Read the highlights written by David Gazsi (King's College London - QMUL) of the the workshop which considered pro- and anti-EU forces both at the party-political and the grass-roots level.
Workshop & Roundtable7-8 November 2019King’s College London
Organised by Professor Adam Fagan (King's College London) and Dr Stijn van Kessel (Centre for European Research, Queen Mary University of London), this two-day workshop, which also included a roundtable discussion that was open to the public, focused on contemporary mobilisation around the theme of European integration. It considered pro- and anti-EU forces both at the party-political and the grass-roots level by addressing the following questions:
To what extent has the European integration been politicised? Has the EU become a prominent and lasting issue of political contestation across member states?
The discussants at the Roundtable public event were Professor Tim Bale (CER, Queen Mary University of London), Dr Simona Guerra (University of Leicester), Professor Carlo Ruzza (University of Trento) and Professor Sandra Seubert (Goethe-University, Frankfurt a.M.). Further participants to the closed workshop included Dr Kateřina Vráblíková (University of Bath), Dr Guya Accornero (University of Lisbon), Dr John FitzGibbon (Boston College) and Dr Charlotte Galpin (University of Birmingham). Both sessions were chaired by Professor Adam Fagan and Dr Stijn van Kessel.
The sessions were organised in light of current developments in European politics, such as Brexit, and previously the Eurozone and migrant crises, which have raised questions about the EU’s ability to maintain cohesion in the face of rising nationalist and populist challenges across Europe. It is clear that mainstream politicians supporting further integration can no longer rely on a ‘permissive consensus’ among European citizens. Meanwhile, populist parties, which claim to speak for the ‘ordinary people’ and lament the unresponsiveness or corruption of the (political) elites, have gained increasing popular support. They are typically characterised by a Eurosceptic agenda and criticise the allegedly undemocratic and complex nature of EU decision-making. Those with a radical right ideology, which pose the greatest challenge to mainstream parties in many European countries, present themselves as guardians of their native cultures and national sovereignty, and dislike the EU’s drive towards further integration and open borders. Public contestation around immigration and European integration not only happens at the domestic party-political level. Recent research has brought attention to the societal roots and activist elements of nativist and Eurosceptic politics. The Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA) or the European Identitarian Movement are examples of cross-national movements espousing culturally conservative, and often xenophobic, ideas.
Nevertheless, the populist interpretation of European integration as an issue that divides ‘the people’, on the one hand, and ‘the elites’ on the other, deserves qualification. In almost all countries, populist party supporters represent only a minority of the electorate, and the majority of citizens in Europe remain supportive of their country’s EU membership. What is more, across Europe, a considerable number of citizens have come out to defend the EU more explicitly. One notable example is the Pulse of Europe social movement, established at the end of 2016 with the aim of ‘preserving and shaping of a united Europe’, seeking to confront ‘nationalistic and protectionist tendencies’. Conclusions of the sessions included, first, that the embedded assumption that social movements and civil society organisations are the ubiquitous hallmark of left-liberal identity-based politics runs the risk of under-playing the developed and enmeshed networks of far-right Eurosceptic activists, and thus the genuine political contestation around European integration that may well exist. Second, the extent to which discourses on the EU and European integration are changing amongst contemporary activists – a decade or more since the financial crisis, in light of Brexit, and in response to Extinction Rebellion and other forms of ‘green’/urban activism – need to be considered more extensively. Positions on the EU – whether and how it should be reformed – may be more similar across the left/right social movement spectrum than anticipated, or at least they may not easily be mapped onto a pro-EU/anti-EU dichotomy. Finally, it is prudent to move beyond a simple ‘anti-’ vs ‘pro-European’ dichotomy and recognise the different frames used to interpret European integration. It is also important to be aware of the different degrees of Euroscepticism: the Euroscepticism of the radical right is typically harder than of the radical left, but also among the former parties there is considerable variation. Moreover, on all sides, discussions about the EU or its policies are often framed with reference to domestic politics; European integration as such is often not a key issue for social movements and parties.
The event was jointly organised by King's College London and the Centre for European Research, Queen Mary University of London (a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on the Future of EU-UK Relations). The event is linked to the project 28+ Perspectives on Brexit (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council) and supported by The UK in a Changing Europe initiative.
David Gazsi is PhD Candidate at King’s College London and Editorial Assistant with East European Politics. Until recently, he worked as Research Assistant at CER.
Photo credit: Rasande Tyskar