Washington, DC. The current instability in europe and England’s decision to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. increased fears of instability and emboldened populists in Europe, according to a report out Tuesday by a US NGO with a long history of massive fund raising and deep involvement with US government operations in past administrations.
The Washington based NGO Freedom House’s annual Nations in Transit report claims there had been one of the biggest democratic declines across the 29 countries that it monitors in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans since it began publishing in 1995.
According to the organization with over $30 million dollars in revenue last year, “Brexit and the new administration in the U.S. have emboldened anti-democratic populists in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans,” said Nate Schenkkan, project director of Nations in Transit. “A critical mass of leaders in the region openly reject the idea of liberal democracy. Populism increasingly is combining with crude ethnic nationalism in a way that threatens peace in Europe.”
The organization,frequently accused of CIA ties has a “unique” view of what “democracy” actualy constitutes.“Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Jarosław Kaczyński of Poland openly deride the idea that democracy requires independent institutions or constraints on majority rule,there is no more important theater for the defense of democracy than Central Europe.” Schenkkan stressed.
On December 7, 2004, U.S. House Representative Ron Paul criticized Freedom House for allegedly administering a U.S.-funded program in Ukraine where “much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate.” Paul said that
“One part that we do know thus far is that the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House. PAUCI then sent U.S. Government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.”
Amazingly Freedom house found that, ” According to the 2017 report, the “bright spots” were Ukraine, Romania and Kosovo.” Which experts in international relations found stunning, given Ukraine is engaged in genocide on it’s own territory, Romania gripped by a corruption problem rivaling Ukraine and Kosovo is plagued with a severe organized crime and corruption problem of its own.