Do not repeat the mistakes of history

After the turning point of 1989, when the Iron Curtain was torn down and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were able to break free from the totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, the chance for genuine European unification was given—just as visionary thinkers like Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi had already envisaged after the First World War. The division of Europe into two parts, the separation into East and West, was to be overcome. The term Central Europe was repeatedly used for those countries that shared a historical connection with Austria.

This optimistic view seems to have vanished for some time now. If one reads articles today about Hungary, Poland, or even Bulgaria, they speak either of the Visegrad countries (for the first two) or of Eastern European countries, which stand in opposition to Western European countries. This is noticeable not only in reports on the migration crisis, but also when it comes to the economy and the European single market.

One of the causes for this lies in a new kind of isolationist policy by many so-called Western European countries, which have long since begun trying to protect their small economic area through diverse bureaucratic measures. A mistake that was already made in the interwar period and which ultimately led Europe into new destruction.

Under the guise of an anti-dumping regulation, for example, drivers of transport vehicles must carry their salary statements to prove they are receiving a Western wage. Naturally, this only serves protectionist measures and undermines the freedom to provide services, which has been one of the four fundamental freedoms—and thus the core of a European constitution—since the Treaties of Rome.

The Posted Workers Directive is similarly protectionist in its orientation, regulating which wages companies from one EU country must pay their employees when they take on a contract in an EU country other than the one in which they are based. On this issue, trade unions, socialist central planners, and so-called right-wing populists find common ground. Their collective goal is the isolation of a national market. Yet, a sealed-off “market” no longer fulfills the criteria of a market at all.

With such a policy, boundaries that were thought to have been overcome are being rebuilt. Anyone who believes they must shape economic development through central planning interventions has failed to understand the lessons from every example of a planned economy.

However, this approach also expresses an arrogance towards Central European countries, as it implies that poor people from these countries would come to take away jobs from Austrians (and other Western Europeans) with cheap wages. The fact that, for example, the region around the Slovakian capital Bratislava is a booming economic region, and that the Czech Republic can boast excellent economic development, is suppressed. Incidentally, these regions could also be of interest to Austrian workers.

The four fundamental freedoms also include the free movement of workers. The lessons of the interwar period show that it is not isolation, but the opening of economic areas—and 100 years ago, Central Europe was an economic area in which a worker or craftsman from Slovakia or Hungary could take a job in Vienna—that creates prosperity.

It is time that we start learning from history!

The article originally appeared on the website of Karl von Habsburg.