In the two decades since the landmark 2004 enlargement, the European Union as a ‘convergence machine’ has functioned with remarkable efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). National GDPs have climbed steadily, and the region has seen progress in both urban and rural surroundings. However, this overall success masks a deepening internal fracture. A distinct political geography has emerged: pro-European, liberal, and reformist urban centers are increasingly surrounded by rural peripheries characterized by nationalism, Euroscepticism, and populist sentiment.
More funds, fewer friends
Let’s have a look at the numbers first: Under the EU Cohesion Policy 2021-2027, more than €390 billion has been allocated to strengthen economic, social, and territorial cohesion within the Union, on top of the €405 billion already invested through the same policy in the 2014-2020 period. The policy accounts for over one third of the EU’s budget, and is designed so that the poorest regions can benefit significantly more from it than the developed ones. The money is everywhere: the Cohesion Fund builds roads and railways, the European Social Fund+ funds vocational training, youth employment schemes, and social inclusion projects – and beyond the Cohesion Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy provides the direct payments that keep small-scale farming viable in rural areas. Technically, the policies are working. GDP per capita in Central and Eastern Europe rose from 41.8% of the EU average in 2010 to 62.4% in 2024. Roads are smoother, water is cleaner, farming more efficient, and the internet is quick and reliable. The facts are undeniable: rural regions are better off thanks to the European Union. Yet, in these same “beneficiary” regions, Euroscepticism isn’t just surviving – it’s thriving.
If we look at the other set of numbers, as published in a study by the European Commission in 2020, they show that when considering all electoral districts in Europe, people tend to vote less for anti-EU parties in cities, towns and suburbs than in rural areas: the median vote for parties opposed and strongly opposed to the EU decreases with the degree of urbanization of the electoral district. More recent elections within the CEE region clearly show this: In the Romanian presidential elections of 2025, Nicușor Dan took a pro-Western line, which contrasted with his opponent George Simion’s nationalist and Eurosceptic stance. In the runoff, Dan won all six districts of Bucharest, receiving 70% of the vote among the nearly 1.1 million ballots cast there. He also won in other major cities like Cluj (70%), Brașov (over 60%), Iași and Timiș (both nearly 60%). In comparison, George Simion won his best result in the rural southern county of Gorj and dominated across the less-developed counties of Tulcea and Călărași.
In Poland, research conducted by the Polish Sociological Review based on the 2023 election data found that younger, better-educated and urban voters disproportionately support the Civic Coalition and The Left, while older, less-educated and rural voters remain the electoral base of right-wing populist and national-conservative party Law and Justice (PiS), which has the most seats in the Polish parliament and an incumbent president of Poland.
Even in this month’s landslide victory of pro-EU Tisza party in Hungary, far-right Fidesz, who had held power for 16 years, maintained its grip in rural areas in the Northeast (Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg) and a solid number of single constituencies. If we take a closer look at the electoral map, we observe that what almost all those constituencies have in common is that they don’t encompass towns over 15,000 people: Nógrád 2nd constituency, Győr-Moson-Sopron 3rd, Hajdú-Bihar 4th and Fejér 5th are examples of this. This proves that even a national ‘political earthquake’ struggles to penetrate the final frontier of the countryside.
From Warsaw to Budapest, from Bucharest to Bratislava, the pattern is consistent. Cities vote pro-European, liberal, and reformist. Rural areas vote nationalist, Eurosceptic, and populist. But why? And how did €800billion buy so little loyalty?
Lost in Translation
Several structural factors explain why high levels of EU funding have not translated into high levels of EU support in rural areas, but they can all be boiled down to a single one: communication.
The EU’s communication strategy remains largely focused on transparency and administrative compliance. By treating the disbursement of funds as a neutral bureaucratic process, Brussels has left a vacuum in the political narrative, which is often filled with ‘credit hijacking’ by national and local populist governments.
Furthermore, EU institutions and their national allies have consistently framed European integration as a project of modernity, openness, and cosmopolitan values. In cities, that message lands well, but in the countryside, it often lands badly. When a Brussels official talks about ‘rule of law’ or ‘LGBTQ+ rights’, many rural voters hear something else: urban elites telling them that their traditional communities are backward. Whether that is fair or not is irrelevant, because it is a political reality. Furthermore, the ‘metropolization’ of success has created a brutal brain drain. EU mobility and urban investment have made it easier than ever for the brightest young minds to leave their villages for the capitals. The rural areas are left with an ageing population, crumbling social services, and a deep sense of being left behind in a race they never signed up for.
The populist right understood this long before Brussels did. Parties like Fidesz, PiS, and Serbia’s SNS did not win the countryside with better economic policies. They won by convincing rural voters that they were on their side against distant, condescending elites who have completely opposite values and lifestyles – whether in Brussels or the nation’s capital. Because the EU lacks a direct communicative presence in the periphery, these contradictions go largely unchallenged at the grassroots level. In many CEE member states, the EU is perceived as a distant, regulatory monolith. In rural areas, the EU is often encountered only through the lens of restrictive environmental regulations or agricultural quotas, while the national populists claim credit for the material benefits of EU funding while simultaneously scapegoating ‘Brussels’ for perceived threats to local sovereignty or traditional values. It is a successful political double-act: quietly absorbing billions in EU subsidies and utilizing that money to maintain local patronage networks.
Reclaiming the Narrative
The widening urban-rural gap in Central and Eastern Europe is the greatest internal threat to the stability of the European project in the region. If the periphery continues to view Brussels as an agent of the urban elite, the electoral map will continue to harden into two irreconcilable camps. To prevent this, European development policy must transition from a model of passive disbursement to one of active, localized engagement.
The first step in this evolution is dismantling the mechanism of ‘credit hijacking’. This requires the decentralization of funding, bypassing the national filters that often serve as bottlenecks for political patronage. By increasing the proportion of funds managed directly by local municipalities and non-governmental organizations, the EU can foster a sense of local ownership. This direct line of funding not only improves transparency but also empowers local leaders, who are the only figures capable of countering populist narratives with local credibility.
Perhaps even more important is a radical overhaul of its communication strategies, which simply must stop sounding like they were written in Brussels and start reflecting the linguistic and cultural nuances of the CEE heartland. This means shifting budgets away from pan-European advertising and toward local media and community messengers who speak the language of local values. Instead of talking about abstract concepts like ‘European unity’ and ‘rule of law’ – as well as often unwelcome progressive lifestyle mandates – the message must focus on how integration protects the local way of life, what benefits it brings to the community and its members, and how it makes their lives better in a way that their governments couldn’t on their own. By putting those messages at the forefront, the EU will present itself as motor of positive change it already is, thereby earning the credibility it needs to foster a genuine, bottom-up alignment with the broader spectrum of European values.
The fundamental disconnect between Brussels and the CEE periphery is, at its core, a failure of political translation. It is finally time to ensure that the strategic purpose of European cooperation is as culturally resonant and clearly articulated as the physical infrastructure it produces. Only by winning this battle of the narrative can the EU hope to bridge the geographical divides that currently fragment the continent’s future.
Jovan Arkula is an IDM trainee who holds a degree in International Affairs and is currently pursuing an MA in Local Development at the University of Padua.
