to understand Polish European policy. And Poles will have to do more to minimize the damaging side effects. To be sure, they have already come a long way. Membership itself, for instance, is not much of an issue anymore among relevant political parties, or within the clergy. But don’t deceive yourselves – as soon as we begin to talk about not just membership, but membership under such and such conditions, there will be a relapse into the old times.

    Fifth, the conflict’s final outcome is pretty clear – although it will last for a long time to come: The guys who already flock the salons of Brussels will somehow ultimately win – not by annihilating, but by slowly absorbing the other side. Or, if you prefer, the other side will simply improve their English. In any case, somewhere around 2050 nobody will talk about those 20. century antics. But before that, we can look forward to some interesting times.

  • John le Carré- a Very Personal Obituary

    Roland Freudenstein, December 2020

    “Ten minutes to midnight: a pious Friday in May and a fine river mist lying over the market square. Bonn was a Balkan city, stained and secret, drawn over with tramwire. Bonn was a dark house where someone had died, a house draped in Catholic black, guarded by policemen.” – These are not only the greatest opening lines of any novel I’ve read: The meter and alliterations make them sound more like a poem, an incantation, than ‘normal’ prose. They’re also, incidentally, the best poetic description I know of the “Small Town in Germany” I grew up in, and a hymn as well as a damning verdict on the Homburg hatted Federal Republic of my childhood whose non-capital it used to be, self-pitying at times and boastful at others, ridden by complexes and concealed resentment, never quite ready to go into open battle against the ghosts of its own, eerie, not-too-distant past.

    And so this book made me see what I took to be intimately familiar, even part of myself, with the eyes of a stranger – a literally eye-opening experience, and one of the best things literature can do for you. I can proudly claim to have read, and in most cases re-read, all le Carré novels up to the late 2000s. My all-time favourites, such as the aforementioned “A Small Town in Germany”, “Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy”, “The Honourable Schoolboy”, “Smiley’s People” (written between 1968 and 1982, his best period) I must have read five or more times each, which produces its own effect when different aspects come to light depending on the different phases of your own life you read them in. I remember being glued to “The Honourable Schoolboy” while riding through a snowy Northern GDR on an overnight train from Hamburg to West Berlin and on to Poland to link up with the anti-communist opposition there in March 1983, knowing I would soon trade in the fictional Cold War in Hong Kong for the real one in wintry Warsaw.

    So it’s no exaggeration to say that le Carré’s glamourously unglamorous spies, all the George Smileys, Peter Guillams, Connie Sachses, Jerry Westerbys and Alan Turners, became familiar characters in my universe, sometimes shape-shifting in my mind’s eye, depending on which movie or serial based on le Carré I had last seen. At times I also had my very own idea of what they must look like – Jerry Westerby of Hong Kong fame, to me, is still clearly David Bowie of around 1980, when he stopped using makeup. Whereas Smiley is, of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi, i.e. Alec Guinness, after the BBC mini-series “Smiley’s People”, forever clumsily cleaning his glasses with the fat end of his tie.

    As to le Carré’s politics, I admit my feelings have evolved over time, and not for the better. His Cold War maxim was rock solid and spot-on: that we’re fighting for a good end (against the likes of Karla, the Soviet spymaster), but that we always, always, always have to question our means, and that despite our best intentions, we sometimes screw up, morally as well as factually. On Germany, he got so many things right – in his first decades. On the Middle East, a bit less. He ends “The Little Drummer Girl” (1982) with Israel’s alleged choice to either become “a Jewish homeland, or an ugly little Sparta”: as if these things could be neatly separated, and as if some of the latter weren’t indispensable to remain the former – how quaint! How very European! And as for Russia and the Cold War, by 1988/89 (“The Russia House”), he lost me politically. Increasingly, for him, the capitalist West was no better than the communist East had been, the West allegedly humiliated Russia in the 1990s and le Carré’s universe of villains-in-chief became populated by morally and financially corrupt Western spies, arms traders, pharma bosses and Eton-bred criminals speaking Whitehall cockney. Add to this his visceral hatred of the US neo-cons of the George W. Bush era, compared to which Graham Greene’s “Quiet American” is an almost loving portrayal.

    Am I unfair in assuming his narrative powers waned over time? Maybe. By the time of “A Most Wanted Man” (2008), set in Hamburg and very much about the global war on terror, some novels rather had the authorly punch of a short story – not to mention, in this case, the limitless understanding for victimised Muslims and persistent demonisation of the evil Americans. (The 2014 movie version with a stellar performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman is better than the book). Equally by that time, the truly heroic Germans in his books had almost invariably become human rights lawyers politically somewhere between antifa and Greenpeace, whose idea of a drink at the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg was flat water without lemon or ice, served at room temperature.

    For le Carré, throughout his oeuvre, spying was more than intelligence gathering – it was a condition humaine. In, time and again, betraying what we love, and those we love, and sometimes even for a good cause, we are all lifelong spies. There is also a degree of Englishness about le Carré’s topic: No wonder spies, and writing about them, thrive in a country that has self-control and hiding one’s real feelings so deeply woven into its cultural fabric. And no wonder that, for example, Sid Meier’s turn-based strategy computer game Civilization V gives you an extra spy if you play as Britain. But in my eyes, the even more remarkable fact about his writing is his incredible gift for rendering spoken language, with its jargons, sociolects, culture-driven thought patterns and even personal quirks shining through just a few sentences of direct speech. In one of his early masterpieces in this respect, “A Small Town in Germany”, in the tense ministerial briefings and awkward Godesberg diplomatic dinner parties, you can literally hear the German accents without the author having to change one letter in the spelling. Another such marvel is the vulgar nouveau-riche cynicism echoing in every sentence by Sir Anthony Joyston Bradshaw who makes a brief but memorable appearance at the end of “The Secret Pilgrim” (1990, actually a short story collection and one of le Carré’s hidden gems), only to become a major figure in “The Night Manager” (1993).

    His last two works deserve special mention: In “A Legacy of Spies” (2017), in which his disdain for Brexit and confessed Europeanness perk up at the very end, for the first time in an eternity our own spies aren’t always the villains, and their detractors in the shape of parliamentary committees or children of former MI 6 victims aren’t always saints. But whatever political sympathy I started feeling at the time, his last novel, “Agent Running in the Field” (2019), pretty much nixed it. Le Carré, the Snowdenversteher: A post-Brexit MI 6 leadership conspiring with the cousins across the Pond and the idiot in Number 10 to destroy the remaining EU and driving an idealistic young cypher specialist into Putin’s arms – not my idea of a spy novel at a time when so many real-world villains (i.e. Putin, Xi Jinping, Khamenei, Lukashenka, maybe Orbán…) and their cynical corruption of our open societies offer such rich material to write contemporary thrillers.

    But late politics aside, I can’t complain. It’s as simple as this: I wouldn’t be the same without John le Carré. His characters have been with me ever since I devoured “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” as a teenager. And when I think of him now, I picture him in his days as an MI 6 agent in Bonn in the early 1960s (and this you will not read in the many eulogies that are appearing today, but I know it for a fact), taking the morning ferry across the Rhine from his house in Königswinter, below Chamberlain’s Hill, to the office in Her Majesty’s battleship of an embassy, ever so coincidentally the same ferry that Konrad Adenauer used on most days from his Rhöndorf house, and ever so casually manoeuvering his bicycle close to the Chancellor’s black Mercedes in order to peer through the rear side window and see which newspaper articles the Old Man read with special interest, and marked with his pen. And have a few fun facts for his daily sitrep to the Circus.

    Thank you for the stories, David John Moore Cornwell/John Le Carré, and R.I.P.!