Eastern Europe’s Authoritarian Return (Shlomo Ben-Ami, Project-Syndicate)

The European Union is a remarkable achievement of modern statecraft. By building on shared values, it created a space of peace, progress, and freedom that overcame national enmities rooted in decades, if not centuries, of conflict. But the emerging political rift between the EU’s Eastern and Western members, together with resurgent nationalism throughout the continent, is putting those values – and thus the future of European integration – to their most severe test yet.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eastern-europe-authoritarian-history-by-shlomo-ben-ami-2016-02