William Nattrass

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz looked on with uneasy pride as leaders from six western Balkan aspiring EU members gathered in Berlin to sign new agreements this Thursday. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also attended the summit, which aims to encourage friendlier ties in this fractious region.  Agreements on the mutual recognition of ID documents and educational qualifications to facilitate travel and work should have been a moment for the Balkans to celebrate. But the mood was dampened as back in Serbia troops were deployed to the Kosovo border, the army's alert level was raised, and a drone was shot down near military facilities at the border by Serbian forces.

Is Serbia being terrorised into supporting Ukraine? The question may sound like it comes from the fevered imagination of a Kremlin propagandist, but it’s being asked with increasing urgency in Serbia. The country has been buckling under a tsunami of fake bomb threats which the government claims is being orchestrated by pro-Ukrainian forces after Serbia refused to sanction Russia. Thousands of threats have targeted Serbian schools, hospitals, shops, tourist attractions and airports since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began. So far no bombs have gone off. But the threats are spreading fear and putting an enormous burden on public resources, with evacuations and top-to-bottom police searches becoming a part of everyday life.

As soul searching in Britain continues over Boris Johnson’s alleged proximity to a slice of cake, a different sort of rule-breaking has apparently been going on in Slovakia. The country’s former leader Robert Fico has been charged by police with leading an organised crime gang from his prime ministerial office.  The Slovak police’s ‘Twilight’ operation, investigating corruption at the highest level of politics, saw Fico’s former interior minister Robert Kaliňák taken into custody last week over fears that he would intimidate witnesses. Fico himself is likely to be arrested as soon as his parliamentary immunity is waived. The allegations against the former prime minister and his right-hand man are shocking.

Budapest is racked with tension. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sends a stream of refugees to Hungary’s eastern border, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has scrambled to respond to the humanitarian crisis while turning his back on his previous pragmatic relationship with Moscow. Fidesz’s unequivocal condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s actions will have come as a relief to Brussels. But a bitter argument still rages over Hungary's opposition to the bloc’s new ‘rule of law’ budget mechanism, which allows EU funds to be made dependent on adherence to legal and democratic norms.

The EU has a knack for turning a crisis into an opportunity. The Eurozone crisis led to the centralisation of economic powers in Brussels; Brexit consolidated the Franco-German push for EU integration; and Covid became the pretext for EU funds being made dependent on members adhering to the ‘rule of law’ for the first time. It's looking likely that the bloc will repeat this trick with the war in Ukraine. Prior to Russia’s invasion, the EU was being mocked for its divisions: on Russian gas dependency, on proposed economic sanctions, and on political links with the Kremlin. Now, the bloc is trumpeting its unity.

Thursday marked the beginning of a new era in European politics. Nowhere has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine been met with greater fear and trepidation than in central and eastern Europe, a region all too familiar with ‘brotherly help’ in the form of military occupation by a looming eastern power. It may be a new era for Europe, but some things never change. In Hungary, which shares an 80-mile border with Ukraine, a tense atmosphere is laced with disbelief at the West’s ongoing portrayal of the country as a dubious ally threatening to sink EU sanctions. It’s become a cliché of western analyses that Hungary is constantly looking to throw a spanner in the works of a joint EU response.