(July 10, 2024 – EPC, Brussels)
Speakers:
- Antonella Valmorbida, Secretary General, ALDA
- Apostolos Samaras, Attorney at Law and Research Fellow, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
- Noelle O’Connell, European Movement Ireland
Moderator:
- Johannes Greubel, Senior Analyst, Head of Transnationalisation Programme and Connecting Europe Lead, European Policy Centre
After Johannes Greubel’s introductory remarks, Vladislava Gubalova, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Global Europe at GLOBSEC gave an overview of the EUact2 project. The four partners of the two-year EU funded project from Austria, Ireland, Greece and Slovakia aimed to engage EU citizens, especially young people. Among the key observations, it was revealed that young people are in fact interested in Europe, they just do not feel included. They either do not engage at all, or engage, but get disappointed, and then disengage. The civic space is shrinking, while societal polarization is increasing. Gubalova emphasized that citizens’ voices now more than ever need to be amplified and heard.
Antonella Valmorbida started by pointing out that the 2024 European election results were overshadowed by what was happening in France. But one thing that she has seen during the elections was that Europe is inevitable. She was involved with citizens outside the political circle, and it became clear that people consider the European elections important, just not all of them understand the system. But not understanding something significant can generate fear in which some parties can find their ground. Valmorbida expressed that there are two possible scenarios for the EU now: we will either navigate through the status quo or finally achieve a breakthrough. She wishes that EU leaders would be brave enough for the latter.
Noelle O’Connell stated that the election results outlined a risk of complacency and taking the citizens’ views for granted, which the EU should really work on. She addressed the challenging geopolitical situation in the world with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the crisis in Gaza, and China. She also mentioned the pressing issue of climate change and the environment with Green MEPs losing seats. She expects more fragmentation in the European Parliament, but thinks that after Brexit, other exits are hopefully off the table.
Apostolos Samaras underlined that the European elections are usually considered as “second tier” or “second class” elections, but as we have seen in France, they can still produce serious results. The far-right parties managed to increase their power, and even though the mainstream parties are still in control, the situation is quite unstable at the moment.
Valmorbida declared that the results were viewed by some as “not so tragic”, but we should not forget about the immense representation of people who interpret Europe in a different way. She highlighted that the source of the problem is not the fact that there are such MEPs, but that there are many people who vote for them. So, the crucial question is why they vote for such a message. According to her, this is the issue we should tackle.
O’Connell talked about the disconnection between the elites and the citizens which is paired with the demonization of one another. She assumes that the Conference on the Future of Europe was a good initiative to engage people, and we need more projects through which we can hear EU citizens out. The EU has to be more robust in a sense to proactively fight back and defend its values. The space for debate is narrowing, which is a threat to democracy, but the institutions can play a crucial role in helping civil society by fundings.
According to Samaras, the whole world is in crisis, with economic and generational inequality. However, he played the devil’s advocate by admitting that sometimes, populists do address the right questions – even if they do not actually offer viable solutions. Samaras reminded us that EU values constitute the legal basis of the Union and added that it would be time to decide if we want a Union of values, or everything is up for negotiation.
Valmorbida recalled the myth of the creation of the EU with all the “big names”. She stressed that we have to accept that that kind of leadership will not happen again, thus we should not wait for new “big names”. As she put it, “decent leaders would be good” but the important thing is that values are not negotiable. We need to explain the value of the EU to citizens, “decode Europe” – because citizen engagement can change the game of political parties. Valmorbida believes that it should be a bottom-up, not a top-down process.
O’Connell brought the example of Ireland, where there was an experiment of engaging primary school pupils by teaching them about the EU, with invitees from EU institutions. It worked, as students became more interested and engaged. O’Connell assumes that a Blue Star Programme across Europe would help a lot with citizen engagement.
Samaras stated that national leaders are great at taking credit for good things and blaming the EU for bad things. And even though citizen participation is essential, why would we bother with gathering signatures when we can just hire a good lobbyist? Samaras thinks that what we need to do is decentralize the EU institutions. In short, amend the Treaties.
Valmorbida believes that participatory elements are a good recipe to address problems. We can say that democracy is an attitude, and participation creates trust. Raising awareness in citizens raises a sense of participation which we need to foster democratic resilience.
During the Q&A section, the main question was how we can get EU citizens genuinely engaged. Samaras thinks we have to show them how much the EU influences their daily lives. O’Connell agreed, but according to her, engagement is also a responsibility. She added that we have to stop nationalizing success and Europeanizing failure. To engage citizens, Valmorbida suggested to be topic oriented, choose the right methods, and many methods. She emphasized that we have to reinforce representative democracy, so that we can have citizen participation.
You can watch the event here.