Visions and Revisions of Europe Studies in Euroculture, Volume 4 4

> Edited by Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent, Bożena Gierat-Bieroń

Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent,

Visions and Revisions of Europe offers a multidisciplinary debate on the various political, social, and cultural issues that are at the heart of contemporary European discourse, with a focus on the relations between the so-called "New" and "Old" Europe. A range of possible scenarios for the future of the EU, as well as a discussion of the factors affecting current crises are at the forefront of the debate, which lead the reader to reflect upon often overlooked aspects of European integration, such as Germany's hegemonic role in the Union, or historical narratives and myths that need to be deconstructed and critically analysed. Contemporary populist movements also play a key role, as do the often difficult processes of migration and EU mobility, which reveal the tensions, fears, and lines of exclusion in contemporary European societies. Finally, the role of values – namely an adherence to human rights and responsibility over the global social order – which in the 1970s was a cornerstone of EU discursive action and identity building, serves as a lasting point of reflection on the uncertain future of the EU's axio-normative

direction(s).

ISBN: 978-3-86395-382-9

ISSN: 2196-3851

Bożena Gierat-Bieroń (Eds.) Visions and Revisions of Europe

Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent, Bożena Gierat-Bieroń (Eds.) Visions and Revisions of Europe

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published in 2018 by Universitätsverlag Göttingen as Volume 4 in the series "Studies in Euroculture" Visions and Revisions of Europe

Edited by Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent, Bożena Gierat-Bieroń

Studies in Euroculture Volume 4

Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2018

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de

#### *"Studies in Euroculture" Series Editors*

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Martin Tamcke, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; Prof. Dr. Janny de Jong, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen; Dr. Lars Klein, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; Prof. Dr. Margriet van der Waal, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

#### *Editors of Volume 4*

Dr. Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Jagiellonian University in Krakow; Dr. Marcin Galent, Jagiellonian University in Krakow; Dr. Bożena Gierat-Bieroń, Jagiellonian University in Krakow

This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher's homepage and the Göttingen University Catalogue (GUK) at the Göttingen State and University Library (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). The license terms of the online version apply.

Set and layout: Lars Klein Cover design: Jutta Pabst Cover picture: https://www.istockphoto.com/nl/foto/close-up-van-veelkleurige-verfgm686488334-126334373

© 2018 Universitätsverlag Göttingen https://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-382-9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2018-1115 eISSN: 2512-7101

# **Table of Contents**



# **Introduction: Visions and Revisions of Europe**

Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent, Bożena Gierat-Bieroń

In March 2017, on the occasion of a speech at the Sorbonne, French President Manuel Macron proposed a 'relaunching' of European integration. This call to action was a clear response to the crisis that has descended upon Europe and the EU since at least 2008 and the pressing need to redefine the Community as a political project in view of contemporary integration processes.

The present atmosphere of 'stalemate' is the consequence of political (migration) as well as economic (eurozone, financial) crises. Today we talk about the need to rebuild trust in EU institutions and European-level politicians, who forecast and build the strategies for the future of the European Union. The crisis was, and still is a fact. The effects are tangible today: in the financial and banking sector, on the labour market, in social movements, social policies and foreign relations. The dominant side-effect of the crisis has been a loss of faith in the EU, the stirring of Eurosceptic attitudes, a rise in populist movements, symptoms of re-nationalisation, separation and a deepening of schisms within EU member states, and finally, a decision by a Member State to leave the Union.

The Visions and Revisions conference sought to create a space of dialogue about the juxtapositions present in contemporary European societies, which are pitting many visions of what was, is and will be, and the many revisions that are being proposed and in some cases, carried out. From a sociological and anthropological perspective, what are the images that Europeans have of themselves, their societies, and how do these images differ from the outside? What is represented on mental maps and which parts remain blank? Where are the borders of such maps? Which images form a part of their collective past? What kind of Europe do they hope for in the future? What are the different voices in the debate, who is being heard and which voices are being excluded?

Visions and Revisions of Europe also refers to representations of Europe in the media and arts. The lack of images consolidating a European identity, the alternative images and proliferation of social media and dubious reality, or fake news, has given way to a fragmented, sometimes warped, alternative or simply misleading image of facts and reality. How are these images impacting the social, cultural, artistic and political landscapes of Europe?

In addition, we are interested in analyses of political, legal and institutional discourses on Europe. What images and values are being represented as particularly European? What are the strategies in place to revise the political, legal or institutional frameworks within Europe to adapt to a rapidly changing global context? Finally, the present volume invited visionaries and (re)visionaries to share their ideas, discuss the concept of Europe and its future, its past and its constant state of becoming. What possible scenarios can we foresee post-crisis, what political and economic possibilities are there out of the impasse of 2008 and 2014/15 and how will these changes affect the mechanisms of the functioning of the EU?

The European Union functioned for many decades on the basis of an economic and political consensus between the precepts of federalism and intergovernmentalism. Without a tangible *corps politique*, it found itself between a rock and a hard place. While the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 reformulated some of the spheres of competences of the Member States and EU Institutions, which had a considerable influence on the building of a political order within the EU (especially after its enlargement in 2004), the new rules were not robust enough to avoid a stalemate situation.

The articles in this volume deal with the political, social, and cultural issues affecting the EU, with a focus on the relations between the so-called 'New' and 'Old' Europe, and differences in the acceptance of various solutions to the crises at hand. From a political science and European Studies perspective, **G.T. Grosse**  presents many scenarios for the EU and highlights the most important factors affecting the current crisis. He sees them in the stagnation of the Eurozone, the weakness of a common defence policy, the issue of migration, but above all the dominant role of Germany in the most important (and tactically flawed) political decisions within the EU. Germany, as the biggest net contributor to the EU budget and the leading country in the Eurozone, has over the years grown into the unofficial leader of Europe, destabilising the balance of political power within the EU, weakening the integration project, strengthening populist parties and deepening divisions within Europe.

**Herman Voogsgeerd** offers a critical historical analysis of the process of European integration and the Community Method, which in the end has not proven successful in light of the current crisis. This crisis is not new, however – scepticism about the EU was already present when France and the Netherlands voted no in the referendum for the Constitution of Europe in 2004 and the source of this crisis, argues Voogsgeerd, is in the vagueness of the European project. The article critically analyses the possible scenarios postulated in the 2017 White Paper on the Future of Europe, and questions the role of the nation-state in the process of integration and its conflict-inducing function.

Drawing on the historical perspective, **Janny de Jong** analyses and deconstructs the historical narratives and myths of the process of European integration, using the backdrop of the 20th century as her palimpsest. The author highlights the analogies used by historians of the interwar period and the contemporary social context, particularly in the context of the economic crisis, nascent populisms and collective amnesia about the past. The history of the Holocaust takes centre stage here as a contested memory that we are reminded of in the Resolution of the European Parliament from April 2, 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism, calling on the need of a common view of Europe's history, which de Jong puts to the critical test.

**Lluís Coromina** and **Edurne Bartolomé Peral** on their part offer a detailed analysis of the democratic system in which trust towards institutions plays a pivotal role. Just like other important foundations of social order that have been seriously put into question in the context of Europe's contemporary crisis, citizens' trust in the institutional order has been put to its most serious test yet. The authors' subject of analysis are political institutions in eight different European countries which have been affected by the financial crisis in different ways. This allows us to compare the influence of the recession on societal reactions to the crisis not only in the Eurozone, but also in those Member States who did not adopt the common currency, taking into consideration several variables. As it turns out, this type of comparison helps to explain the dynamics of the social phenomena lying at the base of political behaviours in contemporary Europe.

**Natasza Styczyńska** continues along the political thread presented in this volume, bringing a political discourse analysis to the context of contemporary Poland. She analyses the political postulates of the Polish radical far-right in the context of the European migration crisis, and the increased voice of the Congress of the New Right and Kukiz'15 in political discourse on this topic. Styczyńska highlights the problem of the Polish government's acceptance and then subsequent withdrawal from the quota system within the EU's refugee relocation programme, and how far the radical right's discourse on the topic was based on stereotypes, stigmatisation and the exclusion of refugees from the national sphere of belonging, which in turn gave the Polish government a strong basis to reject the decision of the European Commission.

Whilst staying in the Polish context, we take a cultural (policy) turn in the volume with **Bożena Gierat-Bieroń,** who offers an analysis of cultural institutions in Poland and their participation in EU cultural programmes, focusing on the bid for the European Capital of Culture 2016. The author points out that despite the current crisis, Polish cities enthusiastically applied for the ECOC bid, seeing in it the value of a common cultural space. For Polish cultural operators and artists alike, participation in EU programmes – despite Europe-wide problems – was an opportunity to initiate the process of Europeanisation in the sphere of management and promotion of institutions, to uncover the cultural identity of cities, as well as to participate in various types of platforms of cultural exchange. The ECOC competition in Poland thus became a propitious space for the building of an open society which stills believes in the European project.

We then take a geographical shift with **Monika Pasolini,** who focuses on European integration in the Eurozone through the prism of life chances of young people living in Italy, who were particularly affected by the euro crisis. One of the ways of dealing with the economic stagnation in the South has been for young people to migrate to so-called Northern Europe. The feeling amongst young Italians of the lack of opportunities on the domestic market outlasted the height of the crisis; the rate of out-migration was still climbing six years after the onset of crisis. What is most disconcerting in this trend is the exodus of the most highly-qualified young adults, which begs the question of the consequences of this migration for the long-term development of the country. The author thus poses the question to what extent migration within the EU has a circulatory character, or is rather becoming one-way from periphery to centre, taking on the classic characteristic of brain drain. The author then presents us with an interesting analysis of Italian media and their unilateral portrayal of the out-migration as brain drain, in contrast to interviewed young Italians, who see the space of Europe as an extension of their own sphere of belonging, a natural horizon of activity and experience which does not require a transgression of sorts experienced by previous generations of Italian migrants. International mobility is seen as one of the many possibilities of building one's career, and is considered a choice, not a necessity.

**Margriet van der Waal** presents yet a different vision of migration in Europe, this one involuntary in nature. In her article she focuses on those aspects of migration which accompany migrants forced out of their homes because of difficult life conditions, where mobility is devoid of its human agency. In the case study of a novel based on real events by a Dutch-Romanian author, van der Waal highlights the stereotypes of migration from Eastern Europe: a young woman in the grips of a smuggling ring, forced to work in the sex industry. The history of this young woman becomes a metaphor for the life of Europeans living on the margins of society, a symbol of a wider phenomenon of precarious existence of a growing number of people on the move. This is another sort of Europeanisation than the one we see through the institutional lens, the effect of which should be economic prosperity and socio-cultural development. Europeanisation is also in those unwanted and undesirable corners, not only in the darkest ones of pimping, prostitution and crime, but also in the more subtle precariousness of the loss of work, poverty and homelessness, which three decades ago would have been unimaginable, let alone acceptable. From here surfaces the question – to what extent is the breakdown of the welfare state a side effect of Europeanisation? Has the neoliberal order become an integral part of the European project, or just a passing phase in need of repair? We will not find the answer to this question if we do not give those on the margins of society a voice. In public as well as academic discourse, this voice is not given nearly enough.

Finally, **Ilaria Zamburlini** returns to the so-called second decade of the 1970s, which kicked off early with the social unrest of the spring of 1968 and gave rise to numerous social movements which called for a redefinition of the dominant axiology in Europe. The period of *détente* between the main superpowers allowed for an opening in the discursive sphere of the European Community, which made efforts at an axio-normative integration that would garner a European identity in the process of becoming an independent global actor. The author highlights two factors in the construction of identity in the global context, namely the adherence to human rights and the feeling of responsibility over the social global order, particularly in regard to developing countries. This does not mean that the adoption of these characteristics ran smoothly. In fact, it quickly became apparent that the two often are incompatible; adhering to human rights principles stood in contradiction to providing financial aid to less developed countries. But by trial and error and an interinstitutional debate on the European level, consensus was reached, thanks to which those values that help to define Europe persisted.

Let us hope that the principle of solidarity with the less fortunate, and the feeling of responsibility for those whose loss has been greater, will return to the centre of the European project also in regard to Member States. The eurozone crisis has not proven the best example. There needs to be hope, however, that the feeling of solidarity will return, and with it the chance to relaunch European integration.

# **Germany's Strategy and Tactics towards the Crisis in European Integration**

Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse

### **Introduction**

At the extraordinary EU summit held in Malta on 3 February 2017, Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her opinion that the European Union could become "multi-speed Europe", which would consist in enhancing cooperation between selected Member States<sup>1</sup> . This comment was seen as a suggestion of a possible division into Western European countries, leaders in integration, and states which increasingly distance themselves from integration under subsequent EU policies, among others defence and migration policy. This vision, so far perceived rather as negotiating pressure on countries (including Poland and Hungary) not willing to progress to further stages of integration, is becoming now, after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, the main political method for halting disintegration processes. Such an approach may of course enhance the flexibility of governance in Europe. But it may also lead to deepening permanent division of the EU into segments, and thus to introducing hierarchical relations between the states forming the integration centre and the ones considered as peripheries.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the strategy of Germany towards the crisis in European integration, especially in response to Brexit (formally triggered in 2017) and other problems of Europe. To assess this strategy, I first pose the following question: does the leadership of Germany in the European Union effectively prevent crises? I advance the hypothesis that the policy of this country focuses insufficiently on solving the two basic crises of the European Union, namely the euro area and the migration crisis. This is mainly the result of the German government being guided above all by national interest, trying to minimise its own costs of recovery from the European crises. At the same time, German politicians inadequately address the roots of the crises and seem to push forward only their own ideas on how to solve problems. This policy may increase German benefits in

<sup>1</sup> "EU founders speak of possible 'multispeed' future after Brexit", *Reuters*, 3 February 2017.

the short term, but in the long term will cause a number of major problems. As a result, the approach of the German government to solving the two currently most important crises is hardly effective. It entails very high political costs and thus strengthens disintegration tendencies.

Germany's strategic response to various crises was on one hand to make an attempt to solve problems, but on the other to increase interdependencies between EU countries in other fields, such as energy and climate policy as well as defence policy. This was intended to hinder the disintegration process and "to keep the EU27 together". Therefore the most important strategic aim was to increase interdependencies between states, above all in economic and political areas, so that secession from the EU becomes impossible or unprofitable, especially for smaller countries or states with a smaller economic and geopolitical potential. Nevertheless, focusing anti-crisis policy in this direction entails one significant risk. It is difficult to strongly promote the idea of integration at a time of growing opposition towards it among elites and societies in some Member States. This leads to the necessity of differentiating the approach to integration. In a positive scenario, this will increase the flexibility of governance and will let some countries hold back from the progress of integration, and in a negative scenario, this will lead to consolidating the model of multi-speed Europe, and thus to deepening the division between the political centre and peripheries in the EU.

These considerations lead to the basic argument which will be developed in this paper. Germany's primary strategic objective was to increase the interdependence between Member States in several EU policies as a response to Brexit. It was supposed to counter other disintegration processes. Berlin's political tactics, on the other hand, allowed for a temporary differentiation of integration and for a greater flexibility in carrying out of various EU policies, in line with the "multi-speed Europe" model. In addition, the threat of acceleration of integration in the euro area, i.e. the "two speed Europe" perspective, was intended to exert tactical pressure on those Member States that sought to loosen the European integration. The problem was that many Western European countries, led by France, were aiming primarily at a deepening of integration in the monetary union and at the implementation of the "two speed Europe" scenario. Therefore, this scenario of a further advancement of integration is becoming more and more likely. In this way, Germany's tactical actions could lead to a failure of its main strategic objective, weaken the interdependence between the Member States, and reduce the cohesion of the entire EU27.

### **What is Germany's strategy?**

Scholars underline that for many years a key element in Germany's European strategy has been a model of integration serving the German economy and thus building the political position of Germany in Europe and across the world<sup>2</sup> . It was a geo-economic strategy under which economic influence was a tool for building political power. During the crisis of the single currency, this economic influence was skillfully used to dominate the political scene in Europe<sup>3</sup> . But already earlier, the political power of Berlin resulted in increasingly asymmetric functioning of both the currency union and economic exchange on the internal market. It led to cumulating benefits on the German side, and at the same time to mounting debt and loss of competitiveness in the southern EMU countries. Therefore, it can be assumed that the basic goal of Berlin's strategy after Brexit was to maintain maximal cohesion within the EU and increasing interdependencies between the Member States. Additionally, experience drawn from the crisis in the Eurozone shows that Germany would try to benefit economically from inequalities among the EU countries. The telling fact that illustrates these differences is Germany's current account surplus of 8,3 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2016 (the biggest not only in the Eurozone but in the world), compared to Greece's deficit of 0,6 per cent<sup>4</sup> . At the same time, in 2016, the government debt in Greece amounted to 179 per cent of the national economic output, in Italy it reached at 132 per cent, in Portugal it stood at 130 per cent, while in Germany it was only 68.3 per cent (well below the average in the Eurozone)<sup>5</sup> . Germany boasted the lowest rate of joblessness at just 3.8 per cent in July 2017 – a record low in the post-reunification era. But Greece's labour market continued to be scarred by its eight-year long depression, with unemployment rates still the highest in the EU at 21.7 per cent<sup>6</sup> .

What should be the ideal strategy to prevent disintegration of the European Union? The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte expressed his opinion on this subject and said: "if you love Europe, stop dreaming of more Europe and start fixing problems"<sup>7</sup> . His words can be explained by the political situation before the elections which were to take place in 2017. The polls pointed increasingly often to the

<sup>2</sup> Constanze Stelzenmüller, "Germany: Between Power and Responsibility", in *Shaper Nations, Strategies for a Changing World*, ed. William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), 53-68.

<sup>3</sup> Federico Steinberg and Mattias Vermeiren, "Germany's Institutional Power and the EMU Regime after the Crisis: Towards a Germanized Euro Area?" *Journal of Common Market Studies*, vol. 54, no 2, 2016, 388-407.

<sup>4</sup> International Monetary Fund, *The 2017 External Sector Report* (Washington, D.C., July 2017).

<sup>5</sup> Eurostat, *Key figures on Europe* (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2017).

<sup>6</sup> "Eurozone joblessness and inflation figures add to optimism", *Financial Times*, 1 August 2017, 2.

<sup>7</sup> "Pushing for 'more Europe' risks fanning populism", *Financial Times*, 10 December, 4; Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse, "Kochasz Europę?" (Do you love Europe?), *Rzeczpospolita*, 30 grudnia 2016, A11.

victory of the party of Geert Wilders, a fierce critic of Muslim immigration to Europe. We observed a similar situation in two other important EU countries. In France, in the second round of presidential elections in 2017, the candidate of the hitherto establishment faced Marine Le Pen, who has a critical approach towards integration. The Head of the National Front lost the election but considerably increased her electorate base. Meanwhile in Italy, the Five Star Movement – which opposes staying in the euro area – overtook the ruling party in opinion polls at the beginning of 2017<sup>8</sup> . The third party according to the polls – the party of Silvio Berlusconi – has been increasingly critical towards Germany and the euro currency. It seemed only a matter of time that Italian elections could be won by a party reluctant towards the single currency<sup>9</sup> .

Is the European Union capable of solving its problems? Can the EU do it fast enough to stop the progress of eurosceptics in the major EU countries? At the end of 2016, the most important problems were economic stagnation in the euro area and the migration crisis. The question arises whether the leadership of Germany in the European Union effectively prevents these crises. I advance the thesis that this is not the case. The leadership of Germany did not appropriately remedy any problems faced by Europe. Unsolved problems pose a risk of halting the integration process (or even escalating disintegration phenomena). Germany's strategy was targeted in another direction. Its aim was (at least until mid-2017) to increase interdependencies between the Member States, which is intended to hinder disintegration processes. The German government sought also to maintain the hitherto asymmetries giving Germany an economic and political advantage.

### **First problem – economic stagnation in the euro area**

The first problem faced by Europe after 2010, in other words the crisis in the euro area, should have been resolved by moving away from austerity policy towards redistribution of financial resources from the countries with trade surpluses to the countries with the biggest structural problems, a high unemployment rate and low growth rate. Such a policy could be pleasing for German taxpayers10. Such ideas will probably be less and less favoured by Berlin as changes take place on the domestic political scene in Germany, such as significant support for the eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany (around 12 per cent in 2017). Another proposition appearing in discussions of economists concerned targeting the monetary expansion of the European Central Bank towards fiscal policy, above all towards infra-

<sup>&</sup>quot;Italy's Five Star looks to prove its shine to centre ground", *Financial Times*, 9 December 2016, 4.

<sup>9</sup> In the 2018 elections the Five Stars Movement and a coalition of right-wing parties (Forza aItalia and the Northern League) won.

<sup>10</sup> Joseph E. Stiglitz, *The Euro: And its Threat to the Future of Europe* (New York: Allen Lane 2016).

structure investments in the weakest economies of the euro area11. This idea also did not meet with the approval of Berlin. Instead, since the beginning of the crisis, German politicians have been trying to curb the loose monetary policy of the ECB. Even though this policy was prolonged at the end of 2016, Germany managed to force a gradual decrease of the scale of monetary expansion<sup>12</sup> .

Although the EU has its cohesion policy and the so-called Juncker Fund (the European Fund for Strategic Investments), both these instruments stimulate the economy in the euro area relatively weakly. This is why German elites (with the support of politicians from other Western European countries) promoted two alternative ideas for stimulating the economy. The first one is deepening integration in energy policy which, through recent regulation changes aimed at decarbonisation, could force investments in the economy13. These investments would be financed above all by companies and households, with a relatively low level of support from public funds. That means that the poorer societies are, or the harder companies' access to loans is, the bigger the costs of this transformation. The countries which have a disadvantageous energy balance, meaning a huge amount of energy produced from hydrocarbons, will also bear higher costs. In turn, the countries and corporations in possession of adequate technologies will benefit from this transformation and will be able to sell their technologies to the countries going through energy transformation. It is thus a policy which can be potentially beneficial for the economic growth in individual EU countries. It does not guarantee, however, that the weakest countries of the euro area will rebuild their own economies; neither does it protect some economies and societies in the EU which might encounter difficulties on this occasion. It means that an attempt of economic recovery in one part of the EU would be made to the detriment of other Member States.

The second idea on how to stimulate prosperity in Europe brought forward in the last months of 2016 was the development of defence policy. One of its elements has been establishing the European Defence Fund aimed at financing research in the armaments sector and offering loans for armaments acquisition. The countries with the most developed defence industries will be the main beneficiaries of this type of support. This is shown in the composition of the Group of Personalities established at the European Commission in order to advise on supporting the armaments industry in the EU through European funds. The Group includes heads of the biggest corporations such as Airbus, Saab, BAE systems and Finmeccanica (companies with German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, British and

<sup>11</sup> Lawrence Summers, "Building the case for greater infrastructure investment", *Financial Times*, 11 September 2016, 9.

<sup>12</sup> "Pressure on ECB as eurozone inflation hits 4-year high", *Financial Times*, 2 March 2017.

<sup>13</sup> Krzysztof M. Księżopolski, "European Union Climate Policy – the Crisis as a Catalyst for Change", in *European Union Policies at a Time of Crisis*, ed. Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse (Warsaw: Scholar, 2017), 233-257.

American capital)14. In addition, this direction of reforms will be reinforced by changes in the EU regulations which will limit the freedom of the Member States to purchase weapons and also eliminate offset possibilities, in other words including provisions on necessary investments in domestic defence industry in tenders<sup>15</sup> . Above all, this will strike the countries whose national armaments sectors are weaker and who treat them at the same time as an important element of the process of increasing innovativeness of their own economy. Another problem is that the European Defence Fund will become fully operational only in the new budget perspective, that is after 2021. The EU allocated EUR 90 million to a pilot programme in 2017-2019, yet it is only a symbolic amount16. In the new financial perspective after 2021, the European Defence Fund will have slightly bigger, yet still modest resources (ca. EUR 0.5 billion per year for research and EUR 5 billion for purchase of weapons) and will in no way support the weakest economies of the currency union.

In this situation, the euro area will remain in the coming period very sensitive to external shocks, which is shown by continuing troubles of Italian banks. Although some macroeconomic indicators showed improvement in 2016 (unemployment falling below 10% and economic growth amounting to 1.7% in 2016), the situation is still not fully satisfactory. Youth unemployment exceeds 20%, in some countries unemployment rate increased (e.g. in Italy), and in the whole currency union, investment and productivity levels were low. Moreover, there is no credible plan concerning Greece's recovery from financial and economic crisis or a reduction of the structural imbalances between stronger and weaker economies in the currency union. The euro area will thus remain a zone of economic problems which can potentially have serious political consequences. Especially as representatives of the new US administration openly encourage the Greeks to leave the EMU<sup>17</sup> .

<sup>14</sup> "MEPs to back multi-million euro military research budget", *EUobserver*, 25 October 2016, http://euroobserver.com/institutional/135644 [accessed: 30.12.2016].

<sup>15</sup> It is planned, among others, to use competitive procedures for the procurement of military equipment and equipment in accordance with Directive 2009/81 on defense and security procurement and to clarify the interpretation of the provisions of the directive in that way to limit the Member States' previous freedom of purchase of armaments. The Commission also wanted to appeal to the EU Court of Justice certain decisions by Member States to invoke Art. 346 TFEU, which contains a general provision allowing Member States not to comply with Community law in the field of the manufacture and marketing of arms and military equipment. Comp. Marcin Terlikowski, "Defence Policy in the European Union: Multi-Speed Security?" *PISM Bulletin*, 74 (924), 14 November 2016.

<sup>16</sup> "EU to propose joint defence fund", *EUobserver*, 30 November, http://euroobserver.com/foreign/136091 [accessed: 29.12.2016].

<sup>17</sup> "Trump envoy says Greece is now more likely to leave the euro", *Guardian*, 8 February 2017.

### **Second problem – migration**

The second problem affecting Europe is migration. In 2015, German elites focused on an ancillary issue, namely on a system of relocation of asylum seekers in the EU. Handling the crisis required in the first place securing the external borders of the EU, and not distributing refugees and immigrants inside Europe. All the more so as the issue of relocation aroused considerable controversy among the Member States. In 2017, this matter still provoked strong feelings and was not completely forgotten, neither by officials of the Commission nor German politicians supporting this idea. The attempt was made to wait through the period of the biggest disputes, even though the Commission recalled from time to time the necessity of implementing the decision concerning the relocation of 160,000 refugees. Finally, the Commission launched infringement procedures against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for non-compliance with the 2015 Council Decision on relocation.<sup>18</sup> Work on the EU asylum policy was undertaken; under this policy granting asylum would become a task of the EU and fall within the competence (or supervision) of the European Asylum Support Office19. This agency would distribute asylum seekers between all Member States. It would also harmonise the conditions of accepting refugees at the level of the European Union. Some suggested that the system should cover all economic migrants in the future. Such ideas are only deepening the political crisis in Europe.

Furthermore, other actions were also undertaken. As a result of the actions of the individual states and on the basis on the agreement signed with Turkey, the socalled Balkan route was closed. At the end of 2016, the German minister of internal affairs proposed that migrants should be sent back from the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa and placed there in transit camps in which they could start the procedure of applying for asylum in the EU20. The EU agency Frontex made allegations against non-governmental organisations, which save migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, concerning their cooperation with smugglers dealing with illegal migration into the EU21. The European Union was also considering the possibility of restricting these types of rescue actions through regulations. Italy introduced a code of conduct designed for NGOs to limit illegal migration from Libya.<sup>22</sup> At the

<sup>18</sup> European Commission, "Relocation: Commission launches infringement procedures against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland", *Press release*, Brussels, 14 June 2017.

<sup>19</sup> European Commission, *Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, Towards a reform of the Common European Asylum System and enhancing legal avenues to Europe*, COM(2016) 197 final, Brussels, 6.4.2016.

<sup>20</sup> "German ministry wants migrants stopped at sea", *EUobserver*, 7 November 2016, http://euobserver.com/migration/135791 [accessed: 30.12.2016].

<sup>21</sup> "Migrant Rescue NGOs Deny Human Smuggling Allegations", *The Maritime Executive*, 28-12- 2016, http://www.maritime-executive.com/artucle [accessed: 30.12.2016].

<sup>22</sup> "Italy seizes NGO boat and starts Libyan mission", *Euobserver*, 3 August 2017, https://euobserver.com/migration/138677 [accessed: 3.08.2017].

EU summit in 2016, the leaders of Member States underlined the need of intensifying Operation Sophia to support the Libyan Navy Coastguard in order to possibly reduce the flow of migrants to Europe. In an effort to curb trafficking, Italy's parliament authorised a limited naval mission to help Libya's coastguard curb migrant flows. However, Rome sent only two ships for logistics and patrols into Libyan waters, which could hinder the effectiveness of these actions.<sup>23</sup> Migrants staying in Libya were also offered help in returning to their homelands. Talks were held with African countries (Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali, Senegal) about holding back migration to the EU and increasing the percentage of returns of unwanted migrants from the EU. All these actions focused on the direct causes of crisis and not only on the methods of defusing the crisis in certain EU countries. However, these actions were undertaken too late and their efficiency was very low. It turned out that the crisis should have been resolved mostly by closing the EU borders and deterring migrants from embarking on the journey. Handling this problem by readmission or relocation is very difficult in practice. For instance, the leaders of African countries did not want to hear about readmission and the number of returned migrants was smaller than the number of refugees relocated within the EU.

The lack of cohesive migration policy constitutes a problem for the EU. For at least 10 years, 1 to 2 million migrants per year have been arriving to Europe, mostly from its former colonies. So far the EU has taken up selective and not very successful regulation attempts, for example the Blue Card scheme aimed at attracting highly skilled workers to the EU24. Individual Member States have most often conducted a liberal policy in this matter. In this manner, this problem became a ticking time bomb.

In 2016, the policy of Western Europe changed, which was illustrated in the tightening of criteria for granting asylum in Germany and reducing material support provided to asylum seekers. Readmission actions were intensified25, also towards Greece where some migrants had crossed the EU border26. Germany thus started to close the door to migrants. As a result, more and more migrants started looking for alternative places to stay in the EU and "disappeared" from German statistics. Furthermore, political controversies surrounding the crisis concern now not only migrants from outside of Europe, but also European Union citizens

<sup>23</sup> Ibid.

<sup>24</sup> European Commission, "Delivering the European Agenda on Migration: Commission presents Action Plan on Integration and reforms 'Blue Card' scheme for highly skilled workers from outside the EU", *Press release*, Strasbourg, 7 June 2016.

<sup>25</sup> The German government has been urged to tighten the rules on failed asylum seekers, including to make it easier for authorities to detain asylum seekers regarded as dangerous even if they have not been charged or convicted. Comp. "Berlin urged to toughen refugee rules after attack", Financial Times, 1 August 2017, 2.

<sup>26</sup> "Germany wants migrants sent back to Greece and Turkey", *Euractiv*, 3.10.2016, https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/germany-wants-migrants-sent-backto-greece-and-turkey/ [accessed: 30.07.2017].

whose freedoms on the internal market are being increasingly limited. One may fear that the migration problem will remain the source of political destabilisation in Europe in the coming years.

### **Integration offensive in defence policy**

German politicians have been promoting the idea of developing cooperation in the scope of defence policy for a long time. The withdrawal from the EU of the United Kingdom, who had for many years torpedoed attempts to implement such ideas, has become an opportunity for Berlin. Thus, the response to Brexit has firstly been an acceleration of integration in the scope of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It ensues from statements made by German and French politicians that the turn of integration in this direction resulted from a series of threats and risks facing the EU: from the terrorist threat, through destabilisation in North Africa and civil war in Syria, to the Russian conflict with the West concerning Ukraine<sup>27</sup> .

At first glance the principles of the defence policy adopted at the Council meeting in November 2016<sup>28</sup> and later confirmed at the EU summit in December 2016<sup>29</sup> were modest. They come down to four main objectives. Firstly, establishing headquarters for non-military missions of a police or training nature. Secondly, launching battle groups of approximately 1,000 soldiers from various Member States. Similar plans concern the so-called Eurocorps, a military formation that currently numbers approximately 7 thousand officers and 60 thousand soldiers. It was set up at the initiative of France and Germany but other EU states have also joined30. Thirdly, launching the aforementioned European Defence Fund whose objective is to offer loans for the purchase of armaments and to develop military research. The Fund will probably not have the capacity to prevent real threats to European security, at least in the next few years. Fourthly, introducing the socalled European defence semester, i.e. an annual review of military capabilities and their development processes, research and development as well as industrial potential in individual Member States. The mechanism for financing military operations (the so-called Athena mechanism) is to be reviewed in the future31. In addition, the

<sup>27</sup> *Revitalizing CSDP: towards a comprehensive, realistic and credible defence in the EU*, Berlin – Paris, 12 September 2016.

<sup>28</sup> Council of the European Union, *Council conclusions on implementing the EU global strategy in the area of security and defence*, Brussels, 14.11.2016.

<sup>29</sup> European Council, Conclusions, European Council meeting, EUCO 34/16, Brussels, 15 December 2016.

<sup>30</sup> Among the so-called framework countries forming Eurocorps are Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg. Observers are Greece, Italy, Poland, Turkey and Romania.

<sup>31</sup> Athena is a mechanism for financing common costs related to CSDP military operations. Contributions to the Mechanism are specified in art. 41 sec. 2 of the Treaty on European Union. Member States contribute an annual contribution according to their gross national income.

Permanent Structured Cooperation was initiated in 2017. Considering the challenges with which Europe is confronted, the scale of the undertaking is rather disappointing.

First of all, it is difficult to consider that such measures could effectively prevent the escalation of tension in eastern Ukraine. It is also difficult to expect that two leaders in security policy, i.e. France and Germany, will want to engage European forces in this conflict. Thus, in the coming years, the CSDP will not be able to play a deterrent role with regard to potential aggressors at the eastern borders of the EU, due to both its small potential and the lack of political consensus between Member States. This will be the case even should the USA under the rule of President Donald Trump wish to weaken NATO or to withdraw American troops from Central Europe (although, considering appointments to posts in charge of security in the Trump administration, this scenario should be deemed rather improbable).

Battle group units or Eurocorps formations may be used for prevention purposes in North Africa, which has been an objective of the French diplomacy for many years. They may also potentially be deployed in the Middle East; however, not as a real force in the Syrian war but only when a peace agreement is concluded in the country or for putting down other conflicts of a much smaller scale.

Real action in external conflicts is thus only potential and in the coming years limited only to police or training functions. Such is the principle of the reformed CSDP according to the French-German document of 2016. According to this document, European formations will at first only participate in advisory and training missions. It is only later that they may be used for strictly military operations, e.g. as support for NATO actions32. However, the discussed reforms have a much greater significance for EU internal policy. Military cooperation is to be an attempt to counteract disintegration tendencies in Europe and therefore has a purely political dimension. The German Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen stated that strengthening the defence policy in the EU is intended to support European unity. The French Finance Minister Michel Sapin judged that the aforementioned policy should restore confidence in the euro currency and pave the way for integration in the scope of the monetary union (sic!)33. Particularly the second statement points to a significant implication of the discussed political initiative. It may deepen the differences in the level of EU integration, which is related to the "two-speed Europe" mechanism. All the more so as European politicians do not hide that the basis for integration progress under the CSDP is to be permanent structural cooperation<sup>34</sup> (of some Member States) whose principles were elaborated by mid-2017.

<sup>32</sup> *Revitalizing CSDP: towards a comprehensive, realistic and credible defence in the EU*, 3.

<sup>33</sup> "Ceci n'est pas une EU army", *EUobserver*, *Magazine*, 3.01.2017, 3, http://euobserver.com/europe-in-review/136134 [accessed: 27.01.2017].

<sup>34</sup> Permanent structural co-operation is a mechanism that enables Member States of the European Union which meet higher military capability criteria to engage in greater cooperation in the field of common security and defense in this field. The power and legal framework give it the art. 42 sec. 6

The goal of integration in the scope of the CSDP is ultimately to increase coordination between foreign and defence policies of Member States. At the same time, it is no secret that the main decisions regarding the directions of this policy will be made by the countries with the greatest political and military weight, i.e. Germany and France, with Italy and Spain playing a smaller role. At the current stage of political cooperation, this is not a real challenge for NATO, albeit strengthening EU defence policy is ultimately intended to establish a true political autonomy of the European side with regard to the USA within NATO and in the broader context of transatlantic relations. Germany and France have considered defence policy for many years as essential in gaining strategic independence from the USA. It is true that Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has denied many times that the aim of the currently initiated cooperation was to build a European army35, but representatives of other states do not hide that such is precisely its long-term objective. The head of the Italian diplomacy judged that it is the nucleus of European integrated armed forces and the French Minister of Defence added that the most secret ambition of the Germans is the creation of a European army36. Moreover, this seems also to be a significant political area for Germany that will reinforce the importance of this country in Central Europe and also weaken the American influence in this region lasting since the end of the Cold War<sup>37</sup> .

The next element contributing to increasing interdependencies in Europe is to be the cooperation between arms industries and tightening arms purchase regimes in the EU (particularly in states entering permanent structured cooperation under the CSDP). Developing such measures would lead to asymmetry in relations between states with strong industries as well as financial and military potential and weaker states. The latter may become dependent on support provided by EU financial instruments, cooperation with the largest corporations from Western Europe and strategic objectives in foreign and defence policy elaborated in the EU. This type of asymmetry would thus be strategically advantageous for the largest powers, particularly for Germany, but could be problematic for smaller states, including those located in Central Europe<sup>38</sup> .

and Art. 46 of the Treaty on European Union and the Protocol on permanent structured cooperation established under Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union (Protocol No 10).

<sup>35</sup> Atlantic Council, *Mogherini Dismisses Likelihood of European Army, But Seeks Deployment of EU Battlegroups*, 6 September 2016, http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/mogherini-dismisseslikelihood-of-european-army-but-seeks-deployment-of-eu-battlegroups [accessed: 29.12.2016].

<sup>36</sup> "Ceci n'est pas une EU army", 2.

<sup>37</sup> Stelzenmüller, "Germany: Between Power and Responsibility".

<sup>38</sup> Jacek Czaputowicz, "The Impact of the Changing European Integration Model on Common Security and Defence Policy", in *European Union Policies at a Time of Crisis*, ed. Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse (Warsaw, Scholar, 2016), 85-101.

### **German tactics and political tendencies in Europe**

Some Central European countries have not only distanced themselves from Berlin's proposals to deepen the integration in selected EU policies, but have explicitly called for loosening up of the existing integration gains, reducing the powers of the European Commission and aiming at "renationalization" of certain EU competences.<sup>39</sup> For example, a majority of Poles do not want to adopt the European currency and are opposed to the relocation of refugees.<sup>40</sup> Consequently, the Polish government rejected the prospect of joining the euro area and was also distancing itself from many of Berlin's ideas for the further advancement of European integration.

In this situation, Berlin's tactical action was to support the progress of integration among the willing European avant-garde countries. Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her opinion that the European Union could become a "multi-speed Europe". Germany was also increasingly inclined to continue reforming the Eurozone.<sup>41</sup> It was a tactical acquiescence to the temporary differentiation of integration and a greater management flexibility which were perceived to ensure the EU's durability in the difficult period after Brexit. At the same time, the "two speed Europe" scenario was intended to put pressure on some Member States, especially from Central Europe, to proceed with further integration in defense and migration policy.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron's victory in the 2017 presidential election in France refreshed French efforts to deepen integration in the euro area. The new president has launched an ambitious reform agenda in this field that could bring the EU closer to the "two speed Europe" model. These reforms have included the idea of setting up of a separate budget for the Eurozone, creation of a chamber in the European Parliament set up specifically for the euro area, establishment of the post of the Minister of Finance for this zone, and even the introduction of euro bonds, i.e. debt instruments that would be issued by the Eurozone as a whole, leading to joint liabilities for its 19 members.<sup>42</sup> These proposals have been strongly

<sup>39</sup> Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse, "Strategy for a Time of Collapse. Polish EU reform proposals benefit Western Europe", *BBC Monitoring European*, London, 07 October 2016, http://search.proquest.com/business/docview/1826539685/7F8F081AAAD9406CPQ/16?accounti d=160514 [access: 29.10.2016].

<sup>40</sup> "CBOS: 70 proc. Polaków przeciwko euro w Polsce. Najwięcej w historii badania", *Gazeta Wyborcza*, 27.05.2015; "CBOS: 74 proc. Polaków przeciw przyjmowaniu uchodźców z Bliskiego Wschodu i Afryki", *Rzeczpospolita*, 14.04.2017.

<sup>41</sup> "Macron and Merkel signal new move to strengthen eurozone", *The Guardian*, 15 May 2017. <sup>42</sup> Pierre Briançon, "Macron to Germany: No rush into eurozone reform, for now", *Politico*, 5/14/17, http://www.politico.eu/article/macron-to-germany-no-rush-into-eurozone-reform-for-now/ [accessed: 29.06.2017].

supported by Italy, Spain and Portugal.<sup>43</sup> All of this opened a new stage for discussions on the future of the EU and put political pressure on Berlin to accept not only challenging reforms in the euro area, but also the "two speed Europe" integration model. An additional factor that will facilitate the implementation of this scenario is a deteriorating political climate between Western Europe and some Central European countries. It concerns disputes over refugee relocation and future systemic reforms in the EU, as well as alleged undemocratic tendencies and violations of the rule of law in Hungary and Poland, and even a controversy over German reparations for Poland after the Second World War.

In this way, further crises and growing political tension in Europe may hamper Berlin's principal strategic objective of maintaining cohesion in the EU and increasing interdependencies among Member States. It is also more and more likely that the tactical actions allowing temporary differentiation of integration in accordance with the "multi-speed Europe" model would lead to a durable segmentation of the EU in line with the "two speed Europe" model. This way, the mere tactical actions could replace the prior strategic objective of the German government. This, in turn, threatens to deepen the disintegration processes, especially in the areas considered to be European peripheries.

### **Conclusions**

Europe is not effectively solving the main problems that have been weakening European integration in the last few years. This is to a large extent due to the fact that German leaders do not want to pay too high a price for saving the European project. The direction of the German strategy was rather to transfer the costs of crises onto other states<sup>44</sup> and to bind them together through mutual obligations, economic and political ties in a manner leaving no alternative other than European integration. German strategists expected that no real proposals for leaving the Union or excluding a given state from one of the leading EU policies would appear, even in the case of occurrence of subsequent crises - or protraction of existing ones and the accompanying social costs.

Berlin's policy may not necessarily produce the outcomes that were expected. For the time being, the consequence is the weakening of the integration project and its general sensitivity to so-called external shocks, i.e. adverse events that may

<sup>43</sup> "France's Macron and Italy's Gentiloni present a united front over EU", *Euronews*, 22/05/2017, http://www.euronews.com/2017/05/22/france-s-macron-and-italy-s-gentilonipresent-a-united-front-over-eu [accessed: 29.07.2017].

<sup>44</sup> Peter A. Hall, "Varieties of Capitalism and the Euro Crisis", *West European Politics*, 37 (6), 2014, 1223–1243; Stefan Collignon, "Political Lessons from the Economics of the Euro-crisis", in *The Eurozone Crisis and the Transformation of EU Governance*, ed. Maria João Rodrigues, Eleni Xiarchogiannopoulou (Burlington: Ashgate, 2014), 85–106; Simon Bulmer and William E. Paterson, "Germany as the EU's Reluctant Hegemon? Of Economic Strength and Political Constraints", *Journal of European Public Policy*, vol. 20, no. 10, 2013, 1387-1405.

potentially destabilise the economy. The EU remains very prone to internal political turbulences, primarily the increase in ratings of eurosceptic parties. In the coming years, this may contribute to the strengthening of disintegration tendencies. It seems that another consequence of the German strategy is a growing tendency to differentiate European integration according to the "two-speed Europe" mechanism. Even if at the beginning it was a tactical gimmick aimed at inducing hesitant states to tighten cooperation in the scope of defence policy among others, it finally consists in actions being initiated by the few states ready for further integration. And this may lead to increasing divisions inside the EU if not all states make the decision to take up such measures. *August 2017*

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# **The Death of the 'Community Method' …and the Immediate Future of the EU**

Herman Voogsgeerd

### **Introduction**

The so-called Community method has been very successful in the first five decades of existence of the EEC/EC/EU. Since the Treaty of Maastricht (1991) and the increase in the number of Member States from six to twenty-eight the method has become obsolescent.<sup>1</sup> Let us be clear: the Community method is dead. I agree with Majone that this method was designed only for a small group of homogeneous countries in 1958. But what is the next stage of European integration now that Member States disagree about the pace and nature of the process? How can we change, starting from this method? 'Europe can't be reformed', was heard during the Brexit campaign in the UK in 2016. One core characteristic of the Community method has always been to be vague about the finality, the end-goal, of the integration process apart from the terms 'ever closer union'. European integration was created as a rational and not an emotional process. This vague finality and the idea of a never stopping bullet train to ever more integration and a higher number of Member States is at the basis of increasing unease and discomfort in not only the old Member States, but also in the newer Central and East-European Member States. The very idea of supranationalism seems to be at stake. The nation states are the building blocks of the EU and the masters of the Treaties *('Herren der Verträge'*). If large parts of the population in the nation states are uncomfortable with the EU as it has been developed, the EU itself will be in trouble.

This contribution will start from the assumption that there is an urgent need to move beyond the Community method in European integration and cooperation. Are the options the European Commission put on the table the 1st of March 2017

<sup>1</sup> Giandomenico Majone, *Europe as the Would-be World Power* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), chapter 7 ("The Obsolescence of the Traditional Integration Methods").

an alternative to the Community method? Or are more common terms such as 'confederation' or 'federation' to be preferred? It is not a speculative argument that will be presented. I will pay attention to how we can move away from the actual Community method, taking the rapidly changing global context into account. It will pay attention to theoretical approaches to the nature of European integration, but also legal issues focusing on recent case law of the CJEU that is already paying more 'respect' to issues related to national identity.

### **The Community method**

The Community method, basically, consists of ground-rules to make this community of Member States work. These ground-rules are found in the original EEC Treaty, e.g. the important political and pro-integration role of the European Commission to defend the common interests of the Member States. This method has been successful from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, when the EEC consisted of relatively homogeneous Member States struggling to rebuild their economies after the Second World War. Essential factors in this success were de-politicization and technocratic decision-making through elites, especially at the helm of the European Commission. These bureaucratic elites came from the Commission, national bureaucrats and experts also played an immensely important role in the so-called comitology procedures. Decision-making by 'Brussels' therefore includes many national officials. Because of weak input legitimacy and lack of democracy, the focus was on output legitimacy and good decision-making in the interest of the 'general good'. Arend Lijpharts' theory of consociationalism has been applied to decision making in the European Community. This theory explains stability in heterogeneous societies such as the Netherlands in the past with its separate and homogeneous protestant, catholic, liberal and socialist pillars with each their own schools, broadcasting corporations and politicians. Politicians and elites from the pillars cooperated in The Hague and this cooperation was characterized by stability, at least for some decades. De-pillarization was inevitable in later years as the pillars became less homogeneous. Applying consociationalism to the European Community would imply de-politicization and elite cooperation.<sup>2</sup> The peoples of the Member States form the pillars. Politicization would be the worst option in this consociationalist view because it could lead to destabilization. Politics is for the Member States and technocracy for the EC level. This construction could last as long as the number of Member States was low and the number of issues the EEClevel dealt with was not too high. Inherent in the European integration concept is the idea of an 'ever closer union'. So, from the beginning it was apparent that this

<sup>2</sup> See for an example Dimitris Chryssochoou, *Theorizing European Integration* (London: Sage, 2001), chapter 5 ('Theorizing the European Consociation').

method could not last forever. Old habits, however, hardly die. There are many path-dependencies involved.

The fear to politicize is also seen in another characteristic of the Community method: an unidentified finality. There is no agreement on the end-goal of the European integration process apart from general terminology such as 'ever closer union' in the preamble of the EEC Treaty, the preservation of peace, protection of human rights and creation of strong economies. Former Prime Minister David Cameron of the UK, in his negotiations with the EU before the referendum on Brexit in 2016, tried unsuccessfully to water down the words 'ever closer union'. Lack of agreement among the Member States on the end-goal does not mean that the European integration process is not a goal-oriented exercise. The EU as it has grown is in its legal characteristics first and foremost a 'functional polity that is organized around objectives'.<sup>3</sup> The European Court of Justice has used in its case law a systematic and teleological approach, making arguments on the basis of the goals and the system of the Treaty or a specific legislative text in a directive.

In 2004 I asked in another contribution the question whether unidentified finality could be considered as an essential element of a European Political Identity. At that time my answer was moderately positive in that more time was needed for the Member States to decide on the finality of the EU.<sup>4</sup> Disagreement between the Member States was still too strong. The negative result of the referenda on the constitutional treaty of the EU in 2004 in France and the Netherlands only strengthened resistance to far-fetched prospects about the future of the EU. The then Dutch government in a reaction on the negative outcome of the referendum even banned the European flag for a certain period. Pragmatic and practical steps are needed, not prospects.

We need to know, however, what the EU is about. In order to come to the beginning of an answer to this difficult question and, at the same time, to show the demise of the Community method I will use the following structure and method. In three main sections I will pay attention to the early years of the EEC, the dominance of the neo-liberal model in the 1980s until the financial crisis of 2008 and, finally, the options used in theory and practice to re-lance the European project. The titles of the respective sections are related to the terms embedded, disembedded and re-embedded liberalism, taken from both Polyani and Ruggie. The method is used to assess the influence of the general context in the years 1958- 1985, 1985-2008 and 2008+ corresponding to the three-tiered structure of this contribution. By general context I mean the general political conditions, e.g. peri-

<sup>3</sup> François-Xavier Millet, "The Respect for National Constitutional Identity", in *The Question of Competence in the European Union* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 258.

<sup>4</sup> Herman Voogsgeerd, "Unidentified Finality as an essential element of European Political Identity", *Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaften* 21 (2002), 313.

ods of tension during the Cold War, the ascent of neo-liberalism and the end of the Cold War, and the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008.

## **The Treaty of Rome (1958) and its premises in an area of embedded liberalism**

The conclusion of the Treaty of the EEC in Rome ended a period of deadlock in the European cooperation process that started in 1954 when the French Parliament refused to discuss the plans for a European Defense Union and a Political Union. This refusal had more to do with resistance against cooperation with West Germany, but the death of Stalin in 1953 ended one of the most serious stages of the Cold War. The focus of the European cooperation project was now to be laid on the economy. Sensitive areas of 'high politics' related to sovereignty, such as defense and foreign policy, were taboo for the next thirty years. The core of the project became a 'common market', a 'common commercial policy' and a 'competition authority' at the European level. I agree with Walters and Haahr, who put the common market as a component of what John Ruggie at the global level called 'embedded liberalism'.<sup>5</sup> At world-wide level this meant a combination of 'moderate' free trade within frameworks such as the GATT with the ability of nation states to manage their welfare states through safeguard procedures. At the EEC level a comparable combination existed during this period: there is a right to free movement in the common market, but there is a 'largely positive view of the nation state' in social welfare related topics.<sup>6</sup> This was definitely so during the socalled transitory stage that ended the 31st of December 1969. Member States had certain safeguarding powers, e.g. in case a sudden surge in the import of certain products from another member-state (Italy) would cause problems in the domestic market of the importing member-state (France), the European Commission could allow restrictions to that trade.<sup>7</sup> Member States still had discretionary powers to limit free movement. The free movements of the common market served an end but were not an end in itself; they were only 'a tool' to pool energies of Member States and to realize peace, stability, economic development and a rising standard of living.<sup>8</sup>

Hans-Peter Ipsens' work related to so-called 'special purpose associations' (*Zweckverbände*) of functional integration had been very influential in the earlier years of the EEC. Functional integration was the key to success and technocratic solutions for the common good were to be preferred instead of politics and emotions. Special purpose associations were definitely not 'emotional associations'.

<sup>5</sup> William Walters and Jens Henrik Haahr, "The Common Market", *Governing Europe. Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration* (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 58.

<sup>6</sup> William Walters and Jens Henrik Haahr, ibidem, 44.

<sup>7</sup> Italian refrigerators case, Case 13/63 *Italy versus Commission*. [1963] ECR, 351.

<sup>8</sup> William Walters and Jens Henrik Haahr, ibidem, 44.

Special purpose associations were also not general purpose associations, only states were to be qualified as general purpose associations. The EEC could therefore not become a general purpose association. It was important to downplay the finality of the integration process: 'ever closer union' in the preamble of the EEC Treaty was sufficiently vague to serve this purpose. The nature of the European integration process had to remain open in character, at least as long as the Member States as Masters of the Treaties (*Herren der Verträge*) did not agree on the future of the integration process. Ipsen seemed to be content with the term 'Community' chosen for the EEC. The European project needed a term that was not occupied by other entities such as (con)federation or union.<sup>9</sup> Examples of 'special purpose associations' were to be found in the economic realm, e.g. a customs union, the four economic freedoms, non-discrimination on the basis of nationality, but Ipsen did not exclude topics outside this area, e.g. cooperation on foreign policy. The term special purpose association is therefore extremely broad in scope and is not limited to functional areas, e.g. agriculture, transport or specific sectors of the economy. The term is also flexible as Ipsen did not oppose to occasional cases of disintegration.<sup>10</sup>

Although the concept is powerful in its potential to clarify the earlier years of the EEC and the first successful steps towards economic integration in Europe, I agree with the complaint heard from Giandomenico Majone from the title of his book *Integration by Stealth.*<sup>11</sup> Over the years and after many court cases from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, integration in the economic sphere (and therefore also political because the two are difficult to separate) was pushed to a level not known to the original authors of the Treaty. This proves the success of the concept. But in fact, the common market was in the words of Sauter and Schepel 'imposed on the Member States' by the European Court of Justice.<sup>12</sup> Especially after the transitory stage in 1970 the common market freedoms were interpreted more and more extensively by the ECJ. This happened at first for the important free movement of goods with important court cases in *Dassonville* and *Cassis de Dijon.*<sup>13</sup> Not much later case law concerning free movement of persons followed. The free movement of services and capital were essentially dealt with in the following period of 'dis-embedded liberalism'.

<sup>9</sup> Hans-Peter Ipsen, *Europäisches Gemeinschaftsrecht in Einzelstudien* (1984), 80-92.

<sup>10</sup> As quoted in Voogsgeerd, 317.

<sup>11</sup> Giandomenico Majone, *Dilemmas of European Integration: The Ambiguities and Pitfalls of Integration by Stealth*, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

<sup>12</sup> Wolf Sauter and Harm Schepel, *State and Market in European Union Law*, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

<sup>13</sup> Case 8/74, *Dassonville* [1974] ECR, 837 and case 120/78, *Cassis de Dijon* [1979] ECR 649.

## **The Single European Act (1985) and the ascent of neo-liberalism and disembedded liberalism**

The mid 1980s became a real watershed in the history of the European integration project. Apart from the beginning years and the active EEC Commission under president Walter Hallstein that lasted until the empty chair crisis in 1963, the period between 1985 and 1992 also may be qualified as a very successful period of European integration, this time under European Commission president Jacques Delors. The context during these years changed dramatically. The rise of supplyside economics, combined with pleas for deregulation and privatization, influenced the dominant discourse in the EEC. The famous Lord Cockfield report on the costs of non-Europe laid the groundwork for the realization of the 'internal market', an area without internal borders (article 14, paragraph 2 EC, now article 26, paragraph 2 TFEU).<sup>14</sup> This discursive change from common to internal market is not without impact. In the period before 1985 the role of governments was seen as essential, after 1958 this changed. Walters and Haahr see this development as "something of a reversal in the figures of the state and the market".<sup>15</sup> The market is 'good' and states have to interfere as little as possible. Giubonni is of the same opinion, when he talks about the reversal of the relationship between social policy and as he calls it 'the law of economics'.<sup>16</sup> The premises on which the EEC Treaty of Rome rested changed. Asymmetries arose between national democratic control and world-wide economic processes and also between social rights and economic market freedoms.<sup>17</sup>

New areas were tried in case law of the ECJ. Free movement of capital was completely liberalized with the Treaty of Maastricht (1992). Case law concerning this freedom has been quite radical in the sense that even minor dissuasive effects on capital moves would trigger this freedom. Government shareholding positions in companies, so-called 'golden shares' were deemed to be against freedom of capital. The Volkswagen-battle between Germany and the European Commission lasted several years. In 2007 the ECJ took the side of the Commission concerning the so-called Volkswagen law that protected certain (public) shareholders.<sup>18</sup> Free movement of services was radicalized as well. Now that an internal market in goods was almost completely realized, the service economy needed to be pushed.

<sup>14</sup> Cockfield White Paper, 1985, *Completing the Internal Market*, Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

<sup>15</sup> William Walters and Jens Henrik Haahr, "The Common Market", *Governing Europe. Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration* (London, New York: Routledge, 2005), 44.

<sup>16</sup> Stefano Giubboni, *Social Rights and Market Freedom in the European Constitution* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 20.

<sup>17</sup> See especially the strong arguments of Fritz Scharpf, *Governing in Europe. Effective and Democratic?*, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), chapter 2 'Negative and positive integration'.

<sup>18</sup> Case C-112/05, *Commission versus Germany*, 23 October 2007. See on this case the short contribution of Wolf-Georg Ringe, "The Volkswagen Case and the European Court of Justice", *Common Market Law Review*, vol. 45, 2008.

Posting of workers from other Member States within the freedom to provide services was put on the agenda of the European legislator after the case *Rush Portuguesa.*<sup>19</sup> Employers from member-state A, who performed a service in another member-state, were allowed to bring their own workers temporarily to the other member-state under the labour conditions of the home state. In an economically diverse EU with richer and poorer countries, especially after the accession of eight Central and Eastern European countries to the EU, this had large consequences. This development lead to the posting of workers directive 96/71/EC, which allowed the host member-state to impose at least the national minimum wage on these workers, but for many richer Member States this was not enough. On top of this, many self-employed from poorer countries profited from the freedom of establishment and they competed on price with their colleagues from richer European countries. Economic freedoms seemed to be given priority to social protection, as the famous cases of *Viking* and *Laval* from the end of 2007 showed.<sup>20</sup> Collective actions by trade unions were tested against the freedom of establishment in *Viking* and against the freedom to provide services in *Laval*. The important link in embedded-liberalism between free trade externally and welfare state internally was finally broken. Many authors protested against these radical developments. Joerges and Rödl talk about an EU social deficit and argue that social policies should have been left to the Member States.<sup>21</sup> Holmes is of the opinion that one should reexamine "the balance between national regulatory sovereignty and the goal of trade liberalization", now that market integration within the EU "begins to bite on more sensitive areas".<sup>22</sup> The financial crisis that struck the U.S. and the western world in 2008 also had large consequences, although these consequences came in the open much later. In 2011 Crouch still asked the question why neo-liberalism did not die after these vehement crises.<sup>23</sup> Only in 2016 with the UK referendum on a Brexit and the election of president Trump in the U.S. did it become clear that the crisis in neoliberalism could have large consequences.

### **The Treaty of Lisbon (2009) and after. Re-embedding liberalism?**

Negotiations on the new Lisbon Treaty more or less coincided with the financial and economic crisis that struck western countries in 2008, but that crisis did not have any immediate impact on the text of the new Treaty. The question has been

<sup>19</sup> Case C-113/89, *Rush Portuguesa* [1990] ECR I-1417.

<sup>20</sup> Case C-438/05, *Viking* [2007] ECR I-10779 and case C-341/05, *Laval* [2007] I-11767.

<sup>21</sup> See especially Christian Joerges and Florian Rödl, "Informal Politics, Formalised Law and the 'Social Deficit' of European integration: Reflections after the Judgements of the ECJ in Viking and Laval", *European Law Journal.* 2009, 15:1, 1-19.

<sup>22</sup> Peter Holmes, "Trade and 'domestic' policies: the European mix", *Journal of European Public Policies*, 13: 6 (2006), 816.

<sup>23</sup> Colin Crouch, *The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism*, (Cambridge: Polity press, 2011).

raised whether 'Lisbon' led to major changes in the legal order of the EU.<sup>24</sup> Millet answers the question in the negative as path-dependency is more important than newer developments. Moreover, the Court of Justice, after Lisbon called CJEU instead of ECJ, does not have incentives to change its case law under the new Treaty.<sup>25</sup> Less drastic changes did nonetheless happen at the level of the new Treaty text with consequences of the case law of the CJEU. Article 4, paragraph 2 of the TEU is of interest here. In this provision the national constitutional identity of the Member States is, from now on, explicitly protected. This identity consists of the words of the provision: "their essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security". This provision has to be operationalized by the CJEU and balanced against the interests of the internal market and the standards of article 2 TEU in which the foundational values of the Union are mentioned: "respect for human rights, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities".

This new focus on the constitutional identity of Member StatesMember States is one example of re-embedding liberalism. In the earlier stage of dis-embedded liberalism the scope of the four economic freedoms of the internal market was widened as much as possible. The internal market should become as close to a domestic market as possible. But in this third stage important interests of the Member States were to be better protected than before. The German Constitutional Court in its Lisbon Decision emphasized this element of constitutional identity. As in its earlier *Solange* decisions and the Maastricht Decision the Constitutional Court reiterated that the EU, as a *Staatenbund*, a confederation, is bound to respect fundamental human rights (Solange), the principle of democracy (Maastricht Decision) and now the constitutional identity of the Member States. That this last topic is taken seriously by the CJEU as well became clear in the *Omega*, *Sayn-Wittgenstein* and *Runevic-Vardyn* cases.<sup>26</sup> The case *Sayn-Wittgenstein* is the most interesting of the three, as that case explicitly refers to the constitution of the Republic of Austria in which there is a provision, article xx, that bans the bearing of nobility titles. The CJEU accepted this ban and this implied that a female German-born self-employed selling perfumes etc. to clients in Austria was not allowed to call herself princess (Fürstin) of Sayn-Wittgenstein in her advertising. This, although there was a clear link with her activity as seller of perfume. *Omega* concerned the banning in Germany of laser games for children, accepted by the CJEU on public interest grounds. *Runevic-Vardyn* dealt with spelling rules that differed between

<sup>24</sup> See the volume edited by Loïc Azoulai, *The Question of Competence in the European Union*, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

<sup>25</sup> François-Xavier Millet, "The Respect for National Constitutional Identity", p. 258 in the volume mentioned in the preceding reference.

<sup>26</sup> Case C-36/02 *Omega Spielhallen*, [2004] ECR I-9609; case C-208/09 *Sayn-Wittgenstein*, [2010] I-3696 and case C-391/09 *Runevic-Vardyn*, [2011] ECR I-3787.

Poland and Lithuania. Here the CJEU accepted the law of the land – Member States do not have to respect the spelling rules of another Member State.<sup>27</sup> The president of the CJEU, Lenaerts, in an academic contribution admitted that "where the core values of the Union are not in danger, the ECJ favours 'value diversity'".<sup>28</sup> This argument presupposes that in case of a conflict between the core values of the EU and the core values of a Member State the CJEU might opt for the first. But later Lenaerts admits that the CJEU will do its best to take both EU and national interest into account. It will try to accommodate both levels.<sup>29</sup> An open conflict between a Member State and the EU level is not a good thing. This will have to be avoided.

Respect for the constitutional identity of the Member States is one relatively small element of re-embedding the internal market. More difficult is to address the general consequence of decades of internal market case law: an increasing 'economization'. Many aspects are seen first and foremost through an economic lens. Authors submit that the case law of the CJEU is characterized by 'some degree of economic bias'.<sup>30</sup> The CJEU enables negative harmonization through the four economic freedoms of the Treaty in the absence of sufficient positive harmonization through EU legislation because of a lack of competence of the EU in a specific area or the lack of sufficient votes to legislate from the Member States. Economization and de-politicization are causes of unease among large parts of the population. William Davies, in a critical analysis of neoliberalism asks himself why economics should be "a better analytical basis for government than other political or scientific forms of authority".<sup>31</sup> De-politicization and government by experts, useful in the beginning years of the EEC, have reached their limit. Moreover, the primacy of economics and the increasing role of experts in Brussels and national capitals did have redistributive consequences.<sup>32</sup> The referendum for a Brexit is an indication for the return of the primacy of politics by large parts of the population who felt forgotten by their own national government. Brexit itself can therefore be

<sup>27</sup> Compare this case with the much older case *Konstantinidis* (C-168/91, ECR [1993], I-1191) in which Germany had to respect the Greek alphabet, in which the name was written differently than the German authorities did. For professional reasons related to the economic freedom of persons (workers) the ECJ supported the argument brought forward by Konstantinidis.

<sup>28</sup> Koen Lenaerts, "The Court's Outer and Inner Selves", *Judging Europe's Judges. The Legitimacy of the Case Law of the European Court of Justice* (Oxford and Portland (Oregon): Hart Publishing, 2015), 60.

<sup>29</sup> Koen Lenaerts, ibidem.

<sup>30</sup> D. Leczykiewicz, "Conceptualising Conflict between the Economic and the Social in EU Law after Viking and Laval", *Viking, Laval and Beyond* eds. M. Freedland and J. Prassl, (Oxford and Portland (Oregon): Hart Publishing, 2014), 234.

<sup>31</sup> William Davies, *The Limits of Neoliberalism*, (Sage, 2017), 10.

<sup>32</sup> See the interesting analysis by David Kennedy, *A World of Struggle. How Power, Law and Expertise Shape Global Political Economy*, (Princeton, 2016).

qualified as an example of re-embedding markets.<sup>33</sup> The EU has to take this into account and forget about the traditional Community method. Politics matters.

### **Plans for the immediate future of the EU**

Making plans for the immediate future of the EU is difficult as ideas concerning the end-goal of the EU still diverge in 2017. As the French President Emmanuel Macron in his Sorbonne lecture of 26 September 2017 focused on the need to 'relaunch' European integration, because of a lack of a long-term vision and suffering from the need for unanimous decisions, he perfectly addressed the tension between the two. A long-term vision is impossible as long as the Member States disagree on this. The Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, for example, is only interested in practical and down-to-earth decisions and not at all in blueprints for an EU future.<sup>34</sup> How to solve this dilemma?

The European Commission White Paper on the future of Europe of March 2017 is the first main endeavor on the future for the EU 27 after Brexit that needs to be discussed here. Five scenarios are given in the White Paper. None of the five mention legal or institutional aspects because the Commission assumes that form will follow the function.<sup>35</sup> This assumption is acceptable as the scenarios are meant only to stimulate thinking. It is important, however not to limit oneself to the functionalist logic. Scenario 1 to 5 do not seem to fit in a continuum from less to more integration. The first scenario, 'Carrying on' implies almost no change to the actual stage of the EU and scenario 2 'nothing but the single market' is a step backwards and at the same time not an improvement with respect to the issues mentioned before. Scenario 2 will automatically imply a larger say concerning the practicalities of the internal market for Member States and their national courts. The scenario even specifically mentions border controls at the internal borders of the EU, and steps backwards concerning free movement of workers and services.<sup>36</sup> Scenario 3, 'those who want to do more' is a continuation of an already existing possibility of enhanced cooperation. In article 20 TEU a general provision deals with the possibility of enhanced cooperation by a smaller number of Member States, but this is limited to the non-exclusive competences of the EU. Specific provisions on special cooperation exist for example in the areas of Common Foreign and Defense cooperation (article 42, paragraph 6 and article 46 TEU) and mutual recognition of judicial decisions in the area of criminal law (article 82, paragraph 3 TFEU), Scenario 4, 'doing less more efficiently' focuses on implementation and enforcement

<sup>33</sup> See Jonathan Hopkin, "When Polanyi met Farage: Market fundamentalism, economic nationalism, and Britain's exit from the European Union", *The British Journal of Politics and International Relations*, 2017, 19 (3), 465-478.

<sup>34</sup> Speech of Emmanuel Macron, Paris, Sorbonne, 26th of September 2017.

<sup>35</sup> European Commission, *White Paper on the Future of Europe*, 2017, p. 15.

<sup>36</sup> European Commission, Ibidem, p. 18.

issues. A more efficient EU is welcomed, but in return some topics have to be given back to the level of the Member States. Specifically mentioned policy areas to return to the Member States are parts of employment policy not directly related to the internal market, public health and regional development. On the other hand a European Border and Coast Guard takes over control of the external border of the EU. The idea of a deal in giving some powers back to the Member States and enforcing other powers more effectively and efficiently at EU level is an attractive one. It will solve part of the problems mentioned before concerning the dominance of neoliberalism. The fifth scenario, 'doing much more together' does not seem realistic at this moment in time. Scenario 3 has already been criticized by some Central and Eastern European countries and now also by the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. He seems to have taken a position in the middle, no far-sights, only practical deals on a limited number of issues such as defense, trade deals with third countries, combatting cyber-crime, solidarity in climate and energy issues, a new social dimension in the EU, fiscal justice, control of immigration and digital revolution. This looks very much like the first scenario.

The White Paper and the plans of President Tusk both do not refer to institutional and legal issues. Nevertheless, it will be inevitable to deal with these issues in the near future as well. In order to end with the obsolete Community method and to try new roads the relationship between the EU and its Member StatesMember States will have to be addressed. What is the role nowadays of the Masters of the Treaties (*Herren der Verträge*) after more than sixty years of European law? Some authors assume that the nation state is the main problem in the EU.<sup>37</sup> They are the cause of the malfunctioning of the EU at this moment. Others assume that the EU should stop weakening the nation state. This view is now adhered to by nobody less than former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. In my view this is only possible by naming the EU what it actually is, not an ordinary international organization but a confederation, a *Staatenbund*. To a certain extent the Member States need to be protected. And they need to be able to make collective decisions in extraordinary situations. If Member States only disagree, there is no strong future for the EU. Some of the existing decision-making mechanisms need therefore to remain in place in the confederation.

<sup>37</sup> See Ulrike Guérot, *Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss: Eine politische Utopie*, 2nd edition, (Piper, 2016).

### **Bibliography**

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Chryssochoou, Dimitris. *Theorizing European Integration.* London: Sage, 2001.

European Commission, *White Paper on the Future of Europe. Reflections and scenarios for the EU27 by 2025*. COM(2017)2025 of 1st of March 2017.

Crouch, Colin. *The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism*. (Cambridge: Polity press, 2011.

Davies, William. *The Limits of Neoliberalism. Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition.* London: Sage, 2017.

Giubboni, Stefano. *Social Rights and Market Freedom in the European Constitution. A Labour Law Perspective*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Holmes, Peter. "Trade and 'domestic' policies: the European mix." *Journal of European Public Policies* 13:6 (2006), 816.

Hopkin, Jonathan. "When Polanyi met Farage: Market fundamentalism, economic nationalism, and Britain's exit from the European Union." *The British Journal of Politics and International Relations* 19:3 (2017), 465-478.

Ipsen, Hans-Peter. *Europäisches Gemeinschaftsrecht in Einzelstudien,* Baden-Baden, 1984.

Joerges, Christian and Florian Rödl. "Informal Politics, Formalised Law and the 'Social Deficit' of European Integration: Reflections after the Judgements of the ECJ in Viking and Laval," *European Law Journal* 15:1 (2009): 1-19.

Kennedy, David. *A World of Struggle. How Power, Law and Expertise Shape Global Political Economy*. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016.

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Lenaerts, Koen. "The Court's Outer and Inner Selves: Exploring the External and Internal Legitimacy of the European Court of Justice." In *Judging Europe's Judges. The Legitimacy of the Case Law of the European Court of Justice*, edited by Maurice Adams a.o.*,* 13-60. Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Hart publishing, 2015.

Macron, Emmanuel. *Initiative for Europe*. Sorbonne speech 26th of October 2017. http://international.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2017/09/29/macronsorbonne-verbatim-europe-18583.html (accessed 2 November 2017).

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# **Reframing the Past? Myths, Amnesia and the Role of Historians in Contemporary Europe**

Janny de Jong

Where do we go from here in Europe? The academic conference "Visions and Revisions of Europe. Scenarios for further European integration" that took place in June 2017 at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, had an activist overall theme. As the convenors wrote in the call for papers: European citizens should act to "help shape, revise and create a Europe that is safe, inclusive, prosperous and, perhaps above all, hopeful".<sup>1</sup> I could not agree more, but the *history* of Europe has not always given reason to be optimistic and hopeful. How should we deal with that history? Which role might there be for historians? A "reframing of the past", in other words deliberately stressing some parts and leaving out others in order to build positive myths, is not consistent, to put it mildly, with the professional ethics of the history discipline. Yet, deliberately or not, historians have indeed been involved in mythmaking about European history.

Of course there might be reason to be proud of the results of the European integration project that has resulted in many important positive developments. That in any case was the opinion of the Nobel Prize committee when in 2012 it decided to award the European Union (EU) with the Nobel Peace Prize. It praised its contribution, and that of its forerunners, to the "advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe".<sup>2</sup> However, in 2015 some of the European core values such as tolerance and diversity were put to the test when over one million refugees and migrants fled to Europe. In June 2016 a majority of 51.9 % of British voters in the United Kingdom European Union referendum were in favour of leaving the EU, a "Brexit". Both the refugee issue and the Brexit vote led to many, often heated, debates about the EU and Europe as a whole. The financial crisis of 2007, transforming into a sovereign debt crisis in 2009 in several

<sup>1</sup> "Visions and Revisions of Europe. Scenarios for further European integration",

https://eurocultureip.eu/scholar-conference/, accessed 27 July 2017.

<sup>2</sup> "The Nobel Peace Prize for 2012". Press release 12 October 2012.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel\_prizes/peace/laureates/2012/press.html

Eurozone countries, was probably the most important though. Not only because of its financial, economic, political and social consequences, but also because the legitimacy of European integration as such was being questioned.<sup>3</sup>

Historians do not need to stand on the side-line of those contemporary debates and issues in and about Europe, to the contrary. In any case it is clear that historians are no exception to the rule that their research is connected to the time in which they live.<sup>4</sup> Key to the discipline is the ability to explain both continuity and change over time. It goes without saying that this might help to understand contemporary crises and challenges.

What role could history and historians play in the "revision of Europe"? In the following I will first discuss important myths and omissions in European history and memory: the myth of European integration as a project of peace and the myth of reversing the past; the amnesia of the role of colonialism and imperialism in postwar Europe; and the Holocaust as a negative myth. I will then proceed by sketching how historians might indeed contribute to develop more understanding and insight where integration in Europe is heading. A key element is not to skip the black pages in Europe's history: these parts in history should be remembered and discussed. The question is how. Another matter is if that gives reason to be hopeful.

### **Myths and half-truths**

*Indeed it is the scholar who usually provides the citizen with the mythology (or, if it sounds more respectable, the theory) on which he justifies his actions. (Denys Hay).<sup>5</sup>*

Denys Hay, the author of the well-known *Europe: The Emergence of an Idea,* first published in 1957 and reprinted no less than 6 times, uttered in the quote above criticism on how historians, himself included, actively had tried to push forward the European idea after the Second World War. In hindsight, writing in 1979, he thought this was embarrassing. Sure, he and other scholars at that time reflected the mood of the moment, and at a time when the first institutional developments took place, such as the Coal and Steel Community, the Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic Community, the world of western Europe indeed

<sup>3</sup> See for instance Philomena Murray and Michael Longo,"The Crisis-Legitimacy Nexus in the European Union", In *The European Union in Crisis: Explorations in Representation and Democratic Legitimacy*, edited by Kyriakos N. Demetriou (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08774-0\_4. Crisis in the EU is a widely discussed and researched issue: a simple google search with the words 'European Union' and 'crisis' produces no less than 245.000.000 results. (Search performed on 27 December 2017).

<sup>4</sup> Presentism usually is considered a no go. See the debate on that issue in the 1960s and early 1970s in Howard Schonberger. "Purposes and Ends in History: Presentism and the New Left." *The History Teacher* 7, no. 3 (1974): 448–58.

<sup>5</sup> Denys Hay, "Europe Revisited: 1979", *History of European Ideas* 1, no. 1 (1980): 1–6, 3.

was "full of itself". Historians had even willingly been creating myths, because, as he put it, "the scholar as propagandist was very near the scholar as citizen". Nevertheless he warned against biased views that were rooted in the present, and against searching for the roots of the European idea much further back than the 19th century. If one would want to sketch the evolution of the European institutions and sentiments from the 19th century onwards, the violence that had also taken place ought not to be overlooked.<sup>6</sup>

In the preceding decades, starting with the First World War, eminent historians, such as Henri Pirenne, Johan Huizinga, Benedetto Croce, Christopher Dawson, Werner Kaegi to name but a few, had also reflected on "Europe" precisely because of the times of crisis and distress they experienced.<sup>7</sup> The anxiety about Europe was put forward clearly by for instance Dutch historian Johan Huizinga in the opening sentence of his long essay *Schaduwen van morgen* (*In the Shadow of To-Morrow*): "We are living in a demented world. And we know it".<sup>8</sup> He then expressed the fear that "poor Europe" might end up in a "state of distracted stupor" in which its spirit was gone. Earlier, in 1933, he had articulated the same concern that today's Europe was exposed to a force that "threatened her return to barbarism".<sup>9</sup> The book was an immediate best seller and translated into other languages. By the way the book's reception by intellectuals and the general public both before and after the war demonstrates also how important the political atmosphere is: in the optimism of the 1960s Huizinga was presented as defeatist, not giving inspiration to resist.<sup>10</sup>

In the 1950s and 1960s the atmosphere had changed decidedly: optimism predominated about where (western) Europe was heading. Europe had overcome its dark past by choosing collaboration and in that way securing peace. Peace might be indeed the most important result on a continent that had experienced many wars,

 <sup>6</sup> Ibid., 6.

<sup>7</sup> See for an overview Stuart Woolf, "Europe and Its Historians," *Contemporary European History* 12, no. 3 (August 2003): 323–37, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777303001243.

<sup>8</sup> J. Huizinga, *In de schaduwen van morgen : een diagnose van het geestelijk lijden van onzen tijd*, 6e dr. (Haarlem: Tjeenk Willink, 1936), 1.; translation: J. Huizinga, *In the Shadow of To-Morrow : A Diagnosis of the Spiritual Distemper of Our Time* (London [etc.]: Heinemann, 1964), 1. The essay was based on a speech held in Brussels in 1935.

<sup>9</sup> The quote ran: "L'Europe d'aujourd'hui se trouve exposée à plus d'une force qui la menace d'un retour à la barbarie". J. Huizinga, "Discours sur l'avenir de l'esprit européen" at the Institut Internationale de Coopération Intellectuelle, Paris, 1933. In: J. Huizinga, *Verzamelde Werken VII. Geschiedwetenschap. Hedendaagsche cultuur* (H.D. Tjeenk Willink & zoon, Haarlem 1950), 261-266. Quote on 266. Full text also available online:

http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/huiz003gesc03\_01/huiz003gesc03\_01\_0023.php. 2008 DBNL erven Johan Huizinga. Accessed December 2017.

<sup>10</sup> A recent study by Carla du Pree shows how influential and long-lasting the critique of especially historian Pieter Geyl was. Carla du Pree, *Johan Huizinga en de bezeten wereld: de rol van publieke intellectueel tussen twee wereldoorlogen* (Leusden: ISVW Uitgevers, 2016), 192–213.

destruction and tremendous losses of lives especially in the first half of the century. But the "Europe as a peace project" narrative definitely needs to be contextualised.

In the beginning a fairly limited number of European countries were involved in some of the new institutional structures that preceded the present European Union. This was less the case in the European Movement, which united federalist movements, and was founded in The Hague in 1948. The Council of Europe, established in May 1949, also had the intent to represent the whole of Europe, and especially promoted human rights, adopting the European convention of Human Rights and establishing the European Court of Human Rights.<sup>11</sup> Still "Europe" was geographically rather limited since it concerned mostly *western* Europe. Or at least that is how it seemed.

At the start of the European cooperation in 1951, when Germany and France together with Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg started the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) with the explicit aim to create a common market for coal and steel, securing peace was important. Coal and steel after all were products that were crucial for waging war. But when we observe the geographical map of the countries that were partners in this cooperation, we also notice another thing: in 1951 Algeria was an integral part of the French Republic. The Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, that preceded the ECSC, included the following sentence: "With increased resources, Europe will be able to pursue the achievement of one of its essential tasks, namely the development of the African continent".<sup>12</sup> This statement is usually interpreted as a clear example of the paternalism and Eurocentrism of that time. Yet there seemed also to be a commitment involved, because the directly preceding sentence read, "This production will be offered to the world as a whole without distinction or exception, with the aim of contributing to raising living standards and to promoting peaceful achievements".<sup>13</sup> Yet, these developments clearly were projected in a colonial context, in which African resources were to be exploited by Europe. In other words, the start of European integration was heavily associated with, especially French, colonial interests.<sup>14</sup>

A clear association with all colonial possessions also formed part of the Treaty of Rome of 1957. The then established European Development Fund gave rise to more internal divergence, however. Western Germany and the Netherlands propagated moving into the direction of development policies.<sup>15</sup> That was the direction

<sup>11</sup> Patrick Pasture, *Imagining European Unity since 1000 AD* (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 179-180.

<sup>12</sup> Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand, *Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory, and Identity* (New York [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013), 172.

<sup>13</sup> https://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/declaration-of-9-may-1950. Accessed June 2017.

<sup>14</sup> Peo Hansen, and Stefan Jonsson. "Bringing Africa as a 'Dowry to Europe': European Integration and the Eurafrican Project, 1920–1960", *Interventions* 13, no. 3 (September 2011): 443–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2011.597600.

<sup>15</sup> Pasteure, *Imagining,*

in which the relation with Africa would develop. Decolonisation there and in other parts of the world took place at different speeds, but the fate of the colonial empires was sealed.

In scholarship on (early) European integration this influence of colonial interests is usually overlooked. In recent years scholars have drawn more attention to these colonial ties, arguing that the perceived necessity to keep the colonial system was part and parcel of the start of European integration.<sup>16</sup> Taking account of the colonial dimension illustrates that Europe ought to be less complacent about the core values it adheres to. Failing to do so leads to a half-truth.

Colonisation and decolonisation are also important to understand the complexity of issues such as migration and contemporary plural societies. In many West-European countries these are very closely related to their former colonial empires and presence overseas. The phrase "we are here because you were there" illustrates that link neatly. Assertive postcolonial migrants used that phrase for instance in the 1970s in the United Kingdom in response to anti-immigrant discourses and measures. As such it was an effective way of drawing attention to the role of these colonial ties and especially to the responsibilities and consequences this entailed for the former colonial power.

A more global perspective is also important for a proper understanding of how and why exactly previous antagonisms in Europe were overcome and dealt with. The importance of the military, political and economic dominance of the United States and the start of the Cold War in that matter can hardly be overstated. In June 1947 the American Secretary of State George Marshall had presented the European Economic Recovery plan, which would come into effect the next year. The Marshall plan stimulated cooperation and consultation in Europe since the participating states – 16 in total, including Turkey and Germany but excluding Spain - had to work together in the joint recovery plan. But it also signified a break with the Soviet Union, which did not take part because it refused to comply with the American demand of the right of supervision.<sup>17</sup> The Cold War was instrumental in overcoming previous antagonisms and in securing peace and collaboration. So yes, securing peace was important and played a role from the very start of European integration but this process entailed many elements, both European and global, and was less clear-cut than it might seem.

## **Yesterday's traps**

Maybe it is relevant to go back once more to the Nobel Peace Prize of 2012. Why did the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee decide unanimously to grant the EU this prestigious award? After all, if advancement of peace and reconciliation was

<sup>16</sup> Hansen and Jonsson, "Dowry", 461.

<sup>17</sup> Pasture, *Imagining*, 172-173.

the most important issue, then the moment that no less than 10 countries joined the EU in 2004 might have been a relevant occasion to acknowledge that a big step forward had been made. Or for that matter, it might also have made sense to reward certain politicians for their efforts to achieve an inclusive Europe. The point is that the Nobel Peace Prize is often not only a reward for good deeds in the past, but usually it is also meant to steer some processes in a certain direction. This for instance was clearly the case in 2009 when American president Barack Obama received the award in recognition for his promotion of non-proliferation, only having been in office for 9 months. Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel committee at that time, himself a historian, regretted the decision afterwards, since it did not help Obama to achieve the goals of nuclear disarmament.<sup>18</sup>

What then did the committee try to achieve or to prevent in 2012? In 2012 the words "crisis in the EU" referred to the problems related to the sovereign debt crisis, threatening the stability of Europe. The hardships that the financial crisis of 2007 had brought to Europe and the world at large, had resulted in a growth of populism and nationalism in general. These new political parties and protest movements were mainly found on the rightist side of the political spectrum which brought back to memory which role the financial crisis had played in the 1930s.

Indeed the laudatory speech directly referred to this past:

Without this European cooperation, the result might easily have been new protectionism, new nationalism, with the risk that the ground gained would be lost.

We know from the inter-war years that this is what can happen when ordinary people pay the bills for a financial crisis triggered by others. But the solution now as then is not for the countries to act on their own at the expense of others. Nor for vulnerable minorities to be given the blame.

That would lead us into yesterday's traps.

By referring to the 1930s the Nobel committee linked the effects of the financial crisis with criticism on minorities and strengthening especially rightist movements and parties. Recent research indicates that this assumed relation indeed exists. Three economists made an analysis of the effect of financial crises on voting behaviour and political parties. The research was based on 800 elections in 20 countries over a period of 140 years. The authors concluded that financial crises have significant political after effects: the support for traditional parties goes down, while that for rightist parties and movements goes up. "After a crisis, voters seem

**<sup>18</sup>** Colin Freeman, "Nobel Peace Prize panellists at war over book that reveals behind-the-scenes rows", *The Telegraph*, 2 October 2015,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/11907862/Nobel-Peace-Prizepanellists-at-war-over-book-that-reveals-behind-the-scenes-rows.html, accessed June 2017; "Nobel secretary regrets Obama peace prize", *BBC news*, 17 September 2015,

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34277960, accessed June 2017.

to be particularly attracted to the political rhetoric of the extreme right, which often attributes blame to minorities or foreigners".<sup>19</sup> Furthermore the increase of political parties and political gridlock contributes to the slow economic recovery after a financial crisis. Therefore they warned financial regulators and central bankers to be very careful: "Preventing financial crises also means reducing the probability of a political disaster".<sup>20</sup> It is an interesting example of trying to avoid less desirable developments based on what happened in the past.

Today comparisons to the history of the 1930s are frequently made. Not only with regard to the financial crises of those years and its profound effects, but even more so regarding economic nationalism. The former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, since 2009 the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group in the European Parliament, called nationalism in 2015 *The sickness of Europe (and the rediscovery of the ideal).* He stated that the overall idea of the European project had been to finally send nationalism to the dustbin of history. But now, he saw the spectres of the past threaten Europe again, and it seemed "like we are catapulted back in time, to the interwar years".<sup>21</sup> It did not make sense to return to economic nationalism and protectionism because national solutions to global problems would not work. Only a stronger Europe would be able to facilitate the cultural diversity, and the ideals and values. It would be a guarantee to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Of course knowledge of the past plays a role in making contemporary judgments and decisions. But it goes without saying that predicting the future on the basis of historic knowledge is impossible. A very informed historian like Mary Nolan, who wrote a outstanding comprehensive article on the *Historikerstreit* (the intense debate in Germany about the role of the past) for example called the German reunification in 1988 a "dead issue".<sup>22</sup> Who can blame her? How was she to know that very soon afterwards German reunification would be taking place, if the Fall of the Berlin Wall and its after effects also took the leading politicians by surprise. And it is an understatement to say that not everyone was pleasantly surprised.

In 1980 historian James Joll, expert in 19th and 20th century European history, had been quite optimistic about the future. Analysing the continuous set of military

<sup>19</sup> Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch. "Going to Extremes: Politics after Financial Crises, 1870-2014." *European Economic Review* 88 (September 2016): 227–60. doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.03.006, 227; Jeroen Dijsselbloem, "Financiële crisis leidt wel degelijk tot opkomst van populisme", *Het Financieele Dagblad*, 14 December 2016. https://fd.nl/opinie/1179599/financiele-crisis-leidt-wel-degelijk-tot-opkomst-van-populisme, accessed June 2017.

<sup>20</sup> Funke e.a., "Extremes", 245.

<sup>21</sup> Guy Verhofstadt, *De ziekte van Europa: en de herontdekking van het ideaal*. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2015, 60; See also Guy Verhofstadt, "Europa en het nationalisme", Van der Leeuw Lecture 18 October 2013, Groningen. http://www.vanderleeuwlezing.nl/lezingen/europa-en-het-nationalisme

<sup>22</sup> Nolan

conflicts between Germany and France in particular, his conclusion was that Europeans had made "a genuine effort to reverse the past".<sup>23</sup> But he was sceptical about what would happen if Germany would ever be united, since its strength would threaten the European balance, "thus make the only form in which Europe might possibly unite that of a Europe under German hegemony".<sup>24</sup>

It was indeed this prospect that was haunting some of the leading politicians in 1989. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl remembered Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher being particularly hostile to German unification. She undoubtedly was, not only because she feared the consequences of the balance of power in Western Europe, but also for the stability in the world. She even told the Soviet leader Michail Gorbatchev in September 1989 that Britain nor Western Europe wanted a German unification, nor was she in favour of a dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.<sup>25</sup> While Thatcher during a dinner at a meeting of the heads of State in Strasbourg, 8 December 1989, referred to history saying "We beat the Germans twice, now there are back", this was in fact not very different from how French president François Mitterand discussed the German attitude and danger of German unification in London during a private meeting at Downing Street no 10.<sup>26</sup> The prospect of unification had given the Germans a kind of "mental shock" and turned them again into "bad Germans": they might even gain more influence in Europe than Hitler ever had.<sup>27</sup> However, the difference is that Mitterrand drew the conclusion that it would be "stupid to say no to reunification", while it took longer for Thatcher to accept that. The last part was obviously how Mitterrand wished to remember his role in this history.<sup>28</sup> France at first tried to slow down the process, but subse-

<sup>23</sup> Joll, James. "Europe—An Historian's View." *History of European Ideas* 1, no. 1 (1980): 16.

<sup>24</sup> Ibid.

<sup>25</sup> Conversation Margaret Thatcher with Mikhail Gorbachev 23 September 1989. Extract from Soviet memorandum of conversation in the Gorbachev Archive, available on M*argaret Thatcher Foundation.* https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/112005 accessed October 2017; Barbara Wesel, "Der Feldzug der Margaret Thatcher, ARD Tagesschau, 9-11-2009, http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/thatcher106.html (accessed October 2017).

<sup>26</sup> Carsten Volkery, "The Iron Lady's Views on German Reunification "The Germans Are Back!"", *Der Spiegel*, 11 September 1990. *Der Spiegel Online,* http://www.spiegel.de /international/europe/the-iron-lady-s-views-on-german-reunification-the-germans-are-back-a-648364.htm.

<sup>27</sup> Memorandum of conversation (Margaret Thatcher & President Mitterrand) [declassified 2010] Secret and personal letter from C.D. Powell, private secretary to the Prime Minister, to Simon Webb (Ministry of Defence) 20 January 1990. 1990 Jan 20 Sa Archive (Cabinet Office). Available on https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/113883. Accessed December 2017.

<sup>28</sup> An Pyeongeok, "Obstructive All the Way? British Policy towards German Unification 1989– 90." *German Politics* 15, no. 1 (March 2006): 111–21; François Mitterrand, "Of Germany and France" Extract from François Mitterrand, *De l'Allemagne. De la France* (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996) 39-44. Available on https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2003/4/16/33ae0d5e-f55b-4476-aa6b-549648111114/publishable\_en.pdf, (accessed December 2017).

quently was constructive in building a stronger European structure, in that way ensuring that Germany would remain firmly tied to the European Community.<sup>29</sup>

### **Post Wall History: Collective Amnesia Reversed?**

The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union had a tremendous impact on history writing, and especially on dealing with the past in the form of memory. It provoked a great many new studies and especially new interpretations. What had been the official truth in the GDR, writes historian Tony Judt in *Postwar,* was now "discredited root and branch".<sup>30</sup> The Western European narrative of history was challenged, Nazism after all had not been the only totalitarian system.<sup>31</sup>

The difficulty of confronting a "double-burdened past" in Germany was mentioned by Wolgang Thierse, then president of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, in a commemoration speech before the *Bundestag* on 27 January 2000. The speech was held in the presence of Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize laureate and Auschwitz survivor, on accession of the *Gedenkstunde* (commemoration) of the German Bundestag related to the Day of Remembrance for the victims of National Socialism.<sup>32</sup> Besides the difficulty of facing the burdened pasts, Thierse also mentioned the advantage that now at least a historical consciousness could be developed without ideological or political pressure. However, he also acknowledged that many Germans grew tired of memory and commemoration, who called special days of commemoration "empty rituals" or even a "crusade" against forgetting. How Memorial Days could keep their significance was therefore a matter for further discussion. Thierse noted that indeed a lesson could be learned from history: that it is fatal for a democracy if the majority does not take action when foreigners are attacked or anti-Semitic violence takes place. Obviously referring to current debates he mentioned that the strength of a democracy is evidenced by how "we live together with people who are "foreign", who constitute a minority, or live at the fringes of society".<sup>33</sup>

<sup>29</sup> Judt, *Postwar,* 639-643; Bozo, Frédéric. "'I Feel More Comfortable with You': France, the Soviet Union, and German Reunification", *Journal of Cold War Studies* 17, no. 3 (2015): 116–58.

<sup>30</sup> Tony Judt, *Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945*, New York, NY etc.: Penguin Press, 2005. 824.

<sup>31</sup> See for the role in European politics: Laure Neumayer, "Integrating the Central European Past into a Common Narrative: The Mobilizations Around the 'Crimes of Communism' in the European Parliament," *Journal of Contemporary European Studies* 23, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 344–63, https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2014.1001825.

<sup>32</sup> 27 January is the day that Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Roman Herzog, then president of the Bundestag, had established this national day of commemoration by proclamation in 1996. In 2005 the General Assembly of the UN designated January 27 as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

<sup>33</sup> Wie fest das demokratische Bewusstsein in unserer Gesellschaft verankert ist, das erweist sich darin, wie wir mit den Menschen zusammenleben, die hier "fremd" sind, die in der Minderheit sind

Naturally, coming to terms with the past because of the Holocaust was not restricted to Germany. The collective amnesia that had existed in many countries, for instance regarding the question of how many people in fact had collaborated during the Second World War only slowly changed into recognition. Judt pointed to another issue, the role that the Holocaust gained as "the very definition and guarantee of the continent's restored humanity".<sup>34</sup> 

Judt was right in this analysis, if one takes a look at how the Holocaust gained importance in creating a European memory. Lliljana Radonić for instance demonstrates how post-communist memorial museums in East-Central Europe tell stories about the important but very complicated history of the 20th century: the occupation first by Nazi Germany and later by the Soviet Union, collaboration, the Holocaust and the accession to the European Union. She shows how "Europeanization of memory" took place and points especially to the very large influence the Holocaust has gained as "a negative founding myth". The example of the museum in Budapest is a case in point: even though there was nothing on display yet, the museum was opened a few weeks before Hungary's official succession to the European Union.<sup>35</sup>

Noticing that memories and histories are not the same in Europe does not say much. But there is more to it than just difference; scholars have also pointed to how earlier established "mental maps", especially during the Cold War, are still influential. Sociologist Benoît Challand for instance refers to the dominance of the Western European perspective: Western Europe provided not only "the right model to follow" in the Holocaust discussion but this dominance is also prominent in literature about democratization and the promotion of civil society.<sup>36</sup>

Very prominent is the tendency to turn a negative past into something positive: like Thierse did in the earlier quoted speech: how to ensure that the established democracy remains a democracy, learning from and not forgetting the past. Germany's policy has even become a template for other countries to follow.<sup>37</sup> In any case this is true for the EU as a whole, if one considers the calls in research projects on history and heritage, and policy statements on remembrance and history.

<sup>34</sup> Tony Judt, *Postwar: A History of Europe since 19*45, (New York, NY etc.: Penguin Press, 2005), 824.

<sup>35</sup> Ibid., 804. Ljiljana Radonić, "Post-Communist Invocation of Europe: Memorial Museums' Narratives and the Europeanization of Memory." *National Identities* 19, no. 2 (April 3, 2017): 269–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2016.1264377.

oder an den Rand der Gesellschaft gedrängt wurden", Speech W. Thierse, 27 January 2000, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, nr. 09-1, 17. February 2000.

https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Bulletin/2000/09-1\_Thierse.html, (accessed November 2017).

<sup>36</sup> Benoît Challand, "1989, Contested Memories and the Shifting Cognitive Maps of Europe," *European Journal of Social Theory* 12, no. 3 (2009): 399–403.

<sup>37</sup> Aline Sierp, *History, Memory, and Trans-European Identity: Unifying Divisions*, Routledge Studies in Modern European History 23 (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 151.

"The Resolution on European Conscience and Totalitarianism of 2 April 2009" of the European Parliament for instance calls upon the Commission and Member states to strengthen the teaching of European history and "to underline the historic achievement of European integration and the stark contrast between the tragic past and the peaceful and democratic social order in today's European Union". In the same document the wish to come to a "common view of its history" is mentioned as a precondition to become a truly united Europe, and obviously, since this was the motivation of the resolution, history and the memory of victims of totalitarian regimes should play a key role.<sup>38</sup>

The resolution was related to the then very recent enlargements of the EU with former communist states in the eastern part of Europe. Judging from the quotes above it might also seem as if the European Parliament was promoting a *single* view of European history. Yet, that interpretation is not correct since it also explicitly stated that "official political interpretations of historical facts should not be imposed by means of majority decisions of parliaments", and "a parliament cannot legislate on the past".<sup>39</sup> The preceding joint Motion for a resolution referred directly to the historical profession: on the one hand the impossibility to arrive at fully objective interpretations of historical facts, but on the other hand the use of scientific tools by professional historians in order to study the past and "try to be as impartial as possible". This document contained the provision as well that no political institution or party had a "monopoly on interpreting history".<sup>40</sup>

This statement was highly relevant since earlier established "mental maps", especially during the Cold War, had remained influential. Sociologist Challand pointed for instance to the dominance of the Western European perspective: Western Europe provided not only "the right model to follow" in the Holocaust discussion. In literature about democratization and the promotion of civil society the Western perspective dominated as well.<sup>41</sup> Yet more and more recognition was gained for different memories of the past in Eastern Europe, especially for what Stalinism had meant.

The 2009 resolution of the EP was the culmination of previous ones on for instance European memory, the future of Europe sixty years after the Second World War, the Holocaust, Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, to name but a few. The European Parliament's expressed ideas were in line with views of the European Commission and Council on this matter. In other words, one could speak of a

<sup>38</sup> "European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism", P6\_TA(2009)0213. http://www.europarl.europa.eu.

<sup>39</sup> Ibid.

<sup>40</sup> "Joint Motion for a resolution", 30 March 2009. RC-B6-0165/2009, http://www.europarl. europa.eu, (accessed October 2017).

<sup>41</sup> Benoît Challand, "1989, Contested Memories and the Shifting Cognitive Maps of Europe," *European Journal of Social Theory* 12, no. 3 (2009): 399–403.

genuine European Union remembrance policy.42 Remarkably, in those earlier statements the terms memory and remembrance were used far more often than history.43

Yet the term remembrance policy does not mean that there necessarily exists a common understanding about what constitutes a genuine "European" memory. Overcoming the tensions between the various national memories has proven to be difficult. Since memory plays a crucial role in identity construction, it has important political connotations. Hence also constructivist scholars in international relations are addressing this field more and more.44

The European remembrance policy was apparent in various projects aiming to find common ground. This contained attempts to construct a broad encompassing historical narrative. Examples are the "Active European Remembrance Programme which was Action 4 of the Citizenship Programme 2007-201345 and the New Narrative for Europe as part of Cultural Heritage.46

The House of European History museum in Brussels, that opened its doors in May 2017, had a comparable intention. Since in 2007 the president of the European Parliament proposed its establishment, the project underwent important changes; most important perhaps is the decision to devote less space in the museum to European integration, since this element had drawn public criticism. The museum focuses on the 19th and 20th century. Visiting the museum in October 2017, I thought the museum tried to give a balanced and nuanced view of European history, in which the "black pages" in history, such as colonialism and racism, were not forgotten. The idea, according to Andrea Mork, coordinator for the permanent exhibition since 2011, was to give multiple perspectives, showing "diversity, con-

<sup>42</sup> Markus J. Prutsch, *European Historical Memory: Policies, Challenges and Perspectives*. Policy Department B: Structural and Cohesion Policies, European Parliament, 2013. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/note/join/2013/513977/IPOL-CULT\_NT(2013)513977\_EN.pdf. , p. 20-21 (accessed 8 December 2017). 43 Ibid., p. 11-12.

<sup>44</sup> See for instance Eiki Berg and Piret Ehin, *Identity and Foreign Policy : Baltic-Russian Relations and European Integration* (Farnham, England: Routledge, 2009), http://search.ebscohost.com.proxyub.rug.nl/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=271349&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

<sup>45</sup> See: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/citizenship/programme/action4\_en.php (accessed November 2017).

<sup>46 &</sup>quot;New Narrative for Europe", https://ec.europa.eu/culture/policy/new-narrative\_en; Wolfram Kaiser, "Clash of Cultures: Two Milieus in the European Union's 'A New Narrative for Europe' Project," *Journal of Contemporary European Studies* 23, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 364–77, https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2015.1018876.; Annabelle Littoz-Monnet, "The EU Politics of Remembrance: Can Europeans Remember Together?," *West European Politics* 35, no. 5 (September 1, 2012): 1182–1202, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2012.706416; Oriane Calligaro, "Legitimation Through Remembrance? The Changing Regimes of Historicity of European Integration," *Journal of Contemporary European Studies* 23, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 330–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2015.1054794.

trasts and contradictions".<sup>47</sup> Wolfram Kaiser, who recently analysed the development of this museum project under the telling title "limits of cultural engineering" is rather critical about the end result.<sup>48</sup> He especially regrets the prominent space for Eastern European memory culture since other forms of fragmentation, such as between the 'core' and various peripheries in Europe and the EU were omitted.<sup>49</sup>

One of the recent calls of the European Commission about history is called *Improving mutual understanding among Europeans by working through troubled pasts.*<sup>50</sup> To quote:

Of particular importance is to survey and investigate comparatively how discourses in civil society and the media, including social and digital media, are informed by such legacies, [troubled pasts, JdJ] and how in turn civil society and the media conduct such discourses. Research needs to unearth how national narratives are influenced by difficult pasts and how civil society, politics and the media constructed discourses, and which factors and acts such as commemorations, apology, reconciliations, reparations but also non-action informed both the construction and the evolution of such narratives. (…) Of interest are also discourses in the profession of historians in the post-war/post-authoritarian period and how they might have evolved over time.

These kind of calls have also drawn criticism, because it might lead to overly positive studies about the EU.<sup>51</sup> Indeed in the project above there was also a political aim involved: gaining more knowledge on the significance and impact of commemoration and how public discourses might affect civil societies. But this does not necessarily make the research biased by definition.

<sup>47</sup> Andrea Mork, "Constructing the House of European History', in *European Commemoration. Locating World War I*, IFa edition Culture and Foreign Policy. Edgar Wolfrum a.o. eds., (2014), 233, https://historia-europa.ep.eu/en/publications/constructing-house-european-history. (accessed October 2017).

<sup>48</sup> Wolfram Kaiser, "Limits of Cultural Engineering: Actors and Narratives in the European Parliament's House of European History Project," *JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies* 55, no. 3 (2017): 518–34.

<sup>49</sup> Ibid., 534.

<sup>50</sup> Horizon 2020, work programme 2016-2017, Pillar Societal challenges, Europe in a changing world –inclusive, innovative and reflective societies. Topic: "Improving mutual understanding among Europeans by working through troubled pasts". http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants /portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/cult-coop-02-2017.html. To avoid any misunderstanding: I did not submit a proposal in this call, nor was involved in it in any capacity.

<sup>51</sup> Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand, *Imagining Europe Myth, Memory, and Identity* (New York [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013), 62,176-177. Hagen. Schulz-Forberg and Bo Stråth, *The Political History of European Integration : The Hypocrisy of Democracy-through-Market*, 1 online resource (233 pages). vols., Routledge Advances in European Politics ; 62; Routledge Advances in European Politics ; 62. (Abingdon, Oxon ; Routledge, 2010), ebrary http://site.ebrary.com/id/10881699.

Research into the "troubled past" and the discourses about it remains highly relevant. The earlier narrative of Europe as a project of peace was naïve. There are so many radical differences in the national and regional perception of the war that European history and memory remain divided.<sup>52</sup> Stressing only the differences, however, is also getting it wrong. When Joll discussed the possibility in 1979 that the Cold War might come to an end, he stated:

If the Iron Curtain were to be torn down, then we would begin to realize how much of eastern Europe, and even Russia itself shared a common European tradition and how it does not really make sense, historically at least, to talk of a Europe which does not include Konigsberg and Cracow, Breslau and Budapest, or even for that matter Goethe's Weimar.<sup>53</sup>

At that time the western and eastern part of Europe indeed seemed worlds apart and Joll was right in pointing to the many ties and traditions that have existed and were overlooked during the Cold War. Today it seems as if the opposite is the case. It is perfectly possible to discuss both: what binds and what keeps apart.

Political scientist Jan-Werner Müller points to two options regarding the possibility to arrive at a European memory: either a commitment by European nations to work through the past, in other words similar ways to deal with the different pasts, or a genuinely shared European memory with similar contents and not just shared practices. The last option seems simply impossible. Not only because their pasts are different, but also because it would hardly lead to more agreement.<sup>54</sup> The dividedness does not need to be a problem. I agree with sociologist Gerard Delanty who suggests to focus on comparative analyses, since the European cultural heritage is formed 'out of the entanglements of different memories" both within Europe and outside.<sup>55</sup> But maybe it would be a bigger problem if European memory would seem to have a similar content. It could never be a historically correct version.

Many myths have been constructed about European history and the European integration project. The tendency to make new versions of recent history is always there, because every country has parts in its history it would rather like to forget. Judt already in 1992 noted that Europe after 1989 was "being built upon historical sands at least as shifting in nature as those upon which the post-war edifice was

<sup>52</sup> Ibid. 61.

<sup>53</sup> ibid.18.

<sup>54</sup> Jan Werner Müller, "On "European Memory" Some Conceptual and Normative Remarks" in Małgorzata Pakier and Bo Stråth, *A European Memory? : Contested Histories and Politics of Remembrance*, Studies in Contemporary European History ; Volume 6; Studies in Contemporary European History ; Volume 6. (New York : Berghahn Books, 2010), 27.

<sup>55</sup> Gerard Delanty, *The European Heritage: A Critical Re-Interpretation* (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 16.

mounted".<sup>56</sup> References to the past have often been and still are problematic and even irresponsible. If anywhere, here lies a special task for historical researchers to check and if necessary "speak truth to power".<sup>57</sup>

### **Conclusion**

Historians might indeed help "shape, revise and create a Europe that is safe, inclusive, prosperous and, perhaps above all, hopeful" by constructing balanced and nuanced histories. Especially in the 1950s and 1960s writing about European integration or about common European values and civilisation, there was a tendency by those writing about European history to overlook the parts that did not fit in the positive "peace" narrative. This in the end is doing a disservice.

Of course research on what European peoples have had and still have in common is perfectly legitimate and important. Let us not forget that in Europe there are many similarities and common elements as well. Historians should not be naïve and be aware of the political importance of their work, without letting this knowledge guide their research. In other words, it remains important to speak "truth to power". The point is that it is not possible to go forward without a proper view on what has been going on in the past. Historians therefore are badly needed.

As Jo Guildi and David Armitage argue in their *History Manifesto*: "The sword of history has two edges, one that cuts open new possibilities in the future, and one that cuts through the noise, contradictions, and lies of the past". <sup>58</sup> My intention was to deconstruct and contextualise some of these lies and myths of the past, and to indicate where alternative approaches or perceptions might be of use. And yes, this 'cutting open' of new possibilities in the future of course does entail hope.

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# **Has the Economic Crisis Eroded Trust in Political Institutions in Europe? A Comparative Analysis from 2008 to 2012**

Lluís Coromina, Edurne Bartolomé Peral

### **Introduction**

A great body of literature coincides with the relevance of political support and particularly, trust in state institutions for a healthy and working democracy. But, at the same time, processes such as cognitive mobilization, increasing political efficacy on the citizens' side, alongside with poor economic and political performance on the side of those in office, have had as a consequence a generalized decline of institutional trust in western democracies.

Citizens' support for political systems, and particularly, trust in institutions is a key element for a working democracy<sup>1</sup> in the sense that strong political trust also contributes to a structured and stable system of voting<sup>2</sup> , and it reinforces citizens' compliance with norms and duties towards society.<sup>3</sup>

Due to the financial and economic crisis affecting Europe and the world, trust in institutions in European societies has suffered a strong decline since 2008. In some cases, this decline of trust in public institutions has been identified as one of the most evident and shared symptoms of the crisis, moving beyond the economic sphere and becoming a legitimacy issue, particularly in those contexts where the crisis has been particularly severe.

The main aim of this article is to answer to the following questions: a) To what extent have the levels of trust in political institutions in European democracies changed during the financial and economic crisis? b) Do levels of trust in institu-

<sup>1</sup> Hofferbert and Klingemann, "Remembering the Bad Old Days: Human Rights, Economic Conditions and Democratic Performance in Transitional Regimes."

<sup>2</sup> Zmerli and Hooghe, *Political Trust. Why Context Matters*.

<sup>3</sup> Rudolph and Evans, "Political Trust, Ideology, and Public Support for Government Spending."

tions show relevant variations over time? c) Has the crisis caused the same reaction among European citizens in countries affected differently by the crisis? and d) Does trust in public institutions rely on the same factors during the crisis?

Studying trust in political institutions is highly relevant to studying democracy, in the sense that it is crucial when analysing the circumstances in which trust in political institutions is under threat and which aspects may be endangering the success of the relationship between citizens and their institutions and democratic governance. Analysing those elements affecting trust in institutions in comparative terms and over time is also relevant.

Thus, we have studied a number of European democracies hit by the financial and economic crisis in different ways. Trust in political institutions is analysed using three time periods: 2008, 2010 and 2012. This allows us to assess citizens' trust in public institutions in different European economic contexts.

The article is structured as follows: first the theoretical framework and hypotheses are introduced. Then, the results are presented followed by an analysis of the predictors on trust in institutions. Finally, conclusions are derived from the results.

### **Trust in institutions, relevance and consequences of decline**

Political trust is defined as a "basic evaluative orientation toward the government, founded on how well the government is operating according to people´s normative expectations".<sup>4</sup> Political trust is therefore considered an orientation towards State institutions and incumbents, which is based on performance and expectations on performance and good will by those in office. In this sense, trust in institutions refers not only to legitimate power (e.g., in the parliament), authority (e.g., in the government), or the economy (e.g., in the mode of production), but also to procedures and basic practices.

As mentioned above, literature provides quite a number of explanations for the decline of trust in institutions.<sup>5</sup> Cognitive mobilization and citizens' higher level of sophistication and political efficacy, in terms of information, interest in politics and educational level <sup>6</sup> are in the core of those individual transformations due to modernization, democratization and massive access to education in westerns societies. These sophisticated, or critical citizens<sup>7</sup> would tend to have higher expectations of

<sup>4</sup> Hetherington, "The Political Relevance of Political Trust," 791.

<sup>5</sup> Zmerli and Hooghe, *Political Trust. Why Context Matters*; Bowler and Karp, "Politicians, Scandals, and Trust in Government"; Newton, "Political Support: Social Capital, Civil Society, and Political and Economic Performance"; Rudolph and Evans, "Political Trust, Ideology, and Public Support for Government Spending"; Hetherington, "The Political Relevance of Political Trust"; Hetherington, *Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism*.

<sup>6</sup> Klingemann, *Klingemann, H. D. (1998). Mapping Political Support in the 1990s. A Global Analysis*; Norris, *Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Governance*.

<sup>7</sup> Ibid.

their government, but this would not mean any danger or damage in their support for democratic principles.<sup>8</sup>

Policy performance seems to be at the core of some explanations regarding lower levels of political trust, such as poor economic or political performance, scandals or failed expectations.<sup>9</sup> In this sense, economic performance and economic outcomes are the main dimensions of policy performance when it comes to trust in institutions.

Hetherington explains the important role of citizens' material sacrifices in order to explain a decreasing trust in institutions.<sup>10</sup> Failed expectations combined with those personal material sacrifices and grievances significantly affect institutional trust.<sup>11</sup>

### *Predictors for trust in political institutions*

As pointed out above, several factors lead to a generalized decline in trusting political institutions, and this has been widely studied, particularly in advanced western democracies. Taking this as a starting point, we aim to study this phenomenon in the context of Europe, during a specific time period when the recent financial crisis had a clear impact. One aim of the article is to analyse the levels of trust in institutions and trends in trust during a relevant period of financial crisis. We also examine how trust in institutions is affected by relevant explanatory factors, and take into account that the recession has affected European countries in different ways. Trust in institutions, understood to be a clear measure of public support, is expected to rely on a set of correlates measuring citizens´ opinions and attitudes, observed at different points in time. The effect of these variations and variables across time are expected to differ significantly, depending on how the crisis has affected citizens in different countries.

Economic satisfaction is one of the first factors to be taken into account when analysing trust in political institutions. According to several authors12, political trust

<sup>8</sup> Easton, *A Systems Analysis of Political Life*; Easton, "A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support"; Newton, "Political Support: Social Capital, Civil Society, and Political and Economic Performance"; Zmerli and Hooghe, *Political Trust. Why Context Matters*.

<sup>9</sup> Levi and Stoker, "Political Trust and Trustworthiness"; Criado and Herreros, "Political Support. Taking into Account the Institutional Context"; Miller, "Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964-1970."

<sup>10</sup> *Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism*.

<sup>11</sup> Kinder and Kiewiet, "Economic Discontent and Political Behavior: The Role of Personal Grievances and Collective Economic Judgments in Congressional Voting," 497.

<sup>12</sup> Cohen, "Economic Perceptions and Executive Approval in Comparative Perspective"; Anderson and Guillory, "Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems"; Listhaug, "The Dynamics of Trust in Politicians"; Hofferbert and Klingemann, "Remembering the Bad Old Days: Human Rights, Economic Conditions and Democratic Performance in Transitional Regimes."; Rohrschneider, *Learning Democracy: Democratic and Economic Values in Unified Germany*; Mishler and Rose, "What Are The Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in Post-Communist Societies."

is likely to strongly rely on satisfaction with economic and personal performance, based on personal experiences and an evaluation of each individual situation. When evaluating their own personal situation, (mainly economic situation), individuals tend to articulate their judgements and trust towards institutions. As a consequence, a positive personal situation would be expected to have a positive effect on trust in institutions, whereas a negative personal situation would tend to decrease trust.

Short-term government performance is also considered a relevant factor in explaining institutional trust. According to Anderson and Guillory<sup>13</sup> and Anderson and Tverdova14, institutional trust can be predicted by the degree to which citizens participate in the electoral process through voting, and the level of agreement with election results. In addition, satisfaction with the performance of the incumbent in government would tend to increase institutional trust.

According to the literature, long-term factors, understood as lasting aspects that persist in a society, are key explanatory factors for institutional trust. These persistent elements are considered an outcome of religious tradition, history, and the values on which the state and political system have been established. They shape the relationship between individuals and their political system, and therefore shape trust in state institutions. These factors determine a set of values and attitudes shared by the citizenry, and are perceivable through the way citizens establish their views of political community, regime and authorities. These shared aspects, transmitted and learnt through socialization, are established in society over time. In this regard, there are several cultural elements inherent in political systems, both formal and informal. These can be identified as long-term characteristics, since these factors establish culture and values in a country's constitution, or the so called "Constitution in Operation".<sup>15</sup> Generalized trust is a very important factor in this explanation.<sup>16</sup> It refers to the extended trust people have in others who they do not necessarily know, and measures the trusting links in a society beyond family ties.

Other key indicators of the long-term explanation are political efficacy, measured in this article by interest in politics17, and life satisfaction<sup>18</sup> among others.

<sup>13</sup> "Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems."

<sup>14</sup> "Winners, Losers, and Attitudes about Government in Contemporary Democracies."

<sup>15</sup> Easton, *A Systems Analysis of Political Life*.

<sup>16</sup> Delhey and Newton, "Who Trusts? The Origins of Social Trust in Seven Societies."

<sup>17</sup> Craig, Niemi, and Silver, "Political Efficacy and Trust: A Report on the NES Pilot Study Items"; Niemi, Craig, and Mattei, "Measuring Internal Political Efficacy in the 1988 National Election Study"; Finkel, "Reciprocal Effects of Participation and Political Efficacy: A Panel Analysis"; Gabriel, "The Impact of Values."

<sup>18</sup> Inglehart and Welzel, *Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence*.

Control variables such as gender, age, level of education and ideology are included in the analysis. Age is considered a relevant factor in terms of political attitudes, where young people are more susceptible to political change as they have less experience of a specific political system.<sup>19</sup> Education also plays a central role in explaining political trust, as it is part of the winner-loser theory.<sup>20</sup> According to this theory, the better educated, the more satisfied, and the wealthier tend to have higher levels of trust in people and institutions due to their successful life experiences. Ideology, measured as self-placement on a left-right political scale, is related to institutional trust in terms of group-related beliefs or particular group interests. In addition, in some European democracies, the extreme right and the extreme left may represent a profoundly dissatisfied group since they feel their demands are almost never fulfilled.<sup>21</sup>

### **Hypotheses**

The main claim is that individual levels of institutional trust, expressed as a latent variable, have changed over time as a consequence of the economic crisis. Factors affecting trust in institutions are also analysed. We hypothesize that correlates of trust in institutions differ significantly across European countries, depending on the level of impact the financial crisis has had on each country.

The first hypothesis contends that the levels of trust in political institutions are expected to be significantly lower in those countries most affected by the economic crisis (H1). The literature explains how evaluation of performance may affect trust in institutions. Taking this into account, we expect that those citizens most affected by the crisis will evaluate the political and economic performance of their governments more poorly, and therefore, trust in their institutions will tend to be lower.<sup>22</sup>

The second hypothesis relates to the effect of economic crisis and trust in institutions over time. It is expected that levels of trust in institutions will tend to decrease over time, due to the effect of the crisis in all countries, although those countries most affected by the crisis will have a sharper decline (H2).

Moreover, we expect that the correlates for trust in political institutions will not be constant over time, and that the changing context significantly affects this

<sup>19</sup> Dalton, *Democratic Challenges: Democratic Choice: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies*, 483.

<sup>20</sup> Zmerli and Newton, "Social Trust and Attitudes toward Democracy."

<sup>21</sup> Lubbers and Scheepers, "Explanations of Political Euro-Skepticism at the Individual, Regional and National Levels."

<sup>22</sup> Weatherford, "How Does Government Performance Influence Political Support?"; Citrin, "Comment: The Political Relevance of Trust in Government"; Anderson and Guillory, "Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems."

variation (H3). Consequently, the changing context and the situation of crisis over time would therefore lead to unequal levels of trust in institutions.<sup>23</sup>

Furthermore, we argue that there are significant differences in the effect of explanatory factors as a consequence of an unequal impact of the crisis on countries (H4). We expect predictors to affect trust in institutions differently, depending on the depth of the financial crisis. Short-term correlates would therefore have a stronger effect on trust in institutions when the economic crisis is more acute, and long-term correlates would tend to have stronger effects if the economic crisis is less acute.

## **Data and methods**

Firstly, multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) and invariance testing are explained. Finally, a measurement of the predictive variables for trust in political institutions is described.

In our analyses we use European Social Survey (ESS) data, for three different time periods (2008, 2010 and 2012) and eight countries (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain). The data is used to test the hypotheses related to trust in political institutions. Table 1 shows the sample size used in each period and country.


Table 1: Sample size for each country and period

The countries selected have been differently affected by the economic crisis during the period studied. Although all European countries have been affected by the economic crisis, there is a significant difference in severity of the crisis in Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. These countries have stronger austerity measures and

<sup>23</sup> Hetherington, *Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism*.

significantly higher unemployment rates than other European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Norway or Sweden.

### *Multiple Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis*

Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis -MGCFA-<sup>24</sup> is generally used for cross-cultural comparison in order to test if a latent variable of interest is comparable across groups, countries and/or years, and takes measurement invariance into account. In the case invariance holds, relationships and/or means of the latent constructs can be compared across groups (countries and time periods).

Thus, trust in political institutions will be measured as a latent factor with three reflective indicators, using structural equation modelling, SEM.<sup>25</sup> A specific SEM model, known as confirmatory factor analysis -CFA-<sup>26</sup> is used to estimate the measurement model, shown in a generalized form in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Generalization of CFA model

Where *yi*'s are three observed indicators, τi is the intercept of each of the three observed indicators, <sup>j</sup> is the latent variable, ij is the factor loading or slope from the *j* latent variable to the *y<sup>i</sup>* observed indicator and ei is a random measurement error for the responses for each of the three indicators. Covariances between the

<sup>24</sup> Bollen, *Structural Equations with Latent Variables*; Ariel and Davidov, "Assessment of Measurement Equivalence with Cross-National and Longitudinal Surveys in Political Science"; Davidov, Schmidt, and Billiet, *Cross-Cultural Analysis: Methods and Applications*; Meredith, "Measurement Invariance, Factor Analysis and Factorial Invariance"; Steenkamp and Baumgartner, "Assessing Measurement Invariance in Cross-National Consumer Research"; Cieciuch et al., "The Cross-National Invariance Properties of a New Scale to Measure 19 Basic Human Values: A Test Across Eight Countries"; Davidov et al., "Measurement Equivalence in Cross-National Research."

<sup>25</sup> Bollen, *Structural Equations with Latent Variables*; Kline, *Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling*.

<sup>26</sup> Brown, *Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Applied Research*.

latent variable (i) and the error variance (ei) or among the error variances themselves are constrained to zero.

The estimation of each observed variables is based on the general equation:

yi= τi+ ijj + ei (1) which in this case can be decomposed into the following three equations for each of the two factors:


In this article these indicators are obtained from the ESS questionnaire using the specific question: "on a score of 0-10 how much do you personally trust each of the institutions? 0 means you do not trust an institution at all, and 10 means you have complete trust". The institutions are the country's parliament (namely 'trust in parliament'), the legal system (namely 'trust in the legal system'), and politicians (namely 'trust in politicians). Each of these three institutions represents a different type of political institution. Parliament generally represents the classic institution of state representation; the legal system accounts for effective rights and public sector performance; and politicians represent the articulation of people´s ideas and options in the political sphere through political organizations. Thus, these three indicators are used in the MGCFA model with 'trust in political institutions' as a latent variable (see Figure 1).

By establishing measurement invariance, we can draw meaningful comparisons of the latent means and detect the effects predictor variables have on the latent construct of interest, at the same time ensuring that the latent construct has the same meaning and scaling across groups (regions and/or time periods). When using MGCFA analysis, three hierarchical levels of measurement invariance - configural, metric and scalar-<sup>27</sup> are generally tested. Thus, invariance across groups can be studied.

In the case that a small number of groups are analysed, MGCFA can be used adequately, but when many groups are involved, it becomes difficult to manage and can prove problematic <sup>28</sup> as it requires many manual adjustments to the model specification. Fit indices, expected parameter changes, or modification indices for each previous model all have to be taken into consideration. In these cases, strict

<sup>27</sup> Davidov et al., "Measurement Equivalence in Cross-National Research."

<sup>28</sup> Asparouhov and Muthén, "Multiple Group Factor Analysis Alignment"; Muthen and Asparouhov, "New Methods for the Study of Measurement Invariance with Many Groups."

or even partial invariance is often not sufficient and some information regarding groups is generally taken out of the analysis. This inhibits analysing all groups of interest, and so the comparison has to be done with fewer groups.

### *Predictive variables for trust in political institutions*

The effect of theoretically studied factors on trust in political institutions is also evaluated. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) will be carried out in order to identify significant factors effecting trust in political institutions over time in different countries. In order to study those significant causal relationships on trust in political institutions, factor scores for the latent variable trust in political institutions will be computed and used as a dependent variable.

The measurement for the predictive factors is the same for each time period and country. The variable '*Trust in others*' is posed as: "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful when dealing with people? Please tell me on a score of 0 to 10, where 0 means 'you can't be too careful' and 10 means that 'most people can be trusted'. '*Satisfaction with life*' is asked as: "On the whole, how satisfied are you with your life in general?", on a score of 0 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied). Variables related to evaluation of performance are '*satisfaction with country's economic situation'* ("On the whole how satisfied are you with the present state of the economy in [country]?"), asked on a score of 0 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied) and '*satisfaction with government'* ("Now thinking about the [country] government, how satisfied are you with the way it is doing its job?"), asked on a score of 0 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied). Variables related to politics are '*interest in politics'* ("How interested are you in politics?") asked in four categories (Not at all interested; barely interested, quite interested; very interested); whether citizens *voted* or not in the last elections [vote] and their '*political ideology'* ("In politics people sometimes talk of "left" and "right". Where would you place yourself on this scale?; where 0 means on the left and 10 means on the right"). This variable is measured using a left-right scale. Control variables such as *age* (5 categories of age from 15-29 years old; 30-44 years old; 45-59 years old; 60-74 years old; and over 75 years old), *gender* and *level of education* (4 categories from 'Less than lower secondary education; Lower secondary education completed; Upper and post secondary education completed; and tertiary education completed').

### **Results**

This section shows the factor means using the alignment method for the 23 groups analysed. In order to draw a comparison with the traditionally used MGCFA, a MGCFA is also carried out for the 23 groups, and factor means for both methods

compared. Finally, results show the trend and the effect of the predictive variables for trust in political institutions for each country in 2008, 2010 and 2012.

Table 2 and Figure 2 show the results of the factor means of trust in institutions, estimated using the alignment method for all eight countries, in three time periods. Results show that Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway present the highest levels of trust in institutions, whereas Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain show the lowest. This suggests that those countries less affected by the financial crisis show higher levels of trust in institutions, supporting H1.


Table 2. Results for Factor Trust in Political Institutions

Figure 2. Levels of trust by country and year

Furthermore, trust in political institutions in Norway increases over time (as it does in Sweden between 2008 and 2012), before returning to the level it initially had in 2012. The Netherlands shows stable trends, and Germany a slight decrease in 2010, with levels of trust increasing sharply in 2012. Conversely Greece, Spain, and Portugal show a clear decrease in their levels of trust in institutions between 2008 and 2012 and Ireland a slight decrease. These data reflect the fact that the countries most affected by the crisis show lower levels of institutional trust, and that levels of trust continue to decrease as the economic crisis continues in these countries. Thus, these results support H2.

### *Predictors for trust i*n *political institutions*

Trust in political institutions is first analysed, then its predictors are studied. In this case, the interest is to study the effect of theoretically related factors (voting behaviour, interest in politics, satisfaction with life, age, and gender, among others) on trust in political institutions over across time for eight European countries.

From the results of the analysis in Table 3 we can see how predictive variables have different effects on trust in institutions, depending on the country and also across time. The first three independent variables in Table 3 (interpersonal trust, life satisfaction and interest in politics) refer to the long-term explanatory factors. Satisfaction with economy and satisfaction with government are variables which respond to short-term factors based on the evaluation of political and economic performance. Voting corresponds to people's participation in the political process and ideology, age, gender and education are included as control variables.

Interpersonal trust is a relevant correlate in all countries, particularly in those less affected by the economic crisis, showing stronger positive effects than in those countries more affected. Along the same lines, political efficacy, measured by the interest shown in politics, has a stronger effect in the countries less affected by the

financial crisis. In those countries where the economic and financial crisis has been more acute, the effect of political efficacy is weaker, and also decreases over time. A third group of predictive variables are called long-term aspects, for instance, life satisfaction, which measures the overall satisfaction with living conditions. Data show that life satisfaction is not a relevant factor, except for some countries, in some time periods. However, this effect disappears as the crisis worsens.

Satisfaction with the economy is a clear relevant measure of evaluation of performance. This measurement is low to begin with in those countries less affected by the economic crisis, even being non-significant in countries like Germany or the Netherlands initially. As the crisis deepens, these evaluations turn into significant predictors, although they are weak. In those countries where the economic crisis was more serious, short-term evaluations of economic performance have a stronger and more significant effect, increasing with time in countries such as Spain and Ireland.

Satisfaction with political performance, measured by the variable of satisfaction with the performance of government, shows a strong and stable effect in all countries. There is practically no difference whether they have been affected by the crisis or not.

Voting in the election is included in the analysis in order to measure whether individuals participate in the political process, or whether, to the contrary, they feel alienated from it. In those countries less affected by the crisis, direct participation in elections through voting has a positive effect on trust in institutions, with the exception of Sweden, and in part, the Netherlands, where it is not shown to be significant. In Greece and Spain it is only significant in the first years.

In terms of the effect of the ideological position on trust in institutions, those who are more right-wing show a higher level of trust in institutions in most countries. The only exception to this pattern is Spain in 2012. This is probably due to the change of Government in 2011, when left-wing citizens were more critical with institutions in order to punish a government led by the conservative People´s party.

Control variables only seem to be significant in those countries less affected by the economic crisis. Age has a negative effect in Germany, the Netherlands Sweden and Norway, which means that people lose trust in institutions as they age. However this variable is not significant in those countries more affected by the crisis, with the exception of Greece, where the pattern is reversed. In Greece, younger people distrust institutions more, most likely because younger generations have felt particularly deprived and frustrated as a result of the crisis. Gender has practically no effect, and education has a positive effect, although it is rather weak. This is mostly in those countries less affected by the crisis, with the exception of Portugal and Ireland. The positive effect of education confirms winner loser theory, which claims that those who are better educated and better located in the socioeconomic spectrum tend to be more trusting, because being successful in society makes them trusting.<sup>29</sup>

From these results we can also confirm Hypothesis 3, which claims that the effect of correlates shows no constant pattern over time. We assert that the changing context of economic crisis over the periods analysed have reshaped the effect of correlates on trust in institutions. According to this hypothesis, trust in institutions is explained differently in situations of economic crisis.

Hypothesis 4, which predicts significant differences in the effect of explanatory factors as a consequence of the impact of the crisis on countries being unequal, is also confirmed by the analyses, as shown in the results. The effects of both long and short-term factors shape institutional trust differently, depending on the extent to which the country observed has been affected by the economic crisis.


Table 3: Estimates for trust in political institutions

\*p-value<.05;\*\* p-value<.01

Table 3 (cont): Estimates for trust in political institutions


<sup>29</sup> Newton, "Political Support: Social Capital, Civil Society, and Political and Economic Performance."


\*p-value<.05;\*\* p-value<.01

Table 3 (cont): Estimates for trust in political institutions


\*p-value<.05;\*\* p-value<.01

### **Conclusions**

We have provided evidence showing that the decline has been more visible in those countries most affected by the crisis than in those where the crisis has not been so severe.

Moreover, we have examined the main factors explaining trust in institutions and have observed different patterns across countries and over time. Levels of institutional trust have fluctuated significantly in some of the countries studied. Impacts of explanatory factors have also changed significantly over time, as our hypotheses claims.

According to our results, we can offer some conclusions regarding our hypotheses: Data analysis provides evidence that helps to confirm the first hypotheses. From the latent means we can conclude that levels of trust in institutions are different across countries, depending on whether those countries have been more or less affected by the crisis. It is clearly observable from the latent means that the levels of trust for Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland are clearly lower than the ones in Germany, Sweden, Norway or Netherlands.

The second hypothesis can be also confirmed. There is a clear pattern that institutional trust decreases over time, particularly in those countries more affected by the crisis. This supports our claim that trust in institutions is being eroded by the economic crisis.

The third hypothesis concerns how predictor variables affect trust in institutions over time. We can observe that the effects on trust are not constant over time, showing that the explanatory capacity of correlates for trust in institutions varies over time and circumstances. We can conclude that the existence and intensity of economic crisis reshapes the effect of explanatory factors for trust in institutions.

Additionally, as asserted in Hypothesis 4, we can also confirm that the effect of correlates varies across countries. In those countries where the crisis is more acute, short-term correlates tend to have a stronger effect than in those countries less affected by the crisis. Conversely, long-term factors have a stronger effect in those countries where the crisis has not been so serious.

As discussed previously in this article, the relevance of institutional trust is a crucial element for a functioning democracy and governance. System´s legitimacy and the quality of its democracy rely on a trusting relationship between citizens and their state. It has been widely argued in the literature that political trust and institutional trust have noticeably declined in western democracies. There are several reasons for this in the relevant literature, some related to a rise in cognitive mobilization and political sophistication, due to a persistent socialization of democratic values 30. Evaluation of performance is also highlighted as one of the main reasons for increasing people's distrust in state institutions.

In this regard, even if democratic values and democratic support are not questioned by citizens in the short run, the unequal consequences of political and economic performance would lead to unequal levels of institutional trust. Our findings suggest that a situation of severe and lasting economic crisis may have serious consequences for institutional trust, and therefore may put a system´s legitimacy at risk if it persists. This article shows that economic and political performance do not only affect the support for specific incumbents in office, but they also damage the public´s trust in institutions, which is highly sensitive to short term evaluations when in situations of economic crisis. Even if democratic principles and values are well established in European democracies, we can see how personal grievances and sacrifices in the economic sphere can put institutional trust is serious jeopardy.

<sup>30</sup> Norris, *Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Governance*; Klingemann, *Klingemann, H. D. (1998). Mapping Political Support in the 1990s. A Global Analysis*.

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# **Refugees Not Welcome. The Populist Radical Right in Poland and the Migration Crisis**

Natasza Styczyńska

### **Introduction**

Despite being a beneficiary of European funds with a high level of public support for European integration, Poland is reluctant to accept some EU policies and proposals for joint actions. One example of this might be its contestation of the possible creation of a common European Union (EU) migration policy, as well as opposition to mandatory quotas in the refugee relocation programme proposed by the EU in 2016. It seems that the rise of populism and Euroscepticism is fuelling anti-European stances, bringing xenophobic discourse into the mainstream of politics and strengthening anti-immigration rhetoric. It is possible for this to happen as the Europeanisation process in Poland is far from complete, and discontent with the transformation and liberal order is overlapping with disappointment with politics in general.

In this paper I will present a general background of Poland–EU relations regarding relocation of refugees and the proposal of joint actions in the area of common migration policy, as well as the arguments of the radical-right parties that contest these solutions. The first part of the paper will be devoted to the concept of populist radical right (PRR) and the parties in the Polish political arena that can be seen as part of the PRR family. In the second part I will analyse *the way* populist radical-right parties in Poland are using the migration crisis in order to present their views on the future of Europe and mobilise the electorate. Two parties and their rhetoric will be examined. The first one is the Congress of the New Right (*Kongres Nowej Prawicy –* KNP), which won four seats in the European Parliament elections of 2014 and is the only openly Euro-reject party in Poland, to use the classification proposed by Kopecký and *Mudde.*<sup>1</sup> *The second grouping presented is* 

<sup>1</sup> Petr Kopecký and Cas Mudde, "Explaining Different Paths of Democratization: The Czech and Slovak Republics", *Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics*, 16/3 (2002): 63-84.

Kukiz'15, which gained 8.81% of votes in the 2015 parliamentary election (cooperating with the far-right National Movement). The party claims that Islam is a danger to the cultural (Catholic) Polish identity, and calls asylum seekers "culturally foreign". Kukiz'15 is calling for a referendum on the refugee quotas that the EC proposed to introduce in 2015. The main aim of the paper is to analyse who is contesting the idea of redistribution of refugees around all member states of the EU and why, as well as criticising the proposal of a common migration policy. After analysing the party documents and rhetoric of the leaders (during the period from March 2015 to October 2017), I argue that the rhetoric is demonstrating many stereotypes and stigmatisations that are used in the political discourse and political agenda, but also simplifications and fears that very often go deeper. Most visible are identity-based arguments, including the one claiming that if refugees are to be accepted they need to be "like us". Security and economic fears are also visible, and used by the mentioned parties in order to consolidate the electorate and gain political capital.

### **The migration crisis – the view from Poland**

Despite the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, which was supposed to facilitate the establishment of the EU migration policy, member states are yet to come to an agreement. The refugee crisis, the apogee of which came in 2015, meant that the debates on the need for and shape of this joint policy returned with redoubled force. Owing to the Brexit negotiations, of great importance to all member states, as well as the signing of the EU-Turkey refugee deal and the relatively smaller number of refugees arriving in Europe, this topic has become much less frequent in the public discourse. Yet the problem has not gone away – such states as Italy, which struggle to cope with the largest number of arrivals on account of their location, are continuing to appeal for constructive solutions at EU level as well as the support of other member states. A response to these appeals was supposed to come in the form of the refugee relocation system, which assumes that each European Union member state will accept a specific number of refugees. This number was to be calculated on the basis of a given country's wealth and population. Yet this solution was criticised in several member states – especially the Visegrad Group and Austria. In May 2016, the European Commission (EC) announced financial penalties for those countries that fail to meet their designated quota of refugees. The Polish government consistently refuses to satisfy this requirement, and criticises the relocation programme.

The issue of accepting refugees became the subject of heated political debate in Poland in 2015, particularly between the parties Law and Justice (PiS) and Civic Platform (PO). During its time in government until 2015, PO initially rejected the possibility of accepting refugees, before agreeing to Poland's admitting around

7,000 relocated individuals.<sup>2</sup> The PiS government rescinded this decision after coming to power in October 2015, citing security issues and Poland's engagement in helping refugees from war-affected areas in Ukraine. They made it clear that, especially after the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris, Poland was unable to accept any refugees who might represent a danger to citizens' safety.

Poland was not the only country that did not agree to the quotas set by the EC, consistently refusing to accept even the smallest number of refugees. In light of this refusal, in December 2017 the EC decided to refer Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to the European Court of Justice.

The migration crisis has been the subject of debates in the Polish parliament, including, notably, two important speeches on 16 September 2015, by Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz and PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński. These addresses resonated in the media, with the arguments the two leaders invoked, such as fear of the Islamisation of Europe, becoming a permanent fixture in the public discourse. In October 2016, the Polish parliament's European Affairs Committee proposed a resolution concerning compulsory relocation of refugees. According to this resolution, the European Parliament and EU Council decree on the mechanism of mandatory relocation of refugees does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity described in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union.<sup>3</sup> This resolution reflects the dominant mood in Polish society, the vast majority of which does not support the idea of accepting refugees – according to a public opinion poll carried out in December 2017 by CBOS, 63% of respondents do not agree to Poland accepting refugees from countries where military conflicts are taking place, 33% are of the opposite view, and 4% do not have an opinion.<sup>4</sup>

Poland's refusal to accept refugees has been widely discussed not only within EU institutions, but also in domestic and international media. A common question has been why a state whose citizens have often been forced into emigration (during communism, for example), but also who emigrate en masse in search of better living and working conditions, dissociates itself so unequivocally from the idea of showing solidarity in sharing a problem faced by certain member states. The aversion to refugees is often explained by fears over their cultural and religious differences. Interestingly, there has been hardly any mention in the discussion of the issues resulting from the direct experience Poland had in the 1990s when admitting several tens of thousands of Chechens. As Muslims, these refugees might also have been perceived as a threat to Polish identity, yet this argument also failed to appear

<sup>2</sup> Refugees in Poland, facts and myths, URL: https://www.premier.gov.pl/wydarzenia/ aktualnosci/uchodzcy-w-polsce-fakty-i-mity.html (accessed 8 December 2017).

<sup>3</sup> The Sejm committee against the mechanism of mandatory relocation of refugees, URL: http://www.parlamentarny.pl/wydarzenia/sejmowa-komisja-przeciw-mechanizmowi-przymusowejrelokacji-uchodzcow,16007.html (accessed 8 December 2017).

<sup>4</sup> CBOS, *Stosunek do przyjmowania uchodźców* ("Attitude towards accepting refugees"), no. 163/2017.

in the Polish public debate of the time. The refugee question appears to have become politicised, and is used, albeit in different ways, by all political factions. The political discourse is divided into camps – those who call upon Poland to carry out its duties resulting from solidarity with other EU member states, but also its Christian duty, and those who refuse to accept refugees, citing the need to defend the Christian Polish identity from the influx of Islam.

### **The Polish populist radical right**

Defining a party of the populist radical right causes a number of problems, mostly because the very concept of populism is broad and vague, and can be used by differing ideological groups. Researchers point to the characteristics of populism, which claims the right to represent "the people", contrasting it usually with the corrupt elites,<sup>5</sup> thus creating two antagonistic groups within society. Ivan Krastev, meanwhile, explains that "the priority given to building capitalism over building democracy is at the heart of the current rise of democratic illiberalism in Central and Eastern Europe".<sup>6</sup> In part, Polish populism, as in other countries of the region, is characterised not by right-wing or left-wing rhetoric, but nationalist discourse, proclaiming the need to revisit the period of transformation.<sup>7</sup> At the same time, most researchers agree that populist rhetoric appeals to citizens' fears and frustrations, exploiting their unfamiliarity with how the mechanisms of politics function. For the purposes of this article, I will use Cas Mudde's definition of the populist radical right, which stresses that for populists, politics should express the *volonté générale* – the will of the people as the supreme value.<sup>8</sup>

In analysing the radical right, it is important to emphasise the characteristics that distinguish it from the extreme right. Above all, the radical right criticises the existing democratic system; it is not anti-system as such, though, as it operates within the system and accepts its rules. Radical-right parties are usually anti-European and oppose the trends of modernisation. According to Roger Griffin, the radical right is also characterised by aversion to individualism, as well as to upholding human rights (and especially minority rights).<sup>9</sup> Mudde underlines that the radical right is characterised by nationalism and xenophobia, and also places an

<sup>5</sup> Andreas Schelder, "Anti-Political Establishment Parties", *Party Politics*, 2/3(1996); Margaret Canovan, "Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy", *Political Studies*, 47,1 (1999) also in Paul Taggart, *Populism*, Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000.

<sup>6</sup> Ivan Krastev, "The strange death of the liberal consensus", *Journal of Democracy*, 18,4 (2007).

<sup>7</sup> Radosław Markowski, "Populizm a demokracja: ujęcia, dylematy, kontrowersje", in Radosław Markowski (ed.) *Populizm a demokracja*, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ISP PAN, 2004, 23-24.

<sup>8</sup> Cas Mudde, *Populist Radical Parties in Europe*, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 23

<sup>9</sup> Roger Griffin, "Afterword: last rights?", in Sabrina P. Ramet (ed.), *The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989*, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.

emphasis on law and order, in order to construct a monocultural state.<sup>10</sup> It is noteworthy that in ethnically homogeneous countries such as Poland, where ethnic divides are practically invisible, right-wing parties rally against the enemy in the form of incomers – immigrants, people of a different religion or value system. Lenka Bustikova notes that, paradoxically, the mobilisation of the radical right in Eastern Europe against refugees "westernized the eastern European radical right in the opposition to Islam and migrants".<sup>11</sup> The tendency of mainstream parties (such as PiS and Fidesz in Hungary) to adopt some of the demands of radical-right groupings also causes problems with the classification of parties of the radical right.<sup>12</sup> The populist radical right is therefore a complex concept that is hard to define. Mudde points out that the radical right is a form of nationalism, yet whereas all radical-right parties are nationalist, not all nationalists are part of the radical right.<sup>13</sup> Similarly, not every radical-right party is populist. In this article, I am only interested in the relevant parties of the radical populist right currently active on the Polish political scene – the Kukiz'15 movement, which invited activists from the National Movement to be on its lists, and the Congress of the New Right, present in the European Parliament (as well as the splinter party KORWiN/Liberty).


Table 1: Polish elections 2014-2015

 <sup>10</sup> Cas Mudde, *The Ideology of the Extreme Right*, Manchester–New York: Manchester University Press, 2000, 177

<sup>11</sup> Lenka Bustikova, "The Radical Right in Eastern Europe", in: Jens Rydgren (ed.), *The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right*, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

<sup>12</sup> Cas Mudde, *The Study of Populist Radical Right Parties: Towards a Fourth Wave*, C-Rex working paper series, 1(2016), University of Oslo.

<sup>13</sup> Cas Mudde, *The Ideology of the Extreme Right*, op. cit., 30.


Source: National Electoral Commission www.pkw.gov.pl

### **Congress of the New Right and KORWiN-Liberty**

The party founded by Janusz Korwin-Mikke in 2010 is the continuation of his political activities stretching back to the beginning of the democratic transformation in Poland. The founders of the Congress of the New Right were activists of the party Liberty and Lawfulness (*Wolność i Praworządność*), as well as politicians of the Real Politics Union (*Unia Polityki Realnej*). The party is conservative-liberal and Euro-hostile, advocating the abolition of the European Union. The Congress of the New Right **(***Kongres Nowej Prawicy*) programme declares that it is the "only consistently and uncompromisingly anti-EU party in Poland".<sup>14</sup> In economic issues, the party calls for far-reaching liberalism, declaring a market free from any intervention as a foundation of economic progress. In ideological questions, the KNP is a conservative party that stresses the Latin roots of European civilisation, and criticises civil partnerships, abortion and IVF, as well as the policy of multiculturalism. Until 2015, the face of the party was its leader, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, and its rhetoric is viewed as controversial, containing xenophobic and anti-Semitic elements and with a view of history based on conspiracy theories.

The party electorate comprises mostly young people, generally residents of large cities, 75% of them men.<sup>15</sup> The Congress employed new media to conduct an effective campaign targeted particularly at young voters. In the European Parliament elections in 2014, it achieved a result of 7.15%, taking fourth place and winning four seats. Notably, the party's result among Poles voting abroad was considerably better than at home. In Ireland, it gained some 39.36% of valid votes, in the United Kingdom 37%, and in Iceland 30.25%.<sup>16</sup> Some analysts have argued that the KNP electorate is made up of so-called protest votes which the party managed to mobilise in 2014. Neither the party, nor its former leader in presidential elections, has yet been able to win a significant number of votes. In 2015 Korwin-Mikke, the party founder and its most recognisable and active politician, founded a new party named KORWiN (an acronym of his name meaning Coalition for the Renewal of the Republic Liberty and Hope). It did not win any seats in the Polish

<sup>14</sup> Programme of the Congress of the New Right (2014).

<sup>15</sup> Adrian Koładka, "KW Kongres Nowej Prawicy", in Michał Dulak (ed.), *Wybory do Parlamentu Europejskiego w Polsce 2014*, Kraków 2014, 72.

<sup>16</sup> Electoral results, National Election Commission, URL: http://pe2014.pkw.gov.pl /pl/wyniki/gminy/view/149901 (accessed 6 December 2017).

parliament, but retains two MEPs (one a member of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, and the other unattached) elected from the KNP list, as well as one member of the lower house of the Polish parliament, the Sejm (elected from the Kukiz'15 list). In 2016, the KORWiN party changed its name to Liberty (*Wolność*), but the party structure and programme remain unchanged.

### **Kukiz'15**

In formal terms, the Kukiz'15 movement is a parliamentary group in the eighth term of the Sejm, as well as an association constituting the structure of the movement established by the musician Paweł Kukiz for the parliamentary elections in 2015. The movement included members of the nationalistic National Movement and the All-Polish Youth, also a nationalist organisation invoking the tradition of a similar organisation operating in the inter-war period. In the 2015 presidential election, Kukiz received 20.8% of votes, putting him in third place.<sup>17</sup> Owing to the ideological diversity of its members, the movement is characterised by an eclectic programme, in which the major points include the creation of single-member constituencies, refusal to accept even the smallest number of refugees from Syria and other countries affected by war, and criticism of EU bureaucracy, as well as a proposal to deregulate European law. At present, Kukiz'15 has 30 seats in the 460 strong Sejm.

In 2016, the Kukiz movement set up the website dzienreferendalny.pl ("referendum day"), to promote the idea of a referendum on Poland's acceptance of refugees. This idea stemmed from the belief that, as stated on the website, "The host in Poland at present is no other power, but the citizens. It is the citizens who should decide whether we allow anyone into our Homeland, and whom".<sup>18</sup> Alongside the form for collecting signatures, the website also features a poll asking: "Are you in favour of Poland accepting refugees as part of the system of relocation in the European Union". In Poland, the Sejm can decide to put a particular issue to referendum based on the initiative of citizens gaining the backing of at least 500,000 people. Despite the involvement of various organisations in the collection of signatures (including fans of football clubs), as yet the minimum number has not been reached.

<sup>17</sup> Presidential Election results 2015, National Election Commission, URL: http://prezydent2015.pkw.gov.pl/319\_Pierwsze\_glosowanie (accessed 7 December 2017).

<sup>18</sup> Referendum Day webpage, URL: http://dzienreferendalny.pl (accessed 6 December 2017).

### **"Refugees not welcome" – the rhetoric of the Polish populist radical right**

The system of relocation of refugees and proposals for EU-wide solutions to the migration crisis are contested at various levels – the most commonly raised issue is the threat to identity posed by incomers, and their associated religious and cultural differences, but economic issues and security are also important.

The first rhetorical device used by politicians of the radical right concerns vocabulary – in their speeches they seldom use the word "refugee", replacing it with "immigrant", "Islamic immigrant" or "economic migrant". Their objective is to focus attention on the economic aspect of migration, and away from the question of war and political, ethnic and religious persecution. By highlighting economic aspects, they depict the European Union as a source of profits, and people trying to reach it are attributed with solely economic migrations. Robert Winnicki, leader of the National Movement, calls refugees "invaders",<sup>19</sup> arguing that refugees registered in Greece, for example, upon moving to another EU member state become merely economic migrants. It is worth mentioning that referring to new arrivals as false refugees took place in other European countries in the early 1990s with the inflow of immigrants from the East, when the idea of "undeserving asylumseekers" portrayed as "disguised economic migrants" appeared in the public discourse of the countries of the so-called old EU.<sup>20</sup>

Analysis of the position of parties of the populist radical right reveals a host of references to economic issues. The politicians of these parties argue that Poland cannot afford to accept people arriving from the Middle East or Africa, and that the help offered by the European Union is minimal, sufficing for no more than a few months' stay.<sup>21</sup> The economic motives of refugees leaving, for example, Lebanon and Turkey for EU states is also stressed; according to Kukiz'15, such individuals should be treated as economic immigrants.<sup>22</sup> Janusz Korwin-Mikke's stance is that refugees heading to Europe are attracted only by benefits: "if we were to abolish benefits, there wouldn't be any people coming to Poland and the whole of Europe".<sup>23</sup> Korwin-Mikke also repeated his argument during a debate in the European Parliament on the European migration programme, emphasising that those

<sup>19</sup> "Manifestacja 'Przeciw islamizacji Europy'. Winnicki: 'To nie uchodźcy, to najeźdźcy'", *Polska The Times Warszawa*, 7 February 2016, URL: http://www.polskatimes.pl/artykul/9371803,warszawamanifestacja-przeciw-islamizacji-europy-winnicki-to-nie-uchodzcy-to-najezdzcy-zdjecia,id,t.html (accessed 14 December 2017).

<sup>20</sup> Robin Cohen, *Migration and its Enemies: Global Capital, Migrant Labour and the Nation-State.* Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, 88.

<sup>21</sup> Position of the Kukiz'15 movement on "refugees", published on the Facebook page of Paweł Kukiz, 16 September 2015, URL: https://www.facebook.com/kukizpawel/posts/958933797507674 (accessed 15 December 2017).

<sup>22</sup> Ibidem.

<sup>23</sup> Janusz Korwin-Mikke, speech in the European Parliament, 8 September 2015, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7CQkivQNQI (accessed 8 December 2017).

coming to Europe do not want to work, and that by offering high benefits, the EU does not give them an incentive to do so.<sup>24</sup>

Security issues crop up frequently in the public debate, although usually in combination with cultural issues. Islam is seen as a threat not only to identity, but also to Poles' immediate security. During a debate in the Sejm, Robert Winnicki from the National Movement demanded "zero immigrants, zero refugees, zero terrorists in the Polish state".<sup>25</sup> Equating refugees with terrorists has become a permanent feature of the radical right's rhetoric. In Kukiz'15's declaration, we can read that "among immigrants, for example in Hungary, Islamic State militants have already been identified. There will be more and more of them, because they make it clear that their next objective is an 'assault' of terrorists on Europe. Europe has immersed itself in chaos and ethnic and religious conflicts".<sup>26</sup> Media reports on the New Year's Eve attacks on women in certain cities in Germany also reverberated in Poland, with female MPs from Kukiz'15 and KORWiN writing a letter to Prime Minister Beata Szydło on 14 January 2016 stating that "the increase in the number of Islamic immigrants is linked to cases of harassment, attacks and rapes of women, which we shall not accept, we will not allow the safety of Polish women to be any kind of bargaining chip".<sup>27</sup> In 2016 a proposal was made to build a fence between Poland and Ukraine in order to protect the eastern border.<sup>28</sup>

The next, and perhaps most visible issue is that of religious- and culture-based arguments – refugees, especially Muslims or those from countries where Islam is dominant, are seen as culturally different and unacceptable. Before the Second World War, Poland was a multicultural country populated by Poles, Jews, Germans, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Armenians, Tatars and Lemkos, among others. Following the border shifts, the Holocaust and mass population transfers, Poland became one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in Europe – today, 94% of inhabitants see themselves as "ethnic Poles"<sup>29</sup> and 93% declare themselves

<sup>24</sup> Janusz Korwin-Mikke, speech in the European Parliament, 7 June 2016, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IORwEe2fWQA (accessed 8 December 2017).

<sup>25</sup> Robert Winnicki, 15th session of the Sejm, 1 April 2016, 241.

<sup>26</sup> Position of the Kukiz'15 movement on "refugees", op. cit.

<sup>27</sup> "Działaczki Kukiz'15 i KORWiN nie chcą w Polsce ani jednego 'uchodźcy'! 'Wzrost ilości imigrantów islamskich wiąże się z przypadkami molestowania, bicia i gwałcenia'", *wPolityce.pl*, 14 January 2016, URL: https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/278176-dzialaczki-kukiz15-i-korwin-nie-chca-wpolsce-ani-jednego-uchodzcy-wzrost-ilosci-imigrantow-islamskich-wiaze-sie-z-przypadkamimolestowania-bicia-i-gwalcenia (accessed 10 December 2017)

<sup>28</sup> "Ruch Narodowy chce ogrodzenia na granicy polsko-ukraińskiej", *Parlamentarny.pl*, 25 February 2016, URL: http://www.parlamentarny.pl/wydarzenia/ruch-narodowy-chce-ogrodzeniana-granicy-polsko-ukrainskiej,6077.html (accessed 12 December 2017).

<sup>29</sup> *Wyniki Narodowego Spisu Powszechnego Ludności i Mieszkań 2011*, Warsaw, March 2012, URL: https://stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/lu\_nps2011\_wyniki\_nsp2011\_22032012.pdf (accessed 12 December 2017).

to be Catholics.<sup>30</sup> For the radical right, this ethnic, cultural and religious uniformity of Poland is a virtue and a wealth that must be defended.<sup>31</sup> Owing to this ethnic uniformity, as well as the country's isolation during the years of communism, foreigners in Poland, especially those representing different cultures, are treated with reserve, and often also fear. The discourse based upon insisting on Catholicism as an intrinsic attribute of Polishness is also affected by the myth of Poland as *Antemurale Christianitatis* – the bulwark of Christendom – and Poland's role in defending Christian Europe from Eastern influence.<sup>32</sup> The idea of Poland being the only country in the European Union to be founded on Christian values often appears in the statements of radical-right politicians. They regard Catholicism as the essence of Polishness and the foundation of Polish national identity, and hence in need of protection. This was what led the National Movement to stress during a plenary debate in the Sejm that "we want Poland to stay Christian (…) we don't want the errors of multiculturalism Western Europe is making, and of which it is experiencing the tragic consequences".<sup>33</sup> During another debate, Kukiz'15 MP Anna-Maria Siarkowska said that Poles are "a hospitable nation, but don't want culturally alien representatives of the civilisation of Islam, a civilisation that doesn't assimilate, but imposes its way of life and thinking on others – it imposes its religion and its laws".<sup>34</sup>

The question of religion appears very frequently in the discourse, also in the context of whom we should help – there has been a proposal to help only Christian refugees, as those with whom Poles are connected by shared values. Here too, the argument was raised pointing to the primary needs of Poles living outside of the country – in Kazakhstan, Lithuania and Belarus. The Kukiz'15 leader's declaration emphasises that in Kazakhstan, Siberia and Ukraine there are "at least several tens of thousands of Poles and the descendants of Poles waiting for repatriation. There is no need to assimilate them, they won't make terrorist attacks. And yet for 25 years we have not brought them over".<sup>35</sup> This argument is also raised by other parties, including the ruling Law and Justice, who also point to the large number of citizens of Ukraine living in Poland as refugees from conflict-hit areas.

The debate over the solution to the problem of refugees arriving in Europe also became a forum for criticism of the institution of the European Union, which

<sup>30</sup> CBOS, *Zmiany w zakresie wiary i religijności Polaków po śmierci Jana Pawła II* ("Changes in the Belief and Religiosity of Poles since the Death of John Paul II"), Komunikat z badań BS/49/2012, Warszawa 2012.

<sup>31</sup> Robert Winnicki, Posiedzenie Sejmu, 9 February 2016, URL: https://videosejm.pl/video/ 4787-posel-robert-winnicki-wystapienie-z-dnia-09-lutego-2016-roku (accessed 10 December 2017).

<sup>32</sup> Janusz Tazbir, *Polska przedmurzem Europy*, Warszawa: Twój styl, 2004.

<sup>33</sup> Robert Winnicki, 15th session of the Sejm, 1 April 2016, 242.

<sup>34</sup> Anna Siarkowska's speech during Sejm session on 11 February 2016, video recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time\_continue=33&v=S3nW-RWgNRw (accessed 14 December 2017).

<sup>35</sup> Position of the Kukiz'15 movement on "refugees", op. cit.

on the one hand is seen as ineffective, yet on the other hand is accused of excessive interference in the internal affairs of member states. Most parties of the populist radical right are Eurosceptic or hostile to the European Union, and the Polish example is no exception here. Both Kukiz'15 and the Congress of the New Right (as well as KORWiN) criticised the refugee relocation mechanism, and they were also active in passing the resolution in the Sejm rejecting mandatory relocation. Sylwester Chruszcz from Kukiz'15 supported the proposed resolution, maintaining that the Polish side would not agree to "the EU diktat imposing upon us by force a limit of citizens of third countries or stateless individuals".<sup>36</sup> He added that this position was in accordance with the Polish national interest, as "we are a sovereign state which itself decides upon issues fundamental to us".<sup>37</sup> The European Union is accused of lack of action to bring an end to the conflict in the Middle East, as well as providing insufficient aid in the countries in question. A common stance is the idea, included in the Kukiz'15 declaration, that refugees (the word "immigrant" is used in the declaration) "should be helped, but in the countries from which they come", and that the EU ought to "provide active support for ending conflicts in such countries as Syria and Libya".<sup>38</sup> Kukiz believes that a "new Marshall Plan" should be proposed to the Middle East and North Africa.<sup>39</sup> Criticism of the solutions offered by the European Union has also become a motivation for collecting signatures for the initiative to hold a referendum, in which Kukiz's movement wants to ask the question: "Are you in favour of Poland accepting 'refugees' within the relocation system in the European Union?"<sup>40</sup> The programme of the KOR-WiN party,<sup>41</sup> founded after the split within the KNP, cites as the absolute priority of Poland's foreign policy "regaining the possibility of making sovereign decisions on Poland's immigration policy",<sup>42</sup> refusing to countenance the interference of the European Commission in Poland's internal affairs. The Congress, the only Polish party to advocate abolition of the European Union, announced in 2014 that it would vote against all initiatives in the European Parliament aiming to increase the competences of EU institutions, and thus against all community initiatives.<sup>43</sup> In a controversial speech in the European Parliament, Korwin-Mikke criticised the Dublin Regulation, comparing refugee camps to concentration camps and claiming

<sup>36</sup> Artur Bartkiewicz, "Sejm za uchwałą odrzucającą przymusową relokację uchodźców w UE", in *Rzeczpospolita* 21 October 2016 URL: http://www.rp.pl/Uchodzcy/161029860-Sejm-za-uchwalaodrzucajaca-przymusowa-relokacje-uchodzcow-w-UE.html (accessed 8 December 2017).

<sup>37</sup> Ibidem.

<sup>38</sup> Position of the Kukiz'15 movement on "refugees", op. cit.

<sup>39</sup> Ibidem.

<sup>40</sup> Referendum Day webpage, URL: http://dzienreferendalny.pl (accessed 6 December 2017).

<sup>41</sup> The KORWiN party changed its name to Wolność (Liberty) on 8 October 2016.

<sup>42</sup> *Dumna, Bogata Polska, Program Partii KORWiN Koalicja Odnowy Rzeczypospolitej Wolność i Nadzieja*, Warszawa 17 October 2015.

<sup>43</sup> Programme of the Congress of the New Right (2014).

that EU policy is one leading to "Europe being flooded with human garbage […] that does not want to work"; this policy, he argues, will lead to the "downfall of Europe".<sup>44</sup>

### **Conclusions**

Contemporary Polish identity is based on culture, language and religion, and particularly the last of these played an important role in the time when the Polish nation was subjected to external oppression (the partitions and the communist period). The Catholic Church has often been perceived as the guardian of Polish identity as well as the bastion of freedom. It is therefore no surprise that arguments about endangered identity are cited in the debate on accepting refugees or the common EU migration policy. The fear of outsiders, often representing a different religion and culture, is fomented and reinforced by the discourse of the populist radical right. As Krastev notes, this type of rhetoric "exploits and strengthens the sense of division into 'ordinary citizens' and the 'elite', which only safeguards its own interests".<sup>45</sup> In these conditions, success is enjoyed by parties and their leaders who succeed in persuading society about the existence of a threat, as well as their commitment to defending ordinary citizens, their identity, way of life and wellbeing. Analysis of the rhetoric of radical right-wing parties in Poland leads to the conclusion that both economic arguments and those related to security have an extra agenda in the form of identity-based arguments. Activists of the radical right view ethnic and religious uniformity as a virtue. In order to be accepted, refugees should be the same as inhabitants of the country in which they are arriving. As a result, if one is to even consider accepting them, then this should only be on condition that they must be Christians. Islam is presented as "the other", a threat for Polish and European identity, and the migration crisis is interpreted as an attempted "invasion of Europe", an alien civilisation attempting to take control. The European Union is criticised for approaching the crisis too liberally, for its excessive openness and undue protection of its citizens, as well as for its misguided policy of multiculturalism, which, according to the radical right, results in ethnic ghettos and terrorist attacks. The Polish radical right therefore has the mission to safeguard not only Polish society from Islamisation, but also Europe. This is the subject of one of the points in the Congress of the New Right's programme: "we believe that only restoration of European values – Latin Civilisation and Western Universalism – can change the present Europe under occupation of the EU from an area of permanent crisis into a space of freedom, well-being and the principles that once built the power of the Old Continent".<sup>46</sup> The new Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz

<sup>44</sup> Janusz Korwin-Mikke, speech in the European Parliament, 8 September 2015, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7CQkivQNQI (accessed 8 December 2017).

<sup>45</sup> Ivan Krastev, "The strange death", op. cit. p. 60.

<sup>46</sup> Programme of the Congress of the New Right (2014).

Morawiecki, has also joined this rhetoric, speaking of the need for the re-Christianisation of Europe.<sup>47</sup>

A characteristic of the radical right in Eastern Europe is mainstream parties' tendency to appropriate their rhetoric; this occurs in Hungary (where Fidesz adopted some of Jobbik's xenophobic rhetoric),<sup>48</sup> as well as in Poland, where the ruling Law and Justice party often uses exactly the same arguments against acceptance of relocation of refugees as Paweł Kukiz and Korwin-Mikke. An example might be the statement of Foreign Affairs Minister Witold Waszczykowski, who asserted that Poland could potentially accept Christian refugees, as only they would have the chance for assimilation. Commenting on the EU Justice Tribunal's decision pronouncing that the refugee relocation mechanism is a legitimately adopted EU law binding in all countries (including Poland), Waszczykowski stated that it is not refugees who are in question, but economic immigrants.

The rhetoric of the radical right, through the simplicity and clarity of its message and with the help of the (especially social) media, reaches a broad range of recipients and influences their perception of the migration crisis and solutions proposed by the European Union. This rhetoric influences not only the radicalisation of the language of politics, but also attitudes in society, leading to acts of physical violence.<sup>49</sup> This causes profound social division in Poland, but the question also divides European societies and has an impact on EU unity. In 2016, Ivan Krastev said of the divisions that opened up in the EU before the recent crises: "the financial crisis split the EU into creditors and debtors, tearing open a divide between north and south. Now the refugee crisis is dividing Europe between East and West […] We are not just experiencing a lack of solidarity […] we are experiencing the clash of conflicting solidarities: between national, ethnic and religious solidarity and our duty as human beings".<sup>50</sup> It seems that it will not be easy to head off the crisis over the failure to secure acceptance for the decision to relocate some refugees, especially after the European Commission's decision in 2017 to refer Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to the European Court of Justice.

 <sup>47</sup> Mateusz Morawiecki, interview for TV Trwam, 8 December 2017, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng4nkvx6Yy4 (accessed 14 December 2017).

<sup>48</sup> Lenka Bustikova, "The Radical Right", op. cit.

<sup>49</sup> According to a report on the OKO.press website, in Poland in 2016 record numbers of hate crimes were recorded, meaning those motivated by supposed religion, nationality, sexual orientation or skin colour. URL: https://oko.press/waszczykowski-powtarza-przekaz-pis-uchodzcy-czylimigranci-czyli-terror-a-przeciez-przyjmujemy-ukraincow/ (accessed 8 December 2017).

<sup>50</sup> "Refugee crisis: 'Not the same values in East and West'", *Die Welt*, 8 March 2016, URL: http://www.dw.com/en/refugee-crisis-not-the-same-values-in-east-and-west/a-19102868 (accessed 8 December 2017).

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# **Europeanisation of Culture as an Effect of EU Cultural Policy. Wrocław ECOC 2016 Research**

Bożena Gierat-Bieroń

### **Introduction**

This article presents the results of social empirical research<sup>1</sup> conducted in the Polish cities competing for the title of European Capital of Culture (ECOC) 2016. The Polish ECOC competition took place between 2007 and 2012.<sup>2</sup> Eleven urban conurbations entered, six of which proceeded to the final round. In the end, Wrocław was selected (along with San Sebastián in the Basque Country) as European Capital of Culture. The empirical research focused on the seven cities which, on the basis of a cooperation agreement, founded the so-called Coalition of Cities to support Wrocław's artistic activities in 2016. We worked on the assumption that the competition process for choosing the ECOC in Poland took place in an atmosphere of high levels of engagement from creative communities and urban movements, which were, through the organisation of the competition and then implementation of the ECOC 2016 festival, counting on a fundamental change in the artistic and social space, improved quality of government and governance of the city,<sup>3</sup> and the opportunity for modernisation of the cultural infrastructure. The research employed qualitative methods using in-depth narrative interviews, participant observation and analysis of secondary sources, in this case mostly the bids made in the competition by the seven ECOC candidate cities selected for the study: Gdańsk, Katowice, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin and Wrocław. One of the approaches to the research assumed that the dynamic of the analysed changes is fundamentally influenced by a change in the discourse, understood as the rela-

<sup>1</sup> The specific results of the entire research process are presented in the book Paweł Kubicki, Bożena Gierat-Bieroń, Joanna Orzechowska-Wacławska *Efekt ESK. Jak konkurs na Europejską Stolicę Kultury zmienił polskie miasta,* Nomos, Kraków 2017.

<sup>2</sup> Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Katowice, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin, Toruń, Warsaw, Wrocław.

<sup>3</sup> I follow Michael Foucault in distinguishing between government and governance.

tions in power regulating the forms of speaking and thinking about a specific reality and determining the "regimes of truth".<sup>4</sup> A key role in shaping discourse viewed in these terms is played by opinion leaders, who concentrate significant symbolic resources, impose the rules of the game, and decide who will have the privilege of being listened to.<sup>5</sup> For this reason, opinion leaders from the various cities were interviewed. First and foremost, these were people directly involved in preparing the ECOC competition application, members of the campaign team and those responsible for cultural policies (local government officials, employees of local government culture departments). Second, they were the leaders of local urban movements, local media journalists and bloggers. A total of 60 interviews were held.<sup>6</sup>

The discourse of this article focuses on the question of Europeanisation as a phenomenon explaining the processes of integration in culture. Given the European nature of the ECOC competition, as a form of implementation of European Union cultural policy, it was necessary to verify the impact of the Europeanisation mechanism on the design of a large international festival/event from an artistic and social perspective. Since the interviews were conducted with the people preparing the application forms, during the research the discussion on the ECOC remained within the confines of the plans for the future they nurtured at the time. In keeping with the methodology of political science discourse, in this article I employ the methodological tools for theoretical analysis used in European studies and check the empirical application of the defined concepts. I also verify the influence of the impulses for integration, in terms of the European Capital of Culture programme objectives, on the dynamic of city-forming movements and cultural transformation in Poland. I assume that in Polish culture a certain "change" has taken place, reflecting integration trends, i.e. shaping pro-European mechanisms. This is suggested by the statements of cultural operators and competition entrants in Poland.

In this article, the issues of Europeanisation are divided into three topics: Europeanness, the European dimension, and Europeanisation per se. I defined the concepts, before asking respondents about their use in the concept for the European Capital of Culture for the various candidate cities. "Europeanness" is a noun defining a feature characteristic of something (like Polishness or Germanness, it does not exist of its own accord, but characterises something). Usually, Europeanness refers to the European axiology, meaning the set of values, norms and beliefs (human rights, democracy, tolerance, solidarity) at the basis of the integration process and constituting the foundation of the European socio-political community. The concept of "the European dimension" is a normative and practical one. It is a

<sup>4</sup> Michael Foucault., *The Archaeology of Knowledge*, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith, Pantheon Books, New York 1972.

<sup>5</sup> Alain Touraine, *Thinking Differently*, trans. D. Macey, Policy Press, New York 2009.

<sup>6</sup> The quotations given in this chapter were first printed in the book: Paweł Kubicki Bożena Gierat-Bieroń, Joanna Orzechowska-Wacławska (2017), *Efekt ESK…* op. cit.

specific European Commission guideline in the ECOC competition rules, accepted in Decision 1622/2006 EC<sup>7</sup> This term is also widely used in EU documents on culture. Europeanisation is a term used in European studies on the basis of political science and international relations. In most discursive practices, it refers to the specific details of the processes of integration in its political dimension. There are at least 10 theories of Europeanisation.<sup>8</sup> In this study I employed the "topdown/bottom-up" conceptions of the German theoreticians Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse.<sup>9</sup> The Europeanisation mechanism is part of the Europeanising processes observed in broader terms.

### **Europeanness**

Let us examine the main concepts more closely: Europeanness, the European dimension and Europeanisation. The Polish European studies scholar and identity analyst Wiesław Bokajło<sup>10</sup> sees Europeanness as the dichotomous suspension of axiological systems between the Christian and secular tradition of humanism. According to Bokajło (a view shared, for instance, by Cris Shore and Gerard Delanty), the Christian idea of human dignity and freedom as the highest humanistic value was transferred, so to speak, from the sphere of the sacrum to that of public life, i.e. incorporated into the lay legal systems that comprise the secular canon of human rights, democracy, solidarity and freedom. Europeanness is the position of individual and collective identification of Europeans (regardless of nationality or country of origin) with fundamental European laws, as well as conscious use of freedom, perceived as a higher value than local traditions and customs. Europeanness is the right to freedom of speech and of intellectual and creative expression. It is also being accustomed to freedom-based standards of cultural expression, artistic sophistication, the cult of literary virtuosity and artistic genius (but also artistic rebellion and respect for avant-gardes), as well as, in the pragmatism of working life, professional management of culture based as much on protection of elite val-

<sup>7</sup> Decision No 1622/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 2006 establishing a Community action for the European Capital of Culture event for the years 2007 to 2019, OJ L 304, 3.11.2006**.** 

<sup>8</sup> The best-known are the concepts of the British scholars Helen Wallace and Robert Ladrech, the American political scientist James Caporaso, the Italian British-based professor Claudio Radaelli, and the Norwegian researcher Johan P. Olsen.

<sup>9</sup> My arguments are based on the publications: Tanja A. Börzel, Thomas Risse,, "When Europe hits home: Europeanisation and domestic change", [in:] *European Integration*, online paper, no. 4 (15), 2000, and the article: Tanja A. Börzel, Thomas Risse, T., "Europeanization: The Domestic Impact of EU Politics", [in:] *The Sage Handbook of European Union Politics*, eds. Knud Erik Jørgensen, Mark A. Pollack, Ben Rosamond, London 2007, pp. 483-504.

<sup>10</sup> Wiesław Bokajło, "Europa i europejskość: idee i pojęcia", [in:] Wiesław Bokajło, Anna Pacześniak (eds), *Podstawy europeistyki. Podręcznik akademicki*, alta 2, Wrocław 2009.

ues as on egalitarianism in access to art and culture. Other scholars (Klaić,<sup>11</sup> Fisher,<sup>12</sup> Gudrun,<sup>13</sup> Purchla14) perceive Europeanness in terms of international or regional cooperation between multiple entities. They define it as the standards of proper governance of cultural institutions, strategising of cultural actions and processes, a high level of urban cultural policies or protection of cultural heritage. Others see in Europeanness the threat of cosmopolitanism and denationalisation as well as mythicisation (Klocek di Biasio, Michalski, Münch15). Europeanness has also been perceived as inclusive multiculturalism, or as a method of constructing socio-cultural consciousness (Piasecki, Woroniecki16). Andrzej Chodubski's<sup>17</sup> discussion of contemporary civilisation sees the emergence of global civil society in Europe as lying in European and integrational transformations. The characteristics of European society in the era of globalisation indicate a tendency for Europeans to reflect on Europeanness. This concept assumes the formation of a participatory democracy and a participative approach. It also assumes decentralisation and deconcentration, resulting in the empowerment of society and crystallisation of a sense of autonomy towards the central structures. Modern European societies are eschewing a philosophy of "rule" in favour of harmonious and horizontal coexistence, searching for alternative, non-traditional organisational structures without hierarchies and authority. The pluralist co-existing societies are open to various systems of values and demonstrate understanding towards immigration as a phenomenon of civilisation. These attributes of social change are often called the essence of Europeanness.

<sup>11</sup> Dragan Klaić,., *Mobilność wyobraźni. Międzynarodowa współpraca kulturalna. Przewodnik*. Fundacja nowej Kultury Bęc Zmiana, Narodowy Instytutu Audiowizualny, Warszawa 2011.

<sup>12</sup> Rod Fisher, (ed.), *Art Networking in Europe*, The Arts Council of England, London 1997

<sup>13</sup> Pehn Gudrun, *Networking Culture. The Role of European Cultural Networks*. Council of Europe, Strasbourg 1999.

<sup>14</sup> Jacek Purchla, Magda Vášáryová. (eds), *Modele mecenatu państwa wobec integracji europejskiej*, MCK, Kraków 2008; Jacek Purchla, *Dziedzictwo a transformacja*, MCK, Kraków 2005.

<sup>15</sup> Beata Klocek di Biasio, Bogdan Michalski, Felix Münch, (eds), *What Europeanness Means Today? European Identity and Its Multicultural, Economic, and Social Dimensions*, Wyd. Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2015.

<sup>16</sup> Ryszard Piasecki, Jan Woroniecki*,* "Europeanness: A Path to Unity Within The European Union", [in:] *Comparative Economic Research*, Vol. 19/1, 2016, pp. 45-63.

<sup>17</sup> Andrzej Chodubski, "Wartości cywilizacji współczesnej a unifkiacja i dezintegracja Europy", [in:], Barbara Fijałkowska, Arkadiusz Żukowski (eds), *Unifikacja i różnicowanie się współczesnej Europy*., Elipsa, Warszawa 2002.

### **The European Dimension**

As we have seen, the second research problem, the European dimension, is justified expressly in Decision 1622/2006/EC,<sup>18</sup> which specifies the regulations framework of the European Capital of Culture programme. In article 4 point 1 of the Decision, the European Commission introduced the criteria which candidate cities were required to fulfil in the ECOC programme. Below is the definition of these criteria:

As regards "the European Dimension", the programme shall:

(a) foster cooperation between cultural operators, artists and cities from the relevant Member States and other Member States in any cultural sector;


From the point of view of the unification processes, therefore, the ECOC was supposed to generate international cooperation between numerous decisionmaking levels of cities, between artists and artistic institutions, and in this way to contribute to the creation of lasting partnerships and institutional relationships in Europe. It was meant to forge the conditions for implementation of the integrational paradigm of "unity in diversity". In keeping with the European cohesion policy, the idea of the ECOC programme was to ensure lasting and sustainable development of European cities and regions, underscoring active, engaged citizenship. As the European Commission declared the year 2007 the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue,<sup>20</sup> the idea of "dialogue" also became a permanent element in ECOC programmes. The notion of "unity in diversity" was gradually expanded to include the issues of tolerance and respect for difference, preventing discrimination and supporting European solidarity. The strategic EU document *European Agenda for Culture*, accepted by the Council in 2007,<sup>21</sup> confirmed the actual change in the paradigm of the EU cultural policy from "unity in diversity" to protection of "cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue". As Dorota Jurkiewicz-Eckert notes, the stress was on the idea of "increasing accessibility to various cultural and linguistic forms of expression, as well as promoting intercultural dialogue contributing to the formation of the European identity, European citizenship and social

<sup>18</sup> Decision No 1622/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 2006 establishing a Community action for the European Capital of Culture event for the years 2007 to 2019, OJ L 304, 3.11.2006**.** 

<sup>19</sup> Decision No. 1622/2006/WE, op. cit., p. 3.

<sup>20</sup> Decision No. 1983/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008), OJ L 412 of 30.12.2006.

<sup>21</sup> European Commission, Communication on a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world, Brussels, 10.05.2007, COM (2007), 242 final and Resolution of the Council if the 16 November 2007 on a European Agenda for Culture, Brussels, OJ C 287/01, 29.11.2007.

cohesion".<sup>22</sup> All the aforementioned characteristics of the "European dimension" were amendments added to the 2006 Decision applying to subsequent ECOC cities.

### **Europeanisation**

As I mentioned, Europeanisation is a new research category in political science and European studies, of which it is regarded as a subdiscipline. It is not a European studies theory, but rather a method for explaining the processes of integration. To do this, Europeanisation makes use of methods from other fields: it employs international relations theories, classical European integration theories, communications theory, functionalism, neo-functionalism, realism, liberalism, and universal theories of the social sciences (including new institutionalism). It also calls upon political science (democracy theory, legitimisation of power, political systems). Political scientists and European studies specialists agree that Europeanisation is the process of adaptation of European Union member states to the EU's *acquis communautaire* requirements, i.e. implementing the Union's legal and political production at domestic level. Europeanisation, they stress, is not a synonym of communitisation. They also consider it to be a process, rather than a state, and a non-linear and nonuniform one. Scholars usually point to its two tracks, something that was particularly highlighted by the German researchers Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse in their 2000 article "When Europe Hits Home: Europeanisation and Domestic Change". The authors analysed these two "pathways" as a top-down process, when supranational institutions influence nation-states, which open themselves up to this influence, and a bottom-up one, taking place through transfer of competences from national to supranational level. Following this line of thought, Europeanisation allows the nation-state's institutions to be open to the influences of international (supranational) institutions, thus permitting the adoption of transfer of European rules, laws and standards from domestic to European level. On the other hand, Europeanisation means creation of international laws on the basis of the legal heritage of sovereign countries. Which of these levels is dominant usually depends on the way in which a given policy is shaped and framed. At times, the dual tracks are distributed evenly. In most cases, however, Europeanisation denotes a process of adaptation of national laws to the supranational solutions. One can say that top-down Europeanisation has a formal dimension, while bottom-up Europeanisation is less formal. There is also horizontal Europeanisation – crossloading, which takes place when a transfer of procedures occurs resulting from mutual communication and exchange.

<sup>22</sup> Dorota Jurkiewicz-Eckert, "Od Traktatu o Unii Europejskiej do Europejskiej Agendy dla Kultury – narodzony i rozwój polityki kulturalnej UE", [in:] *Studia Europejskie*, no. 1 (73), 2015, p. 76.

The most classical definitions of Europeanisation are represented by the reflections of the scholars Helen Wallace and Robert Ladrech, as well as the political scientist James Caporaso and the Claudio Radaelli. Wallace,<sup>23</sup> one of the first to notice the possibility of integration processes influencing domestic inter-institutional relations, underlined how this influence could vary depending on the given country's legal and political traditions. Research on Europeanisation was popularised by Ladrech, who in 1994 argued<sup>24</sup> that the phenomenon of Europeanisation in integration is "an incremental process reorienting the direction and shape of politics to the degree that EC political and economic dynamics become part of the organizational logic of national politics and policy-making".<sup>25</sup> In Ladrech's later works, he particularly stressed the "national adaptation" in integration processes. This meant that during adoption of the legal community guidelines, a reorientation of the content of domestic policies took place, subsequently causing the actions taking place at international or supranational level to become a natural component of the member state's internal policies. Caporaso<sup>26</sup> produced a model of the mechanism of Europeanisation, much cited in the subject literature, based on the phenomenon of a feedback loop. Rafał Riedel offers a shrewd interpretation of this phenomenon and Caporaso's model of Europeanisation:

This led researchers of Europeanisation to adopt a definition – now regarded as classic – through which we can see Europeanisation as the continuing process of European integration, exerting a kind of pressure on the entities of the integration (member states, their citizens, institutions), which is then subject to mediation from domestic factors and actors, before bringing concrete results in the form of changes in domestic policy. These results (as well as the mediation phase), via the mechanism of the feedback loop, also have an effect on the integration process.<sup>27</sup>

Riedel illustrates the process as follows: integration – mediation (feedback loops) – result. According to Caporaso, therefore, the essence of Europeanisation is a response to the pressure exerted by supranational forces on domestic forces and a specific domestic change resulting from this pressure, but created via mediation. The change provoked by the mediation influences integration through feedback loops. One might say, somewhat tautologically, that the change "changes" the process of integration. Also important is the fact that the process assumes the activeness (and not passiveness) of the entity on which pressure exerted. Its inclu-

<sup>23</sup> Hellen Wallace, "The Impact of the European Communities on national policy-making", [in:] *Government and Opposition*, 1971, no. 4 (6), pp. 520–538.

<sup>24</sup> Robert Ladrech., "Europeanisation of domestic politics and institutions: the case of France", [in:], *Journal of Common Market Studies*, no. 32(1), 1994, pp. 69–88.

<sup>25</sup> Ibidem, p. 69.

<sup>26</sup> James Caporoso, "Three words of regional integration theory", [in:] Paolo Graziano, Maarten P. Vink,. (eds), *Europeanisation.* New Research Agendas, London 2007, pp. 23–34.

<sup>27</sup> Rafał Riedel, "Europeizacja polityk publicznych", [in:] *Wrocławskie Studia Politologiczne* 18/2015, p. 58.

sion in the process of Europeanisation occurs through a multi-level mediation (Caporaso's feedback loop), meaning negotiation, discussion, and debate.<sup>28</sup> In his article "Europeanisation in Public Policy",<sup>29</sup> Radaelli mentions four ways in which a member state adapts to the processes of integration. These are: 1) reduction of contestation (a given political area opposes community regulations), 2) inertia (lack of will to adapt, lack of change, torpor, passive resistance); 3) accommodation or absorption (superficial adaptation of structures, entities and the state to the demands of integration), 4) transformation (reshaping of structures, entities and the state at domestic level, profound adaptational change). These four levels create various possibilities of adaptation, which demonstrates that Europeanisation can occur in different ways at various stages. The forms it takes can also vary depending on the type of public policies and time of its application. It may be that in the case of adaptational processes in environmental protection there is a temporary reduction, and then a transformation, while there is a profound direct transformation with regional policy, and accommodation with audiovisual policy.

According to the British researcher Kevin Featherstone,<sup>30</sup> the term "Europeanisation" is applied in four separate senses. The first, as with other analysts, is the process of institutional adaptation of EU member states to the obligations resulting from belonging to supranational, European structures, including in the scope of public administration, the work of parliament and political parties, civil society, regional government etc., as well as formal EU regulations. The second area is adaptation of policies and the way of practising politics. The last two areas are characterised by the anthropological-historical dimension. The third one therefore generates questions on cultural identification and the sense of belonging to the right place and time in the historical process. The fourth level of Europeanisation creates the conditions for diffusion of supranational models and cultural norms (including European axiology, human rights, and democratic values). A variant to the definition of Europeanisation was introduced by Scandinavian researchers, especially Johan P. Olsen in his famous essay "Many Faces of Europeanisation" (2002).<sup>31</sup> Olsen identifies five levels of Europeanisation, the most important of which is created as a result of "Central [top-down] penetration of national systems of governance".<sup>32</sup> The others are changes generated under the influence of outside influences (the EU), development of institutions at European level and the result-

<sup>28</sup> James Caporaso also repeated this model of Europeanisation in the book: Maria Green Cowles, James Caporaso, Thomas Risse, (eds), *Transforming Europe. Europeanisation and Domestic Change*, Cornell University Press 2001.

<sup>29</sup> Claudio Radaelli, "The Europeanization of Public Policy" [in:] Kevin Featherstone and Claudio Radaelli, (eds.), *The Politics of Europeanization*, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 27–56.

<sup>30</sup> Kevin Featherstone and Claudio Radaelli (eds), *The Politics of Europeanisation*, Oxford University Press, 2003.

<sup>31</sup> Johan P. Olsen, "Many faces of Europeanisation", [in:] *Journal of Common Market Studies*, 2002, no. 40 (5), Arena, University of Oslo, pp. 921–952.

<sup>32</sup> Ibidem, p. 923.

ant increasing capacity of the EU to govern; as well as export of the logic of integration within the EU and beyond its borders.

Let us pause for a moment to sum up. In my opinion, the main dimension of the concept of Europeanisation is political (related to integration), thus reducing the discourse on values or norms, to which culture is close. In a sense, it is an excluding concept, because, as Marta Lackowska-Madurowicz rightly observes,<sup>33</sup> the discourse on values "does not imply confining the concept to EU structures". It sets broader horizons. From this point of view, it becomes troublesome to reflect on culture in the context of Europeanisation.

## **Results of empirical research regarding the concepts of Europeanness, the European Dimension, Europeanisation**

I will now test how the concepts discussed above – Europeanness, the "European dimension" and Europeanisation – were interpreted by the Polish cultural operators preparing the seven Polish cities (from seven different regions: Lower Silesia, Lublin Region, Łódź Region, Pomerania, Silesia, Greater Poland and Western Pomerania) for the European Capital of Culture 2016 competition. Let us start with the concept of "Europeanness". In fact, the respondents interpreted this term in an axionormative context. The interpretations pointed to a sense of identification of contemporary Europeans with the continent's ancient philosophical traditions and belonging to a common cultural space, created by the European historical process on the basis of similar religious and life experiences.

*This model originated on the foundations of Ancient Greek philosophy and Platonic thought. The central role in it is played by beauty and good.* (WR08)

*There is one common cultural and religious element that unites everything. Even for atheists, the Christian religion is a point of reference.* (LU07)

Europeanness is the need for a shared cultural consciousness. According to the respondents, combining particular cultural themes constructed a historical story. After the expansion of the European Union in 2004, it became important for Poles to add the Polish narrative to European transformations of awareness.

*It was definitely about being present in the consciousness of Europeans, about Wrocław being present in Europe, proposing a fresh narrative. We know that Wrocław's problems are similar to the problems of Europeans, and we wanted to come out with that fresh message, and we tried to do that.* (WR 04)

<sup>33</sup> Marta Lackowska-Madurowicz,., "Europeizacja – ramy koncepcyjne dla badań samorządów?" [in:] *Zarządzanie Publiczne*, no. 1 (15), 2011, p. 40.

The respondents stressed their understanding of Europeanness as a process of "joining" different elements: views, convictions, geopolitical perspectives and intuitions:

*Even if European countries differ in terms of language, culture and customs, there is no doubt that something exists that enables us to talk about European unity.* (WR08)

Europeanness was perceived as a building block of regional values, with the conviction that there is no such thing as Europeanness as an abstract creation. Europeanness is composed of regionality and localness to the same degree as regionality and localness contain in their makeup – in atomistic and immanent terms – Europeanness. Furthermore, the respondents associated Europeanness with diversity as the opposite of unification, which the European Union is frequently accused of tending towards. They regard the local tradition, customs, habits, material and nonmaterial heritage of many European regions (including Polish ones) as indicating diversifying characteristics (which is not to say antagonising) rather than communitising ones.

*For me, something that is very local or regional is also an indicator of Europeanness. Silesia has a local culture which it nurtures, which has been strongly rooted in people for centuries.*  (KA05)

*Europeanness is our place in Europe and our answer to how we see ourselves in the cultural landscape of Europe. Silesian tradition, perceived as local and regional, is important in the European context. Actually every culture has its own regional identification.* (KA05)

Europeanness is also a synonym for universality. Europeans interpret literary, artistic and musical messages and experiences similarly, creating a universal (crossborder) message of European culture.

*Localness becomes universal when there isn't such rigidity. Take* [Witold] *Gombrowicz, for example, who was Polish through and through, yet also universal, or* [Tadeusz] *Kantor too. So when the localness is real and has that depth, it's European, because it's original, it's something that is unique.* (PO08)

A very interesting idea in the respondents' statements was the perception of Europeanness as a process of shedding inferiority complexes – the organisers of the Lublin ECOC bid accentuated this angle. Especially in this Polish city, lying on the so-called eastern wall, the region with the lowest level of economic development, the need to make a mark on the European map was of prime significance for the future European Capital of Culture 2016.

*Europeanness is a process from closing (focus on tradition) to opening (the desire to build a culture based on elements from outside) while maintaining a healthy balance.* (LU06)

The respondents also referred to the multiculturalism that was once important for Poles and today slightly forgotten, as meaning Europeanness. For centuries, it was present in Polish literary tradition:

The Book of Henryków *is doubly appealing. Firstly, it contains the first sentence in the Polish language, and secondly, it is remarkably emphatic evidence of the multiculturalism of this region in historical terms, yet translates to contemporary times. It is written by a German monk in Latin, and this monk quotes the first Polish sentence, which a Czech spoke to his Polish wife.*  (WR10)

Europeanness was also perceived as the need for freedom of artistic expression and civil liberty.

*The Free City of Poznań […], to preserve the city's autonomy, I don't want to use the word liberal, because that has its connotations, but freedom from this pressure, from domination of the state.* (PO08)

On the other hand, the respondents referred to practices trivialising the concept of "Europeanness" in the ECOC application process itself. These entailed the ECOC organisers' use of "grand" European rhetoric for conducting a mass event.

*In the case of the European capital, some were concerned with prestige, and some with the budget, because money comes with it. I don't know whether the people preparing the ECOC heard the word "European", whether they were concentrating on it.* (PO05)

The above statement leads us to the second discourse term, the "European dimension". According to the respondents, this European Commission requirement, to which certain elements of the 2016 ECOC programme had to be adapted, de facto resulted in fudging of the term, or in the appearance of megalomaniac ideas on the part of local government officials regarding the ECOC festival, designed for development of the cities' promotional strategies, rather than for a celebration of European culture. The concept was reduced to entertainment and to a commercial festivity.

*The project jurors asked what the European dimension of the project will entail, and the cities usually make something up.* (WR04)

The "European dimension" of the ECOC was linked to the mechanism of appropriation of the European project for local political benefits. As a side effect of this pragmatic approach, local government officials went so far as to demonstrate their disregard for the formal requirements of the competition. Cities favoured easy solutions such as staging celebrity events rather than using the title for developing a long-term strategy for city development.

*Europeanness is understood in a simple way. We'll do a programme that will attract crowds from Europe. I've observed very many projects like that. […] They don't actually get into the European awareness at all. Who knows about Wrocław ECOC in Poland? Those who listen to TOK FM or Polish Radio Three, or watch TVP Kultura?* (GD06)

One aspect certainly implemented by the cities as part of the "European dimension" was the need for development of collaboration between cultural operators in the city itself, between Polish cities and with partners abroad.

*Łódź is returning to the European network where it once was.* (ŁÓ06)

The theory of top-down/bottom-up Europeanisation manifested itself clearly in the empirical material. Both the ECOC organisers and the authors of application forms cited their experiences demonstrating the effects of Europeanisation processes. They explained that the first result of the transfer of knowledge and flow of new information was increased cultural competencies of the organisers of future festivals. Overnight, the people working on preparing the ECOC became a team of experts responsible for international artistic ventures, acquiring expertise in managing a large budget. The sudden accumulation of skills was the result of making use of foreign expert help:

*We learnt from them sophistication, the philosophy of the project, finances. Suddenly people from Europe arrived who believed in Lublin, showed us how to develop it, how we could work together and what's important in Europe. How to network.* (LU08)

The Polish cultural operators took a crash course in enterprise and knowledge of foreign languages. They learnt modern culture management, project accounts, financial reporting for EU institutions and networking:

*It was a kind of thinking that we already had cultural managers here, who are already in the international network, it was a new category, it wasn't there before – cultural manager means people with contacts, knowledge of how to get people to come, they obtain funds, have the kind of knowledge that's lacking in directors of cultural institutions, who wait for a specific grant.*  (ŁÓ06)

In order to implement the new managerial practices in a city's cultural policy, an urban revolution was necessary. And this was what Polish cities underwent as a result of the preparatory processes for the ECOC competition. Many of the respondents referred to a radical change in the relations between the team preparing the application and the local government authorities. In particular, this meant implementation of deliberative and pro-development mechanisms,<sup>34</sup> as well as transparent methods of funding and accounting for cultural institutions.

*The approach to cultural institutions has changed. They used to be institutions run in very much an authoritarian fashion, without evaluation. […] It's standard now that there's a competition and new cultural managers and fresh staff have appeared.* (ŁÓ07)

A classic example of bottom-up Europeanisation in the context of ECOC 2016 was the process of persuading the Szczecin city local government to mount a bid. This process was initiated by NGOs and activists, without initial enthusiasm from city authorities. With no let-up in social pressure, however, Szczecin did indeed enter the ECOC 2016 competition.

*Perhaps it wasn't an unwanted initiative, but a kind of baby abandoned to the City Council. The mayor couldn't oppose the European Capital of Culture, but I don't imagine it was easy for him. The authorities of our city didn't really have any idea what to do with it. It limped along.*  (SZ05)

In Katowice, local government officials agreed to conduct the ECOC competition thanks to the work of grassroots movements, city initiatives and artists, who also attempted to persuade officials and the mayor of the values of the European Capital of Culture and its important role in the process of integration of residents and cultural promotion of the city.

*[…] there was a complete blockade from the city council but after a lot of discussions we managed to get a lot done. We went through a process from simple activities, aesthetic ones, to harder, critical ones, for example the officials not being worried about a mural being produced by Łukasz Surowiec that would be very critical of the situation with the miners' strikes that were happening, and lots of that kind of activities. So definitely the officials learnt something, and also the mayor, who, to be blunt, was seen as a kind of chief who knows best about everything, had to be open to Marek Zieliński's vision, and it's great that Marek was fully independent then.*  (KA03)

<sup>34</sup> The transformation of the administrative instruments for city policies is described in the publications of Jerzy Hausner and Anna Kerwińska, e.g. in the book *Kultura i rozwój*, NCK, Warszawa 2013. Also important in this context is Stanisław Szultka and Piotr Zbieranek's book *Kultura – polityka – rozwój. O kulturze jako "dźwigni" rozwoju społecznego polskich metropolii i regionów,* Gdańsk, Instytut Badań nad Gospodarką Rynkową, Gdańsk 2012.

As a result of the preparations for the ECOC competition and implementation of Europeanisation mechanisms, the respondents noticed a marked improvement in the city's information policy, internationalisation of cultural contacts and modifications to its image:

*Materials in English appeared in galleries, options for foreign tourists, international projects and residencies.* (ŁÓ07)

*Most festivals and events already have a European character. Events used to be called "nationwide" … I'm not aware of any nationwide event in Łódź – they're all international and European.* (ŁÓ07)

In trying to identify the Europeanisation mechanism, the respondents expounded a futuristic vision of the future of cities. To explain the idea of this phenomenon I call upon Hristova, Dragicević-Sesić and Duxbury's concept of "Europolis".<sup>35</sup> I had the distinct impression that the respondents speaking about the Polish urban centres of the future had a certain idealised European metropolis (or "Europolis") in mind. This ideal denoted a dynamic, modern city largely governed by social organisations. The city in question is open, tolerant, and – especially importantly – developing in a sustainable fashion, pro-environment and pro-social.

*Katowice will become a European city, meaning that it will be sexy to go into town, and not drive around it in a car, that Katowice's pro-car policy will come to an end. It's awful what they've done to this city in terms of transport. And this treatment of people on foot by officials will come to an end.* (KA01)

*A European city has to be comfortable to live in and accessible, we're still lacking various things, with various infrastructure: both sporting and cultural, so that people can do lots of different things in their free time.* (WR09)

*For me, the process of Europeanisation is also a process of general Europeanisation in mental terms and in urban planning, because Europe is currently heading towards ecological city management, sustainable transport, also a participatory model in city management. I think that in this first respect we are very much behind, in the second one we're keeping up. So for me, a European city is an ecological and sustainable city on the one hand, and a participatory and openly managed one on the other.* (WR03)

<sup>35</sup> Svietlana Hristova, Milena Dragicević-Sesić, Nancy Duxbury (eds), *Culture and Sustainability in European Cities: Imagining Europolis*, Routledge, earthscan, 2015. The concept of "Europolis" is making increasingly expansive incursions into the public discourse as a term for properly developing, ecological, sustainable and intelligently managed European cities. In the competition for the Polish Europolis held by the Batory Foundation in Poland in 2016, Warsaw took first place as a result of its increasing green spaces: parks, greens, woods etc. – as well as increasing investments and relatively high earnings.

Thanks in part to the ECOC competition, Polish cities have begun to aspire to be important European metropolises. They have recognised their place on the EU map, determined their cultural resources and defined their innovative functions in international relations.

*The city is becoming increasingly international, people are coming to work from northern Italy and Germany. It's discernible. The number of virtual guides printed in 2016 – there's very much there on Wrocław […] Before our eyes, Wrocław is being written onto the world map.* (WE10)

During the process of preparation for the ECOC 2016, the Polish cities described and redefined their identities, which enabled them to create innovative city narratives. The respondents' statements point to a change in the perspective on the city: not so much from a local/peripheral point of view, but rather a supranational one. This new, pro-European image has gained the acceptance of residents.

*Katowice began to search for a new identity, which coincided with a new strategy for promotion of the city, as it was in parallel with the ECOC. There was a new promotion strategy with the slogan "Katowice for a change", which in my opinion is quite clever, as we're turning the page and looking at the city from a completely different side. And thanks to the ECOC, Katowicans have begun to look at the city a little differently, and that's actually great.* (KA01)

*There's easternness as regionalness, and this urbanness – Lublin-ness. As for Lublin-ness, the main component that I sense here is the fact that we're not a metropolis, but in a sense a province. On the other hand, this is a distinct centre, that's existed for centuries.* (LU06)

### **Conclusions**

Let us summarise the above reflections. Poland entered the European Union in 2004. The period in which the Polish competition for the European Capital of Culture took place was characterised by many levels of change in adaptation of the state to EU requirements. Poland was the beneficiary of the first EU structural funds, which reinvigorated the economy and led to the modernisation of roads, buildings and public places. The country found itself in a momentous situation that created hitherto unknown opportunities for development. The EU's principles of free movement of people, goods and services enabled Polish cities to become joined to the European exchange network. This resulted in processes of cultural diffusion offering cities the chance to create social innovations. Without doubt, the advantageous conditions for urban development provided by these circumstances contributed to the remarkable engagement of Polish cultural operators in the ECOC 2016 competition. The fact that as many as 11 cities entered the competition testifies to the ambition and courage of the rivalry. As indicated by the research analysed above, in this period Polish cultural operators were still unprepared for such a large cultural undertaking. In 2000 Krakow had become the first Polish city to hold the title of European City/Capital of Culture, yet the knowledge of the organisers of this event was not spread further, despite research papers, summaries and reports.<sup>36</sup> The failure to learn a lesson from the previous ECOC resulted in 2007 in organisational chaos. This was why the respondents' definitions regarding the terms proposed in the research tended to be intellectually inept. They were used interchangeably and often inaccurately. Nevertheless, the connotations of all the concepts remained common, being Europe or European integration in the broadest terms.

When defining the semantic field of the concept of "Europeanness", the respondents pointed to the ideas of cultural unity. There is no doubt that participation in the ECOC competition instigated a process of understanding the idea of European culture in the context of development of the city and redefinition of regional and local culture. What was important for the inhabitants of Poland as a newcomer to the EU was the need to shed their inferiority complexes behind and attempt to view themselves as fully fledged citizens of Europe with just as valuable a material and non-material culture and artistic achievements as those of "old Europe". Another matter was the need to confirm the idea of creative freedom and independence as typically European attributes of art and literature. Within the European dimension, cities gained from constructing multidimensional, interdisciplinary, international cooperation which was becoming less of a traditional bilateral/multilateral exchange, and more of a partnership between multiple parties, based on mutual learning, exchange of knowhow, and forming and fostering lasting interinstitutional and personal bonds. The cooperation was to lead to the initiation and creation of serious cultural consortia, putting into practice Manuel Castells's idea of the contemporary network society.

As a result of the ECOC competition, the new professional category of cultural manager emerged. Of course, people have been managing culture in Poland for years, but the bidding process exposed its international dimension, bringing the Polish workforce into the international circulation via participation in large-budget European projects. A modern cultural manager understands the contemporary model of collaboration and the European idea of networking. The interviews clearly demonstrate increased ambition in creating city cultural policies. The expectations of people working in culture are also raised regarding the effectiveness of the work of officials, NGOs, cultural institutions and artists themselves. Calls are made for democratic city governance based on a clear division of decisions and budget,

<sup>36</sup> Robert Salisz, Bogusław Sonik,, *Kraków'2000, Europejskie Miasto Kultury. Raport końcowy*, Biuro Kraków 2000, Kraków 2001; Bożena Gierat-Bieroń,., *Europejskie Miasto Kultury/Europejska Stolica Kultury*, Instytut Dziedzictwa/Narodowe Centrum Kultury, Kraków 2009; Bożena Gierat-Bieroń, Bogusław Sonik, *Kraków 2000. Po 10 latach. Krakow 2000. 10 years after*, KBF, Instytut Dziedzictwa, Kraków 2011; Danuta Glondys,, *Europejska Stolica Kultury. Miejsce kultury w polityce Unii Europejskiej*, Attyka, Kraków 2010.

transparency, and in particular understanding that the contemporary model of local authority entails not emanation of the society's will, but multi-stranded partnership in actions for the city. As an indirect result of the ECOC process, Polish cities aspire to the idea of "Europolis". The respondents understand Europeanisation above all as standardisation and integration. They situate top-down Europeanisation in the space of city governance and modern cultural policy. As for bottom-up Europeanisation, they treat it rather as cities' grassroots searches for identity, drawing their mental map, "inventing"<sup>37</sup> the city. The strongest accent of Europeanisation as the realisation of EU cultural policy in the case of the Polish ECOC competition appears to be the process of adapting cultural institutions as well as the governance of large cities to Western standards, a kind of standardisation of professional practices under the banner of "Poles learn fast". Institutions that have already been on the European map want to stay there – not to return to the margins. The organisers of the ECOC competitions in Poland have begun to realise that EU programmes are geared towards shaping the mechanisms of cooperation, but these mechanisms remain weak in Poland. The observers of theatre life claim<sup>38</sup> that Polish cultural institutions have begun to take part in a multi-level organisational structure (via networks and co-productions) and entered into cosmopolitanising processes. Institutions have become open to new ideas from direct contacts and access to foreign expertise. An important effect of the processes of top-down Europeanisation in Poland is therefore internationalisation of cultural institutions, while bottom-up processes have resulted in their local and regional consolidation. Critics sceptical about Europeanisation processes in culture highlight the insufficient preparation of Polish cultural institutions for participation in European programmes. Why? Mental barriers, lack of language proficiency, absence of international experience.<sup>39</sup> They see this as the source of failures, i.e. the mediocre presence of Polish institutions in EU programmes suggested by statistics,<sup>40</sup> and thus also their slow Europeanisation. It seems, however, that regardless of the other EU programmes implemented in Poland, the competition for the European Capital of

<sup>37</sup> This term was used by the sociologist Paweł Kubicki in his book *Wynajdywanie miejskości. Polska kwestia miejska z perspektywy długiego trwania* ("Invented Urbanity: the Polish Urban Question in a *Longue Durée* Perspective", Nomos, Kraków 2016.

<sup>38</sup> www.nck.pl/blog-kultura-sie-liczy/316789-decentralizacja-a-europeizacja-przypadek-polskichteatrow [access: 15 August 2017].

<sup>39</sup> Igor Rakowski-Kłos, "Kreatywna Łódź to pomyłka. Miliony poszły w błoto?" [in:] *Gazeta Wyborcza*, Łódź. 9 October 2015, lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/1,35153,18994251,kreatywna-lodz-topomylka-miliony-poszly-w-bloto-opinia.html [access: 4 July 2017].

<sup>40</sup> This is best illustrated by the *Interim Evaluation of the Culture Programme 2007-13 Annexes to Support Final Report ECORYS UK on behalf of the European Commission DG Education and Culture*, ECORYS Final Report 2010, which shows that Polish operators avoid positions of project leaders, tending rather to prefer partner positions. Furthermore, Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga, commenting on the evaluation of the Culture 2007-2013 programme, said that Italy is the unquestioned leader of European culture projects is Italy. In: *Culture Programme 2007-2013 in Poland – Analysis and Summary*, Cultural Contact Point, IAM, Warszawa 2013.

Culture 2016 contributed to the rapid Europeanisation of cities, thus eloquently putting into practice the principle of "soft power" as an important, albeit underestimated mechanism of European integration.

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# **Young Italians in Search of Opportunities: The Image of Europe as a Lifeline**

Monica Pascoli

### **Introduction**

Europe represents a primary destination for a large number of young Italians: there is a wide social acceptance of this well-established trend, motivated by the belief that the best employment opportunities are to be found elsewhere. The latest data presented by the Italian institutes of statistics highlight a continuous growth in the number of expatriates. Employability and mobility are closely interlocked and one of the fundamental push factors for emigration is undoubtedly the lack of opportunities in the work field: the unemployment rate in the 15-24 group age is 40.7% (with peaks of 56.7% in southern Italy), while in the 25-34 age group is 18.3% (31% in the south alone).<sup>1</sup> However, this flow of young people is not only triggered by economic reasons. Italy is considered as the classic *No Country for Young People<sup>2</sup> ,* since it only offers a limited array of life opportunities for self-fulfillment, independence, initiative and entrepreneurship.<sup>3</sup>

While the political sphere simply ignores the issue, the emigration of young Italians and, in particular, of the highly educated (also called brain drain) has featured prominently in the public debate, and the almost uninterrupted media cover-

<sup>1</sup> Istat, "Il mercato del lavoro. Primo trimestre 2017",

https://www.istat.it/it/files/2017/06/CS\_Mercato\_del\_lavoro\_I\_trim\_2017.pdf?title=Il+merc ato+del+lavoro+-+09%2Fgiu%2F2017+-+Testo+integrale+e+nota+metodologica.pdf (accessed 12 June 2017).

<sup>2</sup> This is the title of a film directed by Giovanni Veronesi (2017), on two Italians who decide to emigrate to Cuba to give a meaning to their lives.

<sup>3</sup> Paolo Balduzzi and Alessandro Toppeta, "Le ragioni della nuova migrazione degli Italiani", *Neodemos*, October 6, 2015, http://www.neodemos.info/articoli/le-ragioni-della-nuova-migrazionedegli-italiani/ (accessed 10 May 2017). Alessandro Rosina, *Neet. Giovani che non studiano e non lavorano* (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2015).

age has contributed to raise a greater awareness on the issue, albeit in a simplified manner.

The first part of the paper briefly analyses the press coverage regarding brain drain by three of the most popular Italian newspapers and their approach to the topic; the aim of this analysis is merely explorative and does not move from any hypothesis: the purpose is to critically analyze how the issue has been presented to the public during a specific time frame. It emerges that the subject is treated quite superficially, leaving some important issues in the background.

The analysis will then focus on the pull factors attracting young Italians and the role of imaginary and representation in the choice-making process: while push factors are recurring and predictable, because they are linked to the severe internal problems of the Italian economy and its labor market, pull factors are much more complex and refer to the imaginary that individuals build over the long run through socialization processes and life experiences.

This paper offers a different perspective of the brain drain process, not based only on the analysis of the push factors, i.e. the reasons behind the decision to emigrate, but also on the imaginary associated with the places of destination. By shifting the focus, it is easier to better understand young people and their life projects. We believe that young Italians consider Europe a familiar space and that in their eyes, emigration is simply a life option, a choice that is perceived as ordinary, as recently published research projects confirm.

### **Italian emigration: some data**

According to the National Population Statements of Istat updated in June 2016, at the beginning of 2016 the number of AIRE<sup>4</sup> members was 4,811,163, i.e. 7.9% of the 60,665,551 residents in Italy.

At a continental level, over half of Italian citizens abroad (+2.5 million) reside in Europe (53.8%), while over 1.9 million live in America (40.6%), especially in Central and Southern America (32.5%).<sup>5</sup> In absolute terms, the most significant variations are recorded in Argentina (+28,982), Brazil (+20,427), the United Kingdom (+18,706), Germany (+18,674), Switzerland (+14,496), France (+11,358), the United States (+6,683) and Spain (+6,520).

More than half of Italian nationals registered with AIRE is of southern origin (South: 1.602.196 and Islands: 842.850), 33.8% come from the northern regions

<sup>4</sup> A.I.R.E. is the Registry of Italians Resident Abroad. The Registry was established by Law no. 470/1988 and contains all the personal data of Italians residing abroad for over 12 months. A.I.R.E. enrolment is mandatory for all citizens who live and take up residence in a foreign country for more than 12 months. Enrolment in the A.I.R.E. involves the cancellation from the Civil Registry in Italy.

<sup>5</sup> Italian citizenship is granted partially on the *jus sanguinis* criterion and a high number of Italian citizens in South America are the descendants of Italian emigrants during the XIX and XX centuries.

(North West: 817.412 and North East: 806.613) and 15.4% from central Italy (742.092).

The number of emigrants (deletions from the Italian civil registry) is growing: in 2015 there were 147 thousand, 8% more than in 2014. This increase is due solely to the cancellation of Italian citizens (from 89 thousand to 102 thousand units, i.e. + 15%), while the cancellation of foreign citizens dropped from 47 thousand to 45 thousand (-6%). The main destinations for Italian emigrants are the United Kingdom (17.1%), Germany (16.9%), Switzerland (11.2%) and France (10.6%).

A growing number of Italian graduates over 25 years of age are now leaving the country (almost 23,000 in 2015, + 13% in 2014) and emigration is also on the rise among people with a medium-low study title (52,000, + 9%).

Western European countries are the prime destinations for emigrants with Italian citizenship: United Kingdom and Germany (both with more than 17,000 migrants), Switzerland and France (11,000) together account for more than half the quota of emigrants.<sup>6</sup> There are no reliable data which refer to the jobs and careers of the young emigrants; a recently published work focused on university researchers who are working abroad clearly highlights, not without criticism, that the Italian Minister of Education and Research has never created a register of Italian scholars working in foreign universities, in and outside Europe.<sup>7</sup>

High-quality migration has always been present within the more general migratory flows<sup>8</sup> and has, in certain historical periods, taken on a major importance in the circulation of knowledge and ideas. In the public sphere a plurality of categories is used to refer to the phenomenon: from "brain drain" to "talent migration", to "scientific diaspora". The concept of *brain drain* dates back to the 1960s, when it was coined to describe the departure of British scientists and researchers towards

<sup>6</sup> Fondazione Migrantes. *Rapporto Italiani nel Mondo 2016*,

http://www.migrantesonline.it/siti/s2magazine/index1.jsp?idPagina=2785 (accessed 8 May 2017).

Istat. *Rapporto Migrazioni 2015. Migrazioni internazionali e interne della popolazione residente*. https://www.istat.it/it/files/2016/12/Report\_Migrazioni\_Anno\_2015.pdf?title=Migrazioni+della+p opolazione+residente+-+06%2Fdic%2F2016+-+Testo+integrale+e+nota+metodologica.pdf (accessed 8 May 2017).

See also: European Commission, *Employment and social development in Europe 2017*, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8030&furtherPubs=yes (accessed 28 August 2017).

Eurostat. *Being young in Europe today. 2015 edition*, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/ 3217494/6776245/KS-05-14-031-EN-N.pdf/18bee6f0-c181-457d-ba82-d77b314456b9 (accessed 8 May 2017).

Eurostat. *Key Figures in Europe. 2016*. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-statisticalbooks/-/KS-EI-16-001 (accessed 8 May 2017).

<sup>7</sup> Chantal Saint-Blancat, editor, *Ricercare altrove. Fuga dei cervelli, circolazione dei talenti, opportunità* (Bologna: il Mulino, 2017): 8.

<sup>8</sup> Maria Carolina Brandi, "Evoluzione degli studi sulle skilled migration: brain drain e mobilità", *Studi Emigrazione/Migration Studies* XXXVIII, no. 141, 2001. Maria Carolina Brandi, "Storia del Brain Drain", *Studi Emigrazione*, XLI, no.156, 2004, 775-794. Maria Carolina Brandi, "L'emigrazione dei ricercatori italiani", in *Rapporto Migrantes*, ed. Fondazione Migrantes (Todi: Tau Editrice, 2014).

the United States. The concept was then used to include all skilled labour without distinction between professional sectors. In the following decade, the academic interest focused on the migration of qualified people from developing to developed countries, on the relationship between centre and periphery and on the loss of resources in developing countries.<sup>9</sup>

According to this view, the less developed countries that invested in education and qualification of their youth failed to benefit from their investment, as their young, educated citizens often chose to emigrate, thus not contributing to the domestic economic growth. This was the *standard view* through which highly qualified migrations were analyzed for many years.<sup>10</sup> At the end of the 1990s however, this paradigm was replaced by the so-called brain-circulation theory11, which described the movements of highly qualified personnel as polycentric, circular, temporary and mutual.<sup>12</sup>

Currently, there is strong migratory mobility in all EU countries13. European institutions have been one of the main actors in this process through the financing of mobility programs and internationalization projects. What characterizes Italy however is the lack of circulation of people with high skills; in other words, the number of those who move is not compensated by the same number of highly qualified people arriving to Italy, thus creating a situation of brain-drain/brain-gain within Europe: immigrants that move to Italy tend to have low levels of education and scarce work skills. This is calculated using a ratio called highly skilled exchange rate, which for Italy is equal to -1.2% (France 2.8%, Germany 2.2%, Spain 2.9%, United Kingdom 1.1%, and USA 20%). 14

### **Young Italian expats: the press coverage**

Over the last few years, Italian emigration has become an important issue, widely reported by media and press in particular. Publishing the readers' emigration sto-

<sup>9</sup> Alexander Schellinger, edit. *Brain Drain - Brain Gain: European Labour Markets in Times of Crisis*  (Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2015), http://www.fes.de/de/politik-fuer-europa-2017-plus/

UNESCO, Management of Social Transformations (MOST). *Scientific diasporas: a new approach to the brain drain*, by Jean-Baptiste Meyer and Mercy Brown (Discussion Paper Series 41, 1999),

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001163/116330eo.pdf (accessed 8 May 2017)

<sup>10</sup> Stephen Castles, Hein de Haas and Mark J. Miller, *The Age of Migration* (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).

<sup>11</sup> Jaques Gaillard and Anne Marie Gaillard, "The International Mobility of Brains: Exodus or Circulation?", *Science, Technology and Society* 2, no. 2 (1997): 195-228.

<sup>12</sup> Lorenzo Beltrame, "Realtà e retorica del brain drain in Italia. Stime statistiche, definizioni pubbliche e interventi politici", *Trento. Quaderni del Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale*, Quaderno 35 (2007), http://web.unitn.it/files/quad35.pdf (accessed 10 May 2017).

<sup>13</sup> However, the actual numbers remain low – around 3% - less than non-EU migration to the EU. I thank Karolina Czerka-Shaw for this comment.

<sup>14</sup>Ibid., 20.

ries has become a common practice, and many online versions of the most popular newspapers devote columns to this topic.

This has contributed to the creation of a linear narrative, recounting different versions of the story of the (more or less) talented youngsters who are forced to emigrate, hence mirroring the fate of all those who, up to only a few decades ago, had to mass emigrate towards distant destinations.

The main object of this qualitative study will be the Italian press production. As already mentioned, this study is explorative, since it does not move from any hypothesis. The analysis aims at identifying the main topics associated to the expression "brain drain" and the kind of information related. As many scholars have noted, the concept of "brain drain" is quite vague and includes a number of different mobilities, from the fresh graduate who seeks new work experiences abroad to the renowned scientist.

I have taken into consideration the three most important national newspapers (Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, Sole24Ore) and analyzed the articles published online from January 2016 to October 2017 containing the keyword *fuga di cervelli* (brain drain).

What emerges is the picture of a country with increasing emigration levels that, compared to the past, not only includes people with a low to average education, but also individuals with higher levels of education (graduates, masters and PhD: the heterogeneity of this group is very high). The online press focuses precisely on this aspect of the migratory phenomenon and draws attention to the consequences from both an individual and social point of view. As far as the individual choices are concerned, the picture tends to be rather standardized and repetitive.

The pattern is always the same: the difficulty of finding a job worthy of that name, unpaid internships and lack of opportunities push young people to other European and non-European countries. The economic reasons are evident, but there are also other factors that cannot be neglected, first and foremost the quest for more symbolic elements such as respect and recognition, which sadly lack in the Italian work environments.

The reports are usually beefed up with the family's perspective, tales of pride for their children's achievements mixed with sorrow for the detachment, nostalgia and resentment towards a country that *does not know what to do with its youth*. In the articles, individual anecdotes are accompanied by contributions illustrating the consequences of emigration in both economic and social terms, and the political initiatives aimed at inverting the trend.

The following section will briefly present the results of the analysis made on articles published by the three online versions of popular newspapers. The most important differences among the journals are undoubtedly the space reserved to the topic and the level of analysis, which can range from anecdotes to wellstructured reports. It should be noted that the life histories presented are usually positive and inspiring: there is no room for unsuccessful experiences.<sup>15</sup>

In the period from January 2016 to October 2017, the online versions of the three most popular national newspapers (Corriere della Sera, Repubblica and Il Sole 24 Ore) published 147 articles on *brain drain* .16 These three papers covered the subject in very diffeent ways, both in terms of frequency of publications and the type of information offered.


Table 1 – Articles dedicated to the "brain drain" phenomenon

Corriere della Sera published 85 articles on the subject, and started a column called *L'Italia dei figli lontani* (*Italy of the far away children*), on family stories told by young expats and their parents; these stories were collected on WhatsApp and then published online on a dedicated page. Corriere della Sera has the largest number of contributions regarding brain drain and analyses the topic from various angles. Repubblica published a total of 46 articles in several sections (university, press commentaries, economy...) and a page called "Cervelli in fuga", which gathers true stories. Lastly, Il Sole 24 Ore, the most important economic newspapers in Italy, and owned by Confindustria (Italian Industrial Association), published 18 articles on the subject: there are no life histories but a good number of research and policy reports.

<sup>15</sup> It can be assumed that a process of self-selection is active: people who face failure are less willing to tell their experience.

<sup>16</sup>The keywords used in the "search" function on the newspapers' website were: "fuga cervelli" and "fuga di cervelli". The keywords rarely appear in the headlines, but abound in the text of the articles. The period taken into account was January 1st, 2016 to October 20th, 2017.

The content analysis identified four thematic areas (Tab 1):

 Life Histories, describing the stories of people who, at different stages of their career, are forced to expatriate because of the impossibility to achieve their goals in their homeland. Generally speaking, these are stories of success, but often reveal an underlying combination of clashing feelings, namely gratitude and resentment. Gratitude emerges from acknowledging the opportunities that the educational system has offered, making it possible for the young protagonist to compete globally on the world market. Resentment is directed towards the same system, often unable to offer career opportunities, hence abandoning the young generation in a limbo of nothingness.

The life histories therein collected describe a normality made of working routines, new friends, and nostalgia for the family. The future remains an open question. No mention is ever made to negative experiences, failures, changes of heart. The families of origin are given space in the news, too: Repubblica and Corriere della Sera both promote initiatives in favour of the parents of young expats.<sup>17</sup>


This brief analysis confirms the tendency to represent the brain drain using a single image, without considering the issue in its complexity. An example of the standardized approach is the lack of articles focusing on related topics, such as *brain gain*, *brain circulation* and *brain waste*. It should also be noted that the concept of brain

 <sup>17</sup>An example is www.mammedicervelliinfuga.com, a blog created by the mother of two expats, sharing experiences and supplying advice (retrieved October 1st, 2017).

drain tends to merge with the topic of youth emigration: the two issues are deeply intertwined and are often considered as facets of the same concept.

The biggest limit of the public debate promoted by the press is the exclusive focus on the concept of *brain drain*, usually presented using an anecdotal and stereotypical narrative. The debate should be developed to include other themes that, although linked to the broader issue of youth unemployment and underemployment, have inadequate coverage.

First and foremost is the issue of *brain waste* involving talented young people who remain in Italy and are forced to take up unskilled jobs with no career prospects: this is a waste of talent and vitality, of years of education, ideas and energy. One example of *brain waste* is the phenomenon of *neets*: whilst in Europe the average is 11.5%, according to the latest data published by the European Commission the levels in Italy are much higher, i.e. 19.9% of the young Italian population.<sup>18</sup>

Another important but neglected issue is linked to what can be called "the option of failure": in the articles I examined there is only room for success stories, while no visibility is given to whoever failed and hence returned to Italy. Ignoring this possibility gives a falsified picture of the emigration process, an almost Eldorado-like imaginary.

In the following paragraphs, the focus will be shifted to the concepts of representation and imaginary in the study of migration.

### **Imaginary and representations of places**

The traditional approach employed to study migration typically consists of an analysis of the issue from economic, historical-structural, systemic and transnational points of view. An effective synthesis has led to the theorization of two models, defined as *human capital theory* and *neomarxist approach* to periphery center relationships, respectively.<sup>19</sup> The former model adopts a micro-social perspective, and then analyzes the individual - and rational - push driving people to search for a more favorable environment. The latter model consists of a macro-analysis of the issue and approaches migration through center-peripheral relationships.

These two paradigms are identified as the *standard view*, which essentially considers migration of skilled workers as (often unidirectional) the movement from developing to developed countries of individuals who choose to optimize the performance of their education. From a micro-social perspective, the prevailing setting results from a rational choice.

<sup>18</sup> European Commission, *Employment and social development in Europe 2017*, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8030&furtherPubs=yes (accessed 13 October 2017). Alessandro Rosina, *Neet. Giovani che non studiano e non lavorano* (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2015).

<sup>19</sup> Beltrame, "Realtà e retorica del brain drain in Italia"; Robyn Iredale, "The migration of professionals: theories and typologies", *International Migration* 39(5) (2001): 7-24. Stephen Castles, Hein de Haas and Mark J. Miller. *The Age of Migration* (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).

Less attention has been given to the combination of aspirations and expectations and to the role of myths and imaginaries associated with the countries of destination.

The concept of myth here employed is that described by Barthes, hence a special type of speech. In other words, myth is not just a genre of stories, but a way of saying things, an ethos, an ideology or set of values. Yet the integration process is strongly influenced by individual plans and strategies: aspirations and expectations are certainly influenced by individual characteristics (mainly age, level of education, civil status), but equally important are the social and cultural environment where the subject is inserted and these aspects shape his or her imaginary of migration.

By the concept of imaginary, I refer to the set of past, present and future images associated with a certain place; those images characterize that place and define it, but at the same time influence the ways in which individuals approach and experience it in cultural, social and spatial terms. D'Amato<sup>20</sup> defines imaginary as "the direct product of the tensions and relationships that man has with his physical and mental environment (...) the reality transformed into its representation (…). Its contents are mostly abstract; however, symbols, images, ideas have a concrete impact (...)".<sup>21</sup> The concept is interpreted in relation to its opposites (the real and the symbolic), can be defined as "a set of representations"<sup>22</sup> and viewed as "the interface of the individual with the social, the rational with the instinctual (...) They always have a subject and an object: they are always representations of something for someone".<sup>23</sup> As such they arise in a certain place and context and through them "one can understand the world and the role played by individuals". <sup>24</sup> As regards the formation of social representation, Moscovici identifies a two-way process that includes the stages of *anchoring* and *objectification*. Through the anchoring process, individuals transform what is perceived as strange into something familiar, so as to make it understandable. The complementary process is objectivation, through which the subject attributes new meanings to a representation.<sup>25</sup>

Myths and imaginaries have been defined as "symbolic collective representations of individuals' aspirations, hopes and dreams (…) myths and imaginaries constitute an important part of migrants' experiences and have concrete implications for the study of migration".<sup>26</sup>

<sup>20</sup> Marina D'Amato, "Rappresentazioni dell'immaginario", in *Finzione e mondi possibili. Per una sociologia dell'immaginario*, ed. Marina D'Amato (Padova: Libreria Universitaria, 2012), 3-35.

<sup>21</sup> Ibid., 10.

<sup>22</sup> Ibid., 11.

<sup>23</sup> Ibid., 17.

<sup>24</sup> Ibid.

<sup>25</sup> Serge Moscovici, *Le rappresentazioni sociali* (Bologna: il Mulino, 2005); Ambrogio Santambrogio, "Le rappresentazioni sociali dei giovani in Italia: alcune ipotesi interpretative", in *Le rappresentazioni sociali dei giovani in Italia*, ed. Franco Crespi (Roma: Carocci, 2002), 15-40.

<sup>26</sup> Delphine Nakache, Helen Pellerin and Luisa Veronis, *Migrants' Myths and Imaginaries. Understanding their Role in Migration Movements and Policies* (policy brief, Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 2015),

By using these concepts, the authors refer to three kinds of myths:

1. the myth that the migrant embodies - an example used by Nakache *et al.* is that according to which the migrant is viewed as a hero, hence the decision to undertake the journey is influenced by notions of honor and social recognition;

2. the myth of migration itself, as in the case of freedom of geographical mobility, referring to migrants' desire to move freely despite increasingly stringent travel requirements;

3. the myth of the countries of destination, a sort of positive narrative about the social and political conditions in those countries. As Salazar suggested: "The motivations to cross borders are usually multiple but greatly linked to the ability of travelers and their social networks to imagine other places and lives. People hardly journey to *terrae incognitae* (…) but to destinations they already virtually "know" through the widely circulating imaginaries about them".<sup>27</sup>

Schapendonk distinguishes between aspirations and intentions.<sup>28</sup> Aspirations refer to the "dreams of a life" that an individual would like to accomplish but cannot be expressed in an ordinary, everyday life. Intentions refer to the concrete plans that the individual puts into action to accomplish his or her project of migration. The overlapping of aspirations and intentions, between the chance to realize a project of life and the concreteness of minimum requirements, everyday choices that represent small steps by which the individual hopes to approach the goal feed the imagery built around the destination country. The aspirations remain alive even in times of immobility and are at the basis of what is known as "migration culture". 29

### **Ordinary emigrations and the idea of Europe**

Currently, the debates on the emigration of young, qualified Italians tend to emphasize the element of "escape": migration would appear to be the only way out of unemployment – and therefore the only possibility to realize a life-project.

The focus is therefore on the national issues that push young people rather than on those elements, especially cultural elements, which act as an attraction.

I would like to suggest another perspective: for young Italians, moving abroad for long or short periods of time is just one of the various opportunities offered by life, since Europe is viewed as a familiar space.

https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/32834/4/Policy%20Brief%20-

<sup>%20</sup>Migrants%27%20Myths%20and%20Imaginaries.pdf (accessed 10 April 2017).

<sup>27</sup> Noel B Salazar, "The Power of Imagination in Transnational Mobilities", *Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power*, 18, no. 6, 2012: 576-598.

<sup>28</sup> Joris Schapendonk, "Turbulent Trajectories: African Migrants on Their Way to the European Union", *Societies* 2(2) (2012), 27-41.

<sup>29</sup> Douglas S. Massey, "Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal", *Population and Development Review*, 1(3) (1993), 431-466.

To date, there is no research exploring the role of the three types of myths described previously, but recently published reports and researches offer an interesting insight on issues that are strictly linked to them:

The Migrantes Report<sup>30</sup> describes Italian youth as an extremely educated generation, possessing qualified postgraduate degrees - specialization courses, masters, research fellowships, language certifications, study programs for international exchanges.

Paradoxically however, this is also the most vulnerable generation in terms of job opportunities: unemployment rates are high, and youngsters do not consider emigration as a "flight" but rather as a means of satisfying ambitions and nurturing curiosity. Their mobility today is in the pipeline and can change continuously because it is not based on an already determined migratory project but on the opportunities encountered.

The migratory event can be better defined as a path than as a well-defined project: the direction it points to greatly depends on the opportunities encountered during the journey. Personal and professional life are thus closely intertwined.

This condition paves the way to the analysis of the reasons behind the migratory event (once again, the so-called *push factors*):

• as regards the job context: the desire to find new and better working conditions (employment and wages), to test oneself in more international and meritocratic environment, and to improve professionally;

• as regards the personal context: a desire to discover, the curiosity to experience other social contexts, both in known and totally new places.

Without denying the difficult national situation, when referring to their migration path, young people tend to refuse the term escape or flight, pointing out that their departure was above all a choice they made to satisfy their ambitions and appease their curiosity, and for this reason can be seen as one of the many stages of their life-path.<sup>31</sup>

The research conducted by the University of Padua and focused on scholars who are currently working in European universities highlighted the aspect of casualty of their migratory experience. Looking back at their choices, the majority of scientists confess that the reasons were not particularly clear, adequately motivated, or rational: at the beginning of their career many of the scientists interviewed did not think about their future as a one-way path32; the choice of going abroad seemed to be a random choice and surely there was a balanced mix of push and pull factors.<sup>33</sup>

<sup>30</sup> Fondazione Migrantes, *Rapporto Italiani nel Mondo 2016*,

http://www.migrantesonline.it/siti/s2magazine/index1.jsp?idPagina=2785 (accessed 8 May 2017) <sup>31</sup> Ibid.

<sup>32</sup> Saint-Blancat, *Ricercare altrove*, 30.

<sup>33</sup> Ibid., 31.

In their relationship with Europe, young Italians display some of the unique traits that characterize them: in the first place, a strong sense of national identity, accompanied by an equally strong sense of local affiliation. As far as Europe is concerned, the strongest feeling of belonging can be found among the youngest and most highly educated (progressively decreasing as the age increases).<sup>34</sup>

As far as the membership of the various territorial spheres is concerned, both the Migrantes report and the Young Report<sup>35</sup> highlight the multiplicity of these affinities: young people are anchored to their country, of course, but multiple membership is the distinctive feature of young contemporary Europeans. This is confirmed also by the research coordinated by Saint-Blancat, in which the scientists interviewed affirmed that "home" is where their family lives and where they can do science as they like. Some of them confess that Italy is strongly present but, at the same time, they refuse to make a choice because they admit they call home both Italy and Europe. Saint-Blancat goes beyond this dichotomy and relies on the concept of *scientific diaspora* to analyze the experience of these expats; this transnational scientific community does not have frontiers or borders: living in the *diaspora* implies a procedural and dynamic relationship where the individual and collective identity is continually re-elaborated, where one experiences the social importance of identification and at the same time its denial. The symbolic centrality does not coincide with any particular territory: scientists feel they are members of an extended scientific community, beyond the borders of their own national academy.<sup>36</sup> In the order they are: scientists, then Europeans and/or Italians.<sup>37</sup>

The Migrantes report confirms that *millennials* have grown up with the mobility paradigm within Europe, which is rated as a positive resource especially in the south of Italy, where mobility seems to be a natural destiny.

European countries are perceived as places where one can find a job in one's field of knowledge, putting into practice what one studied in Italy. Young Report<sup>38</sup> highlights for example that young Europeans' willingness to move, even for limited

<sup>34</sup> Fondazione Migrantes, *Rapporto Italiani nel Mondo 2016*. See also, Fondazione Migrantes, *Rapporto italiani nel mondo 2017* (Todi: Editrice Tau, 2017).

<sup>35</sup> Istituto Giuseppe Toniolo, *La condizione giovanile in Italia. Rapporto giovani 2016* (Bologna: il Mulino, 2017).

<sup>36</sup> Gabaccia, in her fundamental study on Italian emigration, introduced this idea of *home as community*: "In the modern *civiltà italiana* of Italy's proletarian diasporas, home is still a face-to-face community – not the idea of a people rooted to a place, but the place itself. And *that place can be anywhere in the world*; it is not necessarily Italy, but a well-known village, neighborhood, or city anywhere in the world. (…) The civiltà italiana (…) continues to emerge from the local ties – and the everyday pleasures – of food, family, parish and home place, all things that can be enjoyed and savored anywhere in the world that people call home" (my italics). Cfr. Donna R. Gabaccia., *Italy's many diasporas* (London: UCL Press, 2000), 191.

<sup>37</sup> Saint-Blancat, *Ricercare altrove*, 77-78.

<sup>38</sup> Rita Bichi, "Leave or remain: integrazione, appartenenza e mobilità dei giovani europei", in *La condizione giovanile in Italia. Rapporto giovani 2016*, ed. Istituto Giuseppe Toniolo (Bologna: il Mulino, 2017), 97-121.

periods of time, from their homeland, and Italy, Spain and Poland in particular, is driven by the perspective of "personal enrichment". The reasons against this choice can be usually ascribed to attachment to their family.

These figures are consistent with the Eurobarometer 2014 survey, which states that "more than four in ten young Europeans said that they would like to work, study or undergo training in another EU country. This voluntary mobility is an aspiration shared by at least six out of ten young people in six EU Member States (Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Cyprus, Romania and Italy) and by at least half in 15 others. In contrast, young people in Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France are the least likely to express a desire for mobility".<sup>39</sup>

Another survey carried out in 2012 by Viacom International Media Networks involved 15,000 individuals born between 1981 and 2001, resident in 24 countries. This survey revealed that 6 young Italians out of 10 believed that their lives would be better if they lived in another country.<sup>40</sup>

Europe does not need to attract them in terms of membership, as it is already perceived as their playground, but with concrete opportunities for growth and social inclusion. *Freedom* and *culture* are the values that, according to the young people interviewed, embody the idea of Europe.<sup>41</sup> Europe is an opportunity, a wider ground for study, work and life opportunities. However, it is a work in progress as regards the role of the institutions and their policies for progressive integration.<sup>42</sup>

### **Conclusion**

The emigration of young Italians and the phenomenon of brain drain are sensitive topics to which the media devote ample space. The analysis presented in the previous pages focusing on online articles published by the three major national on-line newspapers, however, reveals that the issue is usually presented to the readers in an over-simplified manner. Life histories often become a sort of mythical narrative: the talented young woman/man who, thanks to her/his abilities and family support, is able to make his or her way in a global context. This type of narrative overshadows the complexity of the issue and tends to ignore all failures with their bitter, unavoidable return home. It also neglects the contiguous phenomenon of brain

<sup>39</sup> Flash Eurobarometer (395), *European Youth In 2014 Analytical Synthesis*, in

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdf/eurobarometre/2014/youth/eb\_395\_synthesis\_youth\_en.pdf (accessed 21 June 2017), 2.

Flash Eurobarometer (408). *European Youth Report* 

http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/flash/fl\_408\_en.pdf (accessed 28 August 2017).

<sup>40</sup> Corriere della Sera, "Giovani infelici e con la voglia di espatriare". 2 December 2012. http://solferino28.corriere.it/2012/12/02/giovani-infelici-e-con-la-voglia-di-espatriare/?refresh\_cecp (accessed 21 June 2017).

<sup>41</sup> Bichi, *Leave or remain*, 103.

<sup>42</sup> Ibid, 105.

waste: the protagonists are the same young people, more or less skilled, whose potential remains unexpressed.

The aim of the paper was also to reverse the image of migration, especially towards other European countries, as an extraordinary event. To date, no research has been carried out on representative samples of young Italian emigrants that focuses on the analysis of pull factors and the role played by the imaginary associated with the country of destination. Recently however, investigations by the Toniolo Institute and the Migrantes Foundation have revealed that the decision to emigrate is no longer considered out of the norm, hence leaving Italy is just one of the many options available. For young Italians, moving abroad for long or short periods of time is simply one of the various opportunities that life has to offer, and not an irreversible choice: Europe does not represent a step towards the unknown, but a familiar space with shared values, where one can achieve one's goals and aspirations.

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# **Making Precarious Lives Visible: Imagining Europe's Marginalized "Others"**

Margriet van der Waal

### **Introduction**

In the early morning hours of 16 October 2012, two men, Radu and Adrian, entered through the unlocked fire escape of the Kunsthal, an art museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which at that moment was exhibiting artwork from the privately-owned Triton Collection, and took with them five paintings and two pastel drawings by Picasso, Matisse and Guigan, amongst others.<sup>1</sup> A friend in a getaway car was ready on standby near the museum, and within minutes after entering the museum drove them, and the works, away from the museum. After hiding the stolen goods in the house of Radu, the three travelled to Carcaliu in eastern Romania, where Radu and Adrian grew up. After unsuccessful attempts to sell the works, the seven "manageable sized" works of art - insured for about 18 million Euros<sup>2</sup> - were first buried, and later, allegedly, burned by Radu's mother, Olga, in a wooden stove in her home.<sup>3</sup> Although it has not been established beyond doubt what had happened to the works of art, they have - until now - not yet been located, and their incineration remains a probable explanation of their fate so far.<sup>4</sup>

 <sup>1</sup> The following works were stolen: Monet's *Waterloo Bridge*, *London* (1901) and *Charing Cross Bridge, London* (1901), Picasso's *Tete d'Arlequin* (1971), Gauguin's *Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte* (1888), Matisse's *La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune* (1919), Meyer De Haan's *Autoportrait*, (1898-1891) and Lucian Freud's *Woman with Eyes Closed* (2002).

<sup>2</sup> The paintings were insured for about double their market value, a standard practice when rare pieces in private possession are lent to museums. The theft and the subsequent pay-out by the insurer to the owners has been called "a stunning piece of business" (Ed Caesar, "What is the Value of Stolen Art?" *New York Times Magazine,* 13 November 2013).

<sup>3</sup> Lex Boon, "Het kunst van het stelen," https://www.nrc.nl/kunsthal/ , 2014, accessed 25 June 2017. See also Andrew Higgins, "A Trail of Masterpieces and a Web of Lies, Leading to Anguish," *New York Times*, 26 July 2013 (accessed 27 October 2017).

<sup>4</sup> The mother, although having testified that she burned the works of art, later retracted her testimony (Boon, 2014).

Three years later, Romanian-Dutch author, Mira Feticu published the novel, *Tascha*, subtitled: "The theft from the Kunsthal". In this novel, she tells a hitherto obscured, second story related to the artwork theft. Whereas the media attention focused mainly on the logistics of the theft and the subsequent police investigation in the Netherlands and Romania, the much-speculated value of the specific artworks, and the possibility that Radu's mother had burned the artworks, the novel presents as its main story that of Radu's young girlfriend, who was one of the suspected accomplices to the crime, kept in custody by the Dutch police, and questioned in Romania about the whereabouts of the works of arts, rather than that of the robbery. The real-life Natasha remained more or less marginal in the media reporting on the theft and subsequent police investigation, with minor references to her mostly being about the aid she provided to her boyfriend's mother, Olga, to bury the artworks, and the fact that she worked in the Dutch sex industry.

In much of the media reporting on this widely discussed art heist, the coming together of crime, prostitution, and Eastern Europeans, got tied together in a productive and well-known social imaginary that construes Eastern Europe as a problem for Western Europe. This case of *Balkanism*<sup>5</sup> functions as a good example of the one-sided and stereotypical representation through which Eastern Europeans are often homogenized and stigmatized as (one of) Western Europe's criminal and problematic others.<sup>6</sup> In fact, in the Dutch media the thieves were described as offenders who were already known in Romania as "gangsters" before the Kunsthal robbery and who, while being involved in criminal activities (dealing in stolen goods, drugs and being involved in prostitution), were *living and working* in parts of Western Europe, implicitly referring here to the negative and often criticized effects of the intra-European free mobility of goods, persons, services and capital.<sup>7</sup>

The author, Feticu, however, makes a clear case of the "greater crime" that had been perpetrated by the thieves, namely that of sex trafficking.<sup>8</sup> However, rather than simply confirming and perpetuating the existing circulation of *Balkanist* repre-

<sup>5</sup> See Maria Todorova, *Imagining the Balkan,* Oxford University Press, 1997 and Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff, eds., *Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture,* Rodopi, 2010.

<sup>6</sup> Cf. Laura Moroșanu and Jon E. Fox. "'No Smoke without Fire': Strategies of Coping with Stigmatised Migrant Identities," *Ethnicities* 13, no. 4 (2013): 438-456 p. 442. See also Duncan Light and Craig Young. "European Union Enlargement, Post-Accession Migration and Imaginative Geographies of the 'New Europe': Media Discourses in Romania and the United Kingdom," *Journal of Cultural Geography* 26, no. 3 (2009): 281-303.

<sup>7</sup> See for example Corrb Vos Davidson, "Wie is wie in de Rotterdamse kunstroof?" *Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau* 11 August 2013. The populist right-wing party, Party voor de Vrijheid (Freedom Party) opened a website where Dutch nationals could register their complaints about Central and Eastern European living in the Netherlands. (Reuters, "Dutch allow Wilders' anti-Pole website, EU critical," Reuters, 10 February 2012, http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-dutch-immigrants/dutchallow-wilders-anti-pole-website-eu-critical-idUKTRE8191ML20120210, accessed 30 October 2017.

<sup>8</sup> This statement is made not only in the novel itself, but also in interviews given by Feticu to the media. See for example Renate van der Zee, "Als je arm bent grijp je alle kansen," *NRC Handelsblad* 20 June 2015.

sentations, her novel both documents the theft of the artworks and the official police investigation into the case, but also tells the story of a young (ca. 17-year old) woman, Tascha, who had been coerced by her pimp boyfriend Radu to move from rural Romania (Carcaliu) to urban Netherlands (Rotterdam), where she was to work in the sex industry to earn a living for both of them and other dependents by providing sexual services advertised on the internet.

With the question about the visions of Europe and Europeans being the focus of this publication, a careful reading of this literary text warrants our attention, not only because it tells the story from the unexpected and hitherto more or less "invisible" perspective of an accomplice to the crime, but also because the text renders imaginatively the life of a marginalized European, whose existence is seldom symbolically rendered, as it is in this case, through literary and fictional mechanisms employed by the novel.<sup>9</sup> The literary text poses important questions about the effects European integration or Europeanisation processes have on those who are economically vulnerable and exploited, that is: living at the (both literal and figurative) margins of European society. In this literary rendition of historical facts, a severely exploited migrant woman working in the Dutch sex industry is made visible and thereby given subjectivity that transcends the stereotypical, shallow representation of her that existed so far. This contribution is an analysis of this subjectivity-rendering process in Feticu's text and questions that were followed in the process of analyzing the novel were: How and where and who is visible or invisible in this discourse that makes sense of Europe and Europeanization? How does Feticu's text help us ask questions about Europeanness?

In the remaining part of this chapter, I will, after a brief conceptual exploration of the notion "precarity", turn to the novel's imaginative engagement with Europe's "own" precarious other to investigate how a fictional narrative such as *Tascha* gives voice and agency to the liminal experiences of precarious European subjects, whose visibility, if rendered semiotically at all, is oftentimes either as "spectacles" of misery or quantified as numbers in the form of numerical data.<sup>10</sup> In

<sup>9</sup> The field of sociology is better stocked with examples of research that pays attention to the lives of such marginalized persons. See for example Anna Triandafyllidou, *Irregular Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe: Who Cares*? Routledge, 2016, Agnieszka Rydzik et al., "Humanising Migrant Women's Work," *Annals of Tourism Research* 64, no. Supplement C (2017): 13–23.

<sup>10</sup> Examples (albeit problematic ones!) of more qualitative, aesthetic representation exist, of course with regard to impoverished Europeans, although the question is to which extent and what kind of voice these representations have given the migrant/mobile vulnerable persons. I'm thinking here specifically of the 2017 project by Danish artist, Kristian von Hornsleth, entitled *Hornsleth Homeless Tracker* in which he fitted homeless people in London with GPS tracking devices which enabled them to be followed at about 28.000 euro per person. If they managed to maintain this GPS tracking process for a year, they would share in half of the proceeds (see https://www.hornslethhomelesstracker.com/). A second example, from 2014, is from Malmö where the Swedish collective, Institutet, exhibited two homeless Romani migrants from Romania in the Konsthall museum for a "fee" of 150 euro per day, as part of the exhibition "The Alien Within: A Living Laboratory of Western Society".

my discussion I will show that what the novel does is to convey the situated knowledge of, to use Peter Brown's formulation, an otherwise "eminently forgettable person"<sup>11</sup> living marginally under precarious conditions, and as such stimulates the reader to critically rethink "Europe" and Europeanness.

### **Precarity**

The various crises and transformations that Europe has had to face during the past years do not need to be recounted here extensively: from the global financial crisis of 2008, to the fiscal and Eurozone crisis soon afterward and the migration or refugee crisis on the one hand, to the current concerns about European transformation and possibly even disintegration, the breaking down of the European welfare state, the continued development of neoliberal, flexible labour markets, and the rise of illiberal democracy on the other hand. As a result Europe has been perceived to be under siege from all kinds of directions. Although analysts, politicians, and commentators pay much attention to the effects of these transformational processes on political institutions, attention is also being paid to the often-times negative effects (a form of "slow violence", to speak with Rob Nixen12) of these dynamic processes on the lived lives of Europeans, which have led to an increasing situation of insecurity, uncertainty, risk, vulnerability and dependence across a range of occupations and conventional economic classes. <sup>13</sup> This situation is well contained by the notion of "precarity".<sup>14</sup>

It is beyond the purpose of this chapter to provide an extensive discussion of the concept's history, and a basic delineation should suffice. Millar, following Pierre Bourdieu, traces the concept's introduction and rise in the social sciences and points out its use as a reference to a particular "labour condition", characterized by job insecurity/unemployment, social exclusion and poverty, and caused mainly by neoliberalism and the decline of social welfare.<sup>15</sup> The concept is, following the work done by Judith Butler16, for example, also used in another sense, to indicate the existential and ontological condition of vulnerability, exposure to pos-

<sup>11</sup> Peter Brown, "Remembering the Poor and the Aesthetic of Society," *The Journal of Interdisciplinary History* 35, no. 3 (2005): 513-522.

<sup>12</sup> Rob Nixon, *Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor,* Harvard University Press, 2011.

<sup>13</sup> See for example Donatella della Porta, et al., eds., *The New Social Division: Making and Unmaking Precariousness*, Springer, 2016.

<sup>14</sup> I opt for "precarity" rather than risk or vulnerability, agreeing with Louise Waite that using this term precarity enables one to "incorporate the political and institutional context in which the production of precarity occurs. (Louise Waite, "A Place and Space for a Critical Geography of Precarity?" *Geography Compass* 3, no. 1 (2009): 421). For an overview of the concept, see Mike Savage, *Social Class in the 21st Century,* Pelican, 2015.

<sup>15</sup> Kathleen M. Millar, "Toward a Critical Politics of Precarity," *Sociology Compass* 11, no. 6 (2017).

<sup>16</sup> Judith Butler, "Precarious Life, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Cohabitation," *Journal of Speculative Philosophy* 26, no. 2 (2012): 134 – 151.

sible suffering, and risk of losing attachment to those social relationships that could provide care and protection.<sup>17</sup>

People experiencing or facing precarity (used in the first sense) often find themselves in volatile, insecure labour situations, which have received attention in scholarship often, although not exclusively, as research on the informal sector.<sup>18</sup> Labour precarity traverses a range of economic practices, but has an evident relationship with the informal sector. The informal sector includes not only domestic work, service sector jobs in hotels and restaurants and the construction sector, to name but a few, but also the more shadowy side of the economy that includes illegal practices such as women's trafficking, prostitution and crime, although these practices are left outside of consideration in policy-based research, even though they constitute economic activity of some form or another. As Anca Parvulescu, in her study on trafficked women in Europe makes clear, the existence of such practices in the shadows of the economy should be understood not as "side-effects of Europeanization, but as some of the forms that Europeanization takes". <sup>19</sup> The free movement of goods, services, money and persons, introduced by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, has been an important driver of this Europeanization, and has become one of the hallmarks of Europe.<sup>20</sup>

Given the novel's treatment of art theft and sex work in a European context, it is clear that it is exactly this mobile, informal sector of Europe that is being put imaginatively on the table. It might help us, therefore, to think here of Europeanization not exclusively in terms of official political-institutional integration and economic growth and development, but as a complex process with less visible and less desired (at least for some) dimensions too.

### **The novel**

The purpose of my reading of this novel was to examine how literature engages with a precarious subject, specifically that of a trafficked Eastern European in a Western European context. How does the novel give voice and agency to the experience of such a precarious person who is economically and socially marginalized and vulnerable, and whose symbolic representation as an Eastern European woman seldom overcomes grossly simplified stereotyping? These questions are important ones to ask, because as Majorie Stone contends, literary and cultural studies have left the pressing and growing problem of trafficking more or less un-

<sup>17</sup> For an example of this approach, see Kathleen Stewart, "Precarity's Forms," *Cultural Anthropology* 27, no. 3 (2012): 518-525.

<sup>18</sup> Karin A. Siegmann and Freek Schiphorst, "Understanding the Globalizing Precariat: From Informal Sector to Precarious Work," *Progress in Development Studies* 16, no. 2 (2016): 111-123.

<sup>19</sup> Anca Parvulescu, *The Traffic in Women's Work: East European Migration and the Making of Europe,* University of Chicago Press, 2014, 2. For a discussion of the informal sector in Western Europe, see Dominique Boels, *The Informal Economy: Seasonal Work, Street Selling and Sex Work,* Springer, 2016.

<sup>20</sup> Ettore Recchi, *Mobile Europe: The Theory and Practice of Free Movement in the EU,* Springer, 2015.

touched21, while more attention has been paid to this global phenomenon among feminist social scientists.<sup>22</sup> Furthermore, the attention that has been paid in literary and cultural studies to (the lack of visibility of) precarious and impoverished persons and the effects thereof on personhood is also rather scant.<sup>23</sup>

In her fictive rendering of the historical facts, Mira Feticu presents in three parts the unsuccessful investigation by two Dutch police officers to investigate the case of the stolen works of art. For this purpose they travel twice to Romania, together with Tascha, the girlfriend of Radu (one of the thieves), who has been accused of complicity with the crime because she first hid the artworks in their home in Rotterdam, and later aided Radu's mother, Olga, to bury the paintings in the small town of Carcaliu in Romania. The narrative relates the investigation notably through the perspective of Tascha, but not exclusively, to achieve a form of polyphony in the narrative. Tascha's perspective is complemented with, even challenged by those of other characters, such as, for example, one of the two Dutch policemen ("the tall one", who "looked deep into your eyes when speaking to you", p. 924), Adriana, the curator of European art at Romania's national art museum who was brought along as expert by a potential buyer to verify the authenticity of the artworks, and who only later realized that she had seen with her own eyes two of the Kunsthal's missing artworks, and the uncle of one of the accused, *Ome* (uncle) Trăienica.

A secondary storyline, however, is also interwoven through flashbacks into the story. This story relates the personal history of Tascha: her youth in a rural backwater in Romania, the death of her sister because of a car accident, her parents' divorce, her strong emotional dependence on her father, her falling in love with Radu and her growing dependence on him, their move to Rotterdam, where she is forced into prostitution by her pimp boyfriend,<sup>25</sup> as well as her own decision, after she is released from custody in the Netherlands, to return to sex work to secure an income, which she was to save in order to pay the medical bills of her ailing father in Romania. Although Tascha in the novel has a real-life counterpart, the 19-year

<sup>21</sup> The work of Barbéran Reinares and Parvulescu are clear exceptions (Laura Barberán Reinares, *Sex Trafficking in Postcolonial Literature: Transnational Narratives from Joyce to Bolaño*, Routledge, 2014, and Anca Parvulescu, *The Traffic in Women's Work: East European Migration and the Making of Europe,* University of Chicago Press, 2014).

<sup>22</sup> Marjorie Stone, "Twenty-first Century Global Sex Trafficking: Migration, Capitalism, Class, and Challenges for Feminism Now," *ESC: English Studies in Canada* 1, no. 2 (2005): 31-38, p. 35.

<sup>23</sup> Some exceptions exist, of course. For example, Françoise Král, *Social Invisibility and Diasporas in Anglophone Literature and Culture: The Fractal Gaze,* Springer, 2014 and Barbara Korte and Frédéric Regard, eds., *Narrating Poverty and Precarity in Britain,* De Gruyter, 2014.

<sup>24</sup> In-text references are to the novel, *Tascha* by Mira Fetica (2015). Citations are translations from Dutch by the author (Margriet van der Waal)

<sup>25</sup> The author's intention to make visible the "greater" crime, that of human trafficking compared to the stealing of the artworks, is echoed in the sentiments of a female police officer: "And she, the woman in the uniform, thought human trafficking (to be) worse than robbery, regardless of what had been stolen" (p. 42).

old Natasha, a migrant from Romania to the Netherlands, she also represents in many ways other "Natashas" who cross international borders every year to work, willingly or under coercion in the sex industries of Europe and America.<sup>26</sup>

### **Marginal Europe**

It is in this second storyline that the vulnerable and precarious Tascha is given a history and background that situates her as a marginal, European subject. The flashbacks to the past sketch the context of how Tascha ended up as a prostitute against her will in one of Rotterdam's most impoverished regions, the neighbourhood of Rubroek/Crooswijk. These flashbacks create the social, economic and cultural context to Tascha the character's decisions and actions.

The dual setting of the narrative, both in Rotterdam and Romania, not only connects the various locations and suggests meaningful but complex and complicated entanglements with each other, but also demonstrates the importance of seeing space as relational to the coming into existence of social subjects.<sup>27</sup> By using specific literary mechanisms such as flashbacks and focalisation by a specific character, the novel explores not only the art theft, but also the recent political and economic transitions in Romania. Thus, the end Ceausescu's regime and political revolution is seen as a promise of the start of a new life (p. 96), while the contemporary dire living conditions in postsocialist, rural Romania suggests that the promise is yet to be fulfilled for many peasants living in rural areas. The part of Romania where Tascha grew up is depicted as a backwater that failed to catch up with postsocialist economic developments and socio-political transitions following the post-Ceausescu era.<sup>28</sup> Rather, the people of Carcaliu seem caught in the hardship of social, economic and cultural turmoil. A dire lack of employment (i.e. legal economic opportunities) resulted in all of the able-bodied people in the small, rural towns to move away to bigger urban hubs in Romania or further away across Europe ("The big thieves go to you. The real whores too", says one of the local police commissioners to the Dutch police officers, p. 35) in search of "a better life" (performing seasonal labour, such as picking strawberries in Spain, p. 21, for example), where life itself might "begin anew" (p. 11). Those who are left behind seldom

<sup>26</sup> See in this regard the study by Victor Malarek on the global trafficking of women (Victor Malarek, *The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade*, Viking, 2003). For another literary treatment of this topic, see Yelena Moskovich, *The Natashas*, Serpent's Tail, 2016.

<sup>27</sup> In the burgeoning field of "studies on the relationship between space and literature, the notion of "spatialization" is used to denote this relationship. See for example Rob Shields, *Spatial Questions*, SAGE, 2013. See also Robert Tally, *The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space*, Routledge, 2017.

<sup>28</sup> A factor that also alludes to the vulnerability and marginality of the community from which Tascha comes is their Lipovene background. The Lipovenes are a minority group from Russian descent living in rural parts of Romania. In a sense Tascha and her community is thus twice marginalized in Romania: not only as impoverished, rural peasants, but also as members of a cultural minority group that possesses very few forms of capital.

hear anything from these migrants ("how many didn't hang themselves because of loneliness," says the commissioner, p. 54), who are thought of as being dead: "But the ones abroad, once they have tasted from the good life, you never see them again in Carcaliu. Dead!", explains Nicu, the commissioner's assistant (p. 61). These economic migrants are as dead as the town itself (e.g. p. 20): the village is now one big graveyard (p. 85), where the dogs left behind die of hunger and despair (p. 54). The novel makes a strong case for the fact that labour migration unraveled the social fabric of the community (e.g. parents leaving a child behind to find seasonal labour elsewhere in Europe, p. 113), with few more persons remaining in the rural town than a hand full of severely impoverished individuals whose own vulnerability and precariousness is painfully evident in the absence of their support networks who moved elsewhere in search of income and the promise of a better life (e.g. Dănuţ, who left his ill mother behind to earn a living in Hungary. Upon his return two years later she is dead, because "no one came by to bring food for more than one month", p. 110).

Tascha's hard life is rendered through passages that describe her youth and vulnerability as young woman in this rural context where there is little to be had except for a relationship with a man such as Radu; a man who, like his peers, has nothing beyond a criminal record and claims of ownership over women, their bodies and their lives (p. 48 and 49); bodies that signal the possibility of access to an income of some sort and attendant promises of material goods to be consumed (cars for example). The narrator makes clear to the reader how pivotal Tascha is for Radu's own economic persistence: "everything, their house and Radu's car, was being paid for by her" (p. 20, see also p. 168). Her own opportunities for an independent life were stifled when as a teenager she fell in love with Radu, dropped out from school, and was subsequently violently (e.g. p. 66, 88) pressured to go with him to the Netherlands, where she was to earn a living for both of them through sex work. Tascha complied in search of someone to love her (p. 89), a wish which is implicitly related to her experience of her family's breaking up after the death of her sister and split-up of her parents. It is with this given that the precariousness of life (the other meaning of the concept, as used by Judith Butler, for example) is examined through scenes about the harrowing grief Tascha's mother after the death of her eldest daughter (Tascha's sister) because of a car accident (see for example p. 108) and which leads to the parents' split-up.

Despite Tascha's hardship, she is a naive and simple person, whose knowledge is gleaned from "the university of life" (p. 49), rather than higher-level formal education (such as Adriana, who also has a rural background, but completed university with flying colours, p. 79). Tascha is someone for whom all had to happen the way it did "because she still had skin over her eyes" (as one of the policemen had said) (p. 187). But, despite Tascha's simplicity, she manages by the end of the novel to create a situation that enables her to earn a living for herself. Being certainly restricted in her range of options, she chooses to return to the sex industry (p. 173) with the meaningful difference now being that the income she generates is her own, to spend as she chooses. The result suggested by the novel is that Tascha is now set *en route* to some kind of better life: "Just a short while and life could start" (p. 189), she muses at the end of the novel. The reader understands that her life is now, upon release from custody, not really *better* in a quantitative sense, but there is a strong suggestion that Tascha views herself as having more agency.<sup>29</sup> She daydreams about returning to Romania within a few months with a "few thousand euros on her account", which she would use for the medical treatment of her father (p. 184) and of a subsequent blissful, but naive, domestic life together with him (p. 185), illustrating painfully the limited range of options available for marginalized, socially vulnerable persons like herself.

This harking back to a peaceful life in Romania is credible, if only because the situation in Western Europe is, at times, presented to be hard and relentless too, with the effect that easy binaries between here and there, us and them are problematized. Tascha's sexual exploitation is not only caused by her own boyfriend, but the treatment by other men (in the Netherlands) show a similar disregard for women's bodies: once back in the Netherlands and on the street again, she is groped by hairy arms, "thick fake tits" a male voice shouts at her (p. 173). Also Trăienica realizes that the "better life" in Western Europe is more of a shimmering dream than reality when he experiences severe hardship during his visit to his son in Manchester.

A final literary strategy is the game being played in the novel with "truth". The text questions and problematizes clear-cut, but facile and problematic meaningmaking structures as a strategy to present events not as objective, historical facts, *as is* or *was* through an omniscient narrator, for example, but as subjective experience. One means through which the novel achieves this complicating of knowledge is by relating the events of the plot as narrative in narrative. In other words, events are presented as specific people's perspectives on events. In a number of cases characters relate the events that had happened as second-hand accounts to other characters, instead of being presented as narrated *facts*. For example the titular robbing of the artworks from the Kunsthal is related as second-hand narrative by an uncle (Trăienica) of one of the thieves to the police (p. 168 - 172), and an old woman on the ferry tells the art expert Adriana about the initial police investigation in the town and provides her perspective on the small community of Carcaliu (p. 66). Furthermore, the person Tascha is not only presented by the narrator and through thoughts, flashbacks and dialogue, as well as the interactions of other characters with her, but also by the problematic, denigrating semiotic representation of her on Dutch online discussion forums (p. 174-175), while Tascha's account to the police

<sup>29</sup> For a valuable contribution that critically considers (and deconstructs), through reference to the categories of gender, sexuality and critical political theory, the conventions and practices that construe the practices through which we understand the sex industry, see Rutvica Andrijasevic, *Migration, Agency and Citizenship in Sex Trafficking,* Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.

of her involvement with the artworks is presented as the verbatim version of the interrogation as written down by Nicu (p. 15).

### **Discussion**

Arundathi Roy once said that she thinks of globalization as "a light which shines brighter and brighter on a few people and the rest are in darkness, wiped out. Once you get used to not seeing something, then, slowly, it's no longer possible to see it."<sup>30</sup> This resultant invisibility because of the obscurity that cloaks our social and geographical margins is tackled head-on in Feticu's novel, and makes visible the precarity (economic vulnerability) and precariousness (social vulnerability) of one particular, socially marginal, European individual. At the same time, the novel also asks us who we consider to be Europeans, and if persons such as Tascha (or Radu, for that matter) would qualify for this label, as opposed to the obvious Europeans such as the two Dutch policemen, representing the rule of law) and Adriana, embodying education and culture (at some point she reminisces about her visit to the Venetian Biennale, p. 62). How do the mobility of Tascha and Radu relate to the lifestyle movers, student-elite and professionals of all kinds that benefit from the intra-European mobility created by the Maastricht Treaty, whom we easily and readily designate as Europeans?

The novel *Tascha* problematizes a glib and easy success story about Europeanization and formulates questions about the extent to which a single Europe exists by suggesting that there are multiple Europes that hold different truths for those who live in it.<sup>31</sup> This multiplicity also holds for how the notion of "Europeans" is being expanded to include marginal and marginalized subjects whose semiotic representation is often-times problematic and one-sided if present at all.<sup>32</sup> The attractive cosmopolitanism embodied by Europe's successful mobile classes is juxtaposed here with the more gritty, "vernacular" cosmopolitanism of a different kind of mobile class who lives by the "slow knife" of everyday, structural violence

<sup>30</sup> Rob Nixon, *Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor,* Harvard University Press, 2011.

<sup>31</sup> The idea of multiple Europes is from Chris Rumford, "The Strangeness of Europe," *Comparative European Politics* 14, no. 4 (2016): 504-522.

<sup>32</sup> In a different context, the South African anthropologist Fiona Ross has used the binary "raw" and "respectable" to investigate the means through which marginalized (impoverished) persons in South Africa craft their lives in adverse contexts. With reference so Agamben's notion of "bare life", she concludes that this kind of research enables one to understand the "genealogy of bareness that is deeply embedded in local ways of understanding persons, relationships, history's effects, and life's possibilities. In other words, rawness and decency are fully social modes of being, produced and lived in the ordinariness of everyday worlds as they are shaped under the press (sic) of different political regimes, historical processes, cultural models, and the everyday social interactions they make possible." (Fiona Ross, "Raw Life and Respectability. Poverty and Everyday Life in a Postapartheid Community," *Current Anthropology* 56, no. S11 (2015): S106). This conceptual pair might be a very useful heuristic to investigate the world making of a character like Tascha, but such an enquiry extends my purpose here.


Aesthetic texts such as literary narratives, documentaries and non-fiction novels about European mobility and intra-European migration are important political sites through which we might reflect on the foundational and constitutional principles of "the social" of Europe. Specifically, critical engagement with such texts allow us to investigate the kind of knowledge yielded by the textual and aesthetic representation of those marginalized Europeans living in urban *and* rural precarity, and to consider how our cultural archive has captured and processed the effects of Europeanization and crises during the past decades. A few years ago, Rita Felski's pessimistically diagnosed the state of European Studies as follows: "Anyone surveying the scholarship on the present and future of Europe cannot help being struck by the sovereignty of the social sciences (…) Where, in the debates about the present and the future of Europe, are the art historians, the literary scholars, the philosophers, the cultural critics? Not entirely absent to be sure, but their role remains modest, often marginal."<sup>34</sup> By having turned our attention to the kind of knowledge (or at least a set of questions) about marginal and marginalized Europeans in *Tascha*, Feticu seems to have replied to Felski, by using literary means to imagine a life for Natasha, or as she puts it, "to give (Natasha) a voice".<sup>35</sup>

<sup>33</sup> Cited by Veena Das and Shalini Randeria, "Politics of the Urban Poor: Aesthetics, Ethics, Volatility, Precarity. An Introduction to Supplement 11," *Current Anthropology*, 56, no. S11 (2015): s11. For more on a critical approach to cosmopolitanism in literary studies, see Kristian Shaw, *Cosmopolitanism in Twenty-First Century Fiction,* Springer, 2017.

<sup>34</sup> Rita Felski, "Introduction," (special issue, entitled "A New Europe?") *New Literary History*, 43 (2012): v.

<sup>35</sup> A Quattro Mani, "'Há, ik heb je!' Mira Feticu schreef roman over de schilderijenroof uit de Kunsthal,' *Cultuurpers* 3 July 2015. https://www.cultureelpersbureau.nl/2015/07/ha-mira-feticuschreef-roman-schilderijenroof-kunsthal/, accessed 23 June 2017.

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# **Calling on European Responsibility to Shape the Vision of Europe? Human Rights, Development Assistance and European Identity in the 1970s**

Ilaria Zamburlini

### **Introduction**

Since its inception at the end of the 1950s, the European Community (EC)<sup>1</sup> put a lot of effort into defining its own image and shaping its vision of Europe. This became particularly evident during the 1970s. The 1970s were a decade of profound changes in Europe and the wider world, and are often defined by historiography as the *long 1970s*, <sup>2</sup> for they represented a period of challenge and rupture that had its roots in the 1968 protests and lasted until the mid-1980s. Also known as the decade of *détente* between the United States of America and the Soviet Union,<sup>3</sup> the 1970s saw the emergence of many social movements calling for the respect of fundamental rights,<sup>4</sup> as well as an almost full accomplishment of decolonisation and an increasing relevance of newly-independent states on the international arena.<sup>5</sup> In this period, more than ever before, the EC felt compelled to clarify the

<sup>1</sup> This paper speaks about the European Community (EC) to indicate the three European Communities, i.e. the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic Community (which was the most influential), that merged in 1967 and shared the same set of institutions: the European Commission, the European Parliament (also known as Parliamentary Assembly until its direct elections in 1979) and the Council of Ministers.

<sup>2</sup> See, for instance: Poul Villaume, Rasmus Mariager and Helle Porsdam, "Introduction," in *The 'Long 1970s'. Human Rights, East- West Détente and Transnational Relations*, ed. Poul Villaume, Rasmus Mariager and Helle Porsdam (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 1-11.

<sup>3</sup> On the history of *détente*: Wilfried Loth, *Overcoming the Cold War. A History of Détente, 1950-1991* (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2002).

<sup>4</sup> Gerd-Rainer Horn, *The Spirit of '68. Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

<sup>5</sup> Frederick Cooper, *Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History* (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 91-112.

values and the principles at the basis of its identity in order to be recognised as an independent actor on the global stage.<sup>6</sup>

In December 1973, the nine EC member states officially declared their determination to introduce the concept of European identity into their common foreign relations and approved a document entitled *Declaration on European Identity*. <sup>7</sup> Among the constituent features of European identity outlined in that declaration were the respect of human rights and the need to aid developing countries. Although human rights had already been brought to the forefront interest before,<sup>8</sup> it was mainly during the 1970s that they gained an importance that they had hardly experienced prior to that moment.<sup>9</sup> Human rights became a popular subject that was discussed not only in the conference rooms of international organisations, but also in the media as well as in the speeches of popstars, actors and musicians.<sup>10</sup> They turned out to be the «lingua franca»<sup>11</sup> of the global moral thought, and they were considered as such by the EC, too. At the same time, delivering foreign aid became a well-established practice among rich countries,<sup>12</sup> and the EC committed to help a

<sup>6</sup> Antonio Varsori and Guia Migani, eds., *Europe in the International Arena During the 1970s: Entering a Different World* (Brussels: P.I.E Peter Lang, 2011); Sonia Lucarelli and Ian Manner, eds., *Values and Principles in European Union Foreign Policy* (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007). When it comes to speaking about European identity, a fluid and delicate topic on which many researches have been conducted, this study bares reference to the historical meaning that was attached to the term, as well as to the definition that the European Community provided within its official documents and declarations during the 1970s.

<sup>7</sup> To read the document, visit: https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/02798dc9- 9c69-4b7d-b2c9-f03a8db7da32/publishable\_en.pdf (Last accessed: January, 8th 2018).

<sup>8</sup> The *Universal Declaration of Human Rights* was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. On this occasion, human rights were set forth in a global arena and recognised as a «common standard of achievement for all people and all nations». The concept was not new at that point; however, only in 1948 did human rights find the possibility to be listed and presented to the international actors. On this, see: Johannes Morsink, *The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Origins, Drafting and Intent* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).

<sup>9</sup> On the breaking of human rights in the 1970s, refer to: Jan Eckel and Samuel Moyn, eds., *The Breakthrough. Human Rights in the 1970s* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).

<sup>10</sup> Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, "Introduction. Genealogies of Human Rights," in *Human Rights in the Twentieth Century*, ed. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 20.

<sup>11</sup> Michael Ignatieff, *Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 53-98.

<sup>12</sup> This practice had largely emerged after the Second World War, when the process of decolonisation made the international community aware that most of the recently independent nations had a delay in their economic development and hence needed to receive foreign aid in the form of development assistance. While in the 1950s and 1960s foreign aid focused mostly on industrialisation and economic development, in the 1970s it started to be associated to what can be called the "human dimension" of development.

progressively increasing number of poor countries in the so-called Third World as a way to foster their development and economic growth.<sup>13</sup>

What is interesting to notice, however, is that the promotion of principles such as human rights and of practices such as development assistance was perceived not only as a part of European identity, but also as a sign of European responsibility within world affairs. The EC, indeed, recognised that it had a unique responsibility *vis-à-vis* the international arena, and this realisation no doubt marked a turning point when it comes to describing how European identity was perceived and advertised by the EC. European identity entailed certain commitments, and at the same time those commitments were presented as the distinct trait of the EC.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent the concept of responsibility was used by the EC institutions during the 1970s in relation to the topics of human rights and development assistance, and how this contributed to shape the vision that Europe had of its own identity and that it consequently presented to the outside world. In particular, this research provides an insight into how the interpretation of the concept of responsibility developed throughout the decade and how it adapted to different moments of European history. Accordingly, this examination considers a specific timeframe (1970-1979) and is organised in three chronological sections: 1970-1974; 1975-1977; 1978-1979.

While many studies extensively explored the role of the EC on the global stage during the 1970s, as well as the importance of European identity in that decade,<sup>14</sup> recent historiography did not consider very deeply the concept of responsibility when it comes to the vision that the EC had of itself. Moreover, it appears that no investigation focussed on development assistance and human rights in relation to European identity in the 1970s.<sup>15</sup> Therefore, this paper aspires to offer an original analysis on a subject that has not been prominent in recent researches, and thus adding a further stone to the construction of European integration history. To do so, it bears reference to primary archival sources from various funds of the *Historical Archives of the European Union* (Fiesole – Italy), the *Historical Archives of the European Parliament* (Luxembourg Ville – Luxembourg) and the *Historical Archives of the European Commission* (Brussels – Belgium).

<sup>13</sup> Marjorie Lister, *The European Union and the South. Relations with Developing Countries* (Abingdon: Routledge, 1997); Karin Arts and Anna K. Dickinson, eds., *EU Development Cooperation: From Model to Symbol* (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).

<sup>14</sup> For instance: Giuliana Laschi, *L'Europa e gli altri. Le relazioni esterne della Comunità dalle origini al dialogo Nord-Sud* (Bologna: il Mulino, 2015); Elena Calandri, ed., *Il primato sfuggente. L'Europa e l'intervento per lo sviluppo, 1957-2007* (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2009); Lorenzo Ferrari, *Sometimes Speaking with a Single Voice. The European Community as an International Actor, 1969–1979* (Brussels: P.I.E Peter Lang, 2016); Bernard Waites, *Europe and the Wider World* (Abingdon: Routledge, 1995).

<sup>15</sup> Although some researches tackle the topics of human rights and foreign aid in the 1970s, the approach is mainly juridical and legal. In this respect, consult: Karin Arts, *Integrating Human Rights into Development Cooperation: The Case of the Lomé Convention* (Amsterdam: Kluwer Law International, 1998).

### **The responsibility to help (1970-1974)<sup>16</sup>**

At the beginning of the 1970s, the concept of responsibility was mainly used by the EC with reference to its development assistance programmes and its role on the international stage. Responsibility was seen as the commitment of the EC to help poor countries, and this was the *fil rouge* that accompanied European discourses in those years.

During a joint meeting between the European Parliament and the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe in 1970, the EC declared that the best contribution that Europe could give to global development was to go on with its action. Helping the so-called Third World was described on that occasion as a priority obligation for the EC, whose responsibility should no longer remain regional but become global. As many members of the European Parliament (MEPs) pointed out during that gathering, the EC wanted to differentiate itself and its foreign aid schemes from those of the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, according to the EC, the two powers in the bipolar confrontation of the Cold War were delivering assistance to the less developed nations with the sole aim of seeking hegemony worldwide. In contrast, the EC presented itself as truly interested in the development of the recipients of aid and responsible in front of them. Moreover, the EC wanted to acquire a prominent position on the global arena and the North-South relations could represent a way to counterbalance East-West hostility.<sup>17</sup>

In one of its memoranda on the EC policies for development cooperation, the Commission affirmed in 1971 that it was a «necessity and a responsibility»<sup>18</sup> to go on with foreign aid practice. In particular, it meant that it was important to support the *Yaoundé Convention*, an agreement that had been approved in 1963 to replace the association introduced in 1957 with the Treaties of Rome and that was structured around the relationship between the EC and eighteen countries (many of them being former colonies of some of the EC member states). Before the coming into force of the *Lomé Convention* in 1975, the Commission presented *Yaoundé* as the best model to build international relations around development assistance.<sup>19</sup>

<sup>16</sup> Sections 2, 3 and 4 of this paper are based on primary archival sources from the *Historical Archives of the European Union* (HAEU): funds PE0 1594, PE0 5149, PE0 5150, PE0 5154, PE0 5155, PE0 19870, PE0 20138, PE0 20418, PE0 21817, BAC 25/1980 n. 1623, BAC 28/1980 n. 762, BAC 130/1983 n. 254, FMM n. 33, UWK NS/46; the *Historical Archives of the European Parliament* (HAEP): funds PE 45.750, PE 48.801, PE0 AP DE 1977 DE 1977/05/11, PE0 D/US 1979/04/17.1; and the *Historical Archives of the European Commission* (HAEC): funds BAC 150/1980 n. 44, BAC 154/1980 n. 888, BAC 51/1991 n. 461.

<sup>17</sup> Federico Romero, *Storia internazionale dell'età contemporanea* (Roma: Carocci editore, 2012), 79-84; Giuliano Garavini, "Il confronto Nord-Sud allo specchio: l'impatto del Terzo mondo sull'Europa occidentale (1968-1975)," in *Alle origini del presente. L'Europa occidentale nella crisi degli anni Settanta*, ed. Antonio Varsori (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2007), 74-75.

<sup>18</sup> HAEU, BAC 28/1980 n. 762.

<sup>19</sup> Martin Holland, *The European Union and the Third World* (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2002).

Aid to developing countries was also presented as a moral necessity, and the EC admitted feeling morally obliged to safeguard the interests of its associated countries. As Franco Maria Malfatti, President of the European Commission, underlined during a meeting with the Council of Europe, Europe needed to change its attitude from spectator to active participant, and the natural outcome of this transformation would have brought major duties and responsibilities for the EC and reinforced its position *vis-à-vis* other international actors.

During the 1972 Paris Summit, EC leaders affirmed their political will to respond even more than in the past to the expectations of developing countries and to be ready to «cope with the growing world responsibilities incumbent on Europe»<sup>20</sup> from many sides. This attitude remained unchanged in 1973, when the nine Heads of state or government of the EC member states met in Copenhagen and approved the aforementioned *Declaration on European Identity*. What is particularly interesting about that document is that it mentions European responsibilities on the international arena as part of European identity. For the first time, the EC stated officially and openly that its role and presence worldwide was one of the distinctive features of its own image.

Later in 1974, European responsibility in the world continued to be seen by the EC as a moral obligation, as well as being like an «historically inescapable task»<sup>21</sup> for the restructuring of international relations and order. The concept of morality was often associated with the concept of responsibility, with political implications that went far beyond the call for political action.

Therefore, European responsibility was perceived and interpreted as both an almost transcendent reason to help developing countries as well as a way to justify the presence of the EC on the global stage. At the same time, this feeling of responsibility was affirmed as a distinct feature of European identity and as the profound explanation of European global actions both alongside with, and opposed to, other significant players, in order to affirm the vision of itself that the EC wanted to offer to other international actors. The most recurrent themes revolving around the topic of responsibility were obligation and moral necessity, and this gives a clue on how the call for responsibility was not only a political and economic stance, but also a cultural and ideological claim.

However, despite the moral connotation attached to the practice of helping poor countries, human rights did not find much room within this discourse at this point. Whilst the *Declaration on European identity* affirmed that the respect of human rights was one of the principles that all the EC member states had in common, and Malfatti underlined in another occasion that «the respect of human rights and fun-

<sup>20</sup> To read the final document of the 1972 Paris Summit, visit: https://www.cvce.eu/content/ publication/1999/1/1/b1dd3d57-5f31-4796-85c3-cfd2210d6901/publishable\_en.pdf (Last accessed: January, 11th 2018)

<sup>21</sup> HAEU, UWK NS/46.

damental values» was «an indispensable condition for any European action»<sup>22</sup> as the construction of the EC would have been unthinkable without those principles, this issue was not taken into account when considering development assistance. Only after 1975 did human rights find their way in considerations relating to foreign aid, and this determined a change in the call for responsibility, too.

### **The responsibility not to help (1975-1977)**

Around 1975, the call for responsibility drastically modified its target. While helping developing countries had been seen as the way to put into practice European responsibility until 1974, protecting human rights became the purpose and reason of European responsibility and hence of European identity in the following years. This implied not only a change of perspective, for human rights gained an attention that they had not received before, but also a shift in the attitudes towards the developing countries: delivering aid to them could not be accepted when they were found guilty of violating human rights. As a consequence, using European responsibility to protect European values such as human rights, it was not admissible to help those nations that were not respecting such principles any longer. From the responsibility to help, the EC turned to the responsibility not to help in order not to finance abuses and infringements of human rights.

The respect for human rights had been among the purposes of the EC since 1970, when the *European Political Cooperation* was approved with the aim of coordinating the foreign policies of the EC member states as well as of expressing common intentions with a single voice. Indeed, the founding document stated that «a united Europe should be based on a common heritage of respect for the liberty and the rights of men».<sup>23</sup> Moreover, human rights were recalled within the *Declaration on European Identity*, too.

Many reasons can be put forward to explain why the 1970s saw this increased interest in human rights. Some historians, including Lauren,<sup>24</sup> claim that the 1970s represented the peak of the evolution of human sensitivity towards the Other. Conversely, Moyn maintains that human rights exploded in the 1970s as an alternative to all prior universalistic schemes and utopias that eventually collapsed.<sup>25</sup> Bradley states, however, that human rights were not an alternative to other systems, but

<sup>22</sup> HAEU, FMM n. 33.

<sup>23</sup> European Communities, *First Report of the Foreign Ministers to the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the European Community* (Luxembourg: European Communities, 1970).

<sup>24</sup> Paul Gordon Lauren, *The Evolution of International Human Rights. Visions Seen* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

<sup>25</sup> Samuel Moyn, *The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History* (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010).

rather a further addition to all the stances that were embraced by the global social mobilisation that took place in the 1970s.<sup>26</sup>

Yet, it was mainly after 1975 that the concept of human rights started to be used and referred to by the EC institutions as part of the discourse on European responsibility. Although many causes can be listed to understand why the year 1975 represented a turning point in the decade, it is useful to consider what Snyder and Romano wrote about the *Helsinki Final Act*, i.e. the final document of a series of talks that involved between 1972 and 1975 almost thirty-five countries from all over the world with the purpose of discussing cooperation and security in Europe. The EC played a significant part in the process that finally led to the inclusion of human rights in the document, notwithstanding the opposition of the Soviet Union and the immobility of the United States, and made the other global actors accept fundamental rights as one of the principles governing international relations.<sup>27</sup> Furthermore, in 1975 the EC approved a new scheme for delivering foreign aid, known as the *Lomé Convention,* and recognised it as the most advanced tool for North-South cooperation because it was based on the principles of equality and dialogue among the partners and led to a re-thinking of the relationship between the EC and developing countries.<sup>28</sup> Although no reference to human rights could be found in the first version of *Lomé*, which was then renewed every five years for almost thirty years, its entry into force bore witness to the intention of the EC to consider the less developed countries as partners and not only as needy former colonies. Moreover, as highlighted in the newspaper *Europe*, the *Lomé* programme would «benefit the image of the Community worldwide, both in the Third World countries and in the European public opinion».<sup>29</sup>

In 1976, in a joint report produced by the EC and the Council of Europe with the title *Europe's responsibility towards the world and developing countries*, it was stated that Europe should speak out to publicly condemn the behaviours of those partners and nations that were considered as a violation of its founding values. The main target of these accusations was Uganda, a country that was part of the *Lomé Convention,* yet was alleged guilty of not respecting the human rights of its citizens.<sup>30</sup> It was

<sup>26</sup> Mark Philip Bradley, "The Origins of the 1970s Global Human Rights Imagination," in *The 'Long 1970s'*, 15-32.

<sup>27</sup> Angela Romano, *From Détente in Europe to European Détente. How the West Shaped the Helsinki CSCE* (Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2009); Sarah B. Snyder, *Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War. A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network* (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

<sup>28</sup> Elena Calandri, *Prima della globalizzazione: l'Italia, la cooperazione allo sviluppo e la guerra fredda, 1955- 1995* (Padova: Cedam, 2013), 210-226.

<sup>29</sup> HAEC, BAC 150/1980 n. 944. *Europe*, no. 1476, March, 13th 1974, 9.

<sup>30</sup> Lorenzo Ferrari, "The European Community as a Promoter of Human Rights in Africa and Latin America, 1970-80," *Journal of European Integration History* 21, no. 2 (2015): 217-230.

also specified that Europe must be ready to stand up for the philosophical ideas it supported.

While development assistance continued to be presented as a moral commitment and the EC felt that it needed to have a leading role with regards to defining the various interests related to development issues, new emphasis was put on the necessity for the EC to be consistent and coherent with the ideology that it had proclaimed. Moreover, later in 1976, during a meeting with the Congress of the United States, the European Parliament emphasised that it was a moral obligation, for both sides of the Atlantic, to support other parliamentarians in the world that were struggling for democracy and human rights.

The concept of responsibility was used again during 1977 with reference to the protection of human rights. In this case, too, the European Parliament proved to be very efficient and proactive in introducing human rights into the discourse on European identity. Furthermore, it listened more than all the other institutions to civil society and represented a sort of megaphone of its stances.<sup>31</sup>

The responsibility not to help developing countries that were seriously violating human rights represented a way for all the EC institutions to put in practice what they had affirmed and what they viewed as unique element of European identity.

### **The responsibility not to judge (1978-1979)**

Given the prominence acquired by human rights between 1975 and 1977, and the fact that the EC felt it had a certain degree of responsibility to protect them all over the globe, it is possible to understand why the EC did not want to provide assistance to countries in which human rights were not respected.

Nonetheless, at the end of the decade the EC realised that it was necessary to officially state its intentions. Unofficial declarations could not be sufficient any longer. That is why, with the renewal of the *Lomé Convention* approaching, the EC started considering the idea of inserting a human rights clause within the new version of the agreement. According to the EC institutions that were in favour of this change, i.e. the Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the Commission, declaring human rights as one of the principles to be respected in order to be granted aid from the Community could lead to a major compliance with that norm.

Thus, around 1978, the EC began discussing the addition of a reference to human rights in the second version of *Lomé*. This proposal was in tune with the attention to human rights that the EC aspired to demonstrate. Yet, developing

<sup>31</sup> On the role of the NGOs and on the influence that these informal actors had on the EC institutions during the 1970s, see: Ilaria Zamburlini, "Human rights and foreign aid in the 1970s. The role of three NGOs influencing the European Community," in *The Informal Construction of Europe*, eds. Mechthild Roos and Lennaert van Heumen (Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming).

countries that were party to the *Lomé* agreement did not appreciate this move.<sup>32</sup> They argued that it was not fair to be judged on the grounds of the respect for human rights, and that it seemed like the EC had a civilising mission in mind with regards to the political structure of these nations. As a consequence, a debate started among the EC institutions on whether it was correct or not to refer to human rights in the new *Lomé Convention*. The Parliament actively pushed for this inclusion, and in the end even the Council agreed.

However, it was during this discussion that another meaning of the concept of responsibility began to take shape. Indeed, some MEPs as well as Claude Cheysson, Commissioner of the Directorate General of the European Commission for Development, while discussing the possibility to insert human rights in the Preamble of the revised document, affirmed that the EC had to be careful «not to judge what the others do»<sup>33</sup> and «not to exercise any moral imperialism».<sup>34</sup> The EC institutions understood, therefore, that there was a risk of being accused of neocolonialism and imperialism. It was responsibility of the EC, then, not to judge what other countries were doing and to what extent they were respecting human rights, and not to interfere with their political attitudes.

Enforcing respect for human rights, in fact, could be interpreted as part of a moral and civilising mission,<sup>35</sup> and could put at risk the relationship between the EC and developing nations. It was therefore necessary not to implement any judgement or interference, even if human rights were not completely respected and protected in the legal framework of many developing, yet independent, nations.

This change of perspective on the notion of responsibility turned out to be even more important when certain developing countries highlighted that, if human rights were to be included in the revised version of the document, then reciprocity would have to apply: the EC was to respect human rights, too. What countries like Barbados had in mind when accusing the EC of applying double standards with human rights was the possibility for citizens of developing countries to move freely and emigrate within the territory of the EC member states. The EC member states were not ready at that point to accept such conditions within the *Lomé* agreement, and so they refrained not only from judging developing countries on their human rights record any further, but also from including the human rights clause within the *Lomé Convention*.

<sup>32</sup> On this, see: Toby King, "Human Rights in the Development Policy of the European Community: Towards a European World Order?," *Netherlands Yearbook of International Law* 28 (1997): 51- 99.

<sup>33</sup> HAEU, PE0 21817.

<sup>34</sup> Ibid.

<sup>35</sup> Mark Mazower, "The End of Civilization and the Rise of Human Rights: The mid-XX Century Disjuncture," in *Human Rights in the Twentieth Century*, 29-44.

Taking into account the colonial past of some of the EC member states, the EC felt that not only did it have the responsibility to help as well as the responsibility to protect human rights in those countries, but also the responsibility not to criticise or blame them so as not to transform human rights into a tool of political civilisation.

The responsibility not to judge thus became the third connotation that this concept acquired during the 1970s. Even in this case, this development led to a definition of European identity, and to an explanation of the vision of Europe that the EC wanted to offer to other actors: unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, for instance, the EC did not intend to impose its view, yet it wanted its character to be well-defined and visible on the global arena.

However, if the need not to exercise any judgement appears to be true with regards to the relations of the EC with developing countries, the same cannot be said for the attitude of the EC with other nations. Exactly in the same period, in fact, the EC harshly criticised the Soviet Union for its poor record in respecting human rights, and actively committed to support Soviet dissidents fighting for civil liberties and fundamental freedoms in the name of the *Helsinki Final Act*. 36

In the end, human rights did not appear in the renewal of *Lomé* that was approved in 1979, thus somehow establishing a hierarchy among the three types of responsibility that the EC recognised during the 1970s: the responsibility to help and the responsibility not to judge proved to be, in the end, much more important and realistic than the responsibility not to help in order to protect human rights.

### **Conclusion**

As this paper sought to demonstrate, the concept of responsibility was continuously used by the EC institutions during the 1970s. However, the direction that the call for responsibility undertook in that period drastically transformed and changed. What emerged from this examination is the following.

*First*, it is possible to state that the idea of responsibility intersected with two issues that gathered significant attention in the 1970s: the possibility to deliver development assistance to the developing countries with the aim of fostering their growth, and the need to respect and protect human rights.

*Second*, it clearly appears that European responsibility experienced three different and successive connotations: the responsibility to help developing countries – in the first years of the decade; the responsibility to protect human rights, and hence not to help those countries that were seriously violating such principles – during the mid-1970s; the responsibility not to judge the behaviour of developing countries with regards to their human rights record in order not to be accused of

<sup>36</sup> Aurélie Élisa Gfeller, "Champion of Human Rights: The European Parliament and the Helsinki Process," *Journal of Contemporary History* 49, no. 2 (2014): 390-409.

moral imperialism and neo-colonialism – at the end of the 1970s. Whilst the third definition could be interpreted as the confirmation of the willingness of the EC to support those countries with which it had previously established an agreement of assistance and cooperation, it is undeniable that this choice represented somehow a reversal of the trend on the respect of human rights, which reached its peak around 1975 but was then put aside.

*Third*, although the concept of responsibility for the EC went through various interpretations during the 1970s, a few elements persisted throughout the decade: being seen to carry out certain obligations and commitments towards the international community; the sensation of having a moral requirement to help developing countries; the certainty to feel a universal vocation to speak out to defend some specific values and principles.

*Fourth*, the European Parliament was the most proactive EC institution when it came to the issues of human rights and foreign aid. The connection that MEPs had with civil society may partially explain why that assembly took a greater interest in such themes.

*Fifth*, it is possible to suggest that the use of the concept of responsibility contributed to and had a role in shaping the vision that Europe was constructing both for itself and for its identity – and this mainly concerns the elaboration of a specific set of values and practices – as well as for other international actors, with the aim of affirming the presence of the EC as a distinct player on the global arena. Therefore, it seems that the call for responsibility was both influenced by and has an impact on European identity. Indeed, the EC sought to define its own identity by means of responsibility, yet responsibility was at the same time part of the selfproclaimed identity of the EC.

In the end, while it can be highlighted how the call for responsibility shaped the vision of Europe, through following visions and revisions of attitudes and priorities, it is not possible to consider the concept of responsibility as the only reason behind the construction of the European identity. Indeed, many other causes contributed to this process. Further research may be conducted on this process, and this would certainly encourage and sustain the study of European integration history.

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**Acknowledgments.** The author would like to thank professor Claudio Cressati for his thoughtful and generous comments on this research.

# **Biographies of editors and authors**

## LLUÍS COROMINA (lluis.coromina@udg.edu)

Lluís Coromina is an Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods at the Department of Economics, University of Girona, Girona (Spain). He completed his PhD in 2006, and his research is related to topics such as survey methodology, social networks and structural equation modelling for cross-cultural comparisons. His recent research has dealt with the quality and measurement of survey data. He is a reviewer of international journals and his recent publications appear in Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Social Indicators Research or Survey Research Methods.

## BOŻENA GIERAT-BIEROŃ (bozena.gierat-bieron@uj.edu.pl)

Bożena Gierat-Bieroń, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor and lecturer at the Institute of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland). She has been a visiting scholar at Trinity College (Dublin), Glasgow University (UK), Groningen University (The Netherlands), Sassari University (Italy) and Osaka and Kobe Universities (Japan). She was also the former co-ordinator of the MA in Euroculture Programme at the JU. Her main academic interests are: European Models of Cultural Policies, EU Cultural Policy, theory of Europeanisation. She is the author of 3 books and 28 articles and has been the co-editor of 6 books. She worked at the National Centre of Culture in Warsaw as well as Colleqium Civitas in Warsaw, and has participated in various international scientific conferences and projects.

### MARCIN GALENT (m.galent@uj.edu.pl)

Marcin Galent is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He holds a PhD in sociology from the Jagiellonian University and teaches courses in sociology, social anthropology, social and cultural aspects of European integration, nationalism and migration. His main

research interests are migration, citizenship and multiculturalism in Europe. His current research focuses on the relation between migration, Europeanisation, and identity formation processes. He is co-author of the book *Migration and Europeanisation. Changing identities and values among Polish pendulum migrants and their Belgian employers*, Kraków: ZW Nomos, 2009.

TOMASZ G. GROSSE (tggrosse@op.pl)

Tomasz G. Grosse is a sociologist, political scientist and historian. He is a professor at the University of Warsaw and is the Head of the Department of European Union Policies at the Institute of European Studies. He specializes in the analysis of economic policies in the EU and the Member States, as well as in public management, geo-economics, Europeanisation, EU theoretical thoughts. He recently published "Searching geo-economics in Europe" (Polish Academy of Science, 2014) and edited the books: "European Union Policies at the Time of Crisis" (2016) and "The Aspects of a Crisis" (Natolin European Centre, 2016). He completed his postgraduate studies at Oxford University (Linacre College), held a scholarship at Georgetown University in Washington and Yale University in New Haven, a post-doctoral scholarship at the Max-Planck Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung – Köln, and Jean Monet Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence. He was the leading expert of the EU project: "New Modes of Governance – Democratisation, capture of the state and new forms of governance in CEE countries". This project was coordinated by the European University Institute in Florence (2004-2008).

### JANNY DE JONG (janny.de.jong@rug.nl)

Janny de Jong is a historian of Modern history, professor of Europe-East Asia relations with a focus on Japan, Director of Studies of the Master Euroculture: Society, Politics and Culture in a Global context, University of Groningen and Director of the Center for Japan Studies. Her expertise lies in world history, historiography of colonialism, imperialism and globalisation, as well as European political culture. Topics that have her special interest are the transfer of political ideas, use and abuse of history and memory, democracy and citizenship.

MONICA PASCOLI (monica.pascoli@uniud.it)

Monica Pascoli studied Humanities at the University of Udine, Euroculture at the University of Udine and Göttingen and Methodology of Social Research at the University of Florence. In 2007 she obtained her PhD with a thesis in Sociology of Tourism, focusing on the community role in tourism development in the Alpine region. Currently she is Lecturer of Sociology, Methodology of Social Research and Eurocompetence II.

# EDURNE BARTOLOMÉ PERAL (edurne.bartolome@deusto.es)

Edurne Bartolomé Peral is a sociologist and political scientist, and has a PhD in political sciences and Sociology (Deusto University). She is currently working as a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, at the department of International Relations and Humanities. Her teaching activity is mainly in the degree in International Relations, master and PhD levels. Since 2002 she has been working on quantitative methodology. She is currently in charge of the Research Unit at the Deusto International Tuning Academy. She has been working for years in the Spanish research team in the field of European Studies. Edurne was a visiting student at the Universities of Essex and Michigan, as well as visiting researcher in the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Eurolab at the University of Cologne, Jacobs University Bremen, University of Michigan and University of California Irvine, where she finished her PhD dissertation on political support in Europe in a comparative perspective. She is author of several national and international publications in the field of comparative politics, values, attitudes and political culture.

KAROLINA CZERSKA-SHAW (karolina.czerska@uj.edu.pl)

Karolina Czerska-Shaw is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland (2016), MA in European Studies, Specialisation in Euroculture from the Jagiellonian University and the Universita degli Studi di Udine, Italy (2005), and a BA in International Relations from the University of Calgary, Canada (2004). Her research interests include civic education and citizenship testing schemes, the integration of immigrants, migration, national identity, and changing notions of modern citizenship. She is also the coordinator of the MA in Euroculture programme in Krakow.

# NATASZA STYCZYŃSKA (natasza.styczynska@uj.edu.pl)

Natasza Styczyńska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies, Jagiellonian University and holds a PhD in Political Science. Currently she is a researcher in two projects: 'Democratic control and legitimisation in European Foreign Policy. The case study of EU Enlargement Policy and European Neighbourhood Policy' (National Science Centre) and 'Negotiating Brexit: national governments, EU institutions and the UK' (ESRC). Her academic interests include transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe, party politics, nationalism, populism and Euroscepticism in the CEE region and the Balkans, as well as identity issues in the CEE.

# HERMAN VOOGSGEERD (h.h.voogsgeerd@rug.nl)

Herman Voogsgeerd holds degrees in Dutch law (social and economic law); International and European law and Contemporary history. Between 1989 and 1991 he worked at the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg. Since 1991 he works full-time at the University of Groningen. He obtained a PhD in EU internal market law in 2000. He presently works as senior lecturer and researcher at the department of Business and Labour Law and the department of International Relations and International Organization (with a focus on International Political Economy) of the University of Groningen. His research interests focus on the internal market of the EU and the balancing of social and economic rights; the relation between the topic corporate governance and CSR of large companies; and the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

# MARGRIET VAN DER WAAL (m.c.van.der.waal@rug.nl)

Margriet van der Waal**,** PhD is originally from Johannesburg (South Africa), but has been working for many years working at the University of Groningen (Faculty of Arts and University College). At the Faculty of Arts, she teaches about cultural constructions of postcolonial Europe, Europeanness in the Euroculture programme, and mainly conducts research on postcolonial identity constructions and its aesthetic representations both in Europe and in South Africa.

# ILARIA ZAMBURLINI (ilaria.zamburlini@gmail.com)

Ilaria Zamburlini is a PhD candidate in "History of Societies, Institutions and Thought: from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era" at the University of Trieste and Udine (Italy). She is currently working on a project entitled "Linking Human Rights to Foreign Aid in the 1970s: The Role of the European Community (1968-1978)". Prior to this, she obtained a Master's Degree in Contemporary History at the University of Udine with a thesis on "The Helsinki Negotiations and the Human Rights Clause. The Role of the United States and the European Community (1969-1979)", and also obtained the Erasmus Mundus Master of Arts in "Euroculture" at the University of Udine and Strasbourg (France) with a dissertation on "The Relevance of Human Rights in the EU Enlargement Negotiations. The Case of Turkey and Romania." Lastly, she is the Coordinator of Studies of the "Euroculture" programme at the University of Udine.

Visions and Revisions of Europe offers a multidisciplinary debate on the various political, social, and cultural issues that are at the heart of contemporary European discourse, with a focus on the relations between the so-called "New" and "Old" Europe. A range of possible scenarios for the future of the EU, as well as a discussion of the factors affecting current crises are at the forefront of the debate, which lead the reader to reflect upon often overlooked aspects of European integration, such as Germany's hegemonic role in the Union, or historical narratives and myths that need to be deconstructed and critically analysed. Contemporary populist movements also play a key role, as do the often difficult processes of migration and EU mobility, which reveal the tensions, fears, and lines of exclusion in contemporary European societies. Finally, the role of values – namely an adherence to human rights and responsibility over the global social order – which in the 1970s was a cornerstone of EU discursive action and identity building, serves as a lasting point of reflection on the uncertain future of the EU's axio-normative direction(s).

Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent,

Bożena Gierat-Bieroń (Eds.) Visions and Revisions of Europe

Visions and Revisions

Edited by Karolina Czerska-Shaw, Marcin Galent,

of Europe

Studies in Euroculture, Volume 4 4

Bożena Gierat-Bieroń

Universitätsverlag Göttingen Universitätsverlag Göttingen

ISBN: 978-3-86395-382-9 eISSN: 2512-7101