The migrant crisis aside, rates of crime and violence have been reaching historic lows in the V4 countries, trending downward for ten years in three of the countries—while crime in Germany remains stubbornly high and is increasing in France, according to statistics from Eurostat. The murder rate in Czechia in 2018 was about half its 2009 rate. In Hungary, the rate is 61 percent of its 2009 level and in Poland, 55 percent. While declining slightly, Slovakia’s relatively high murder rate is comparable to France’s, ranging from 1.0 to 1.5 murders per 100,000 people in the years 2016–18. Germany’s murder rate is comparable to current rates in the V4, but in both France and Germany murder remains at the same level since 2009, showing no progress.

The incidence of rape is almost twice as high in France as it was a decade ago, and its twenty-nine-plus rapes per 100,000 people in 2018 were almost five times the number in Czechia (6.14), which has the highest incidence of rape in the V4 countries. Germany’s incidence rate has remained stable at about ten rapes per 100,000 people, but that is dramatically higher than all four V4 countries. Even Hungary—where rapes have increased from 2.27 in 2009 to 5.53 in 2018—has about one-half of Germany’s rate.

Theft is also much more common in France and Germany than in the V4. Theft is five times more likely in Germany, and almost eight times more likely in France, than it is in Poland. The worst rate in the V4—Hungary’s 656 thefts per 100,000 people in 2018—is about half Germany’s rate and less than a third of the rate in France. Incidents of theft dropped 42-57 percent in all V4 countries since 2009, but remain stubbornly high in France, while Germany reported a slight decrease since 2016.

While the worst effects of the migrant crisis were blunted by the leaders of the V4 countries, the future of the EU is now on hold. EU immigration policy remains unclear since the V4 countries rebelled in 2016, creating border controls to stem the flows of migrants, which Western Europe criticized—and then copied. This was the first breakdown of the EU’s Schengen Zone open borders accord. Five years later, the EU is still wrestling to craft an immigration policy its members can support.

The Merkel-made crisis crippled very ambitious plans by French president Emmanuel Macron to deepen and strengthen the EU. It also led to a third consecutive defeat for Merkel’s governing coalition in local elections on October 29, 2018. The next day, Merkel announced she would surrender leadership of her party and step down as chancellor in 2021, creating a lame-duck administration that would last three years.

Finally, many analysts believe Merkel’s migrant crisis led to the Brexit vote of 2016, both for reasons related to terrorism, but also because EU member states and their voters were not consulted. Alain Finkielkraut, the French philosopher, said, “If it weren’t for Merkel’s Wir schaffen das (‘We can do this’) and the million migrants Germany took in in 2015, Brexit wouldn’t have happened. That sent a shockwave through Europe. Europeans weren’t asked.” In Great Britain itself, Justice Minister Dominic Raab made a pro-Brexit speech in which he said, “It is undeniable that regaining control over our borders would be a valuable defensive tool in protecting Britain from future terrorist attacks.”

IT REMAINS to be seen how many more ways the EU can fail itself, but it is clear that the enterprise is failing in Western Europe, not Central Europe, and this is due to the actions of Berlin and Paris, not Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, or Warsaw.

In the twilight years of his eventful life, French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau warned besieged Polish leaders seeking his advice to avoid the example set by their West European peers, since their customs, he said, “are daily being bastardized by the general European tendency to adopt the tastes and manners of the French.” It seems that much of Central Europe has gotten the message, if not from the French philosopher, perhaps from the wanton examples established by Berlin and Paris.

Kevin J. McNamara is an Associate Scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe, a history of the dramatic role of the Czecho-Slovak Legion in World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the founding of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918.

Image: Unsplash / Bence Balla-Schottner