I think you make a very good point. Certainly when we're talking about Poland, we shouldn't preclude the importance of the subjective element, the degree to which much, it would appear, of what is driving recent Polish behaviour and apparent departures from what we would consider a more pan-European standard of behaviour, owes to Mr. Kaczynski himself.
Whether you're trying to explain Poland's recent effort to stand alone Tusk's reappointment as president of the European Council, it's very difficult to explain that in any other terms than Mr. Kaczynski's visceral opposition, and that of those who support him, to this important figure from the party they oppose. There is that subjective element that can be very important in shaping a state's trajectory.
I would certainly agree that the most important point all these countries share is that they are, relatively speaking, new democracies. What I think we're witnessing, again in varying degrees in Latvia, as you say, is that there don't seem to be quite the same challenges there as in places like Poland, or even Hungary these days.
What is important to keep in mind is the importance, I would say, of history and political culture. I think we, i.e., the collective west, we in Canada—but the collective—speak more broadly. We were having a bit of a chat about this before this session began. Again, I think that the collective “we” in the early nineties, when the Soviet Union collapsed, had the best of intentions. However, I think that in retrospect, even purported experts have proven to have been too optimistic about what was required, or the possibility that the challenges to building a vibrant democracy and open markets and making all countries just like the “west” could be overcome.
What we're witnessing is the fact that even in a Poland, even in a Hungary, these are the real.... I would argue it's pretty clear that for those countries, the former Soviet Union and the former east bloc that got into the European Union, this was the best possible circumstance in which to be. The fact that even with them we are seeing these challenges, this reversion to the approaches of an earlier time, speaks to the durability of habits and approaches to politics that were forged over decades of Communist rule.... We obviously see that to an even stronger degree in Kazakhstan, and certainly in Ukraine.
However, I think it's ironic, and a number of people have pointed to this, that in about 1989 or 1990, even before the Soviet Union had collapsed, based on the trends at the time in eastern Europe, the American political scientist, Fukuyama, wrote about the end of history, literally saying, “It's over. We've done it...”.
Sadly, it's laughable, the notion that one can talk in terms of late 18th-century positivism being brought to its ultimate conclusion. He might even have said the push of humankind towards greater enlightenment, democracy, and open markets was done. “There we are. History is literally over.” That's the most spectacularly sadly misguided manifestation of the kind of optimism that fuelled our thinking then. The very untoward trends that you and other questioners today have pointed to merely underline, sadly, that that optimism seems to have been rather exaggerated.
We're now at the stage, where we have to say—not to put words in the mouths of the committee, but I would imagine the impression you got after your tour of the region was that—we're very much in a “roll up our sleeves and keep at it” mode in terms of the efforts that will continue to be required to work with these countries and to find ways to help, where we can, to support a positive rather than negative trajectory by them.