The landslide victory of Hungary’s center-right opposition party Fidesz in the Parliamentary elections on Sunday has digged over Hungary’s political landscape. Its leader Victor Orban is the great political winner. The ultra-right party Jobbik enters with his significant gains the Hungarian parliament for the first time. The Socialist government of the last 8 years suffered a desastrous defeat. The election result was a consequence for years of misgovernment and corruption in Hungary. Once the front-runner in the Eastern European transformation process Hungary has become an applicant for international government aid in fall 2008. The country was almost bankrupt and could only be saved by a substantial financial aid of the I.M.F.

This economic crisis brought political turmoils in a then deeply splitted country with an unforgiving stand-off between the political Left and Right. In this political environment the ultra-right Jobbik began to florish. This party offers today the seducing impression to the many loosers of the transformation that they are taken care of. Jobbik agitated with fervant anti-semitic, anti-european and nationalistic torrents of hatred against the Roma. It denigrated the entire political leadership as corrupt traitors of the Hungarian nation. This election agitation has apparently paid off for Jobbik. Twenty years after the peaceful revolution in Eastern Europe it demonstrates how many Hungarians have lost their confidence in Hungary’s political institutions and democracy.

After the second round of the elections at April 25 Victor Orban will have to distance himself and his party Fidesz distinctively from Jobbik. It will become decisive how he will deal with the “Hungarian Guards”. This paramilitary, Neo-Nazi-unit of Jobbik was already prohibited, but is still politically active. A cooperation with Jobbik would seriously undermine the credibility of Fidesz. Politicians from Fidesz already announced their wish to change the constitution from 1989 if they gain the necessary 2/3 majority which seems to be very likely. The big question will be for which constitutional changes Fidesz will use the majority. For Orban it requires a sensible policy in Budapest to overcome the deep political rifts domestically without undermining the country’s economic recovery and without loosing the confidence of the other 26 EU member in Hungary’s way of democracy.

Jörg Himmelreich is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., Berlin

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BERLIN — “The King is dead.   Long live the King!” is a traditional proclamation made following the accession of a new monarch.   The same pragmatic approach was adopted by the EU Commission President when the new Ukrainian President visited Brussels Monday on his first official trip abroad: José Manuel Barroso, in welcoming Viktor Yanukovich as a”friend,” focused on the fact that his guest had been elected in a process that was free and fair and notably ignored the President’s past.

Today, Yanukovich is on his second official trip abroad — to Moscow. He won the Ukrainian election in the Russian-speaking south and east of his country. From Moscow’s point of view, that means many issues might become easier.   For example, Yanukovich — like Moscow — is against NATO membership for Ukraine.   Yanukovich — like Moscow — is also in favor of extending the deployment of the Russian Black Sea fleet in the Crimea after 2017.   Indeed, his pressing of the”reset button” in Ukraine’s relations with Russia contrasts sharply with his predecessor Yushchenko’s aversion to Russia.

Oddly enough, Yanukovich’s new charm offensive toward Moscow makes it easier for the EU to pursue a more open and integrated neighborhood policy with Ukraine.   For the past five years, and precisely because of Kiev’s aversion to Moscow, any type of cooperation between Brussels and Kiev was viewed with suspicion from Moscow, and some in Brussels became intimidated by Russian growling.   Combined with Ukrainian political and economic deficiencies, European excuses for not working more closely with Ukraine were widespread.

President Yanukovich understands that improved engagement with the EU is in his country’s interest.   Ukraine’s ailing economy needs greater integration into the European Common Market. Even the oligarchs from Ukraine’s Russian-speaking regions that back Yanukovich are far more interested in access to European markets than in the sometimes dirty struggles with Russian businessmen.

With the EU-Ukraine negotiations about the Association Agreement and a deeper Free Trade Agreement, the EU has adequate mechanisms in place to integrate Ukraine’s economy into the European market. Besides this, Yanukovich looks for EU support for securing loans from the International Monetary Fund.   Barroso himself   promised the disbursement of another 500 million euros if Ukraine meets the conditions for IMF loans. At Monday’s talks in Brussels, reform of Ukraine’s opaque gas sector   played a central role, as 80 percent of the EU gas imports from Russia pass through Ukraine. The country’s gas sector might serve as a textbook example for a “de facto” integration of Ukraine’s industry — if the Ukrainian government in the long term is able to meet European transparency standards.

Eventually, such a pragmatic “de facto” integration of Ukrainian industry sectors into the European market might include free trade and visa-free travel. Certainly, it is the most promising route for a rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU given the reservations harbored by most EU member states toward the idea of a Ukrainian membership bid.

It remains to be seen whether Yanukovich’s efforts to rebalance Ukraine’s position between Moscow and Brussels is a deliberate move to maintain his country’s independence from Russia or a pragmatic move to help get his country’s economy back on its feet.   In the meantime, improved relations between the Ukraine and the EU might make it difficult for Europe to keep Ukraine waiting before its closed doors.

Jörg Himmelreich is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Berlin

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BERLIN — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives at the White House this week with the political momentum to push India deeper into the American camp. Despite being President Barack Obama’s first official state dinner guest, he comes at a time when many Indians fear that Obama will focus more on China and less on India than did previous American administrations.

The relationship between the world’s richest democracy and the world’s largest one has improved dramatically over the last ten years after decades of a troubled bilateral history. The centerpiece of this paradigm shift in relations was the completion of the civil nuclear deal last fall, an historic agreement that, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged, has “helped us get over our defining disagreement,” even if it is not yet completely implemented.

Both the United States and India share the fundamental objective of preserving an Asia that is peaceful, prosperous, and free. India’s growth is a positive development for the balance of power in Asia. But India will continue to grow only if its economic and institutional reforms are successful, and the success of those reforms requires a peaceful geopolitical environment in which India’s security and autonomy are not threatened by any outside power, especially by its rivals Pakistan and China. Indian leaders are concerned that China’s rise and the incipient changes in the global distribution of power could have serious consequences for peace and stability in Asia in the long run. Consequently, the character of U.S.-Chinese relations has a critical and immediate impact on Indian security. Given the current conditions of Indian-Chinese interdependence, any sort of American containment of China or American hostility toward China would seriously undermine Indian interests. Above all, India seeks an assurance that U.S.-Chinese relations will not become a geostrategic condominium — a G2 — whether out of choice, necessity, or inevitability. This is why the strength of the other — both the American economic recovery and India’s growth — is of profound mutual self-interest to both the United States and India.

The India-Pakistan rivalry casts a long shadow over the region and complicates U.S. diplomacy.   These days mark the one-year anniversary of the horrific attacks by Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai that killed 163 people. The terrorists were members of the banned Pakistani extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), which has longstanding ties to the Pakistani military and intelligence services. India accuses Pakistan of supporting terrorists in Kashmir, Pakistan accuses India of supporting secessionists in Baluchistan, and both view the other’s intentions in Afghanistan with suspicion. The United States and India differ significantly in their perception of Pakistan and the struggle against terrorism. By some standards, Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism because the army and the intelligence services — as organs of the Pakistani government — continue to actively support terrorist groups that attack civilians in Afghanistan and India.

But Islamabad is also Washington’s partner in the fight against terrorism, and therein lies the U.S. policy dilemma. Pakistan is part of both the problem and the solution to terrorism, which leads to a much more indulgent U.S. policy toward Pakistan than many Indians are willing to accept. On the other hand, LET links to al-Qaeda show that U.S. and Indian security are threatened by the same Islamist terror groups. This fact, as well as the convergence of U.S. and Indian interests in Afghanistan, will build confidence and increase intelligence-sharing between Washington and New Delhi. It is therefore expected that Obama and Singh will agree to deeper cooperation on counterterrorism and defense issues.

National security will remain for some time the central topic in U.S.-India relations. But the common U.S.-India policy agenda already covers an immense and expanding canvas. Indians have by far the largest share of foreign students in the United States. The United States is the biggest investor in India. More than that, though, India has started moving toward a civil society model based on the United States to address education shortfalls and other lagging public goods. Private organizations are filling the gaps the Indian state has left bare, much like American NGOs and charities have done. This potential for cooperation and information-sharing should not be overlooked among the security and economics issues being addressed this week.

Whether the other issues are liberalizing world trade, building a more stable global financial architecture, reducing global warming, or reining in nuclear proliferation, Obama will meet an Indian prime minister who firmly believes that India must be a responsible global stakeholder. When the two leaders sit down for meetings, and also for dinner, they should not run out of topics to discuss.

Jörg Himmelreich is a senior non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

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BERLIN — In West Berlin the days and nights after November 9, 1989, we welcomed and hugged complete strangers, our East German countrymen, on the streets, chatting over a cup of coffee or a glass of Glähwein, with inconceivable and indescribable sentiments of ecstatic joy and happiness. The political mood in Germany and Eastern Europe today, however, seems sometimes to be rather that of a hangover. Everyone had expectations that have not been met. Various tasks of the transformation in Germany and in Eastern Europe are far from being completed. But what do these unfulfilled hopes and endeavors mean in light of the never-expected historic achievements in all of Europe and even in Russia?

President George H.W. Bush’s fervent support of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s policy was the decisive key to overcoming French President François Mitterand’s concerns and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s firm resistance to the reunification of Germany — the second time that the United States had rebuilt Germany in the 20th century, after Germany’s liberation from Nazism. In spite of Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev’s early reluctance, the reunited Germany became a member of NATO, as even he believed in “all European nations coming together under one roof.” States of the former Soviet Union, such as the Baltic States, became members of NATO and the EU, as did other Eastern European countries. In 2007, the EU accepted the accession of Romania and Bulgaria even though the implementation of good government in both states is still lagging behind EU standards today. More than 80% of the national laws of every EU member state are derived from EU rules. This indicates the extent to which every EU member state is integrated into the EU, leaving aside the billions of euros the new member states received for the stabilization of their weak economies and agriculture.

Even Russia, in spite of its democratic and civil failings, is no longer the Soviet Union of 1989. Although Gorbachev might have raised a lot of Western hopes for integrating Russia into Europe, it can hardly come as a surprise that a country that had acted as an empire for centuries has grievances about the loss of almost all of its Eastern Bloc neighbors to the Western orbit. But Russia’s post-imperial grievances turn out to be more problematic for Russia than for its neighbors. Their alignment with the West is irreversible. The Warsaw Pact and the Breshnev doctrine are history.

The political clout of East European states has grown with their EU membership. Their influence in the East European neighborhood is crucial for the EU, but at the same time requires the support of major EU states. Germany, with its new government, is going to recognize once again the importance of Eastern Europe — both inside and outside the EU — for Europe’s security as a whole.

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BERLIN — Iran’s nuclear policy is a bit like a Persian veil dance €“ a lot of declarations, announcements and verbal promises that hide its real intentions and policies. To get a clearer picture of what is really going on, let’s look through the layers.

Various Iranian officials have indicated various caveats for an acceptance of the United Nations-sponsored proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad. This plan was negotiated over the last weeks in the Geneva and Vienna talks of the so-called P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) with Iran. The plan calls for Iran to transfer around 75% of its known 1.5 tons of LEU to Russia for further enrichment by the end of this year, then on to France for conversion into fuel plates. These would be returned to Tehran to power a research reactor that produces radio isotopes for cancer treatment. This deal, if it becomes reality, would be a win-win for both sides. For the West, because Iran would not have enough nuclear material to build a weapon and there would be more time to prepare an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. For Iran, this deal would set a precedent by permitting Iran to continue a fuel production that the Security Council previously had ordered it to stop. The official response from Iran has been promised for Friday, and it will be a litmus test for Iran’s stated intent to use LEU only for peaceful ends.

The recent revelation by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the Pittsburgh G20 summit of a new enrichment facility at Qum, 160km south of Tehran, and their call for tougher sanctions if Iran still fails to abide by its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), sent a clear signal to Iran. The new U.S. engagement policy with Iran is not unconditional, but a mix of carrots and sticks. Faced with the revelation, Iran hurriedly informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and accepted inspection by an IAEA team that arrived last Sunday to investigate the enrichment facility that Iran had hidden since 2007.

Moscow, meanwhile, is still continuing its seesaw policy toward Tehran. As a co-architect of the NPT, it certainly prefers a non-nuclear Iran, but on the other hand it likes the status quo of an isolated Iran that keeps the West in a state of deep unease. Russia benefits economically from the nuclear power plant it is building in Bushehr, and it also benefits under the new UN proposal by taking over an early phase of enrichment of Iranian LEU. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev praised the P5+1 talks in Vienna and Geneva during the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Moscow last week, but he ruled out Russian support for sanctions against Iran “at this time.”

U.S.-led international political pressure on Iran adds to the domestic pressure the regime feels from its internal opposition. With the U.S. administration extending its hand and offering a conditioned engagement policy, it has become more difficult for the repressive Iranian regime to justify its domestic repressions with the pretence of a U.S. threat. Obama’s pragmatism in refraining from public condemnation of the regime’s handling of its June elections and the subsequent brutal repression of the protests of millions of Iranian citizens actually put further pressure on the Iranian government. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has helped by saying, regularly and clearly, that military force could not solve the problems the West has with Iran. Globally, people feared the United States more than they feared Iran getting away with its nuclear violations; now, people want Iran to be more accommodating.

Iran has not negotiated in a spirit of genuine give-and-take for years. The renaissance of the United States’ global credibility might press Iran to take a few steps for the first time since 2004 as a beginning to the beginning of a real negotiation process.   After all, the first round of renewed international negotiations has made unexpected progress. The Iranian government now feels obliged to modify its behaviour in order to build international confidence that all of its nuclear activities are peaceful, and that none of them have military dimensions.

In the long run, the United States and its P5+1 partners will have to maintain the necessary political pressure and frame a mutually acceptable outcome with Iran that allows it to save face. As the NPT never defined when nuclear fuel usage is weaponization and when it is not, the negotiated outcome could be an enforceable agreement that clearly classifies which nuclear activities are peaceful and which are not; that classification should be applicable to all countries under the NPT. It will be a long way to go with many maneuvers still to come. But if Iran can keep face in the process, it may be able to drop its veils. Iran’s answer to the UN’s enrichment proposal will indicate its readiness to move in this direction.

Jörg Himmelreich is a senior non-resident fellow with the German Marshall Fund.

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BERLIN — The new German conservative-liberal government of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her probable future Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will without doubt continue Germany’s commitments in Afghanistan. There is a broad understanding in the government about the negative consequences of a premature reduction or even withdrawal of German troops. The coalition agreement between the two government parties (set to be concluded over the weekend) is unlikely to contain any details regarding the German ISAF mandate, which is up for renewal by the Bundestag in mid-December; certainly any announcements of additional troops are very unlikely at this time. But it is a move of no little significance that the German AfPak Representative’s office (a job created by the previous grand coalition government in response to the nomination of Richard Holbrooke) is being moved from the Foreign Office to the Chancellery.

The real challenge for the new government will be to obtain the approval of the new parliament in December for the prolongation of Germany’s mandate. The fading support of the German public — a majority of Germans is in favor of an end to Germany’s military engagement in Afghanistan — has already increased the unease of the German opposition parties, in particular within the SPD. The fragmented and polarized political party landscape in the new German parliament will produce a fierce debate with the new German government about the strategies, rationales and objectives of the German and Western Afghanistan engagement, a debate that — eight years after the deployment of ISAF — is long overdue.

With the Dutch parliament’s recent announcement that it will withdraw its 1,400 troops by fall 2010, and the Canadian parliament’s decision to withdraw by 2011, not to mention the Japanese government ending its logistical support for Afghanistan, the new German government is under growing pressure to make its case to the parliament and to the people. The naïve attempts by former German governments to justify the largest out-of-area military engagement in German history since 1945 with the protection of women’s rights and child education in Afghanistan — and their efforts to avoid any public discussion about hard security threats from Afghanistan — will no longer do. Hopefully, the debate over a new mandate will broaden the basis of domestic legitimacy for Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan. 4,500 German soldiers and the German people have a democratic right to it.

Note: Updated to correct Dutch troop levels.

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German voters made a clear decision in their federal election last Sunday. As expected, Chancellor Angela Merkel can stay in office with her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), by far the strongest party with 33.8 percent of the vote, which is even less than the already disappointing result of the last election (35.4 percent)-a rather unglamorous victory. Her queen-maker, future coalition partner, and real winner of the election was Guido Westerwelle, the probable future foreign minister, with his liberal, business-oriented Free Democratic Party (FDP) (14.6 percent).

The disastrous result for Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) with 23 percent, an all time low since 1949, has plunged a party with a great 146-year history into an existential crisis about its future. These figures, including the new records for the two smaller opposition parties, the Greens (10.7 percent) and the Left Party (11.9 percent), with the lowest election participation in Germany ever, reflect the profound discontent of the German electorate with the former grand coalition of the CDU and SPD. The business wing of the CDU and its traditionalist voters, disaffected with Merkel’s SPD-driven bail-out policy for banks and companies in trouble, and with her purely pragmatic cooperation with the SPD on almost every policy issue, moved to the FDP. Many core voters of the SPD, in contrast, frustrated by the Realpolitik of the party’s leadership in government, shifted to the Left, or didn’t vote at all.

German voters like continuity and, if there has to be change, they prefer it in incremental slices. Thus, the policy of the new government will differ from the former one only in nuances, and domestic policy issues like health care, tax reform, and nuclear policy will be at the forefront; there will be far less disagreement on foreign policy. As the German free market economy model in its original concept always included a strong commitment to social welfare policies, there will be, even with the FDP in government, only a slight shift in the balance between a free market economic policy and a state-oriented social policy.

Governing will become much more difficult for Merkel-that is the main difference. There will be fierce policy debates about social subsidies and tax cuts between an opposition that is much larger than before (the Greens, an SPD torn between its realist and its left wing, and the Left Party) and, in their view, a neoliberal CDU-FDP government. In the four years of grand coalition government, the chancellor was able to kill any dispute by pointing out that it was likely to endanger the survival of the coalition. This had the added benefit of making her look maternal and above the fray. But these times are over. Merkel now has to show which policy she really stands for-the market economy-oriented policy that she campaigned for in 2005 or the social policy of the Social Democrats that she accepted broadly later. Simply put, she has no other choice than to step into the role of chancellor and to lead. That is what her party-and the public-now expects of her.

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BERLIN — As Germany heads for federal elections this Sunday, President Obama’s decision to cancel plans for a land-based missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic met with unanimous applause, not just from Chancellor Angela Merkel and her challenger, Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, but in fact across all the parties. It was with good reason, and a fair degree of ignorance about its consequences for Germany and Europe.

Even in the United States, there had always been doubts about the technical feasibility of the program and the seriousness of the threat by Iran’s nuclear missiles. Ten conventionally-armed interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic were never going to be a threat to Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent €“ or, conversely, the sole guarantor of both countries’ military security. It was the symbolism that mattered: the presence of American soldiers made the West’s defense commitment much more visible and credible than the mere fact of NATO membership could have done. But there are other ways for the U.S. and Europe to build up Polish and Czech confidence.

Unlike George W. Bush’s missile defense program, which sold   a weak concept as a strong response, the Obama Administration’s policy U-turn kills two birds with one shot. With regard to Russia, the new plan underlines the United States’ seriousness about its new disarmament initiative and increases political pressure on Russia. With regard to Iran, the U.S. demonstrates its willingness to negotiate. Now it is up to Russia to demonstrate its own readiness for disarmament €“ and it will be possible to measure that willingness   by the extent to which it supports U.S. policy toward Iran. Russia’s recent willingness to support more severe sanctions against Iran would seem to indicate that the leadership in Moscow has understood that this is a chance to cooperate that the United States will not offer again soon. Iran is a top priority for President Obama’s foreign policy. This policy U-turn builds up enormous political capital for the U.S. globally; it also increases political pressure not just on Russia and Iran but also on Europe.

What does all this mean for Germany? We may assume that the White House will present its wish list to the new German government very soon after the elections this weekend. Germany and Europe will be asked to take much more responsibility for Eastern European security, as part of sharing the burden   of the new disarmament policy. The United States’ new stance makes it much more difficult for Germany, France, the Netherlands and others to reject U.S. wishes if the Europeans want to appear to undermine Obama’s disarmament agenda. But that’s not something German politicians like to think about during an election campaign.

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Russia has never been easy. Will the present global financial and economical crisis nonetheless pave the path to a new period of thaw or even to some change of the”System Putin”? Last week, in discussions with a group of Americans and Germans in Moscow organized by GMF, representatives of the declining number of still active NGOs and the opposition champion Garry Kasparov were outspokenly optimistic.”Putinism is dead” was their overall message.

No doubt, the economic crisis hits Russia hard, harder than the other BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China). The unemployment rate officially rose to more than 8 percent, and independent Russian economists speak of more than 15 percent. In the more than 500 Russian monotowns — a hangover of Stalin’s Sovietic industry policy in which a whole city depends upon one industrial employer —  the closure of a factory turns more than 70% jobless and leads to  growing social unrest. The Central Bank and State Pension Fund reserves of more than U.S. $600 billion  last summer officially dwindled to U.S. $385 billion in a desperate struggle to stop the free fall of the Ruble.

At the beginning of the crisis, Putin fiercely blamed the United States for causing this crisis and fortified an illusion to the Russian people that Russia will not be affected. Now it turns out that Russia is more intertwined with the global economy than previously admitted and that Russia is harder hit than others because of their own omissions. The hard currency revenues raining out of commodity exports were used for buying into new pipeline projects abroad for foreign political objectives than for the diversification of the domestic economy.

This crisis breaks the”Contrat Social” on which Putin’s political system was based. The deal called for a rebuilding of  authoritarian power at the Kremlin coupled with a reduction of basic human rights against an increase and spread of prosperity for the people. Will this break of the social contract change Putin’s System? It remains doubtful. The government — as a former Russian minister predicted — will purchase important industrial complexes to save the employment and invest into public works. This renationalization of key Russian industry sectors fits into the long-pursued goal of the”Putin System” to strengthen the political control about major industry areas. Growing social unrest will be oppressed by a stronger authoritarian fist. The valves where the growing discontent and frustration find their psychological way out are, according to the well-repudiated Russian poll institute Levada Center, a rising inner cynism of Russians, a turn to the Orhodox church, and rising nationalism and xenophobia.

This makes the new charm offensive from the new U.S. administration so tricky for the Kremlin. On one hand, there are obvious advantages for Vice President Biden’s”reset” in U.S.-Russian relations for Russia, too, as I said in an interview with the Russian Regnum news agency. The Russian diplomats seem to envision euphorically a new period of thaw, in particular in the area of arms control and nuclear arms reduction. On the other hand, the”Putin System” needs legitimation for its increasingly stronger authoritarian oppression of social discontent, the constant Anti-Americanism, and the perception of the United States as the global foe against Russia’s rise. As an NGO representative put it,”Independently from what the U.S. is doing, they are always perceived as Russia’s enemy.”

This is Russia’s dilemma today: the longer the crisis lasts, the more Putin’s system is compelled to cooperate with the United States in some foreign, financial, and economic policy matters, while at the same time domestically bashing the United States as Russia’s great evil. How Putin will balance this dilemma will be probably his most serious task in his whole political career. Any mismanegement could easily create the strongest risk to his system or to Russia’s re-created global power.

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