The appointment of a populist coalition drawn from radical left and right-wing parties in Slovakia yesterday has set alarm bells ringing about political change in central and eastern Europe. Mr Robert Fico's left-wing Smer party will govern with a party led by Mr Vladimir Meciar, who presided over a difficult period of isolation in Slovakia in the mid-1990s, and with Mr Jan Slota, who is notoriously opposed to the country's substantial Roma and Hungarian minorities.
Elections today in Macedonia and recent polls in Poland and the Czech Republic have seen gains for parties critical of market and liberal reforms introduced by their predecessors. These reforms are said to have widened inequalities between political and business elites and the urban and rural poor, and disadvantaged those on low incomes and pensions. Political competition pits parties in favour of low or flat taxation against those who aim to restore welfare and social transfers. Often this coincides with favourable and unfavourable attitudes towards the European Union. But in Slovakia and several other states, radical left and right-wing parties tend to converge around positions critical of the EU, whereas more centrist ones tend to be in favour of it.
These states are still in a long political transition. Their party systems have not yet stabilised. There are marked discontinuities of policy between governments, including on the EU and its membership obligations. While transfers from Brussels through the Common Agricultural Policy, structural and cohesion funds are flowing and have made a real difference throughout the region, these political uncertainties are affecting commitments to join the euro and associated fiscal, budgetary and counter-inflationary obligations. This makes it increasingly unlikely that timetables for joining the euro will be met. There were clear hints of a tougher attitude from Brussels when Lithuania was recently denied entry to the common currency, as it was just outside agreed criteria.
A more serious worry than such delays in the longer term is that governments such as Mr Fico's in Slovakia will erode the commitments to protect minorities and human rights made as they sought EU membership and reformed their societies to prepare for it. This process fused domestic and foreign policy issues and has been a major factor in ensuring a stable political transition in the region as a whole. The outgoing Slovak government included the Hungarian minority party and oversaw greatly improved relations with neighbouring Hungary. It would be tragic were this achievement to be undone - and should be unacceptable to Slovakia's EU partners.