KEY POINTS:
Eastern Europe is heading for a violent "spring of discontent", according to experts in the region who fear that the global economic downturn is generating a backlash on the streets.
Hit increasingly hard by the financial crisis, countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states face political destabilisation, social strife, and an increase in racial tension.
Last week protesters were tear-gassed as they threw rocks at police outside Parliament in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. In Sofia, Bulgaria, 150 people were arrested and at least 30 injured in widespread violence.
More than 100 were detained after street battles between security forces and demonstrators in the Latvian capital, Riga.
According to the most recent estimates, the economies of some Eastern European countries, after posting double-digit growth for nearly a decade, will contract by up to 5 per cent this year, with inflation peaking at more than 13 per cent. Many fear Romania, which joined the European Union with Bulgaria in 2007, may be the next to suffer breakdowns in public order.
"In a few months there will be people in the streets, that much is certain," said Luca Niculescu, a media executive in Bucharest. "Every day we hear about another factory shutting or moving overseas. There is a new Government that has not shown itself too effective. We have got used to very high growth rates. It's an explosive cocktail." Major Romanian companies threatening staff cuts include carmaker Dacia, where up to 4000 jobs could go. Other major
companies have already announced plans to relocate.
According to Marius Oprea, security adviser to the last Romanian Government, the economic crisis would mean "serious problems for the middle class. There will be a fall in tax revenue which will lead to major problems for state budgets," he said. "The numbers of state employees will also be cut right back and their salaries will be worth less and less."
Another problem in Romania, as elsewhere in the region, is that many new middle class house owners have taken out mortgages in euros. With local currencies collapsing, repayment is becoming harder.
"We will try dialogue but if that does not work we will defend our members' interests however we can," said one Romanian trade unionist last week. "We want to be part of the solution, not the problem, but the situation is very serious."
Dr Jonathan Eyal, a regional specialist at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, said Eastern European countries were ill-equipped to deal with the downturn and risked "social meltdown".
"These are often fragile economies ... with brittle political structures, political parties that are not very well formed and weak institutions. They are ill-prepared for what has hit them," Eyal said.
The reasons for last week's unrest are varied. Bulgarian students were protesting against the death of one of their number in a criminal attack, blaming the Socialist-led Government for failing to ensure security. They were joined by farmers angry at low prices for their produce and problems with European Union subsidies often diverted by corrupt administrators.
Tensions have been exacerbated by the gas crisis, in which Bulgaria suffered severe heating and power shortages after Moscow turned off the taps following a dispute with Ukraine.
"We are fed up with living in the poorest and most corrupt country," the Sofia protest organisers said in a statement. "This unique protest unites the people in their wish for change and their wish to live in a normal European country."
In Latvia, years of strong economic growth have given way to recession, soaring inflation and rising unemployment. Trust in the state's authority and officials has fallen catastrophically, said President Valdis Zatlers last week, threatening to call snap elections.
Most of those arrested in last week's disturbances in Riga have now been released. According to security police chief Janis Reiniks, the detained were "jobless, workers, students and school children" and included "one [person] connected to the Latvian Democratic Party and one skinhead".
Last year Latvia was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund for a massive 6.7 billion ($16.4 billion) bailout package, fuelling a jingoistic backlash against a perceived "national humiliation".
Some Eastern European states appear to be doing better, however. The Estonian Government built up substantial currency reserves during years of rapid growth.
Another fear is a rise in attacks on ethnic minorities. The Czech Republic, also hit by the crisis, saw its worst street violence for years recently when 700 members of the far-right Workers' Party clashed with 1000 riot police in the town of Litvinov when they were prevented from marching into a mostly Roma area.
"The populist, nationalist political climate [in Eastern Europe] is very conducive to anti-minority sentiment," said Larry Olomoofe of the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest.
The recent history of the region aggravates the crisis, say experts.
"You have people who were buoyed up through a very bad period after the collapse of the USSR, when their economies contracted by up to a third, by a belief that joining the EU would bring them prosperity and stability," Eyal said.
"It is that aspiration that has been disappointed and that is very destabilising."
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