🇭🇺 🇪🇺 🇧🇬 FROM HUNGARY TO BULGARIA

[veza85ue@eupolicy.social]

@elCelio Yeah, but it's Bulgaria... Must be Sunday. Whatever the rhetoric might be, Boyko & co. would never take their eyes off the standard corrupt EPP baronialism and feeding the hungry mouths of his local kleptocracy with money. Because they're not (yet) internet brainrotten and not too busy tapdancing for American fascists.

[elcelio@mastodon.uno]

@Veza85UE
they may move from EPP corrupt populism to rússkiymir corrupt populism.
what's worse?

anyway: Bulgarian choice. they choose these leaders again and again and again, in the hope that somehow things would get better, instead they get worse every time.

[veza85ue@eupolicy.social]

@elCelio Not disputing that, I would just caution against thinking those are two ideology-motivated sworn enemy mafioso clans. They're not. Balkan politics are uh... Well. Not easily mapped on Russia and anti-Russia politics., but rather a simple numbers game in the end. Putin can't afford all those hungry mouths, our tax money funneled via EU funds will continue to outbid him.

[quarky@expressional.social]

@elCelio Perhaps #Bulgaria should remember the depravation under #russian rule.

[elcelio@mastodon.uno]

@Quarky
Bulgarians have a weird affection for russians

[quarky@expressional.social]

@elCelio That is insane ! I have #bulgarian friends who have no time for Russia, however they do not represent the whole of #bulgaria

[elcelio@mastodon.uno]

@Quarky
I think younger generations have less of this feticism. maybe.

[quarky@expressional.social]

@elCelio You could be right, because the older generations of eastern #Germany and south east #Poland also have this strange fetish. Maybe they enjoyed suffering under the #Russian regime.

[elcelio@mastodon.uno]

@Veza85UE
my bar is lower: as far as they don't obstruct the consensus-based EU processes.

misspending public funds is part of the political process of every country.

[veza85ue@eupolicy.social]

@elCelio Yes, as long as you don't rock the boat for them in the EUCO, the CDU will let its local oligarchs like Plenković, Borissov and indeed, for a long time, Orbán, run their countries like feudal satrapies. The long-term effects on not just the lives of our fellow EUropeans in those countries, but on our Union are what they are... cf:

House of Orbán: enquête sur le néo-royalisme financier en Hongrie

Sous le règne de Viktor Orbán, le pouvoir a quitté l’État. Il s’organise désormais en coulisse, autour d’un dispositif fait de loyautés, d’actifs et d’institutions captives. En s’appuyant sur le paradigme théorique du néo-royalisme, la chercheuse Palma Polyak montre comment le clan Orbán a construit sa résilience politique — et financière.

Le Grand Continent (legrandcontinent.eu)

But mine was not a moral argument against Boyko's baronialism, just saying that pro-Russia doesn't mean much to the mafia.

[aethel@mastodon.social]

@Quarky @elCelio actually many remember those times fondly, as it was just easier to live. Obv not the ones active politically, just plain workers. And its not just a matter of being younger. Thats poland, but this book explains why *some* things, important ones, were better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Wall_(book)

[quarky@expressional.social]

@Aethel @elCelio I am aware of the viewpoint in eastern Germany. When I went to eastern #Germany just after the Berlin Wall came down, I was shocked at the decay in everything. It would be naive to think that links to #Russia would return them to that way of life. The would has moved on. I book you suggest, could be worthwhile reading.

[aethel@mastodon.social]

@Quarky @elCelio absolutely, that moment has passed,i agree. The book is very interesting and damn, anemoia triggerred hard when i read it

[quarky@expressional.social]

@Aethel @elCelio When I visited the Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. The exhibition gave a full picture of the situation in Germany after WWI until the end of the last century. It really did convey how ordinary people felt and how things impacted on their lives. It was worth the visit but sadly it is how Putin operates and it reflected the current situation in other countries.