Le Monde: Between Eastern and Western Europe. The gap widens.

"Why are the Czechs the most Eurosceptic in Europe after the Greeks?" Martin Michelot for the French Le Monde.

What are the main lines of fracture, and why? In Paris, Berlin and Brussels, Budapest and Warsaw are accused of abusing the free movement of services and people, bypassing the 1996 posting directive, which requires foreign workers to be paid at the country's minimum wage.

Why are the Czechs the most Eurosceptic in Europe after the Greeks? Because we sold them an economic catch-up that never happened. 

The contrast is striking between Vienna and Bratislava, just an hour away. The motorway that would connect the Austrian and Slovak capitals has still not emerged. On the Slovak side, the infrastructure is of another time are, which is a major obstacle to the development of trade.

Full article in French is available here.

Martin Michelot
Senior Associate Research Fellow

Expertise: NATO and transatlantic security, European foreign policy and defense, French politics, elections and society, Visegrad Four and Central Europe, EU institutional issues