Keleti Station

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Messages on a wall just beneath Keleti’s main entrance.

A routine appears to be setting in underneath Keleti station. Those coming in seek food, a place to charge their phone, and a way out. In that order, and often as quickly as possible.

As donations continue and borders remain open, transit remains constant. The Hungarian government, meanwhile, is absent in any formalised way beyond police on the concourse. The station has become a largely stateless place.

Since refugees trapped at the gates of the temporarily sealed building were allowed to leave on trains heading West last Friday, local civil initiatives like Migrant Aid, Segítsünk együtt a menekülteknek! and private volunteers have built an ad-hoc apparatus of support in the station’s bowels.

This includes an area for disbursing food, drink and sanitary products, and an internet and power supply unit expanded during daylight hours from an improvised powercell and wireless dongle operation to a Greenpeace tent replete with industrial (and heavy) solar panels. 

A single water main is hooked up in the middle of the concourse.

Tickets to Hegyeshalom on the Austrian border are block-booked online by donors with codes texted to locals for collection and dissemination. Food, water, power and wifi are among the commodities traded in kind rather than for cash.

Professors are re-dispatched as Internet service providers, businessmen as medical translators, and students as shift workers tackling mounds of donated clothing. Police remain calm – not harrying or hassling arrivals or those departing as far as can be seen. Many Hungarians have responded to the situation admirably. Their leaders have not. 

The situation is desperate, but the mood less tense than a week before. At times over the last 72 hours the cavernous underpass at Keleti has resembled not only a makeshift camp but a football pitch, a market, and a meeting place for new arrivals seeking friends and family. Every day sees new faces passing through.

The trio of Syrian boys playing football late into Saturday night are gone by early on Sunday morning, replaced by new groups by noon. Two Afghan boys head out on Monday after a frantic search for tickets. A 10-strong family from Damascus secure their tickets all the way to Vienna by Tuesday lunchtime.

Their stories are documented elsewhere and in-depth, Budapest Seen and Stefan Roch for images, the Guardian and others for stories. This post is only to show signs of passage.

News, tweets, facebook posts and thirdhand whispered rumour in many languages coming from 175 km south at Röszke on the border with Serbia are continually worrying. Many more are on the way, arrivals report.

In preparation, more tents are erected and power sources sought. Tickets are block-booked for all trains headed west and police form a queue system running from the subterranean concourse to the edge of the platforms. Keleti may be a stop for many thousands but it is a terminus for few. JP, Budapest

Handwritten guide to reaching the Austrian border taped beneath a platform monitor.

A novel approach to securing power supply via a prized-open light fitting on the approach to the station underpass.

Discarded clothes in Keleti’s underpass on Sunday.

A ticket and seat reservation valid on Tuesday for the train from Budapest Keleti to Hegyeshalom on the border with Austria.

Images by Stefan Roch and Josh Posaner.

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Central Europe’s ‘percentage philanthropy’

A WWF advertisement for donations via the 1% scheme at Politechnika metro station in Warsaw. Photo by Marcin Szwajkajzer.

For most, there is little in the way of choice when it comes to tax. But in Central Europe, the option to re-direct at least 1% to a non-profit cause allows taxpayers a say in what their money pays for.

Hungary was the first to introduce the ‘percentage philanthropy’ system of direct tax donations in 1997, with Slovakia (2001), Poland and Lithuania (2003), and Romania (2005) since launching similar schemes.

The so-called ‘1%+1%’ system used today in Hungary allows taxpayers to support one local NGO or foundation, in addition to a state institution such as the opera house or any of the national archives.

A deadline of 20 May means Hungary’s taxpayers have some time until they need to choose where to give this year. Statistics show they are most likely to pick the Hungarian Catholic Church, which received the most donations in 2014 – HUF 2.2 billion, or €7.3 million. Religious causes tend to rank highly.

In Lithuania taxpayers can donate 2% of their levy – with the added option to split this between multiple options.

A tax office spokesman confirmed that 450,000 opted to do this last year, supporting around 20,000 causes. Since 2012, a further 1% can be donated to a political party in the Baltic country.

Vija said she used the system as soon as she could. She directs 1% each to a business journalism association she used to chair, and a ninjutsu self-defence club in her native Vilnius.

“I think it’s good,” Vija said, “because it does not take much from the budget and it enables the feeling of participation.” She said she’s now booked ahead to make sure those associations get the money over coming years.

Juraj in Bratislava agrees. Slovaks have the option to donate 2%, but the state plans to take this down to 1% for business taxpayers as of next year arguing that firms can use the scheme to further interests. He says the scheme is universally popular among private taxpayers.

“I have not heard a single word of criticism about this. After the flood of EU money to boost the development of civil society ebbed, this is the sole source of independent non-partisan financial aid,” he said.

Juraj directs his 2% to a sporting team out of the 12,579 listed causes in Slovakia but notes that his father donates to a charity set up to a support a child of a colleague in his hometown of Spišská Nová Ves.

Similarly, Olenka in Wrocław uses her 1% donation to help fund the care of a friend’s sick child. Warsaw-based Marcin, meanwhile, previously donated to the Polish Development Agency, which he says used to receive about PLN 2 million, or €490,000, a year but now opts for a cultural charity that specialises in artistic events.

“1% is not a huge amount of money but every year there are NGOs making a lot of noise around themselves to collect as much money as possible,” Marcin said.

But Polish charities may see donations through the scheme reduce sharply when the government makes it more complicated for citizens to opt in under new tax rules.

Originally launched to help incubate NGOs in transitional economies, some now say certain causes unjustifiably receive more attention than others. In Lithuania, for example, animals receive more donations than children.

Still, the scheme has a democratising effect on the process of taxation – although much like elections the opportunity is often missed. Many neglect to choose a cause meaning the state gets its share after all. JP, Berlin

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Funeral for a train

Mourners commemorate the passing of the final EC 249 Wawel train through Cottbus station before it crosses the border into Poland on 13 December.

A lone saxophonist had been hired to serenade the passengers alighting at Cottbus to place wreaths against the train engine. Germany now has one fewer land bridge to Poland.

Last weekend the daily EC 249 Wawel train that connected Berlin with the old Silesian city of Wrocław, once Breslau in its German days, departed for a final time. The two cities had been linked by rail for 161 years, but in recent times the journey had slowed to such a pace that it was quicker in the 1930s than in 2014.

Its final departure left the basement of Berlin’s Hauptbahnof 15 minutes late, with carriages missing and a last-minute platform change. A sad send-off, but indicative of the challenges facing cross-border rail travel in Germany.

But Wawel’s disappearance from the timetable on 14 December comes despite promising news elsewhere. The annual opportunity for rail operators to re-jig schedules saw the re-instatement of a Budapest-Sofia night service, faster journey times between Prague and Vienna, and a new 11-hour day train linking Vienna with the Polish Baltic coast.

A faster interchange between Vilnius and Warsaw might be ready next summer too as part of the long-running Rail Baltica project. Chinese investment in the notoriously sluggish Budapest-Belgrade line was also agreed in principle this week that could bring the journey time down from 8 hours to only 2:30 by 2017.

These projects physically bring Europe's capitals closer together.

Meanwhile, Germany's state-owned Deutsche Bahn - the operator of EC 249 and probably Europe's most important company for international routes given the position of its network between east and west - is insistent it must scrap routes and cut costs.

This year has seen its night train schedule obliterated. Berlin-Paris is gone. Any overnight connection to Copenhagen cancelled as of November. From Düsseldorf to London, buses now ostensibly take the place of a once-mooted direct DB rail service using the Eurotunnel into Frankfurt.

The rise of the ‘free-wifi’ inter-city bus is here according to DB it seems – but expect longer travel times and inconvenient connections. All this means that progress in Central Europe is offset by cuts elsewhere.

Michael Cramer, an MEP for Germany’s Green Party and chairman of the European Parliament committee on transport and tourism, bemoans the lack of investment in relatively inexpensive projects like the 50 km electrification of the Berlin-Wrocław track needed to save hours from the 5 hour journey time, or the reconstruction of the Karnin Lift Bridge destroyed in the dying days of World War II that would bridge the Peenestrom estuary to 'Berlin’s Bathtub' at Usedom and halve journey times from the German capital to the Polish Baltic coast.

This, he says, is because national governments favour domestic projects like the multi-billion station re-development 'Stuttgart 21', and because there is no plan or impetus to increase network connection Europe-wide. 

“It is a political shame,” Cramer explained in the aisle of the final carriage approaching Cottbus. “If the unfair conditions continue then rail will never have a chance…Now that Deutsche Bahn has done nothing for 25 years along the route to Wrocław it can now say the bus is faster."

Jon Worth takes a closer look at the practical problems and what needs to be done here. Track charges, rolling stock leasing and a lack of infrastructure at key border crossing points where national networks end just a few kilometres apart are just some. Lack of investment in night-train carriages another.

It remains clear that rail is no equal partner with aviation or roads when it comes to transport. Every inch of the European network is tolled for rail, but only 0.9% of roads, Cramer said. Also, train operators don’t benefit from subsidies that help 17 unprofitable international airports out of 23 in Germany from going under.

There remains some hope. Another option presented during Wawel’s last journey put forward a proposal to re-instate EC 249, but named after 19th century political thinker Ferdinand Lassalle and travelling as far as Opole via Berlin's phantom new airport. Next December provides another opportunity to turn it around… JP, Berlin/Cottbus

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Serbia will use EU negotiations as driver of change

EU Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle met with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in Belgrade this month. Photo: The Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia.

The reforms Serbia needs to undertake in order to join the EU have greater public support in the country than there is for the prospect of actually joining the EU – so the accession process is a means to the end of reforming Serbia’s political and economic system, according to the country’s chief EU negotiator Tanja Miščević, speaking in London earlier this month.

In a talk at the London School of Economics during a brief visit to the UK, Miščević provided an overview of the current status of the country’s EU accession negotiations.

Miščević claims that Serbia is in a better position than Croatia was when its accession negotiations began in 2005, as Serbia started the harmonization process as long ago as 2004. She cited the large majority enjoyed by the new government (with 198 of 250 MPs voting to support its formation), a PM with strong popular support, and the fact that all the parties elected to parliament in the recent elections support EU integration as reasons to believe that the necessary reforms can be enacted swiftly.

After many years of slow progress, largely due to a lack of adequate cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, accession negotiations finally began on 21st January this year. New Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, who took office on 27th April, has pledged to accomplish the reforms necessary for EU accession, and hopes that Serbia will be an EU member by the end of this decade.

Negotiations are currently focused on acquis chapters 23 and 24, dealing with Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and Justice, Freedom, and Security, respectively. Serbia aims to open these chapters at the earliest opportunity, in February or March 2015, with the aim of finalising negotiations by 2018.

According to Miščević, her team’s strategy in the negotiations is not to try to complete them as quickly as possible, but to use them as a way of changing Serbia’s political culture. She says that the only way for the country to establish sound democratic institutions is through the “push” provided by the requirements set by Brussels. As an example she cites the chapter of the acquis dealing with Financial Control, claiming that without this outside pressure it would be impossible to create a sound system of national budgetary control.

Interestingly, Miščević claims that the required reforms attract more public support than the goal of EU membership itself (as evidenced by this poll), meaning that rather than the reforms being a means of achieving EU membership, the EU accession process is in fact a way of achieving the goal of reforming Serbia’s political and economic system. “The course and strategy of our negotiations is… to use the process to change ourselves”, she said.

What is more, it is not clear what EU membership will actually mean by the time Serbia finishes the accession process, with Miščević citing a likely increase in Eurosceptic MEPs (a prediction which came true at last week’s elections), the new composition of the European Commission and the proposed “new deal” between the UK and the EU as reasons that Serbia will not join today’s EU, but the “EU of the future”.

Asked if Serbia will ultimately be forced to recognise Kosovo as independent before it is allowed to take its place as an EU member state, Miščević said that although Serbia can never recognise Kosovo, Serbia’s interests must take priority over emotions, and that the government is dedicated to improving and protecting the lives of people in Kosovo.

She also stressed that the EU has no unified position on recognition, although the Brussels Agreement signed in April 2013 between then Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić and his counterpart in Priština Hashim Thaçi obliges both sides to refrain from doing anything to jeopardise the EU path of the other. Chapter 35 of the acquis relates to relations between the authorities in Belgrade and Priština, and does not mention the matter of recognition, and dialogue on this matter will continue between the two governments at the highest level, with Vučić continuing to take the lead. MW, London

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Elections in Macedonia – a land of promises

Photo: 'Porta Makedonija', part of the Skopje 2014 project. © Bojan Stilin

If you use social media, you may well have come across the 'dorm from hell' – a set of shocking photos of Goce Delčev student dorm in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, compared unfavourably with images of a jail in Norway. This viral campaign, successfully conducted by students who live there, will be one of the few things many Westerners have heard about this small, God forsaken country in the heart of the Balkan peninsula.

They may be puzzled, however, if they recalled reading a couple of years ago about a project called 'Skopje 2014'. The concept was to turn Skopje into what Der Spiegel called a “capital of kitsch”; an aesthetically ridiculous historical Disneyland, stuffed with dozens of buildings and monuments. The government claims that the project cost €207 million, whereas the opposition believes it swallowed over €500 million.

These two parallel realities really do co-exist within Macedonia. Until recently, the country was best known for tensions between ethnic Macedonians and Albanians, as well as a 20-year dispute with Greece over the legacy of ancient Macedonia. The conflicts are the reason why the country's EU and NATO accession processes are at a standstill, and forthcoming elections appear unlikely to change much in that regard.

The first round of presidential elections is on April 13, and the second round will coincide with parliamentary elections on April 27. These are the third early elections in a row – but the right-wing populist party VMRO-DPMNE which has led the last two administrations has come back stronger every time, and looks set to do so again.

In 2008 the government fell after failing to start the NATO integration process. In 2011 it was interrupted by a political crisis and riots outside the parliament building, after the government shut down the biggest opposition TV station, A1, and arrested its owner. This time, early parliamentary elections have been called as VMRO-DPMNE have failed to agree on a presidential candidate with their coalition partner DUI, the most popular party among Albanians.

VMRO-DPMNE is led by current prime minister Nikola Gruevski, whose autocratic leadership has been compared to his peers in Hungary (Orban) and Serbia (Vučić). The secret of its success lies in using public resources to secure votes, media pressure (the government is among the top advertisers in the country, and the press daring to oppose have been pushed out), combined with populist governing and suspicious economic affairs.

The most illustrative example is the government's engagement with Subrata Roy,  an Indian tycoon, who promised to invest $2.7 billion the country. The government promoted him as a saviour of local economy, his largesse a 'return gift' for  Mother Theresa, a native of Skopje. Roy himself revelled in the image, setting up a Bollywood-style 'Festival of peace' in Skopje (featuring Tony Blair as special guest) as well as announcing dubious investments such as a luxury tourist complex on Lake Ohrid. However, he was recently arrested in his home country for fraud allegations, and the government, aware that he had been under investigation for months, refrained from commenting.

The opposition's failure to capitalise on a scandal like that is indicative of its weakness and internal divisions. The biggest opposition party, the social-democratic SDSM, elected a new president (Zoran Zaev) after 20 years with three-time prime minister and twice president Branko Crvenkovski at the helm. Zaev nominated Crvenkovski's long-time associate, professor and political analyst Stevo Pendarovski as presidential candidate. SDSM hopes Pendarovski can project the image of an autonomous and competent leader, virtues visibly lacking in the VMRO-DPMNE candidate, current president Gjorge Ivanov. The other two candidates – Zoran Popovski from the newly-found party GROM and Halimi Iljaz from minor Albanian party DPA stand little chance of reaching the second round, if one is needed.

Although the campaign is only beginning, it is obvious that political parties or candidates are not ready to offer real solutions either for the delay in European integration process, or disturbing social and human rights issues. For a start, the institutions cannot set the record straight with the number of voters – the population census in 2011 failed, and registered electorate totals 1.8 million voters, or 90% of the country’s population. The opposition and NGOs have warned that this includes dead people, making the election results easy to manipulate.

In a country that disorganized on a basic level, statistics such as 28% unemployment, or an average monthly salary of €348 (the lowest in the Balkans), are not surprising. And when people can't make ends meet, they vote for those who promise the most. Add the media pressure, and the traditional discipline of right-wing voters in the region, and it is easy to forecast another victory for VMRO-DPMNE. Perhaps this is why the completion of 'Skopje 2014' is not mentioned in a 260-page document listing the government's achievements. This time it's not just the monuments, or the dorms, but the whole country that needs to be rebuilt. Or – at least – promised to be rebuilt. BS, Zagreb

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Budapest's eastern rail terminus Keleti pályaudvar is the end of the line at the heart of Central Europe. It serves the majority of Hungary's inter-city routes and hosts almost all international services having outgrown its original use to only serve destinations east.

Seen from above, the classical station design of János Feketeházy and Gyula Rochlitz is framed by the deflected shards of Rákóczi Avenue, one of the city's central boulevards spliced in two by Baross Square outside the main entrance.

Today, the Baross Restaurant hidden to the left of the entrance has retained the grandeur of Keleti's 1884 inauguration. Istvan has been serving patrons here for five years, having moved up from the subterranean buffets he began working at underneath the station in 1992.

The restaurant calls time at 8pm but hours later on a bitter Friday night, with the curtains drawn across the high windows, passersby hear the beats of decades old pop music as young girls dart in across the grass green carpet outside.

Onboard the 9.25 day train to Berlin before its departure, waiter Petar says he tried a job in the restaurant car during the 1980s and stayed for 28 years, shuttling between Hamburg, Prague, Bratislava, Brașov and Bucharest through the pivot of Keleti. He wears the uniform and presents the menu in Magyar State Railway's classic dining wagon with pride.

The chef preparing the menu for passengers on the eleven-hour journey north learnt his trade in the kitchen at Baross, Petar says, before waving us back onto the platform minutes before the train departs.

At Keleti no story is static. Marie is heading to Vienna to meet the friend she hasn't seen for twelve years; a pair of nuns wait pensively for the train that will take them back towards the Carpathians to their home in Oradea, Romania.

A young girl waits silently on platform eight, to be met by friends at Pécs before beginning a six-week stay. Meanwhile, drunks join suburban commuters as they cluster on the platforms that spill out of the main hall - like the burst banks of the nearby Danube river splitting their tributaries into parallel dusty streams not strong enough to force their way into the central mass of Keleti's hall.

The entrance to the station is in transition. A new metro line has worked its way from the distant suburban station at Kelenföld to a temporary rest-stop at Keleti. Construction workers rush to paper over the cracks the new tunnel has bored through Budapest at Baross Square before it kicks on again for a second phase expansion to Bosnyák Square.

One day we arrive early to find the central doors shut by invisible chains as if the station itself had ruled it would close to the prolonged nuisance of the drilling and banging outside. The station's sentinel statues remain defiant days later even as the chaos outside rips the front steps away from under them.

Keleti has form for deciding what will be allowed in, and what must remain out. McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, German pharmacy chains and US hotel groups have been kept at arms length, competing outside for the attention of emerging arrivals. Franchise capitalism has not yet been welcomed inside here.

The cocoon of communist architecture angularly boxed around the station platforms of Warsaw and Bratislava are also absent on this side of Budapest, while the patchwork modernity adorning the termini of London and Berlin looks unlikely to reach this corner of the city any time soon. Re-development at Keleti is unlikely before 2023, the government says.

Passengers usually rush through train stations leaving little mark, but traces remain in Budapest's archives; the two Romanian children that vanished in the waiting room in 1990, an aborted strike by ticket office staff sick of bearing the brunt of frustration from dwellers of the underpasses.

As befits a building as old as Keleti, rest is in order. Between midnight and 3:30 am each night the station doors are closed to the trample of transit – a short respite as the night trains of Europe converge on their morning dock. VMR, SR, JP, Budapest

Photographs © Stefan Roch

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Four scenarios for Ukraine

Ukraine seems to have been left with no choice but to choose between East and West. A ‘non-aligned’ alternative, even if that were what Ukraine wants, is not on the table. But observers agree the West is not joining the fight with the determination they used to show.

According to Andrew Wilson, a Ukraine specialist at UCL-SSEES in London, what’s happening is “not about geopolitics” – at least, not on the part of the EU.

“Russia thinks geopolitically”, Wilson writes, “but the EU does not” – arguing that the EU’s Eastern Partnership “is an ‘enlargement-lite’ policy at the very moment when Russia is committed to some heavy lifting”.

Edward Lucas, the Economist's long-time Central Europe watcher, agrees: "though the EU finds the whole notion of geopolitics old-fashioned and unappealing, geopolitics is happening on its doorstep. And it is losing."

Perhaps it should be no surprise, then, that Russia looks most likely to get its own way in the final analysis.

Régis Chatellier, emerging markets strategist at French bank Societe Generale, today outlined four possible outcomes for Ukraine – only one of which sees the country moving out of Russia's orbit.

They play out as follows:

Scenario 1: Protesters are defeated, and Yanukovych keeps sole power (low to medium-high probability)

As Yanukovych still controls the police and the armed forces, the balance of power remains in his favour. In this scenario, Russia pays out its promised $15 billion package – but despite the support he has in Ukraine’s south and east, Yanukovych is unlikely to win the elections due in February 2015. He would need to find a way of getting the majority of the country on-side to avoid further political turmoil.

Scenario 2: Protesters are defeated but decide to join a new government formed by Yanukovych (low probability)

A rapprochement with Russia is most likely in this scenario, Chatellier reckons, and the Russian financial package would be implemented, while prospects for a trade agreement with the EU would “inevitably” fade. Implementing a deal with Gazprom would mean cheaper energy for Ukraine, but long term economic prospects would remain undermined by a lack of foreign investment and a high level of reliance on Russia.

Scenario 3: Yanukovych decides to step down (low probability)

This is what the protesters want – but what they want next is harder to pin down. Chatellier believes the most likely candidate to lead a new government would be Yulia Timoshenko, freed from prison. Her new government would turn to the EU for financial help and economic ties, at the expense of Russia.

The EU would have to react quickly to help Ukraine avoid defaulting on its considerable international debts – as a shift towards the west would, Chatellier points out, not only trigger the termination of financial aid from Russia, but also expose the Ukrainian economy to sharp economic retaliation from Moscow, including disrupting the gas supply. The shockwaves from Russia’s financial and commercial retaliation could rapidly lead Ukraine to default, without a comprehensive (and expensive) bailout from the EU and/or the IMF.

Scenario 4: The intervention of the Army (medium-high probability)

Although the army’s top officials have said they won’t intervene in the current crisis, Chatellier says we shouldn’t rule it out. If this does happen, he says, “a rapprochement with Russia would be likely”, for two reasons: firstly, that Moscow is the only counterpart which would make sure that the army continues to be paid and secondly, that the bulk of Ukrainian forces are located in Russian speaking and pro-Russian areas, notably in Crimea.

In this scenario, Chatellier says, “indirect control of Russia on Ukraine could not be ruled out”. TB, London

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Serbia's 'progressives' prepare to tighten their grip on power

'Reforms in full force', claim SNS posters in Belgrade - but can they be taken at their word? Photo: Ivan Kovanović

Serbia is heading for parliamentary elections for the second time in less than two years, but this time everyone knows the outcome. Aleksandar Vučić, currently Deputy Prime Minister and leader of Serbia’s largest party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), has pushed for elections to secure his grip on power.

Since the last time Serbs went to the ballot, SNS has shared power in a coalition with, among others, the Socialists (SPS) who Vučić claims have been a barrier to reform. Little effort has been made to conceal the fact that the National Assembly elections, scheduled for 16 March, are an attempt to force SPS out of the coalition.

Those close to the Vučić campaign are confident that a perfect storm of an opposition in disarray, a low turnout – especially amongst those who might be expected to vote against SNS – and a flurry of smaller parties likely to be killed off by the 5% threshold, will be enough to turn SNS’s 45% share (according to recent polls) into a majority of seats in parliament.*

Furthermore, there is an expectation in the Vučić camp that the other major parties will not be too critical of SNS in the hope that they might be potential coalition partners if the party fails to get a clear majority.

Although most analysts are sure of the result, nobody seems to be discussing what this could mean for Serbia. Presumably they, along with the rest of the population, are holding their breath and hoping that Serbia’s first majority government since 1992 will deliver on all of its promises.

These include continued EU integration, finally dealing with corruption and organised crime, reforming the country’s outdated state bureaucracy, more foreign investment and so forth.

What seems beyond doubt is that an SNS government won’t alter the course of Serbia’s foreign policy. The previous Democratic Party-led coalition government seem to have found a workable formula for maintaining close ties with traditional ally Russia without diverting from the path towards the EU and SNS are sure to stick to this model.

The popularity amongst the electorate of the two pillars of EU integration and a cosy relationship with Russia was (in addition to a strong stance on corruption) responsible for the party’s success in remodelling itself as a centre-right group.

So while the future government looks certain - a pretty unusual feeling for those who follow Serbian politics - there is one niggling doubt: are SNS really the democratic, reforming, pro-Western party they present themselves as?

It’s not so long since the leadership of the SNS were at the helm of the Radical Party, where both Vučić and the current Serbian President, Tomislav Nikolić, had been unashamedly anti-democratic hard-line nationalists and held views they no longer want to be associated with.

The real fear is that unshackled from their coalition partners they will be free to make changes to the rules that prop up Serbia’s still fragile democracy. In short, Serbia is not yet safe from a ‘Hungarian scenario’ where a new majority government consolidates its hold on the levers of power in a less than democratic fashion.

A worrying precedent is at the Serbian central bank, where Vučić’s deputy at the top of the SNS has been installed as governor, in the face of protests from the opposition who accuse them of politicising what should be an independent institution.

For Serbian democrats (with a small ‘d’) both the SNS and its leaders are yet to prove that they are capable of ruling without resorting to Fidesz-style undemocratic measures to stay in power. IK, Belgrade

* Technically SNS is going to the ballot as part of a pre-election coalition but the other parties are tiny - essentially independents masked as parties.

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Love on the line: Prague's singles carriage

An advert for the 'Communication Wagon' on Prague's metro. Taken by Denisa Udzonova.

'It was early Saturday afternoon. As I stepped into the carriage my heart jumped and thousands of butterflies in my stomach rose as one flock. I put all my hopes into this one step. A brief look around and a shy smile must have given out a sign of nervousness and vulnerability that I often try to hide. Knowing that communication is the key to any relationship, it did not matter that those love wagons are now being called communication carriages. I remained hopeful and quickly regained my strength and courage.' Alena

Alena is one of many who responded to Prague Metro's message: 'Are you alone? Do you wish to meet someone? Take the middle carriage then look around and if you see someone you like, just look and smile. You can even leave a message on our website'.

The news spread quickly and Slovak newspaper SME claimed 'Prague Metro could become the biggest dating site in the world'. And so, since last November, the carriage is now part of every Saturday A-line train, which the transit company hopes will improve the profitability and popularity of the Prague Metro.

Messages posted on the company's website showed that love can blossom at any life station:

'For a beautiful unknown: Every morning, when I see you on the bus and travel those five stops with you, I cannot take my eyes off you. At work, I am constantly thinking about you, what you may be doing, and I am even looking forward to the next morning... Maybe you will recognize yourself in this message, and in the morning you will come to sit next to me. Then we will get off at Mustek station together, hand in hand...but maybe not, who knows.' Martin

Despite its heady start, though, the scheme has not run as smoothly as hoped. Poor planning means the initiative may not be best scheduled on busy weekend services. 'Saturday is not the best day for such things. The regular commuters do not meet on Saturdays,' a concerned Prague citizen pointed out.

'The green A line, facilitating the main sightseeing spots in Prague, is frequented mainly by…tourists on Saturdays. The carriages are unmarked and the information is in Czech only. Moreover, families with children tend to go out and the carriages get really full and noisy, leaving not much space for communication,' another commuter observed.

A recent re-branding means it no longer lives up to Prague's romantic image: it is now called the 'communication carriage', with the more prosaic aim of getting people to talk.

The city's Councillor for Transport, Jiri Parizek, believes that the initiative could stop people relying on their phone screens for company. 'A metro carriage should be a place of communication, especially at times when people communicate mainly by email or SMS,' Parizek has said.

In reality, though, the packed carriages have a rather impersonal and cold atmosphere, and some commuters are not even aware they are sitting in the Czech capital's most high-profile dating room. And despite the link on the web having more success than sitting on the train, it seems to no longer exist.

It seems the matchmaking intentions of the project may have missed their mark. Only time will tell whether new 'metro couples' emerge from Prague's commuter system. Cupid needs to get his thinking-hat on if the project is to succeed. DU, Prague

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Last but not least: Lithuania heads for the Euro

An oil painting by Klaudijus Petrulis combining the Lithuanian litas with the Euro. The painting is held by the Lithuanian Central Bank in Vilnius.

There is an expression in Lithuanian 'Neskubėk ir būsi pirmas', the equivalent of the English ‘more haste less speed’. Lithuania failed to follow this advice in 2006 when it unsuccessfully tried to be the first of the Baltic countries to join the eurozone, but eight years later Vilnius is now gearing up for another attempt.

Estonia adopted the Euro on 1 January 2011, while Latvia followed this month. In 2006 Lithuania just failed to meet the average annual inflation criteria - with inflation of 2.7% against a criterion of 2.6% - and the door was firmly shut.

But last week the government approved a draft law on the introduction of the Euro and has now submitted it to the parliament.

If Lithuanians do not wake up on 1 January, 2015 to a new currency, they will also wake up without the current Prime Minister. The Social Democratic Party's Algirdas Butkevičius has promised to resign if the Euro project fails this time around.

According to the latest data and estimates from the Lithuanian Central Bank, in December 2013 the country was fulfilling all adoption criteria. Average annual consumer price inflation and long-term interest rates were well below the estimated reference values, while estimates for the general government deficit-to-GDP ratio and general government debt-to-GDP ratio were also in line.

Lithuania's small but open economy is one major factor helping to trim inflation, with GDP growth linked to an increase in exports, rather than the result of internal government policy. Unstable growth abroad and imported energy prices also help keep a lid on inflation.

A Baltic Puzzle: Lithuania sits among the ten fastest growing economies in the EU with declining inflation. The unit of measurement is %. Source: Eurostat.

The European Commission issues a biannual convergence report on the largest of the Baltic states, usually in the autumn. It is likely that Vilnius will request an earlier assessment as soon as April, as it did in 2006.

The report could assess whether Lithuania meets all the convergence criteria in terms of inflation, the government budgetary position, exchange rate stability and long-term interest rates between April 2013 and March 2014. Bringing forward the evaluation now could place the Euro “almost in Lithuania’s pocket”, to use another local expression.

But why would Lithuania want the Euro at a time when many countries are seriously questioning the benefits of a shared currency?

The litas currency has been pegged to the Euro since the European currency went into circulation in 2002. This means that if the Euro loses value, Lithuanian exports also become cheaper abroad and its economy benefits. Likewise, exports become less competitive if the Euro gains value. In terms of export competitiveness Lithuania has nothing to lose by switching.

One the other hand, since Lithuania still has the litas, currency risk is a factor when the government borrows money and so it pays more interest which is later translated into a larger budget deficit, which in turn requires borrowing. This quickly becomes a vicious cycle and leaves room for currency speculators to spread devaluation gossip.

Joining the Euro, then, should have little downside and considerable advantages. Latvia’s seamless transition at the start of the year has left Lithuania looking enviously at its northern neighbour’s cheaper borrowing costs. Now its opportunity has come round again, Lithuania looks set to grasp it with both hands. VP, Budapest

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Western Europe's turn to deal with Romaphobia

Lívia Járóka MEP was elected in Hungary as the only Romani parliamentarian in Brussels during the 2009 elections for the European Parliament. Picture taken from her official site: http://www.jarokalivia.hu/

The UK has embarked on a steep learning curve when it comes to the Roma and their communities, that ‘ancient and potent fear of Gypsies’ that has been called Romaphobia.

As a Romanian living in England, I have found the last few months an interesting study in how unacknowledged anti-Roma feelings are coming to the fore. As more Romanian and Bulgarian citizens are expected to arrive following the lifting of work and benefits restrictions, an underlying dread has been building that many of these ‘new EU’ citizens are going to turn out to be Roma.

It doesn't help that some people in Britain confuse Romanians with Roma, or that in Western Europe, Roma suffer from the double discrimination of being Eastern European and part of a people that has faced racism for centuries.

Romaphobia plays out differently in Western and Eastern Europe. Throughout Western Europe, legislation was employed over a number of centuries to try to keep out Roma, whereas in Eastern Europe Roma were allowed to settle but were either the target of brutal assimilation policies, or seen as a useful economic resource and enslaved.

So while Eastern Europe had centuries of close contact with Roma populations, Western Europe and in particular the UK, having closed their borders to incoming Roma communities, had the luxury of believing themselves superior to those anti-Roma racists, and ignoring the Roma and Traveller communities that continued to live on their shores.

This is not to say that Eastern Europe is free of Romaphobia - quite the contrary, but in Eastern Europe it is less possible to ignore the need to do something about it.

For all the right-wing politics, countries like the Czech Republic have proven safe enough for significant number of Roma, including women, to stand for political office.

Additionally, for the past decade or more, Romania has fairly successfully implemented significant educational changes such as a quota system of Roma people in universities that, in my own family, has resulted in a whole new generation of Roma graduates.

Hungary, too, has led the way in making a political and legal space for Roma communities and have to some extent started grappling with their own racist demons, with the result that following the European election of 2009, Lívia Járóka, a member of the ruling Fidesz party, became the only Romani representative in the European Parliament.

There has even been some welcome cooperation between Romania and Hungary: recently Romania's Ion Ratiu Foundation conferred its 2013 Ion Ratiu Democracy Award on Dr Angéla Koczé, an outspoken feminist and ‘leading Hungarian Roma rights activist and scholar’.

Meanwhile, Romaphobia has continued to fester quietly in UK minds, without being held up to the light in the same way as elsewhere. The recent spotlight on the Roma, for all its unpleasantness, could ultimately be positive for Roma in the UK, if it brings into the open latent vulnerabilities and prejudices and gives people a chance to question them and disagree. This only works, though, when there are people to speak out forcefully on both sides of the debate.

There is still a long way to go. To start a movement for rather than against Roma migrants living in the UK would be a real achievement. But this cannot happen without first developing a robust understanding of the issues facing Romani communities today, and a deeper understanding of our role in bringing about the hardships they are experiencing. In short, we must face up to and deal with Romaphobia. VV, London

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A big year for Hungarian history

Photo: Image of Shoes on the Danube Promenade, a memorial to those killed by the Arrow Cross on the banks of the river that runs through Budapest during World War II. Taken by Nikodem Nijaki.

The centenary of the start of a conflict that tore the country apart; national elections; and a heavily-funded memorial year for the holocaust, are all on the agenda for what is set to be a big year for introspection in Hungary, a country not un-used to walking back through its own difficult past.

Cut-down to a third of its size under the punitive Trianon agreement of 1920, and still reeling from the heroism of its failed anti-Communist revolution in 1956, Hungary is a country whose population still keenly feels the injustices of the last century.

Voter turnout dwindling to 47% at the 2010 election was a telling symptom of disillusionment in the segment of Hungary's electorate not already committed to Fidesz, helping to forge an increasingly right-wing element in national politics and facilitate the rise of Jobbik – a party with a young and provincial voter base.

For its part, the government has succeeded in antagonising Budapest's latest institutional senior the EU and in setting up what The Economist describes as a “top-down, over-centralised state that fuses elements of welfare socialism with nationalist rhetoric”. The latter is becoming a dangerous factor in national politics with an increasingly marginalised opposition.

Pressure on lecturers vocal in their criticism of the government, increased control of the media, and the dismantling of check and balances across all levels of society as outlined by economist János Kornai, makes the case against lawmakers in Budapest even more striking.

But falling unemployment rates, the promised launch of a pristine new metro line in Budapest around polling day, increasingly aggressive cuts to regulated utility bills, and the mobilisation of Hungary's diaspora abroad through voting rights, all give the ruling Fidesz party a great chance of retaining their two-thirds parliamentary majority in this April’s elections.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sits at the centre of an increasingly centralised web of institutions in Hungary, acting with the confidence of legislative safe-passage. But he is not without challenges. Finding a resolution to the ongoing foreign currency denominated mortgages scandal, currently dominating the news, will be key. Orbán blames the banks, but in December the courts came down on their side.

It is on social issues that Hungary needs to clean up its act most urgently. The New York Times is spending this year looking closely at anti-semitism in Hungary, having been one of many global media outlets to have covered the treatment of the Jewish and Roma communities over the last year.

Anecdotal evidence is damning and this blog has warned of the rehabilitation of national heroes known for anti-semitism - particularly jarring coming into a government-designated holocaust memorial year.

There are positive signs, too, however. Your correspondent saw the prominent trade lawyer, Kennedy administration adviser, and holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar appear at Budapest's Opera House last October, around which he agreed - unlike Hungarian composer Andras Schiff, who refuses to set foot in the country – to play a key role as UNESCO chief patron for the year of holocaust memorial.

Orbán certainly looks the part in trying to push his country past its own history. A new holocaust memorial centre at the old Józsefváros train station in Budapest's eighth district used to dispatch many to their deaths is in development adding to those already in place on the shores of the Danube and elsewhere.

The return to traditional values Orbán spoke of during a visit to London last October may give some of the electorate a flicker of the old magic, but the tradition of anti-semitism across Central Europe is one he'll be hoping to consign to the last century. JP, Budapest

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Graffiti in Belgrade comes in a variety of forms. By far the most common is the apparently aimless and artless tagging which can be found throughout the city – including adorning some of Belgrade’s most elegant buildings.

There is also a constant graffiti war between the myriad of football supporters‘ groups that rages throughout the city centre, but is more intense still in the suburbs. Mirroring this ongoing battle of slogans and murals is a similar, but perhaps more sinister, war of words between political parties or ideologies.

This is usually the work of fringe groups with extreme views, and no political event of national significance (from the recognition of Kosovo and Euro-Atlantic integration to LBGT rights) can take place without an army of spray painters taking to the streets to add their voice to the debate.

An example of the politics of graffiti in Belgrade can be found in the second to last image - an enormous portrait of Draža Mihailović, the highly controversial leader of the Serbian royalist Chetniks in World War II.

This has been the subject of a visual dialogue between graffiti 'artists' representing the right and left extremes of the Serbian political spectrum. The portrait is near the city’s Ada Ciganlija recreational resort where it is suspected Mihailović’s body was buried following his execution by the communist regime immediately after the war. The caption reads, “Draža is alive and will live on while there are Serbs and Serbia”.

The city’s graffiti is not all aggression and negativity, though. One facet that often goes unnoticed by visitors and locals alike, although it is surely as prevalent as the others, is Belgrade’s love graffiti.

Considering the ubiquity of graffiti as a form of social communication and interaction across the city’s public spaces, the contrast between the often hateful political messages and these expressions of youthful love is a poignant example of the contradictory nature of life in Belgrade. IK, Belgrade

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Can Chinese construction build Fico a Presidential platform?

Chinese Premier Premier Li Keqiang being led down the red carpet by Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta after arriving at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport on 25 November. Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China

Government press officers have a special idiom to describe the activities of officials when outlining their foreign travels, trying desperately to justify the expense to the taxpayer. It must be worth the cost to attend yet another summit or conference even if it is just an obligatory meet and greet, handshake, smiles and photos sort of an affair.

The red carpet in Bejing must by now be particularly threadbare. A glance at the People’s Republic of China Ministry of Foreign Affairs official website reveals a busy schedule of visiting foreign dignitaries - to be expected, given the growing Chinese foreign direct investment portfolio.

But a visit from Beijing by Premier Li Keqiang to a summit of Central and Eastern European countries in Bucharest in late November provided the perfect opportunity for the region’s leaders to meet the Chinese without having to travel half way around the world.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was frank in his post-summit euphoria. Although Slovakia will not directly participate in the fund that will be created in Luxembourg for the 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe covered at the Bucharest summit, Bratislava will create a holding fund consisting of EU structural funds and Chinese money that will be used for infrastructure projects.

Fico specifically mentioned a request he put to his Chinese counterpart for a branch of a Chinese bank to be opened in Slovakia, reasoning that such a venture would increase Chinese investors’ trust in the local market. The fund in Luxemburg plus an investment fund created in Warsaw last year come to a total of $10 billion.

The creation of these funds and an agency in Beijing under the auspices of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, dedicated to co-operation with the 16 countries, was perhaps created to avoid mishaps such as the COVEC undertaking in Poland in 2009 which ended with China pulling out of a deal to build a highway linking Warsaw with Lodz.

The promise of a new hydroelectric dam to be funded and perhaps built by the Chinese, and other investment opportunities and associated jobs also announced by the Slovak PM look well-timed for the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for early next year. Nothing is as pleasing to the voter’s ear as promises of monuments to be built, jobs to be had and cheaper energy, pledged by the hopeful candidate as Fico aims to step up to the Presidency in 2014.

Whether or not anything tangible will come of the China-Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) summits, due to be held annually, remains to be seen. But as Fico poignantly pointed out, no leader is above asking for investment: “No matter how strong a premier or president, he or she will always walk down the red carpet in Bejing looking for business opportunities”.

Neither Slovakia nor the other 15 countries at the summit have to make the stark choices faced by Ukraine between east and west. Moreover, Fico reasons that there are other points of the compass besides the traditional east and west axis that the countries of Central Europe can, and should, look towards when seeking partners. JK, Bratislava

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Hungary is not Belarus – but does it wish it was?

Hungary is just one of a number of countries in central and eastern Europe sliding towards a Belarus-type situation, according to a leading economist – with the economic crisis in the EU over the last few years meaning it is no longer obvious that a shift towards free market economic reforms is the route to greater prosperity.

Julia Kiraly, who earlier this year quit – or was arguably forced out of – the Hungarian central bank where she had been deputy governor, was part of a panel at the end of last month discussing the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (EBRD) latest annual transition report – which the bank titled ‘Stuck in transition?’

Kiraly – who emphasised in an interview with Keleti Station after the panel discussion that she is still a firm believer that 'market-based reforms', to use the EBRD's term, are still the right path for the EU's eastern members and neighbours – expressed deep disappointment that the EBRD report failed effectively to make the point that these reforms do in fact lead to “sustainable economic growth”.

As a result, she said, many of these countries are looking at the so-called 'Rodrik Trilemma' – named after the economist Dani Rodrik, who argued that countries can only have two, not all three, of a nation state, democratic politics, and deep integration into the international economy – and deciding that perhaps they can live without the third.

As a result, Hungary – for example – is “trying to keep its independence, and trying to close itself” from the international market economy. “Formally nothing's happened yet, like closing the borders or capital controls”, Kiraly said – but she said she couldn't rule it out.

“My favourite case study”, she said, “is Belarus. I’m not very happy with the final result. But I’m afraid it’s not only Hungary which is on the way towards Belarus, there’s a lot of other countries, because it’s much easier now not to follow structural reforms.”

In 'Stuck in transition?', Belarus is presented as a particularly perplexing case study. “The population is highly educated”, the report notes; “per capita GDP, at nearly US$16,000 in purchasing power parity terms, is among the highest in eastern Europe and Central Asia”.

The population is also not unaware of alternative political set-ups: “Belarus has the highest proportion of Schengen visas per capita of any country in the world, and Belarusians routinely travel to neighbouring Lithuania and Poland” - both democratic EU members, as the report points out.

Kiraly made the point that, given the slow or negative economic growth in the EU, the countries covered in the EBRD report are now by default experiencing economic convergence with their Western partners. “If the EU is in stagnation and going down, I am in accession!” she said. The report, she continued, provides the current Hungarian government with “a lot of good reasons why to follow the way they have chosen.”

The alternative, she argued, is “Belarus, where economic inequality is decreasing; where people accept the lack of political freedom; where the GDP growth rate is higher than in some open and reformed countries”.

A better diagnosis of Hungary's situation than the EBRD report, Kiraly said, is Janos Kornai's article from last year on the centralisation of power there. “It would be good to re-read this and somehow to include in the next report because it reflects really where we are on the road towards Belarus”, she said.

“I hope that it’s not the final choice for these countries, and I would rather these countries choose political freedom and economic reforms. But actually I do not know why they should…” TB, London

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Croatia's gay marriage referendum kick starts a conservative political movement

Members of 'In the name of the family' in front of the Croatian parliament, delivering boxes of signatures in support of the anti-gay marriage referendum (photo by: Vedran Brkulj/tportal.hr)

Less than six months after it became the 28th member of the EU, instead of falling in line with the bloc's proclaimed tolerance for minorities Croatia has instead adopted a high level of right-wing extremism – not uncommon for post-communist countries joining the Union in recent years.

In a referendum held on December 1, the majority of a minority of Croats voted to make gay marriage unconstitutional, opening the field for a broad palette of radical groups to put pressure on other minorities. However, rather than being a demonstration of Croatian homophobia, the outcome is mainly a consequence of a series of political, legal and procedural gaffes.

The initiators of the referendum – a popular initiative called 'In the name of the family' – collected some 750,000 signatures, thus triggering a referendum. The national referendum law was changed in 2010 due to the government's fear that it wouldn't win an EU membership referendum, and now 50% + 1 is no longer required for the result to be binding.

What is more, the Parliament and the Constitutional Court allowed the use of a manipulatively-worded referendum question: “Do you support the inclusion of the provision, stating that marriage is a legal partnership of a man and a woman, into the Constitution Act“, something that most people in a country where 87% declare themselves Catholic could be expected to agree with.

The Croatian Catholic Church played a significant role in the campaign, not only through financial and practical support (pre-referendum signatures were literally collected at mass), but also through religious officials not wasting a single opportunity to warn the public of the horrors of the ‘modern understanding’ of the concept of a family.

On the other hand, along with concerts and street parades, LGBT organisations have been able to rely for the most part on the support of mainstream media. The day before the referendum, all major media organisations boycotted the 'In the name of the family' headquarters after press passes were withheld from those who criticised the organisation – an unprecedented moment of cooperation in the history of Croatian media.

Despite the noisy and emotional dispute, only 1,436,835, less than 38% of 3,791,000 registered voters, turned out. 946,433 conservative voters circled YES – almost two thirds of the vote – whereas 481,534 mostly liberal and left voters opted for NO. The unpopular liberal-left government, and president Ivo Josipović, favoured the NO option, and simultaneously prepared a law allowing gay couples to enter into a civil partnership, with all rights but child adoption included.

Public debate on the law revealed the true nature of 'In the name of the family' – not just another ad hoc movement, but an ambitious right wing political force. Outraged with the proposed civil partnerships law, their president, the fresh neo-conservative icon Željka Markić, said 'the referendum clearly stated what the public meant on this issue', and called on the government to withdraw the new law. The government, of course, replied that it would not.

Meanwhile, on the day of the referendum, a large number of polling stations were used to gather signatures for another proposed referendum attacking minority rights. After a series of protests, including an attack on a police station, the 'anti-cyrillic' movement in Vukovar, a town destroyed by Serbian army during the war in 1991, is searching for a legal way to expel cyrillic signs from official buildings in that town, a right the Serbian minority is entitled to according to law. Apparently, we are in for another 'most expensive copy-paste ever', as one American comedy site called the anti-gay marriage referendum. Unfortunately, this is no longer a joke... BS, Zagreb