Central and Eastern European governments are scrambling to stave off anger from voters over skyrocketing food prices, with some politicians advocating measures that critics liken to communist-era policies.

Inflation has sent the costs of pantry staples soaring across Europe and beyond, but the problem is particularly severe in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where wages are generally lower than in the West. 

In November, the most recent month for comparable data, the average price for food and non-alcoholic beverages across the EU increased by 2.9 percent on a year-to-year basis, according to statistics agency Eurostat. In many CEE countries, the increase was around twice that rate, or more — 5.4 percent in Hungary, 6.1 percent in Poland, 6.2 percent in Romania, and 6.8 percent in Bulgaria. 

This comes at a critical time for leaders in the region. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is seeking reelection in April against a united opposition eager to oust him, while in Poland, the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) is preparing for a potentially fraught vote next year — if its alliance with occasionally unpredictable coalition partners doesn’t collapse sooner.

National leaders are now considering or already imposing new regulations to combat the expensive food phenomenon, including price controls. Orbán announced last Wednesday that the prices for sugar, flour, milk, cooking oil, pork and chicken breast would be cut back to October levels — a move he said would help protect Hungarian families.

“Hungary must keep moving forward, not backwards,” Orbán said.

EU membership-hopefuls Serbia and North Macedonia have already temporarily frozen prices for products like bread, sugar and sunflower oil.

But some consider such controls to be extreme: In Poland, an MP from PiS sparked an uproar among opposition politicians recently for suggesting the country should regulate prices for staples like bread, sugar and flour — a measure critics said was last taken during communist rule.

The government later distanced itself from the idea, which the MP, Kazimierz Smoliński, insisted was his own “original idea.”

In Romania, Secretary of State for Agriculture Marius Micu told national media last year that the government is “considering interventions,” but said “intervening in a free market is difficult.”

The Hungarian opposition’s candidate in April’s election, Péter Márki-Zay, immediately slammed Orbán’s announcement about price controls, saying it was too little too late and an admission that the country’s economy was in a “tr